The fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria is at the heart of a major shift in the geopolitics of the Middle East. Assad’s departure brings with it changes in the positions and behaviours of some of the region’s most powerful state and non-state actors. This will set the scene for a new Middle East, one marked by increasing pragmatism.
The western media is rife with commentary raising concerns that Syria could turn into a new Afghanistan, and that Islamist extremists could take over the country. The reality is that Assad’s fall is partly the result of the interests of multiple actors, from inside and outside Syria, coming together. Islamists, mainly Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)—the armed group that led the military campaign to oust Assad—are only a part of this larger picture. Such groups are not setting the agenda in Syria. And while Islamists will play a key role in the country’s political transition, viewing the various factions through a purely ideological lens skews our understanding of these highly complex political developments.
It is neither in the interests of Syrians, nor in the interests of the international actors with a stake in Syria’s political transition, for a group like HTS to take over from Assad. Neither wants Syria to remain internationally isolated, and neither wants the country to be ruled by a group that foreign countries such as the UK proscribe as terrorist, or that will cause the international community to hesitate about supporting reconstruction and economic development in Syria. When the transition process begins, HTS, which has already reinvented itself, will eventually go through another phase of rebranding to gain a seat at the table. Other Syrian actors from across the political spectrum, including former regime figures, will occupy the remaining seats.
Arab states in the Gulf already have good diplomatic relations with both the United States and Russia. The fall of Assad paves the way for alignment between those actors on the future of Syria, which goes beyond the stand-off between Washington and Moscow. This geopolitical recalibration will be aided by the incoming US administration’s goal of settling the conflict in Ukraine. Given this context, these external actors are more likely to accept a degree of compromise in their engagement on Syria, rather than pursuing a zero-sum game.
Turkey, like the Gulf states, enjoys good relationships with the US and Russia. Being a backer of the Syrian rebel groups that have taken credit for toppling Assad increases Turkey’s opportunities for political, security, and economic influence in Syria in the long-term. While Turkey’s standoff with Syria’s Kurds is ongoing, the increase in geopolitical pragmatism sparked by the developments in Syria is an opportunity for the US and its allies to support a compromise on the Turkish-Kurdish issue.
Iran, meanwhile, will be an outlier. Having invested heavily in the Assad regime, Tehran finds itself isolated. The business contracts Iran had signed with the Syrian state are now obsolete, and Russian businesses are likely to acquire some of them. Having lost both its military and political roles in Syria, Iran’s influence in the country will be reduced to soft power. Coupled with the defeat of Hezbollah by Israel, the loss of Assad means that Iran’s status as the Levant’s dominant geopolitical actor has ended.
Iran’s loss in the Levant has wider repercussions, too. Gulf Arab states will have more political power in the region as a result of their pragmatism about Syria. Other Arab countries that have been under significant Iranian influence, mainly Iraq and Yemen, will be pushed to balance their positions accordingly, instead of remaining on the Iranian sinking ship. In Iraq, the leadership of the state-sponsored Popular Mobilisation Forces, usually allied with Iran, has already announced that the events leading up to Assad’s fall were an internal Syrian matter. The Houthis in Yemen have not declared a clear position. However, the unfolding regional events make it more likely that the group will accept political compromise to end Yemen’s war on terms more favourable to Saudi Arabia and its allies.
The degradation of Iran’s proxies is welcome news for Israel, Syria’s neighbour to the south, which will capitalise on the situation to increase its clout in the region. Israel is already extending its military presence in the Golan Heights and border regions in southern Lebanon. The Netanyahu government is also hoping it can cash in on Israel's contribution to the weakening of Iran’s influence in order to widen the scope of normalisation with Arab countries. Such a trajectory is likely to be supported by the incoming Trump administration.
Domestically, with Assad gone, Syria can begin to reverse the hollowing out of the state, a process instigated by Bashar al-Assad when the war in Syria began 14 years ago. Meanwhile, through the dramatic changes in the country, Syria’s new political leaders have positioned themselves at the heart of a regional geopolitical shift—a shift that would not have happened without them. It was their actions and decisions which, after all, and in little more than a week, saw a stubborn and cruel regime turn to dust.
