In twelve days (December 2024) and in an astonishing acceleration, the Syrian Islamist rebels managed to conquer Damascus and drive the Baathist regime out of the Assad dynasty. This geopolitical break is the indirect consequence of the war in Ukraine, the erosion of Iranian deterrence capabilities, the military defeat of Lebanese Hezbollah against Israel, but especially the “letting go” of Bashar al-Assad by his army and his people, precipitating the collapse of a regime weakened by sanctions. Syria is once again, as in the past, the heart of a geopolitical reconfiguration of the Middle East at the risk of its fragmentation. The axis of resistance that went from Tehran to Beirut collapsed and Russian adventurism in the Levant seems to be ending. Instead, a new panturc national-Islamism and an Israeli geopolitical revisionism are rising that could, between them, and in a logic of increased competition, define the future friction lines in the Middle East.
The rapid fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024 is yet another strategic surprise. The collapse of the Syrian regime, saved in extremis in 2015 by Russian and Iranian military interventionism, was facilitated by the persistent erosion of the capabilities of pro-Iranian militias in Syria and especially by the military collapse of Hezbollah in Lebanon following Israeli military actions. Its fall is therefore a direct consequence of Israel’s war against Hezbollah and Iran over the past six months. However, it would not have been possible without the abandonment of the army and the fractions of the population initially favorable to the regime, which no longer adhered to the mafia-like flight of a regime that transformed Syria into a narco-state. Iran, whose Lebanese proxy and air defenses had just been weakened by the IDF, no longer had the means to continue investing politically and financially in Syria. The Russian army, engaged massively in Ukraine, was no longer able to effectively support the Syrian army. This one, largely “clochardized” [1], no longer wanted to fight while the country sank into misery. The reforms carried out by Russia in the organization of the Syrian army also did not bear fruit, even were counterproductive [2]. The proxy militias of the Syrian army, various [3] and corrupt, have finally not compensated for the rout of the regular units. In a report published in April 2024, the European Union Agency for Asylum declared: “The Syrian army can no longer be considered a cohesive force but rather a coalition of regular forces and allied militias” [4]. Moreover, and even vis-à-vis its allies, the rigidity of the Assad regime had become problematic, limiting the desire for Russian-Iranian support even though Moscow had nevertheless facilitated, in conjunction with Ankara, the maintenance of a frozen conflict in northwestern Syria [5]. Assad indeed made the mistake of refusing (despite Russian and Iranian warnings) the direct negotiations proposed by the Turkish president, to oppose the slightest concession on the subject of the return of the 4 million refugees and continued to flood the Gulf countries with drug Captagon, despite promises made on the occasion of Damascus “return to the Arab League. Assad also reportedly did not accept an Israeli-Russian offer, backed by the UAE, to remove any Iranian influence from Syria in exchange for massive financial support for the reconstruction of Syrian territory [6]. In fact, the gradual political decoupling between Damascus, Moscow and Tehran has facilitated the military abandonment of the Syrian ally by Russia and Iran, in an already very complicated regional context for these two countries.
The advent of a new model of Islamo-nationalist governance?
The new power in Damascus now faces a real political “vacuum” left by the hasty departure of the Assad clan, in a context of extreme social and religious fragmentation. The path of national-Islamism, on the Turkish model but more rigorist, seems therefore favored by the new authorities to maintain the order and unity of the country. The winners of the HTC (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) under the aegis of Abu Mohammed al-Joulani (now known as Ahmed al-Chareh) already have the experience of governance since they ruled the province of Idlib since 2017 in the form of a semi-technocratic government called “Syrian salvation government” [7]. Heir to the Salafist group Jabhat al-Nusra, affiliated with al-Qaeda [8], the HTC gradually switches from global jihad to Syrian nationalism while advocating a society based on Sharia laws with the establishment of a caliphate in Syria [9]. Its break with al-Qaeda in 2016 and the change of name from Jabhat an-Nusra to Fatah al-Sham were justified by its desire to “protect the Syrian revolution” and “remove the pretexts put forward by the international community” to classify the group as “terrorist” [10]. In 2017, he managed to unite around him various rebel and jihadist factions and baptized this new group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, future conqueror of the city of the Umayyads in 2024.
