WASHINGTON – The stunning overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by Islamist rebels half a century after his family came to power raises an old question when it comes to regime change in the Middle East: Will the new government troops behave better than those deposed?
“The Assad regime has fallen,” President Biden said Sunday at the White House. “It is a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering Syrian people.”
“It is also a moment of risk and uncertainty as we all turn to the question of what comes next,” Biden said.
Within weeks, the rebels achieved what the United Nations, the United States and other Western powers had long tried but failed. The Russian government announced late Sunday local time that Assad and his family had arrived in Moscow and would receive asylum, Russian state news agencies reported.
Assad's decades of brutal rule have left Syria ethnically, religiously and politically fragmented. The victorious uprising is also divided. The leading group, Hayat Tahrir al Sham, known as HTS, traces its roots to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda terrorist organizations but claims to have reformed.
Washington has long been concerned about HTS's rise to power and continues to label it a terrorist group, which will complicate any dealings with it.
The rebel victory also throws regional relations into disarray. It represents a major setback for Assad's allies Iran and Russia while strengthening Turkey, which backed the HTS and is likely to be Washington's main intermediary with Syria's new leaders.
The U.S. backed another rebel group, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish militia that helped defeat the Islamic State but which Turkey considers a terrorist group.
Clashes between the SDF and Turkish-backed factions were already reported on Sunday.
Israel, meanwhile, is happy about the departure of an Iranian-backed Assad, but not exactly thrilled about having Islamist leaders next door. The country has already developed a buffer zone along the border between the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights and Syria and participated in the bombing of a small number of sites in Syria.
In any case, Syria's immediate future will be an unstable and potentially violent mix of competing groups, intense power struggles and scores to settle. Worst-case scenarios include a worsening civil war or the once-prosperous and now devastated country turning into a haven for militants like the Islamic State.
After 24 hours of monitoring what the White House called “extraordinary” developments in Syria, Biden convened his National Security Council on Sunday for updates and planning before speaking to the American public.
“We will remain vigilant,” Biden said, pledging to keep the militants at bay and “do everything we can to support the Syrian people and help restore Syria after more than a decade of war and a generation of brutality.” to restore the Assad family.” ”
In contrast, Donald Trump, who becomes president in about six weeks, said on his social media platform that the US should “stay out of this.” “This is not our fight,” he said.
Similarly, as president in 2019, he declared that “someone else should be fighting” in Syria and, in a widely criticized move, ordered the withdrawal of most U.S. troops stationed there to clear the way for Turkey to invade and destroy the Kurds United States attack allies.
Several hundred US soldiers remain in Syria, officially to counteract a resurgence of the Islamic State.
But other problems loom that could require a U.S. role, officials said.
Syria will need enormous amounts of humanitarian aid, especially as some of the millions of citizens who fled as refugees in the last decade of war return to the ruins of their former homes.
US officials also expressed critical concern about Assad's large stockpile of weapons, including missiles and chemical weapons, which could fall into rebel hands. Assad famously used chemical weapons against his own people to crush rebellion and dissent.
Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's nominee for director of national intelligence, expressed support for Assad after a visit to Syria in 2017. She said she doubted U.S. intelligence reports that he had used chemical weapons in his country.
For many ordinary Syrians, however, what matters most is how minorities are treated. Some, such as the Alawite Shiite Muslim faction to which Assad's family belonged, as well as some Kurds and Christians, are seen as collaborators with the regime. Most rebels are Sunni Muslims.
The first government to congratulate the opposition's victory in Syria was Afghanistan's radically conservative and repressive Islamic Taliban.
Ahmed Sharaa, the bearded commander of the HTS, has sought to portray the group as a reformed and more moderate faction than its previous associations suggest. He has preached tolerance and pluralism, although his rule over Syria's Idlib province, where HTS held sway, demonstrated only the most minimal version of these policies. For example, Christians were allowed to attend church.
“These sects have existed side by side in the region for hundreds of years,” he said in an interview with CNN last week as the rebels advanced toward Damascus. “No one has the right to wipe out another group.”
He promised a “transition to a state of governance and institutions” and even suggested that HTS could disband after it achieved its military victory.
That would be a very unusual transition in the Middle East, where players who gain power tend to keep it.
The Assad regime began in 1970 with Bashar's father Hafez. With a treacherous secret service, the routine imprisonment and torture of dissidents, and iron control of the media and public speech, the Assads maintained a cruel and violent control over the Syrian population.
The 2011 Arab Spring protests led to a brutal crackdown and eventual civil war that left an estimated 500,000 people dead.
Assad remained in power with military help from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed political and military faction based in Lebanon. Over the last year or so, these three allies all lost their ability to defend it.
Russia is overwhelmed in its almost three-year war in Ukraine. Iran was ravaged externally by Israel, while internally there was discord and economic turmoil. And Hezbollah has been significantly weakened by Israeli assassinations and bombings.
Syria's new leadership is expected to close Russia's air base and port on the Mediterranean coast. Iran has lost much, if not all, of its land and air routes to Lebanon and Hezbollah, its proxy there.
In his speech on Sunday, Biden claimed that the latest turn of events in Syria, however uncertain the future may be, is partly to blame.
“Our approach has shifted the balance of power in the Middle East through this combination of support for our partners, sanctions, diplomacy and targeted military force when necessary,” he said.