Overview
Today's Deep Dive is 2,071 words and a 13-minute read.
Last week, the world watched in suspense as Syria’s fractious rebel opposition succeeded in overthrowing Syria’s longstanding autocratic government. In a matter of days, anti-government militias – entrenched for over a decade in a civil conflict spurred by the Arab Spring – toppled the 50-year-old Assad dynasty, forcing dictator President Bashar al-Assad into exile in Russia. The ouster is a shock to the region and to the international system, prompting new geopolitical risks for Assad’s foes and allies alike and potentially creating ripples for global business due to market uncertainty, logistical challenges, and potential violence spillover.
Israel’s Perspective
For Israel, Assad’s ouster is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the collapse of the Syrian regime significantly weakens Iran’s regional proxy network and provides an opportunity to eliminate, or at least significantly weaken, a longtime strategic threat on Israel’s borders. On the other hand, the rebel victory in Damascus likely opens a power vacuum in Syria, potentially empowering radical Islamist groups, destabilizing Israel’s northern border and the region more broadly, and potentially opening the door for a new regime that is equally threatening to Israel.
Israel has acted swiftly in an attempt to neutralize the potential threat from a destabilized, or newly terrorist-led, Syria. In the hours and days after Assad fled the country, the Israeli military bombarded Syrian military targets, claiming to have entirely destroyed Syria’s navy and eliminated 90% of the country’s known surface-to-air missiles. Israel also increased its physical presence in the Golan Heights and the 50-mile northern buffer zone that had been internationally recognized since the 1970s, including capturing Syria’s highest peak, Mt. Hermon. Rebels reported that Israel had advanced to within 15 miles of Damascus, but Israel denied the claim and it could not be independently verified.
The measures appear to have been a success: in addition to kneecapping the military capabilities of whatever potentially hostile government takes shape after Assad, Israel capitalized on the chaos to cement control of the Golan Heights and increase the buffer zone between the two countries, bolstering its defenses and extending its control over territory it considers rightfully Israeli. The dominant rebel faction, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has vowed that Syria will not be a staging ground for Iranian attacks on Israel (likely a strategic appeal to Israel to hold off on further decimation of the group’s inherited infrastructure), and the Israeli government has been able to domestically proclaim military victory and increased Israeli security amid entrenched conflicts and risks on other fronts. Nonetheless, significant risks remain if HTS fails to swiftly bring the country into some semblance of order; even without a navy or arms arsenal to speak of, a chaotic Syria could be deeply threatening to Israel as a launch point for Iranian attacks and unaffiliated terroristic threats.
A Setback for Iran
Since the Iranian intervention in the Syrian civil war, Damascus has been a key component of Iran’s regional strategy: over the past thirteen years, Iran has invested an estimated $30 to $50 billion in the survival of the Assad regime, embedded itself in Syria’s military and paramilitary structures, and utilized swaths of Syrian territory for illicit logistics and proxy activity. Syria’s collapse is a significant blow to Iran, eliminating in one fell swoop a key Axis of Resistance government and a crucial strategic theater for Tehran’s regional proxy network (many of the arms deployed by Hizballah in its recent flare-up with Israel were likely smuggled through Syria from Iran, for example). Alongside Israeli encroachment into southern Lebanon, Iran’s regional proxies have lost their most direct access points to Israel, retreating eastward to Iraq. Syria’s collapse has also unleashed a torrent of domestic dissent that Iran’s regime – fragile due to succession concerns and rising anti-government sentiment – can little afford. Symbolically, the fall of the regime is also a potential rebuke to Iran’s regional proxy strategy, which relies on fueling destabilization and exploiting weak states to entrench and operate proxy powers within weak states. In Syria’s case, Iran may have gone too far. Finally, HTS – formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State – is a Sunni terrorist group, representing an ideological threat to Iran’s Shia Axis of Resistance.
Despite this, Syria’s collapse is not the loss it would have been several years ago: Iranian confidence in the regime was weakening as Assad increasingly charted his own strategic course, limiting Shiite activities throughout the country, allegedly permitting a series of leaks that saw several IRGC officials in Syria killed in Israeli strikes, and circumscribing the free reign the Iranian Quds Force long had within Syrian borders. Tehran appears to have made a somewhat premeditated decision to cut its losses in Syria rather than increasing support to Assad, saving itself further millions in propping up what now clearly was a hollowed-out regime. Ideological divides notwithstanding, Iran appears to already be communicating with HTS, which reportedly promised not to desecrate Shia holy sites in Syria amid its rapid advance on Damascus. While Iran may stand to gain from chaos and a power vacuum in Syria post-Assad, it will not have the freedom of movement it had under the previous government, limiting its ability to launch attacks at Israel and to transport fighters and arms to other regional proxy nodes.
Russia’s Defeat
The fall of the Assad regime is a stinging defeat for Russia, both symbolically and strategically. Since its initial military intervention in 2015, Moscow has touted Assad’s Russia-backed Syria as a prime example of its potential role in the Middle East as a security guarantor to rival the US. The loss of Syria will dent Russia’s image as a major player and potential ally in the region, as well as making clear globally just how stretched thin Moscow is by the war in Ukraine.
