In a trice everything changed in Syria as the 50-year rule of the Assad family ended and the government collapsed, caving in to a lightning offensive of the rebels. The power equations in one of the world’s hottest of hot spots changed instantly with President Bashar al-Assad fleeing the country and leaving the superpowers and regional powers with an interest in Syria rapidly reassessing their positions in a region of raging wars and conflicts.
Having propped up the repressive Assad regime for 14 years during a civil war with troops to support his forces and jets to bomb his enemies of whom there were many in his own country, the Russian patrons of the dictator seemed to look the other way. Russia’s attritional war with Ukraine may have seen it being too preoccupied to react in time as a coalition of rebels advanced in just days from the northwest of the country through Aleppo, Hama and Homs to the gates of Damascus.
Iran, a steadfast backer of the dynastic autocrat Assad, had built military bases and weapons warehouses and missile factories in Syria even as it used its supply chain to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran had lately been so concerned with what is coming in Trump’s America that it seemed to hold back the Hezbollah militia from helping the government defence of cities, which quickly became non-existent as soldiers shed their uniforms or surrendered to the rebels.
So confident were the rebels of their advance just three days ago that they rang our newspaper office asking whether a reporter could fly out to Damascus to observe their victory. The ripples of their stunning victory that was capped by the Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali offering to facilitate the regime change will be felt not only in Israel, Iran and Turkey, all of whom had taken a hand in assisting the fight in one way or the other, but also in war-weary Russia and in the US where incoming President Donald Trump has said that the Americans have nothing to do with what is going in Syria now.
The change in tune of the leader of the Sunni rebels of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Ahmed al-Shaara, may be music to the ears of those who support democratic ways as he promised to preserve the Shiite shrines and strive to ask for the formal support of the people soon. Of course, this represents a dramatic transformation as his HTS is still listed as a “terrorist organisation” by the United States. After having fought years to contain ISIS in Iraq, the US said it will maintain a presence in eastern Syria to ensure that the group stays defeated.
No country will be more pleased than Israel whose security anxieties may be mitigated with one less front to anticipate attacks from and which could use the development in Syria to extend its dominant presence in the region. The greater fear is whether the country will now become a more dangerous haven as a base of terrorism as myriad militant groups are in play as well as the prisoners of Syria, who were tortured in the Assad regime’s labyrinthine jail system, and who were all released in a day – free to pursue their own interests, militant or otherwise.
