Rebel regime takes hold of Syria

Reports that the regime of the “Butcher of Damascus”, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, has collapsed and he has been forced to flee the country are a massive setback for the despot and his cronies, and the allies that have kept him in power for 24 years – especially Russian President Vladimir Putin, to whom Assad was a crucial ally. Allowing Moscow to use military bases in Syria enabled Russia to project military power into the eastern Mediterranean. The bases – notably the prized warm-water Tartus naval base and Hmeimim air base – enabled Putin to play a role as a world power with regional interests, challenging US and Western influence. The Assad regime has been crucial to achieving Putin’s ambition to complete a geopolitical axis stretching from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. The fall of Damascus is no less a setback for Iran, whose Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxy, Hezbollah, have played a key role in keeping the dictator in power as part of Tehran’s drive to destroy Israel and achieve regional hegemony.

The setbacks for Moscow, Tehran and Hezbollah from the Assad regime’s apparent collapse are good news for Israel as it fights for survival against terrorist forces unleashed by Iran, with help from Russia and China. But that needs to be tempered by questions about what comes next. The nature of the Islamist anti-Assad HTS rebels, whose lightning advances in little more than a fortnight appear to have brought them control of Damascus, is yet to emerge. Reservations about them, given that Syria was the hub of the Islamic State caliphate when it was at its bloodthirsty worst, are understandable.

HTS is designated by the US as a terrorist organisation.

Its leader, 42-year-old Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, broke with Islamic State in 2012 and cut ties with al-Qa’ida in 2016. Since then, HTS has fought both groups in bloody campaigns in Syria.

US reports speak of Jolani having turned HTS into “a disciplined fighting force, with an ideology that blends Islamism and nationalism”. After last week’s lightning strike that saw Jolani’s forces seize Aleppo, Syria’s second city, he issued edicts to his Sunni group ordering the protection of Christians, Shi’ites and others. “In the future Syria, we believe that diversity is our strength, not a weakness,” he declared.

That is encouraging.

Yet it is not clear to what extent his claimed transformation is genuine, and to what extent his appeals to moderation are designed to lull Syrians and the West into complacency. There are also questions about the extent to which Jolani may be acting in concert with Turkey and may be being used as a pawn by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to achieve Turkish control of Syria. That remains to be seen.

What is not in doubt is that as the crisis in Damascus threatens Russian and Iranian influence over Syria, and deals a further blow to what remains of Hezbollah, the strategic implications of the Assad regime’s collapse will be profound.