The half-century-old Assad family dictatorship collapsed yesterday (Sunday), just 11 days after rebel forces suddenly broke through the stalemate, and 13 years (plus a half million deaths) after Assad’s brutal crackdown on protestors tipped his country into civil war.
He said he’d address the nation on Saturday night but he fled to Moscow instead, leaving behind some remarkable scenes: a highway littered with abandoned army uniforms; randoms wandering into his palaces to peruse his collection of DVDs (with Borat) and cars (he was a Ferrari guy); political prisoners staggering out into the sunlight, bleary-eyed; and Syrian diplomats abroad posting footage of jubilation at their embassies.
So, what happened? Assad was being propped up by Russian air support and Hezbollah ground support, but both were spread thin thanks to Ukraine and Israel respectively. So the rebels gave Assad’s regime a nudge, and it wobbled before collapsing, just like that.
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And what happens next? Here are four key questions we’re tracking:
- Who’s now in control?
As we wrote last week, the dominant opposition faction is led by 42-year-old Abu Mohammed al-Golani. While he publicly cut various extremist ties in 2016, his Al Qaeda origin story means there’s still a few terrorist listings plus a $10M US bounty on his head.
And while yes, it was Golani who led Assad’s ousting, his ~25,000 troops aren’t enough to actually run what he’s just conquered. For that, he really needs buy-in from Syria’s other factions. And yet the one thing uniting them all (opposition to Assad) just vanished.
So what to do? Golani is continuing his epic rebrand, vowing to protect minorities and build a Syria for all, after a peaceful transition under the supervision of Assad’s own prime minister. His aim is not only to win over local factions, but also the international community at large. And a key test for both will be how he treats the Alawites, for example — they’re the Assads’ minority sect, seen by many as heretical for their faith (a Shiite offshoot) and/or politics (pro-Assad).
History and human nature leave us doubting whether he can pull this off. By way of example, let’s look at…
- How have outside powers responded?
Geopolitics abhors a vacuum, and yet that’s exactly what Syria’s neighbours and others will have seen once Assad fled to Moscow. Making things more complex is Syria’s bewildering ethno-religious demography, and its strategic geography (a pipeline for Iraqi and Egyptian oil, and a transit route for Iranian weapons to its proxies like Hezbollah).
So with that high stakes and low trust atmosphere, every player with means has already made a move: Turkey has (again) hit various rival Kurdish groups; Israel has seized more land along the Golan Heights; and the US has launched airstrikes on ISIS strongholds.
As for those without the means? Iran evacuated its own advisors, and Russia’s naval ships left their Tartus base in Syria. Which leads us to…
- What does this tell us about Putin?
Well, it tells us his resolve is rock solid, until it isn’t. Which really means it never was.
It’s unclear what now happens with his two main bases in Syria, but he’ll be loath to lose them given the way they expand his reach and connect Moscow to his footprint in Africa.
It’s all a vivid reminder of the dilemma Putin has put himself in: sustain the Assad regime, or his invasion of Ukraine; plug manpower gaps on the frontlines, or plug them back on the arms production lines. And so on. But as Assad just learned, Putin can’t do it all.
And that, in turn, is also a vivid reminder of the limits to Putin’s a) ✌️red lines✌️, b) his specific vision for a multipolar world; and even c) his basic strategy to get there: yes, he’ll push ahead when his rivals hesitate (as the world did after Assad gassed his own people, or after Putin first invaded Crimea), but he’ll quietly retreat when he’s losing (as he’s now done in both the Black Sea and Syria).
- And what does this tell us about authoritarians?
First, their power can be brittle. While Syria looked like a stalemate, pressure was building as the rebels regrouped and Assad’s allies re-focused elsewhere, until something (Assad) snapped. To paraphrase the Hemingway line, it was gradual, then sudden. A little like turning 40.
That’s why folks celebrating on the streets are chanting “forever is over”, a reference to the regime’s motto of “forever al-Assad“. His rule was going to last forever, until it didn’t. And regimes everywhere will have taken note — there are already rumours of an internal blame-game playing out in Tehran, which feels risky when your supreme leader is 85.
Second, these regimes can’t just decree power back into existence. Assad tried to bolster his position by giving his conscripts a 50% payrise last week. But after a decade of malaise, an extra 50% of diddly is still diddly.
And third, it’ll erode claims elsewhere that the only option when dealing with authoritarians is ‘respecting the reality on the ground’: rather, Syria’s rag-tag opposition has offered a reminder that sometimes, you can just reshape that reality yourself.
INTRIGUE’S TAKE
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” But folks often drop off the second part of his quote: “One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.”
There are multiple opposing ideas at play in Syria right now, but Intriguers can handle them all:
- Yes, sometimes the only thing worse than a brutal dictatorship is the dictatorship that comes next, if not the outright anarchy. And yet that’s not necessarily a reason for any particular dictatorship to persist.
- Yes, we’re in a bizarre situation with NATO allies the US and Turkey each backing rival factions in Syria, but that’s not a reason to cede space to ISIS; and
- Yes, there’s a dilemma around how to engage with Golani given his murky past, but it’s a dilemma that still now offers Syria even a glimmer of hope.
Also worth noting:
- One of the many mysteries of Assad’s regime is what happened to American journalist Austin Tice, kidnapped 12 years ago. There are rumours he’s still alive.
- Intrigue’s very own John, Helen, and Jeremy will shortly appear live on 2WAY to chat further about Syria: it’ll be Monday evening from ~6pm in New York, ~11pm in London, and ~8am Tuesday morning in Tokyo. Join us here.
