After Fall of Assad Dynasty, Syria’s Risky New Moment

Steven A. Cook is Eni Enrico Mattei Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa studies and Director of the International Affairs Fellowship for Tenured International Relations Scholars at the Council on Foreign Relations.

On January 21, 1994, Basil al-Assad was killed in what the Syrian government described as a car accident. According to official dispatches, he had been driving too fast on the way to the airport and lost control of his vehicle. It was both entirely believable and the kind of accident that did not happen to the sons of Middle Eastern dictators—especially those being groomed to take the reins of power. 

Basil’s death required that the next oldest son of Hafez al-Assad take his brother’s place. That was Bashar, who had been living in London and training to be an ophthalmologist at the time of his brother’s death. Between 1994 and 2000, Hafez, who had come to power in 1971 and had brought a repressive and sterile order to Syria, put his unintended heir through a crash course in how to run Syria.

Now three decades after his rise to prominence and almost a quarter century of rule, Bashar is gone and so is the Assad dynasty. Almost incomprehensively swept away over a two-week period during which the Islamist rebel group Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its partner, the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), swept out of Idlib province to seize the country from Bashar who barely managed to put up a fight after his Russian and Iranian allies abandoned him. The flip side of this ignominious defeat for Moscow and Tehran is the liberation of Syrians who joined with HTS, in particular, to carry on the uprising they began in the spring of 2011. 

In this “now out of never” moment that conjures memories of 1989 in Eastern Europe, people who had been cowed into submission by Assad’s indiscriminate use of force took up where they left off in 2011 and rose up to demand the end of the Assad dictatorship.

Of course, questions abound about what kind of successor regime will emerge in Damascus. Not only was Assad’s fall a blow to Moscow and Tehran, but also the major Arab states who look warily on both HTS and the demonstration of Syrian people power. The main rebel group is an offshoot of al-Qaeda and although its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, has made much of his break from jihadist extremism, it remains to be seen whether the liberation he engineered was for all Syrians as he has declared or a tactic to deflect criticism and opposition. It is worth noting that there are reports that the SNA are attacking Kurds even as Jolani makes the case for a more inclusive Syria under HTS.

Jolani’s record from Syria’s Idlib Governorate, which was under HTS (with Turkish patronage) control, is mixed. He seems to have learned the lessons of the Islamic State and eschewed the most severe forms of political control, but HTS still ruled with an iron fist. Even as HTS fighters liberated Assad’s prisons, Jolani’s opponents were bearing witness to the abuses of his own jails.

On the morning and day after Assad’s departure, there were reports that Syria’s central bank was being looted. Perhaps it is an isolated incident. Syrians grew desperate as the war dragged on for thirteen long years, but the sacking of Baghdad after American forces overthrew Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003 casts a long shadow. It is hard to compare Syria’s liberation at the hands of Syrians with Iraq’s experience, but there are similar dynamics at play. As the rebels entered Damascus, Assad’s Prime Minister Mohamed Ghazi al-Jalali offered them a hand, but it remains unclear what other supporters of the regime might do. The speed with which the regime collapsed was impressive, but that does not mean that HTS will remain unopposed. Syria is awash in weaponry and suddenly there are people who no longer have a lot to lose. The country is not fated to a violent future, but it would be remiss not to consider the possibility and plausibility of an insurgency against the new order.

Beyond Syria’s borders, but connected to the issue of Syria’s internal stability, is the reaction of leaders in the region, most of whom had welcomed Assad back into the fold in recent years. The Emiratis, Saudis, Jordanians, and Egyptians are deeply opposed to the accumulation of Islamist political power. To expect these governments to sit idly by while HTS organizes its rule in Damascus is to ignore much of the recent history of the Middle East. 

For Israel, which in an unintended way contributed to Assad’s demise through its withering military operations against Hezbollah, the strategic collapse of Iran’s position in the region is no doubt satisfying, but now Jerusalem is confronted with the possibility of an Islamist-led government in Damascus. The Israelis regarded Hafez al-Assad, in particular, as a formidable foe, but one that nevertheless understood the importance of stability along the Syrian-Israeli frontier. His son pursued the same approach to Israel after he came to power. Now Israel confronts an altogether different type of ideological leadership in Damascus. It should not be lost on anyone that the nom de guerre that HTS’s leader chose for himself is “Jolani,” a nod to the Golan Heights, which Israel conquered in the June 1967 war.

Then there is Turkey. Ankara is the only neighbor to potentially gain from Assad’s fall. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has traveled a long road in Syria, from having once been Bashar’s patron to demanding his overthrow and then seeking normalization with the Assad regime. In recent weeks Erdogan tacitly supported Assad’s violent overthrow. Ankara now has an opportunity to shape the successor regime in Damascus—a goal of the Turkish government since it turned away from Bashar in 2011. The problem for Erdogan and the people around him is that HTS may not cooperate. A recurring feature of Turkish forays into the Middle East is no matter how much Erdogan insists on the cultural affinity between Turkey and the Arab world–especially between his ruling Justice and Development Party and Islamists around the region–the Turkish leader has demonstrated an inability to understand local and regional politics. There may be a certain amount of self-satisfaction in Ankara as the possibilities for Turkey in post-Assad Syria unfold, but it is not at all clear that Erdogan and his advisors are fully prepared for Syria’s new realities.

For Washington, Assad’s demise was certainly an unexpected development after more than a year of stunning events in the Middle East. There will be an urge within the American policy community to want to help Syrians build a more just and democratic order.  It is a laudable goal and noble impulse, but Washington should resist them. Both President Biden and President-Elect Trump have so far set the proper tone, indicating that the United States must stay on the sidelines. To get involved in the revolution unfolding in Syria is unlikely to help Syrians or advance American interests. Syria is for the Syrians.

This work represents the views and opinions solely of the author. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher, and takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.