Brittle Syria
What has happened in Syria this past weekend is truly extraordinary. Hence this special edition of Home & Away. In it, I will attempt to explain why what happened happened, what is likely to follow, the potential impact on Syria and the region, and what the United States should do about it.
The first thing to say is that few—if any—saw this coming. And when it did come, it came quickly, at a speed surprising to locals and outside experts alike. Just weeks ago, I was having conversations in Saudi Arabia, where my interlocutors argued that Washington needed to come to terms with the reality that President Bashar al-Assad was here to stay and that the United States should be prepared to normalize relations with him in exchange for his agreeing to limit Iran’s influence in Syria.
What a difference a month makes. Clearly Turkey and the Syrian leadership of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Sunni Islamist group that spearheaded the overthrow of Assad, saw that conditions were ripe for such a move. Israel’s devastation of the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah, whose support was more central to the Assad regime’s survival than many appreciated, and Russia’s overwhelming focus on Ukraine created a unique opportunity to dislodge Assad. Iran and Russia were both weakened and no longer had the excess capacity to devote the resources necessary to prop him up, a goal which had become more a luxury than a necessity.
One other thought. Yahya Sinwar died believing he had advanced his goals of building the stature of Hamas and weakening Israel. It is quite possible (some would say probable) that he failed on both counts, although Israel could still squander this opportunity by not addressing Palestinian national aspirations in a constructive manner. At the same time, Sinwar set in motion events that weakened Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran. He had a considerable legacy, just not the one he imagined.
But what also emerged from this past week’s events is clear evidence of the intrinsic weakness of the Assad dynasty. After more than half a century leading Syria, it was much more brittle than commonly understood.
Personalistic regimes are just that. They lack much in the way of institutional support, which makes them vulnerable to breaking under pressure introduced by unanticipated events. That the Assad regime could not even mount a significant defense in strongholds like Latakia is a clear example of this phenomenon. The Shah’s Iran, Saddam’s Iraq, and Qaddafi’s Libya all come to mind as well.
China, to offer up one comparison, is institutionalized; the Communist Party has close to one hundred million members. This tends to provide resilience to the system. By contrast, Vladimir Putin has de-institutionalized Russia, leaving him strong so long as he is unchallenged but potentially vulnerable if he is.
What’s next for Syria? You would have to be a cockeyed optimist to predict an orderly transition to a central government that controls all of Syria and rules with competence. You’d have to be even more of an optimist to predict that if a new government came to control the country it would be benign. There is unfortunately little in recent Middle East history to justify such optimism.
Two alternatives are more likely. One is a struggle for power that ensues among the many armed groups with competing motives who still hold sway over sizable swaths of the country. This outcome would be consistent with Crane Brinton’s classic The Anatomy of Revolution, which explains how revolutionaries often fall out as soon as the ancien regime is ousted. It is not hard to see why: it is one thing to agree on what is opposed, but considerably more difficult to agree on what and who ought to take its place.
Another future would be less centralized—a Syria in which the HTS ran many of the big cities while other Turkish-backed forces and Kurdish groups dominated their respective regions. Israel has already moved into the Syrian territory near its border. This future could materialize quickly or after renewed civil conflict.
Either way, it is not too soon to make a preliminary assessment of who has gained and who has lost. The big loser is Iran. Its regional empire, the so-called Shiite Crescent, is in tatters. Two of its vaunted proxies (Hamas and Hezbollah) have been much weakened and Tehran has now lost its partner in Damascus. Meanwhile, Israel has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to attack Iran with near impunity.
Hezbollah is also a big loser, as Syria was the route by which the Iranians tended to funnel arms to Lebanon. So too is Russia’s Putin, who has been shown to be something of a fair-weather friend, unable to protect Assad with much besides asylum given his costly war of choice in Ukraine.
By contrast, the big regional winners appear to be Turkey and Israel. Turkey is now arguably the leading external influence in Syria. Israel for its part benefits in the near term from a weaker Hezbollah. For this same reason, Lebanon itself could also turn out to be a winner.
Which brings me to the last question: what should the United States do? Here I would take issue with some of what the President-elect had to say. While I agree that we should not become a party to the struggle for power in post-Assad Syria, our forces there (numbering just under one thousand) should still be prepared to act to reduce the odds Syria once again becomes a home to global jihadists. We should also make clear that our willingness to assist in the rebuilding of Syria will be predicated on any new authority not allowing terrorists to operate freely out of the country. This is an urgent priority given ISIS’ history and continued presence in the country.
The bigger question is what we do vis-a-vis Iran. There are effectively two trajectories for U.S. policy.
One path would be to negotiate a new modus vivendi with Iran’s clerical rulers. Under this approach, we would be prepared to relax sanctions provided Washington and Tehran could reach agreement on two issues: a mutually acceptable and verifiable ceiling on Iran’s nuclear program, and an end to Iranian military support for destabilizing proxies such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis.
Such an agreement might be within reach, as the Iranian regime might well be worried about its continued existence at this juncture. But this approach would also help keep the regime in power, free to repress its own people and one day resume its problematic activities.
The alternative approach would be to apply pressure on Iran through increased sanctions, military strikes on the Houthis, and, with Israel, on Iran’s nuclear program if it crossed certain thresholds. There are considerable risks to this more confrontational posture. Such an approach could lead to costly Iranian retaliation against Israel, Gulf oil producers, and Western targets. It could also prompt an accelerated Iranian attempt to build nuclear weapons and lead to an increase in world energy prices.
Would it lead to regime change? I would say possibly but probably not, as Iran’s regime has institutionalized itself and demonstrated considerable staying power. This assessment might prove to one day be wrong, but there is no way to assume regime change would inevitably result from a more confrontational stance or lead to a more friendly government. I would suggest the choice between paths be made on what the policy would be expected to achieve and not on what is hoped for.