Strategically, Russia will almost certainly lose two key military bases in Syria: Tartus, a naval base on that Moscow used as a jumping off point for Mediterranean transit and operations and as a repair shop, sparing Russian warships the long trip (via Turkish straits) back to its Black Sea bases, and the Khmeimim airbase, an important element of Russia’s global military logistics operations and a key channel for forces and weapons to Africa. Also galling for Moscow is the waste of increasingly precious resources in Syria: undisclosed millions in loans to Damascus and the loss of Russian soldiers and Wagner mercenaries, dispatched to prop-up the late Assad dictatorship.
However, Syria is not a total loss for Moscow: pulling Assad out and conceding defeat was likely its smartest move, avoiding embroiling itself in what would have been an entrenched and likely drawn-out conflict. Moscow has publicly warmed to the dominant rebel faction in Syria, US-designated HTS, shifting to calling it an “armed” group rather than a “terrorist” one and passing a law in the legislature allowing Russia to engage with governments previously designated as terroristsand HTS has signaled openness to engaging with foreign powers. While Russian control of Tartus or Khmeimim is deeply unlikely, it could remain as a facilitator between warring parties and foreign factions if not a military power.
The US’ Hands-off Appeal
For Washington, the positives – the ouster of a brutal dictator – may be outweighed by the potential negatives of a post-Assad power vacuum. The US’ past involvement in Syria has been uneven: failure to enforce a redline against chemical weapons use was an international embarrassment for the Obama Administration, but in the years following, the US successfully intervened to break up the Islamic State’s nascent caliphate. In recent years, the US has directed significant military aid to the pro-US Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), largely Kurdish, and maintained a skeleton military presence of about 900 troops in the country’s northeast to prevent ISIS from reforming (with the help of the SDF). Although Washington has welcome the fall of the Assad regime, the resulting power vacuum could allow ISIS to regain a foothold, a new and similarly anti-Western bloc to take power in Damascus (the lead rebel group, HTS, is designated by the US and the UN as a terrorist group), a renewed civil conflict to break out among relatively evenly-matched rebel groups with little ability or interest in establishing a cohesive government, or other malign powers, like Iran, to capitalize on the heightened lack of internal control within Syria to increase proxy activity – or all of these outcomes at once.
Nonetheless, the US’ ability and desire to influence events in Syria is limited, especially considering the approaching inauguration of President Trump. While Trump, a noted Iran hawk, has lauded Assad’s ouster and the degradation of Tehran’s regional network, he has historically had no appetite for involvement in messy Middle Eastern conflicts – and has already called Syria “not our fight.” The Biden Administration is likely to keep the US’ small counterterrorism force in northeastern Syria in the meantime, both to counter Islamic State gains and to hold onto the al-Tanf base during what may become a rocky transition. The future of the US’ involvement in Syria is murky, and deeply dependent on the interim government that emerges from the current fog.
Turkey: A Rare Beneficiary
Turkey may be among the biggest winners in the fall of the Assad regime. Turkey, which shares its longest land border with Syria, has been a steadfast supporter of elements of the anti-government rebellion in the country, with its policy centered around quelling its neighbor’s instability as well as countering Kurdish groups with ties to Turkish domestic politics. It now has close ties to the dominant rebel factions in Damascus, and will wield significant influence both in Damascus and as an international entry-point for foreign powers wishing to engage with Syria’s elevated rebel leaders. While Turkey’s influence is far from absolute – it holds sway with HTS, for example, but does not control the group – it stands to gain as the Turkish rebels’ longest standing regional supporter.
However, Turkey still has a significant strategic challenge in the continued presence of US-backed Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria along its southern border. The US-backed SDF has ties to the now-banned Turkish opposition party, which President Erdogan sees as an existential threat. Like Israel, Turkey may now capitalize on chaos within Syria’s borders (and the support of the now dominant HTS and other groups) to seek to unseat the SDF and further weaken independent Kurdish ideologies in Turkey and on its border. This week, US intelligence warned that Turkey and its paramilitary allies were massing forces on its southern border, likely preparing for a larger-scale incursion in Syria’s SDF-held north. While the US has called for de-escalation, its ability or desire to engage further to support its Kurdish allies may be limited – especially as President Trump prepares to take office.
Impacts on the Global Economy
Despite massive disruption to regional politics, the fall of Syria’s Assad dynasty after a decade-long civil conflict has thus far had limited effect on international business. Syria, which has been subject to a decade of US-led sanctions due to Assad’s dismal human rights abuses, was mostly isolated from the global economy, and the recent chaos has not spread beyond Syrian borders to impact other, more globally enmeshed states. However, there have been some effects, and more may be to come.
General anxiety over conflict in the oil-rich Middle East sent global gas prices climbing by about 2% in the immediate wake of Assad’s flight. Prices have returned to normal – Syria is not a meaningful global oil producer – but if conflict spreads, especially northward to Iran, lowered global supply could lead to market panic and price spikes. There has also been some impact on logistics: Syria’s airspace, already limited, has been all but closed, forcing flights to take longer and costlier routes. Similarly, freight companies may choose to temporarily avoid Mediterranean shipping routes as possible, wary of potential attacks from Syria’s battered, but potentially still viable, arsenal in hostile hands.
Upside risks may be far in the future: HTS has vowed to return Syria to a free market economy, already positioning the country for investment that its tattered government, business environment, and infrastructure is in no state to support. However, if Syria and its rebel leaders achieve what the US and much of the Western world hope for it – a stable ascension to power and eventual democratic transition – investment in its recovering economy may be an opportunity supported by foreign governments. For now, most of the world will watch and wait to see what kind of country emerges from the current chaos.
