Assad’s downfall — the winners and losers

After a lightning rebel advance overran Damascus and forced Syrian strongman Bashar Assad to flee, the world is trying to understand the latest dramatic rupture in the Middle East and its consequences.

Here are the potential winners and losers from Assad’s downfall.

Winners

Syria (maybe)

The Syrian people have endured a 13-year, multi-layered civil war and nearly half a century of brutal rule by the Assad family, which has used censorship, state terror, mass deportations, chemical warfare and massacres to maintain power. The war has claimed the lives of between 470,000 and 600,000 people, making it the 21st century’s second-deadliest conflict after the Second Congo War.

More than 13 million Syrians have been forcibly displaced by the conflict — 6.2 million of them fleeing overseas. The war shaped the circumstances for the rise of the especially barbaric jihadist group Islamic State.

Whether ordinary Syrians are winners depends on what happens next in the country and if Syria can avoid more violence and develop along peaceful lines. Some fear there will be a power vacuum and that the country’s various political factions and religious groups will clash.

But there is some cause for concern. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main insurgent faction, is designated as a terror group by the United States. Its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, has a long history of jihadist militancy and is a former ally of the late Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State group (IS). The pair ultimately fell out over tactics and became rivals and bitter enemies. 

HTS broke away from al-Qaida, but al-Jolani has done much to rebrand his group, with its estimated 30,000 fighters, as a nationalist force, and has adopted a conciliatory tone toward Syria’s religious minorities. In the Idlib enclave that HTS has been running since 2016, the group has softened its attitudes toward the Christian and Druze minorities. On seizing Aleppo, al-Jolani promised Christians they would be safe, and the city’s churches were able to function unmolested.

The question is whether al-Jolani and HTS have truly left behind their extremist roots. On Friday al-Jolani said the group had evolved and that rebuilding Syria was now a priority. “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is merely one part of this dialogue, and it may dissolve at any time. It is not an end in itself but a means to perform a task: confronting this regime,” he told CNN.

The hope is that HTS has indeed moderated, but “trusting al-Jolani and HTS is very much like Oscar Wilde’s famous quip about second marriages [as] ‘the triumph of hope over experience,’” warned former U.S. diplomat Alberto Fernandez.

Turkey

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Bashar Assad were once friends, but the Turkish leader backed the rebellion when it erupted nearly 14 years ago — mainly because Turkey’s geopolitical rival Iran supported the Syrian regime.

Turkey has been the key patron of Syria’s armed Islamist opposition groups. And as the war developed and the moderate and more secular pro-democracy rebel factions fell by the wayside or were outmaneuvered by their tougher and more disciplined Islamist rivals, Ankara’s hand has grown stronger. Assad’s downfall will now likely help Erdoğan advance his geopolitical agenda, offering him the opportunity to achieve several strategic goals, including the curbing of Kurdish separatists in northeastern Syria who have close ties with Turkey’s Kurdish separatists. The needed reconstruction will also prove a bonanza for Turkish businesses.

“Huge win for Türkiye — genius move by Erdoğan,” said Timothy Ash, economist and commentator, in a posting on X.

Israel

Iran has been quick to accuse Israel of engineering Assad’s ouster; when Aleppo fell to the rebels, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said it was a “plot by the Israeli regime to destabilize the region.” While it’s convenient for Tehran to blame Zionists— and Israel’s military humiliation of Hezbollah certainly helped the rebels in Syria — there’s no evidence of direct Israeli military assistance. Moreover, such aid wouldn’t have been needed given Turkey’s patronage of the rebels.

Nonetheless, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu took a deep bow for Assad’s ouster, saying the Syrian leader’s fall “is the direct result of our forceful action against Hezbollah and Iran, Assad’s main supporters. It set off a chain reaction of all those who want to free themselves from this tyranny and its oppression.” He emphasized, however, that despite the great opportunity offered by this “historic day,” it is “also fraught with significant dangers.” He ordered Israeli troops to take over Syrian army positions after they were abandoned in the buffer zone between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights, in order to “ensure no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel,” and to stand ready for any chaos that might erupt in Syria.

