The Islamist rebels whose swift seizure of Syria over the weekend toppled long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad have not only ushered in an unsettled new era for the troubled country, but they promise to reshuffle the region's fraught geopolitics.
The ousting of Assad, who ruled Syria for a quarter century after assuming power from his father, leaves a dangerous political vacuum. Ahmed al-Shara – formerly known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohmmad al-Jolani – at the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, is at least nominally in charge. He and his group are at the helm of a fractious rebel alliance that fought Assad over more than 13 years of civil war. Formerly known as the al-Nusra Front, HTS was once affiliated with al-Qaida. Although Shara claims to have broken ties with al-Qaida, HTS remains on a U.S. State Department list of terrorist organizations.
It's a complex and fluid situation on the ground, and most observers agree it's all but impossible to predict how things will play out in the coming days, weeks and months. But as Syria marks the start of a new chapter, here are five dynamics that experts say will be important to pay attention to.
How smooth will the political transition be?
While Assad and other regime figures fled Syria in the hours before the rebels seized power in Damascus, Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi Jalali stood his post. "We are working so that the transitional period is quick and smooth," Jalali told Sky News Arabia TV on Monday, according to The Associated Press.
Having Assad's prime minister stay on was "clearly an arrangement" with the rebels, says Joshua Landis, a Syria specialist at the University of Oklahoma. "They've worked it out, what seems to be a temporary, peaceful handover of power."
In a meeting on Monday with Jalali, the HTS leader acknowledged that despite the rebel victory, "we can't dispense with the previous state."
Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the London-based think tank Chatham House, says it is too early to signal any outcome. "I think we have to give everybody a bit of time to figure it out," she says.
Vakil says Syria could learn a lesson from the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq that toppled Sadaam Hussein in 2003. In the wake of Hussein's fall, the U.S. dissolved the ruling Baath Party, leading to a breakdown in basic services that helped set the stage for the mass chaos that ultimately swept the country. Vakil says that "including technocrats and perhaps holdovers from the Assad government is a way of building consensus and broader support."
Years of bad blood and fears of an Islamist regime will make reconciliation a challenge
The diversity of ethnic and religious stakeholders in Syria paints a complicated picture: Assad's powerbase was drawn from Shia Muslims, and the small but influential Alawite religious minority that he belongs to, combined with other groups make up about 13% of the population. Sunni Muslims, by contrast, account for roughly three-quarters of Syria.
The Alawite minority, concentrated mainly on the Mediterranean coast, has now suddenly found itself out of power and potentially more vulnerable. Landis says there's "considerable tension" between the two main Muslim groups in Syria. But so far, there are no signs of reprisals by the new leaders, he says. Everyone is trying to figure out "whether there's going to be revenge killings or real disturbances in the Alawite territories," Landis says.
Still, there are signs of some fraying. In the northeast of the country, Kurdish forces have been driven out of Manbij by Arab-led opposition forces.
Vakil says there's concern that Syria could descend into a strict fundamentalist Islamic state similar to Taliban-led Afghanistan, although the country's new leaders have made pronouncements that seek to dispel that fear.
The rebels, for instance, issued a statement on social media Monday instructing their fighters that it is "strictly forbidden to interfere with women's dress or impose any request related to their clothing or appearance, including requests for modesty."
But U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen, speaking in Qatar, on Sunday, sounded a word of caution, saying he was hearing "contradictory messages" coming from the new leadership. "This is now my key message to all – avoid bloodshed, make sure that it is inclusive, that all communities in Syria are included, and that the nervousness that some are facing, are fearing, that we can address this, and move forward to peace and stability," he said.
There are millions of Syrian refugees waiting to return home
Refugees who fled during the civil war are already trying to return. Many were lining up at border crossings in Turkey on Monday, according to the AP.
"Syria is at a crossroads – between peace and war, stability and lawlessness, reconstruction or further ruin," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a statement on Monday The agency said that "recent developments bring hope that the suffering of the Syrian people may finally end, and that the world's largest forced displacement crisis can move towards just solutions."
But ultimately, experts say, the pace or returns will be shaped by how much political stability Syria's next leaders can deliver.
"Many of them are going to want to go home," says Landis, adding that he thinks that given the history of their predicament, he thinks that "most will take a wait and see" position.
