Islamist rebels backed by Turkey abruptly toppled Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad on Saturday, ending a 50-year family dynasty in a little over a week. After a decade-long civil war, a coalition of jihadist groups captured Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, last weekend before advancing rapidly south with swelling ranks. To everyone’s surprise, the rebels arrived in Damascus on Saturday, hours after Assad secretly fled the country.

With his generals planning to hand over power peacefully, Assad escaped Syria, skipping a prepared address to the nation and leaving his cabinet with no idea of his whereabouts. Hours later, he turned up in Moscow with his family, where they received political asylum. The Russian foreign ministry announced that Assad had resigned and that his prime minister would facilitate a peaceful transfer of power.

As instructed, Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali called for free elections, while the rebels declared Syria “free of the tyrant” and released hundreds of prisoners held in Saydnaya prison, dubbed the “human slaughterhouse,” where as many as 13,000 people were executed since 2011.

The Assad regime was brutal and inhumane, and its swift collapse underscores just how fragile it had become, after years of corruption, civil war, and an economic crisis. The regime was “in worse shape than we thought,” said Swedish government think tank security analyst Aron Lund.

Its sudden collapse also underscores just how fragile its allies have become. The Assad regime had been weak for years, propped up only by the aid of Russia and Iran. Now, Russia’s military might is so tied up in Ukraine that it is renting soldiers from North Korea. Consequently, Russian air strikes against the rebels tailed off after only a few days, with some speculating that Russia cut a deal to maintain its military bases. Now it suffers the international embarrassment of abandoning a close ally without even putting up much of a fight.

For its part, Iran’s network of terrorist proxies has suffered heavy losses in their unjustified war against Israel, particularly Hezbollah, which operates out of neighboring Lebanon. Iran declined to send reinforcements due to the threat of Israeli air power, and it ordered its militias to stay out of the fight. Still, rebels, who allowed the Iranian embassy in Damascus to be looted after they seized the city, may prove far less cooperative with Iran. Assad’s fall takes a hefty bite out of Iran’s regional security plan, cutting off routes to resupply and rearm Hezbollah in Lebanon.

It’s unclear what sort of government will succeed the Assad regime, and who will run it. The rebel coalition that toppled his regime represents a hodge-podge of factions that lack unifying interests. A key leader of the rebel march southward was Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani. Wanted by the U.S. government to the tune of $10 million, al-Jawlani is affiliated with al-Qaeda and leads a faction of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO). Meanwhile, other parts of Syria remain under the control of U.S.-backed rebel factions, including northeastern Syria, where a Kurdish government holds sway.

In other words, someone threw a cup of dice into the middle of the geopolitical chessboard. And, while we’re still counting the score, it’s safe to assume that no one can declare Yahtzee!

As for establishing a free and fair democracy, there are precious few examples where jihadist rebels toppled a dictator, and the result was a stable, Westernized system of government. Even if such a government was established, there is always the danger of leaving a power vacuum that might be filled by remnants of ISIS, bringing further chaos and suffering to the region.

As happened in Libya and other toppled dictatorships, “We might see a big, quick victory, and then the problems start,” an unnamed Western diplomat suggested to The Wall Street Journal.

All we can say for sure is that Russia’s and Iran’s influence in Syria has waned, while Turkey’s influence has increased. As the state sponsor for the rebel groups that toppled Assad, Turkey will likely have some influence over the government that takes shape on its southern border. “What is significant is the fact that these rebels were Turkish-backed, and so this is an extension of Turkey’s influence southward into the former borders of Syria,” Travis Weber, vice president for Policy and Government Affairs at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand.

A NATO member with an Islamic maverick streak, Turkey is not fully aligned with either the U.S. or with its adversaries, and Turkish leader Recep Erdogan has ambitions to recapture the glory of the Ottoman Empire.

As the Islamist rebels marched on Damascus, foreign ministers from Russia, Iran, and Turkey met at a conference in Qatar to discuss the future of Syria.

“Many will be taking note of the fact that … that continuous string of Iranian and anti-Israel influence from Iran to the Mediterranean has been broken,” Weber observed, but “those who are celebrating this as some universal win … [are] taking the wrong approach.”

“We must be under no illusions that the rebel forces are somehow a friend of Western values,” Weber warned. “Their posture towards Israel, ideologically, is likely very hostile as well.”

“So,” he concluded, “we will have to see how things shake out regionally, but in a sense, we’re trading one bad apple for another.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

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