Assad’s ouster clearly benefits Israel. It marks a further weakening of Iran’s regional power and takes out an important member of Tehran’s so-called axis of resistance. Without Assad and a friendly regime in Syria, Iran will have no land routes to resupply its partner Hezbollah to assist the group in its war with Israel, making the militant Lebanese Shiite movement another clear loser of Assad’s downfall. That could also make Lebanon a winner, if the country is able to escape Hezbollah’s grasp become a more normal country.

Ragheed Tatari

Syria’s longest-held prisoner was freed on Sunday after 43 years in jail, having been locked up in 1981 during the reign of Hafez Assad. The former military pilot was freed on Dec. 8 along with thousands of other prisoners.

Losers

Syria’s Kurds

Bashar Assad largely left Syria’s Kurds to their own devices in northeast Syria, where they enjoyed semi-autonomy. Whether a new regime in Damascus, if it is Islamist-dominated, will give the Kurds the same leeway is doubtful — especially as it will owe Erdoğan. It largely depends, of course, on how Syria develops politically. But the Syrian rebel offensive has also seen territorial gains by Turkish-backed Islamists against the U.S.-backed Kurdish militant group, YPG, which has lost control of some towns and villages in the eastern Aleppo countryside.

Syria’s Kurds will hardly be reassured by a Donald Trump social media post on Sunday to the effect that Syria is a mess. “THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!” the post said. During his first term as U.S. president, Trump wanted to withdraw all U.S. special forces troops in northeastern Syria, where they have been fighting Islamic State jihadists alongside the Kurds. The Pentagon persuaded him to keep some deployed in the area; there are an estimated 900 still in the country.

Earlier this month, Trump ally and Cabinet pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr. disclosed that Trump wanted to get all American soldiers out because of fears they could become “cannon fodder” in any clashes between Turkey and Kurdish fighters.

Syria’s Alawites

Alawites comprise some 12 percent of Syria’s population and have long feared that if their co-religionist Bashar Assad was toppled they would be made to suffer. They are an offshoot of Shia Islam, have been the backbone of the Assad regime, and have occupied top positions in government, the military and the intelligence services. During the early years of the rebellion they formed the Shabiha, loosely organized pro-Assad militias that were held responsible for massacres and systematic rape. Even if HTS tries to avoid their being targeted, there will be a thirst for revenge.

Russia, Iran and Hezbollah

Bashar Assad’s fall has dramatically weakened Russia’s position in the Middle East as well as that of Iran. Moscow and Tehran together saved the Syrian regime from collapse in 2015 when Assad looked close to being toppled. Iran-commanded Shiite militias — aided by a scorched-earth bombing campaign by Russia — helped the Syrian autocrat grab Aleppo back from insurgents who had controlled around half the city for four years.

A senior Biden administration official told reporters: "This is just a fundamental change in the equation of the entire Middle East. "

Moscow had been pushing Assad to reconcile with Turkey’s Erdoğan and explore political solutions to end the civil war. Had that happened it would no doubt have opened Syria up to lucrative trade for Russian businesses, and presumably ensured the security of Moscow’s strategic air and naval bases in Syria. Over the summer, the Kremlin repeatedly sought to arrange face-to-face meetings between the Syrian and Turkish leaders.

At an international conference in Doha over the weekend, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov fumed: “It’s inadmissible to allow the terrorist group to take control of [Syria].” Nonetheless, Moscow did little to stave off Assad’s collapse and appeared to wash its hands of the regime. Russian airstrikes in support of Assad since the start of the rebel offensive on Nov. 27 were minimal, no doubt largely because Vladimir Putin has had to focus on Ukraine.

“Hezbollah has been decimated by the war with Israel, Iran is much weaker too as a result, while Russia has removed many of its forces to Ukraine. Neither ally has been able to send anywhere near the level of support Assad received in the past, weakening his forces,” said Christopher Phillips of Britain’s Chatham House.

Trump also highlighted Russia’s weakness. “Russia, because they are so tied up in Ukraine, and with the loss there of over 600,000 soldiers, seems incapable of stopping this literal march through Syria, a country they have protected for years,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

This story has been updated to remove incorrect information on Tatari. Robbie Gramer contributed reporting from Washington.