The fall of the Syrian Arab Republic.
In just 11 days, between the 27th of November and the 8th of December, the Assad regime tumbled from an unmovable reality into the pages of history. The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) of over 100,000 fighters disintegrated like snow in the rain as Turkish-backed rebels stormed out of Idlib, seized Aleppo, and marched down the M5 highway, seizing Hama and reaching Homs by December 5th. The next day, opposition groups across the country’s south mobilised as Assad’s army collapsed, marching on the capital itself almost immediately. December 7th marked Damascus’s last sunrise under Assad’s rule.
“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen” – Vladimir Lenin.
The feeling in Tehran must be one of palpable horror. Since 2011, the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) has exhausted itself in maintaining the Assad regime, using Syria as a crucial component in its regional security network. Damascus and Aleppo were the jewels of the IRGC’s foreign policy achievements. Indeed, General Qasem Soleimani’s (the IRI’s most revered military commander) primary achievement was saving the Assad regime from the Syrian rebellion and ISIS. His command of forces in Syria, which maintained the cohesion of the SAA, and his ability to bring Russia into the conflict were some of Iran’s greatest strategic successes. They brought Israel’s northern border firmly within Tehran’s reach. Now, his picture lies torn and desecrated before Iran’s ransacked embassy.
The loss of Syria changes the reality of Iranian power across the region. It leaves Iran’s ally Hezbollah exposed in Lebanon and exceptionally vulnerable to what is now a near-inevitable Israeli offensive. Indeed, Israeli tanks have already crossed into Syria. It also tears apart the Iranian strategic plan to surround Israel with “fire”, a network of proxy groups aligned to Iran. It calls into question the viability of continuing such a military strategy against Israel. Russia, Iran’s ally in Syria since 2015, has also suffered. Assad was the only government outside of its Eurasian sphere loyal to Putin. Its loss undermines Russia’s global influence, which Moscow had tried hard to revive. Though Russia will try to negotiate with the rebels, it puts the continued existence of Russia’s only warm-water Mediterranean port, Tartus, along with its airbase in Latakia, under scrutiny. It also undermines its security guarantees.
The Assad regime’s survival made the point that Eastern powers could guarantee national security. His removal dashes these illusions and re-certifies the United States as the sole security guarantor. With Syria at its feet, it grants Turkey a new preliminary role as a regional powerhouse with the unprecedented regional influence it fought hard to obtain through the previous 14 years of war. Of course, it casts Syria into a new era of uncertainty and instability. Moderate and extreme factions of Sunni rebel groups will inevitably fight it out to dominate this new environment. The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, especially, will be bound to come into conflict with the more zealously pro-Turkish rebels, or even the Turkish military itself, if it decides to intervene directly.
How did this happen?
Just two short weeks ago, the fall of Aleppo to Syrian rebels was unthinkable. Today, the Syrian Arab Republic no longer exists. Few historical examples illustrate Lenin’s words better: ” There are weeks where decades happen.” Indeed, Lenin was a revolutionary who toppled an ancient regime. But then, as now, always in hindsight, there are clear reasons why such an unthinkable reality was possible and even probable. Assad’s grip over Syria was always tenuous. He barely controlled half the country; American-backed Kurds controlled nearly everything north of the Euphrates River. The country’s northern borders were occupied by the Turkish military directly, and Turkish-backed Islamist rebels governed Idlib.
In the areas Assad did control, misery prevailed. Unemployment was rampant, and economic prospects were scarce. Most of the population was Sunni and resented the Alawite administration. There was little hope for a better Syria. It was often in the firing line of Israeli retaliation.
This retaliation became dramatically more painful after the October 7th attacks in 2023. Israeli strikes significantly degraded both the Syrian military and Iranian forces. They also deterred Russia from deploying forces extensively. As a result, when the Turkish-backed rebel offensive started, they encountered a beleaguered enemy reeling from over a year of intense conflict with Israel and 12 more years of civil war. The Syrian military fielded in December 2024 was underpaid, lacked training, and had inadequate equipment. A sufficient will to resist was also absent, given the bleakness of their future under Assad. Consequently, they melted away. Israel mercilessly bombarded Hezbollah reinforcements from Lebanon at the border crossings, and Shia militias coming from Iraq met the same fate at American hands. Russia was unable to reallocate enough forces. The Syrian Arab Army was caught out like a deer in the headlights, alone with no allies and enemies on all fronts.
Looking Forward.
Syria is one of the world’s most beautiful countries. It is a jewel of natural beauty, from Latakia’s green mountains brushing the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River cutting through the barren desert like a blue ribbon. The ancient history that enriches the land is as astounding. It hosts the citadels of Aleppo and Hama, as well as the stunning architecture of Damascus, once the centre of the Islamic world. Palmyra is one of the world’s best-preserved Roman ruins, and the coast of Latakia hosts a myriad of other classical marvels. It is a tragedy that this country has known nothing but war for 14 years.
Today, a kindness would be for the rival rebel and regional powers that have seized Syria to come to an acceptable agreement to share power. If they could put the trauma of a decade and a half of war behind them and build Syria into a modern state, they could create a marvel of the 21st century. The reality, though, is much bleaker. The powers that have relinquished Syria, Iran and Russia are reeling but not defeated. The internal factions that now scour the government offices and palaces of the prostrating Assad administration are bound to find little ground between them. Different sects and ethnicities wind through the state like threads in fabric. They are a mosaic of diametrically opposed groups who have been sporadically killing one another for at least a decade. The new Syria will be born as the old died, in sectarian violence and a whirlwind of foreign interference.