The News
Syrian rebels claimed control of Damascus, overthrowing the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the culmination of a lightning offensive in which fighters surged across the country and government forces melted away in the face of the onslaught.
Their success reshapes the Middle East — Syria had been a key plank of Iran’s regional strategy of growing its power via proxy regimes and militias — and came with Tehran and Syria’s other backers, such as Russia and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, either distracted or defenestrated by their own conflicts.
Russia’s foreign ministry released a statement on Sunday that confirmed Assad had ”decided to leave the presidential post″ and had left Syria. Russian media later reported citing Kremlin sources that the fallen Syrian leader was in Moscow and had been given asylum, Reuters reported.
SIGNALS
Global concern grows of regional ‘spillover effects’
World powers have closely watched the rebels’ rapid string of victories in the last two weeks, and concern is now growing that, having deposed Assad’s regime so suddenly, a lack of planned succession “could create a dangerous vacuum with spillover effects into neighboring countries,” The Wall Street Journal reported. The “real test” for the multi-faction rebels, the Financial Times’ Middle East editor wrote, “will come when the factions seek to divvy up the spoils of victory — and power.” So far, the different groups seem intent on avoiding a chaotic transfer of power, an analyst told CNN: “It’s to everyone’s interest regionally, but also internationally, that Syria gets back on its feet.”
After 9/11, extremist groups refocused on regional power above war with West
The rebel offensive was led by the successor to Al-Qaeda’s Syria branch, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which the US lists as a terrorist group. In 2021, the group’s leader said in a PBS interview that he wasn’t seeking to fight the West, and last week told CNN that the group’s goal was Assad’s removal. The group’s movement in Syria reflects a reality of the post-9/11 world. In a 2021 article in New Lines Magazine, Hassan Hassan, a journalist and expert on Islamist groups, encapsulated that shift, writing that the US “did not dismantle or destroy jihadist groups, but it fundamentally changed the way they think.” The focus now is on “the consolidation and retention of power regionally instead of waging a global jihad against the West,” including engaging in active diplomacy.
After more than half a century, the Assad family dynasty has finally fallen
The rebels’ victory brings to an end more than 50 years of the Assad family’s rule over Syria. For his part, Bashar al-Assad, formerly an eye doctor who studied in London, was “never meant to become president,” Al-Jazeera noted. He returned to Syria after the death of an elder sibling, inheriting power in 2000 after his father died. Initially, there had been some hope of political change after 30 years of authoritarian rule, but Syria ultimately became one of several Iran- and Russia-backed regimes that “have not merely sought to repress opponents, but also go out of their way to demonstrate flagrant disregard for human rights and the rule of law,” The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum wrote.
For Israel, fall of Assad is a moment of ‘trepidation and glee’
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s defeat is an indirect, perhaps unexpected, consequence of Israel’s wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran, as was Assad, and both have been left weakened while Tehran has held back; on Sunday, Iranian diplomats said they had left Damascus. Israel is now waiting with “trepidation and glee” to find out what power will rise in Syria, CNN wrote. Israel deployed its military to the buffer zone that separates the occupied Golan Heights from the rest of Syria, a signal that, despite any optimism, the Israeli government ultimately sees regional chaos as “something rarely good,” The Jerusalem Post’s Herb Keinon wrote. “Jerusalem, in general, likes predictability.”