The group has also constantly sought to gain respectability in order to represent, especially to its supporters and the international community, a credible political alternative to the Baathist regime, without sinking into the excesses of Daesh. In Idlib, the mode of governance was authoritarian and rigorous; minorities saw their freedoms diminished, were sometimes discriminated against, but they were not hunted down [11]. This is what Ahmed al-Chareh seems to want to reproduce throughout the country. By hailing the diversity of faiths and promising grace for the soldiers of the Baathist regime, he cultivates a posture that allows for the initial non-belligerence of groups that would have been naturally hostile to him, such as the Kurds, and the support of scattered rebel factions. A political transition begins until March 1, 2025, while the HTC has specified that “all the weapons of rebel groups, including those belonging to Kurdish groups, must now be under the control of the State” [12]. The survival of this national-Islamist regime will, however, depend on the reactions of the other factions against it. ISIS remains ambushed in the Syrian desert and seeks to take advantage of the prevailing security chaos to strengthen its positions and rebuild its networks throughout the country. The organization has already refused in advance any form of power in Damascus other than its own [13]. More problematic for the HTC, the antagonism of the pro-Turkish groups of the ANS (Syrian National Army) towards the Kurds, could call into question the desire for national reconciliation of the new power, the expected disarmament of the Kurds and therefore the authority of the HTC over the country. The ANS brings together between 50,000 and 100,000 fighters, officially under the authority of the “Syrian interim government” installed in Gaziantep, supported by Qatar and Turkey. This pro-Turkish military force, created by Ankara for its own needs (creation of a buffer zone of 30 km along the border in the Kurdish zone; fight against the PKK), is seasoned: 3 successful military operations against the Syrian Kurds, the last of which, Operation “Source of Peace” in 2019; deployments of its militiamen in Azerbaijan, Libya and the Sahel. This force has somehow been robbed of victory by the HTC even though it represents a substantial military entity. The competition between the HTC is the ANS promises to be tough in the coming months, under the arbitration of Turkey, the main strategic winner of this new situation.
Russian and Iranian withdrawal
The big losers in the collapse of the Baathist regime in Syria are Russia and Iran. If Moscow indeed remained deeply dissatisfied with the Syrian regime, unable to govern a country that the Russian army had allowed him to keep, and even less able to negotiate maintaining the status quo with Turkey, the potential loss of the two bases of Tartus and Hmeimim could represent a severe blow to Russian influence in the region. Military support for the Assad regime was limited in the final months of 2024, with the Ukrainian theater largely a priority for Moscow. Some mercenaries of the Afrika Corps would have been deployed [14], but without strong involvement of the Russian conventional forces yet present in the country [15], further sign of the tensions accumulated between Putin and Assad regarding the management of this conflict. Russian naval vessels evacuated the port of Tartus on 2 December [16] while Russian forces regrouped in their right of way in anticipation of a potential withdrawal. The loss of Tartus would be a setback for the Russian navy, already shaken in the Black Sea. The loss of Hmeimim, a military hub for the logistics of Russian operations in the Middle East and Africa, would represent an even bigger blow for Moscow. Its power projection capacity in the region would thus be lost. But at this point, Russia is seeking to maintain its grip and is already negotiating with the new Syrian power. Moscow believes that “the regulations signed about the bases could be revised, but this does not mean that they will have to be liquidated instantly” and that “the issue can be negotiated” [17].
This hypothesis remains fragile, however, given that the new power in Damascus has been the target of intense Russian strikes since 2015 and that the Western community will probably ask Damascus to break any agreement with Russia in exchange for a lifting of sanctions on the country. In fact, Russia will have to find a new base for its forces and it is probably towards Libya that Moscow will focus its efforts. The port of Tobruk, held by the forces of Marshal Haftar and already employed by the mercenaries of the Afrika Corps, seems ideal to accommodate the Russian naval forces. Other bases held by Haftar’s forces could also accommodate Russian forces, including air and surface-to-air defense forces previously deployed in Syria [18]. Some air bases [19] had already been renovated by Russia. In any case, the upcoming evacuation of Russian forces from Syria would spell the end of the Russian military presence in the Levant and ultimately illustrate the fiasco of Russia’s support for the Baathist regime. While Westerners can only welcome this conclusion, it is highly likely that Moscow will now make a powerful shift of effort towards Africa but also the Maghreb, in a strategy of supporting its local allies and capturing resources to finance the Russian war effort in the European theater.