Daniel Mouton, a Middle East expert at the Atlantic Council, writes that "Millions of Syrian refugees will want to return home and are more likely to do so in an environment of good governance and active reconstruction."
The risks of a power vacuum are very real
Governments across the region are all too familiar with the dangers that can come after an autocrat's fall. Civil war dominated Libya for years after the death of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, just as it did in Iraq after Hussein was toppled. Today, they're watching events in Syria with a wary eye.
On the surface, the ouster of Assad might look like a net positive for Israel. Both Iran and Hezbollah, the Tehran-backed militia that Israel has sought to destroy in neighboring Lebanon, were among the former Syrian dictator's key backers.
Hours after rebels took the Syrian capital, however, Israel moved into a demilitarized buffer zone with Syria that had been maintained without violation since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights — an area seized from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed by Israel — proclaiming that the move into the buffer zone was a "temporary defensive position."
Israel has also launched hundreds of airstrikes against Syria in recent days, saying it has taken out 70% of the Syrian army's capabilities — a move criticized Tuesday by Pedersen, the U.N. special envoy. "We are continuing to see Israeli movements and bombardments into Syrian territory. This needs to stop," he said.
Vakil says the collapse of the Assad regime places Israel in a difficult position. "As a democracy, I think it is obliged to try and support [the transition] process [in Syria] and try and actually stay out of this process," she says.
For Jordan, Vakil says, Assad's ouster could be a positive, "if there is eventually parliamentary democracy and more inclusive parliamentary democracy" in Syria. "And if, on the other hand, you do see a sort of Taliban-like scenario emerge, that's not going to be particularly positive for a country like Jordan that has its own Muslim Brotherhood."
The U.S., Russia and Iran also have interests in Syria
Since the start of anti-Assad uprisings in 2011, the U.S. government has imposed a series of sanctions aimed at stopping violence against civilians.
Even so, President Biden, in a televised address on Sunday, expressed concern about the post-Assad government in Syria: "Make no mistake, some of the rebel groups who took down Assad have their own grim record of terrorism and human rights abuses," Biden said. "We've taken note of the statements by the leaders of these rebel groups in recent days and they're saying the right things now. But as they take on more responsibility, we will assess not just their words, but their actions."
Vakil says the administration wants "to curb the potential comeback of ISIS and other terrorist groups."
U.S. warplanes struck "dozens" of "ISIS leaders, operatives and camps" on Sunday, according to U.S. Central Command. On Monday, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said: "Centcom, together with allies and partners in the region, will continue to carry out operations to degrade ISIS capabilities, even during this dynamic period in Syria."
It's unclear, however, how long those efforts will last. President-elect Donald Trump as recently as this past weekend said the U.S. should stay out of the fighting in Syria, and during his first term flirted with removing all U.S. forces from the country.
About 900 U.S. troops are stationed in Syria, mostly in oil-rich areas controlled by Kurdish militia forces. Syria's economy is highly dependent on oil revenues and the presence of U.S. troops has denied the Assad regime access to those fields.
"Over the next six months, the United States is going to be in re-evaluation mode," Landis says. "If it wants good relations with this new state, it can't punish it forever by withholding the oil."
Russia — a staunch ally of Assad and the destination for his immediate exile after fleeing Syria over the weekend — appears to have little recourse but to accept the new reality in the country.
Moscow, in particular, is concerned about losing key military installations that its sees as a counterweight to NATO in the region — a naval base at Tartus on the Mediterranean coast and the Hmeimim air base in Syria's Latakia province. Reuters reports that Syria's new leaders have agreed to guarantee the safety of Russian military bases.
For Iran, losing Assad as an ally has further eroded its influence — especially after Israel's war against its regional proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. Hezbollah helped keep Assad in power, and the militant group has for years used Syria as a conduit to transfer weapons into Lebanon.
Speaking in Doha, Qatar, on Saturday, as Syrian rebels were closing in on Damascus, U.S. Envoy Amos Hochstein said Iran's withdrawal from Syria would "make it very difficult … to transfer weapons in."
"I definitely wouldn't write Russia out. And I will also say the same thing about Iran," Vakil says. "I think both countries will be looking to maybe not immediately, but over time and rekindle whatever ties they have for different purposes."
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