Watching the fall of Bashar al-Assad from Jerusalem, I couldn’t help but rejoice with the people of Syria. Decades of confinement, torture, and murder have ended. The Syrian people are free.
But the collapse of the Ba’ath regime holds wider significance for those interested in the trajectory of this ever-changing region—and not all of it good.
Some headlines are obvious. First, the Arab Spring isn’t over. The simmering resentment that burst forth 13 years ago has yet to run its course. Second, Arab nationalism is officially dead, now surviving only in the fossilized Fatah party of Mahmoud Abbas, which remains artificially alive thanks to wishful Western states against the wishes of the Palestinian people. Third, Islamism remains appealing for millions of Arabs fed up with the alternatives. (The rebirth of Islamic governance in Damascus exactly one hundred years after the fall of the last caliphate is serendipitous to say the least.)
Assad’s fall is undoubtedly a good thing. It marks the liberation of the Syrian people. It strikes a major blow against Iran’s axis of resistance, which recently stretched through Damascus from Tehran to Beirut but now lies in ruins. It also strikes a blow against Iran’s ally Russia, whose own axis of resistance was already in retreat thanks to Ukraine.
God willing, it also spells the beginning of the end of the Syrian refugee crisis, the greatest humanitarian disaster of our generation and the source of tectonic upheaval in the Near East and Europe. Only historians can judge how far-reaching this upheaval has been, but all can agree that a resolution of the refugee crisis will be good for everyone.
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Yet Assad’s fall is also a bad thing. Such is the mixed nature of the world.
That Damascus was conquered by Hayat Tahrir ash-Sham (HTS), an al-Qaeda spinoff that aims to liberate Jerusalem from the Crusader-Zionist cabal that occupies it, may seem of marginal interest today—but ideas matter. Whether the militarization of these ideas comes at the hands of HTS or of others that take its place—and whether Islamist rule in Syria creates white space for more radical groups to assemble—is uncertain for now, but that militarization will almost certainly come.
Naturally, there is concern about the future of Christians and other minorities who relied on Bashar al-Assad’s cruelty to hold back the Sunni hordes. While HTS leader Muhammad al-Jolani has made positive gestures towards Syria’s non-Muslims, the self-righteous supremacism that undergirds his worldview is bound to manifest sooner or later. Perhaps he will surprise us, but we must be vigilant.
Another concern is that Jolani’s victory will inspire copycat coups in other Arab states. The possibility that likeminded Islamist groups could rise in other hinterlands and march on other capitals is not as far-fetched as some would hope. No doubt the rulers of Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq were as shocked as the rest of us to see how fast Assad went down.
Americans are especially concerned about the well-being of our Kurdish allies, brave warriors who fought valiantly against ISIS and defended Christians in the breakaway Autonomous Area of Northeastern Syria for the last twelve years. The AANES is one of the few places in the Near East that offers equality and protection for all, and it should be preserved.
Most concerning in this regard is how Turkish President Erdogan, the renegade ruler behind HTS and other Syrian Islamist groups, will try to leverage Jolani’s victory to further his own imperial dreams. Given Erdogan’s desire to revive the Turkish caliphate, his expansion into Syria will bode ill for Kurds, Israelis, Armenians, and anyone else who dares to challenge his ambitions. President Trump would be wise to preempt him.
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Yet the greatest concern for Americans regarding Syria is that our returning president will miscalculate the various factors and interests at stake there. President Trump twice tried to evacuate the few hundred US troops stationed in the northeast, famously describing Syria as nothing but “sand and blood and death.” It is likely that he’ll do so again, but permanently this time—and that would be a mistake.
No one can deny the preponderant challenges of the Indo-Pacific, and the need to take a strong stand against China. But we must give up fantasies about cutting loose of the Near East to execute a near-mythical “pivot to Asia.” The Near East can’t be fixed in the Western sense, but neither can it be abandoned. We have too many vital interests there. While the region will remain a problem, it can be managed through shrewd statesmanship and tighter coordination with allies.
When it comes to Syria’s new regime, we have little choice but to let things run their course. We must give Jolani a chance. Most Syrians see his rule as legitimate, a not-insignificant fact in a region riddled with illegitimacy. But non-interference in Syrian affairs must be subject to, and set in the context of other priorities that may preempt it.
First, we must marshal every mechanism of national power to increase pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran to curtail its export of messianic terrorism.
Second, we must oppose the expansion of Turkish influence into Syria without carve-outs and concessions for the security of Syrian Kurds, the conclusion of a peace deal with Armenia, non-aggression against Israel, and the coordinated resettlement of refugees from surrounding countries.
Third, we must double-down on the Arab-Israeli axis as a counter-balance to Turkey and Iran. The expansion of the Abraham Accords is just the start of such a policy, which seeks the consolidation and full integration of a pro-Western bloc of nation-states committed to peace and prosperity.
Fourth, we should rally our allies and partners to invest in Lebanon as an independent haven for regional minorities and a bulwark against the Syrian interior. The failure to cut off Iranian money and weapons flowing into Lebanon and to provide the Lebanese people with alternative sources of support would be a colossal mistake that would result in renewed conflict with Israel and the extinction of non-Muslim communities in the Levant. Working aggressively and in partnership with allies, we can win here.
Neither optimism or pessimism should have a place in our assessment of Syria. Statesmanship evaluates things in a different light. Realizing the high probability that chaos will return to Syria in the near future, we must take steps now to prevent the worst possible outcomes.
Perhaps the situation will be more stable and durable than we expect, in which case we’ll thank God for an extra measure of grace. But at least we’ll be ready.