The biggest loser from the fall of the Assad regime, however, remains Iran. Syria was an essential link in the Iranian system in the region to access the Mediterranean and Lebanon, to support Hezbollah to exert pressure on Israel. After the military collapse of Hezbollah, the fall of Bashar al-Assad destroys the entire Iranian strategy implemented in recent decades. The Iranian “axis of Resistance” has almost disappeared: Hamas and Hezbollah have been militarily defeated by Israel, the Assad regime has collapsed. Only the Houthis remain in Yemen, but who have their own agenda and are the subject of increasing Israeli strikes, and the Iraqi Shiite militias who did not intervene in support of the Baathist regime [20], under pressure from the Baghdad authorities. It is therefore a strategic disaster for Tehran, which has lost its main assets, has been unable to effectively defend its allies and has finally seen its air defenses weakened by the Israeli strikes of October 26, 2024. The Mullahs “regime is therefore in a position of unprecedented weakness that could force it to rethink its security. If negotiations with the new Trump administration fail, Iran may want to accelerate the acquisition of nuclear weapons to secure its territory and ensure the survival of its regime. If this choice is made, it could trigger in Israel, with the consent of Washington, the temptation of the “coup de grace” by eliminating by preventive strikes of the IDF all the Iranian nuclear program [21] and hoping thus to provoke a change of regime.
Towards a Turkish-Israeli competition?
Turkey is strategically the big winner of the collapse of the Assad regime and the installation of a new Islamist power in Damascus. The HTC offensive, first on Aleppo and then on the whole of “useful Syria,” could not have taken place without the initial whitewash and the support of Ankara, but especially without the Turkish support to the insurgent factions since the beginning of the Syrian crisis in 2011. Assad’s obtuse refusal to normalize ties with Ankara, despite the Turkish president’s gestures in this direction, has led Turkey to let its proxies carry out more offensive operations against the Syrian army, even if the regime’s sudden fall was undoubtedly also a surprise for Turkey. In this context, this imbalance is a source of strategic opportunities for Ankara, which will not hesitate to exploit it to the maximum. First of all, Turkey will rely on the militias that are subservient to it to create a buffer zone inside Syrian territory in order to drive out Kurdish militias accused of links with the PKK, and to send back some of the 4 million Syrian refugees who had hitherto lived on its soil and who were becoming an economic, political [22] and social burden. “We will do what is necessary, including a military operation” if the Kurdish forces do not meet Ankara’s demands, declared Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan [23].
Above all, Turkey will seek to have a say in shaping the strategy of the new power in Damascus. This, clearly compatible with the Muslim Brotherhood agenda, represents a major symbolic and ideological victory for Erdogan, making Syria a new pole of expansion of national-Islamist ideas in the Middle East. With the victory of its allies, Turkey will expand its “neo-Ottoman” political and military influence in Syria. Its local allies have indeed driven Iran out of the region [24], provoked a Russian military withdrawal [25] and will probably let Ankara take care of the Kurdish problem in the north-east of the country [26]. Turkish action in Syria therefore no longer has any external restrictions, apart from that of the United States, whose maintenance of troops with the Kurds remains subject to the decision of the next administration.
As proof of Turkey’s future massive involvement in the Levant, the Turkish president indicated that his country would support the new authorities in drafting a constitution and reforming institutions, based on the experiences of the Turkish regime, which was accepted by Ahmed al-Chareh, the country’s new strongman [27]. Turkey should also be massively involved in the reconstruction of the country’s transport network, in the supply of energy, especially electricity [28], and potentially in the overhaul of the Syrian army [29]. At the diplomatic level, Syria will be used as Ankara’s best ally in its regional ambitions, both for its maritime claims vis-à-vis Cyprus and Greece, and to influence the situation in Lebanon or to counter geopolitically Israel, the other great winner of the fall of the regime. In any case, the pro-Turkish Islamist victory in Syria demonstrates Ankara’s centrality in the balance of power being reconstituted in the Middle East.
