Assad’s demise has consequences

Vladimir Putin lost no time in giving asylum to “Butcher of Damascus” Bashar al-Assad, one of the most merciless, amoral despots of the modern era, who has the blood of an estimated 600,000 people on his hands and killed his own people with sarin and chlorine gas. They deserve each other.

But as Assad and his English-born, public school educated wife Asma settle into Moscow’s winter, the deep trouble his ousting signals for Russia and its ally, Iran, is becoming clearer. It also has consequences for the West. As The Wall Street Journal noted: “Optimism is rarely warranted in the Middle East … (but) the October 7 Hamas massacre (of 1200 Jews) is turning out to be a miscalculation for the ages, leading to defeats for the forces of Mideast mayhem.” Setbacks for Russia and Iran offer opportunities the Trump administration “can exploit”, it said. After the Assads’ desperate flight to Moscow (reportedly in an aircraft provided by Putin), Russia is evacuating its Tartus naval base and nearby air base. British military commentator Tim Collins says because of the war in Ukraine, Russian warships now can reach the Mediterranean only by making a long trip around Europe starting from the Arctic or Baltic seas. The loss of Tartus also puts at serious risk a major Russian base in Libya.

Mr Assad’s swift defeat by Islamist rebels was enabled by Russia’s inability to help him because Moscow’s military resources are overstretched in Ukraine. Neither could Iran intervene because it has been seriously weakened by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon.

That sums up the opportunity awaiting the Trump administration. As Colonel Collins wrote: Tehran’s “crazy gamble to stymie the Abraham Accords, using the proxy attack by Hamas on October 7, has led to the destruction of Hamas as a military force”. It also has led to the destruction of Hezbollah. Mr Trump’s inclination is that the US should keep out of whatever follows the Assad regime’s demise. He is right to be cautious. Barack Obama’s misjudgment when he declined to support the anti-Assad opposition and then, in a disgraceful decision in 2012, refused to enforce the “red lines” he boasted he would use if Mr Assad used chemical weapons was shameful.

There is justifiable concern about what may emerge in Damascus, given main rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s history of close ties to Islamic State and al-Qa’ida. It is therefore important that the West does not turn its back on what The Wall Street Journal termed “an opportunity (to build) a better Syria and a more stable Middle East”. The pivot for doing so remains, as always, maintaining unflinching support for the West’s indispensable strategic ally, the region’s only democracy and upholder of the rule of law, Israel. The importance of doing so has been amplified by events in Damascus.