For its part, Israel strengthens its regional hegemony with the fall of the Assad regime, which closely follows the military collapse of Hamas and Hezbollah and participates in the weakening of Iran. All the more so since the regime change in Damascus was made possible thanks to the strategy of attrition led by the IDF towards pro-Iranian groups present in Syria. Indirectly, the Israeli campaign between wars and the deep weakening of Hezbollah caused the fall of the Baathist regime and the end of the Iranian corridor to the Mediterranean. This in itself is a major victory for Israel, even if the new power in Damascus remains inherently hostile to the Jewish state. It was precisely to limit any subsequent threat that Israel carried out massive pre-emptive military actions on Syrian territory in the days following the fall of the regime, destroying the entire Syrian offensive potential. The IDF also took control of all of Mount Hermon, a strategic area in the Golan Heights, [30] and deployed troops to parts of the “demilitarized buffer zone” which was under the control of UNDOF UN forces. These territorial conquests, announced as “temporary” [31], allow the Hebrew State to increase the security glaze on its borders and especially to dissuade the new Syrian power from any anti-Israeli action in the future. The Israeli Air Force bombed the stockpiles of weapons and ammunition of the former Syrian army, so that this equipment did not fall into the hands of militias and that the new power in Damascus could not quickly reconstitute a military force capable of threatening the Hebrew State. Nearly 500 airstrikes in two days have eliminated 80% of Syrian military capabilities [32], including all of its naval forces [33]. For if Israel is wary of the HTC, its leaders are also wondering about the future security consequences of Turkish Islamist influence in Syria [34]. The new situation in Damascus and the security vacuum still present in Syria reinforce Jerusalem’s perception that its actions since 7 October 2023 “change the face of the Middle East” [35]. An analysis that is shared by many Israeli think-tanks that have their relays in the United States [36] and that could push the Hebrew State to push its advantage even further in order to definitively break the legacy of the Sykes-Picot agreements and redraw the map of Syria on community lines. The division of Syria [37] would thus avoid for Israel the maintenance of a single Syrian national bloc potentially threatening its security. The idea of three distinct entities (Kurdish autonomous region, coastal Alawite zone, Sunni Syrian center) thus made its way [38], while the Druze are presumed to prefer the Hebrew State and therefore ask for their attachment to Israel in the long term, especially if their autonomy is threatened [39]. In any case, the collapse of the Baathist regime in Damascus is for Israel both a strategic success and a new opportunity to redraw the balance of power, and perhaps even the maps of the Middle East.
The United States and the Gulf States as referees of this new Israeli-Turkish competition?
Given the desire of the Gulf monarchies to normalize their relations with Bashar Al Assad, materialized by the reintegration of Syria into the Arab League in 2023, the brutal fall of the regime took Riyadh and Abu Dhabi by surprise. In the first days of the rebel offensive, these two countries even claimed to support the regime in its new difficulties [40]. After the fall of Damascus, they called for preserving Syria’s sovereignty and territorial unity, and rejecting interference in Syria’s internal affairs. The radicalism of the victors of Damascus, as well as their established links with the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey, worry these Arab powers [41] who fear above all the contagion of instability on their own territories. The emergence of a strong Islamist center of gravity in the Levant therefore raises their concern. But the economic and financial power of the Gulf countries and their potential role in the reconstruction of Syria remains an asset for maintaining their influence. Their potential contribution could be a strong bargaining lever for the HTC to temper its most radical elements and limit Turkish influence.
The United States also remains cautious, divided between the satisfaction of seeing the Russian-Iranian footprint destroyed in Syria and concern about the future posture of the new regime [42]. The role of the United States therefore remains today focused on maintaining its military positions in the Syrian northeast, essentially in order to contain Daesh both in the prison camps monitored by the Kurds [43] and in the Syrian desert [44]. Moreover, the centrality of the fight against Daesh in the American approach in Syria is illustrated by the many American strikes that targeted positions of the terrorist group at the very moment when the Assad regime was collapsing. But the American position remains fragile, divided between its erratic support for the Kurds [45] and the uncertainties as to the positioning of the new American administration in this region [46]. Moreover, in anticipation of a possible American withdrawal from northeastern Syria (or in order to provoke it), the head of Turkish diplomacy declared that his country was able to take charge of the management of prisons and detention camps of Daesh jihadists in Syria [47]. The maintenance of the American presence in Syria remains for the moment a guarantee of protection for the Kurds and would have the advantage of leaving the United States in a position of arbiter of the future Israeli-Turkish rivalry for the Levant.
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The fall of the Assad regime and the advent of an Islamo-nationalist regime in Damascus open an unprecedented period of geopolitical competition between Israel and Turkey, both in Syria and in the Middle East as a whole, with Washington as arbiter, if at least the new administration agrees to play this role. The fear of an extension of the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region will push the UAE and especially Saudi Arabia to reinvest in it in order to stabilize the most fragile countries, including Lebanon. Pro-Turkish expansionism will also push the Greek world (Greece and Cyprus) and even Egypt to get closer to Israel and the United States in order to benefit from a form of reassurance that Europe does not yet produce. An axis of containment of Turkey, linking Athens to Jerusalem, Cairo and Riyadh will undoubtedly seek to reconstitute itself in the Levant and the Eastern Mediterranean without the role of France and Europe in this realignment being yet specified.
[1] Soldiers earning $10 to $15 per month. Fabrice Balanche, Le Figaro, 06/12/2024.
[2] The Syrian tactical command was placed behind the front lines in order to avoid excessive losses of military cadres. This led to major problems of coordination and initiative of units in the first line during the insurgent offensive of December. Charles Lister, Middle East Institute, in Le Figaro, 10/12/2024.
[3] Mix of local militias and ex-insurgents, forming a heterogeneous and fragile whole.
[4] Le Figaro, 10/12/2024.
[5] Facilitated by the Astana process, created in January 2017 by Moscow, in conjunction with Ankara and Tehran. Middle East Eye, 04/12/2024.
[6] Renaud Girard in Le Figaro, 10/12/2024.
[7] Charles Lister, Middle East Institute, in Le Figaro, 08/12/2024
[8] Abu Mohammed al-Joulani fought in Iraq in the mid-2000s against US forces. He was arrested and imprisoned, along with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the future “caliph” of Daesh. Creating Jabhat al-Nusra in 2011, he refused any allegiance to Daesh, preferring to forge links with Al-Qaeda from 2013 to 2016.
[9] Only in Syria, which explains the differences of political vision with Daesh.
[10] Fabrice Balanche in Le Figaro, 08/12/2024.
[11] Despite the history of Jabhat an-Nusra, the initial matrix of the HTC, at the origin of many abuses against the Druze at the beginning of the Syrian civil war. Middle East Eye, 09/12/2024.
[12] Al Monitor, 23/12/2024.
[13] Le Figaro, 10/12/2024.
[14] Le Figaro, 08/12/2024.
[15] Only airstrikes in northwestern Syria were carried out by Russian aircraft. Between 3,000 and 5,000 Russian troops were stationed in Syria before the outbreak of the December 2024 insurgent offensive. Le Figaro, 08/12/2024.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Le Figaro, 10/12/2024.
[18] Opex 360, 20/12/2024.
[19] Brak Al Shatti, Al Jufra, Al Qardabiyah and Al Khadi, The Maritime executive, 06/12/2024.
[20] France 24, 08/12/2024.
[21] Jerusalem Post, 06/01/2025.
[22] The Turkish opposition taking a sometimes xenophobic and anti-Arab turn.
[23] Le Figaro, 07/01/2025.
[24] The weakening of the Persian pole in the Levant and on the Euphrates has always, in history, been counterbalanced by an Ottoman thrust. Gilles Kepel, Le Figaro, 08/12/2024.
[25] Never seen since the beginning of the Crimean War in 2014, Russia being in an expansionist phase since then.
[26] As outlined by the capture of Manbij by pro-Turkish forces, facilitated by a Turkish-American agreement. Al Monitor, 10/12/2024.
[27] Middle East Eye, 20/12/2024.
[28] Deliveries of Iranian oil have been stopped. Middle East Eye, 24/12/2024.
[29] Al Monitor, 05/01/2025.
[30] By its water resources that make it a regional “water tower” and by its position that allows to overlook the Damascus region, southern Lebanon and part of the Beqaa.
[31] Al Monitor, 13/12/2024.
[32] Le Figaro, 10/12/2024.
[33] CNN, 10/12/2024.
[34] Nagel Committee, Middle East Eye, 07/01/2025.
[35] Defense Minister Israel Katz, CNN, 12/10/2024.
[36] Washington Post, 20/12/2024; The Hill, 27/12/2024.
[37] This objective would go against what Turkey wants, leading the actors into a collision course.
[38] Through an alliance of Kurds and Druze with the Jewish state. Middle East Eye, 04/12/2024 and 06/12/2024.
[39] The Hill, 27/12/2024; Al Monitor, 13/12/2024.
[40] CNN, 07/12/2024.
[41] Just like Egypt too.
[42] The head of the HTC was the subject of a bonus of $10 million, withdrawn by pragmatism after the conquest of Damascus even though the American sanctions on the country remain maintained at this stage.
[43] About 9,000 people. Opex360, in 09/12/2024.
[44] Between 3,000 and 5,000 fighters according to estimates. Ibid.
[45] Withdrawal of the Kurdish forces (SDF) from the city of Manbij and all the West of the Euphrates under American political pressure in order to leave the way open to the pro-Turkish militias, but American reinforcements in Kobane.
[46] Donald Trump has made clear his intention not to get involved in Syrian affairs. The defense of Israel, the stabilization of its neighbors (Lebanon and Egypt in particular), the containment of Iran and Russia should however remain priorities of American foreign policy in the Middle East.
[47] Le Figaro, 07/01/2025.
