Geopolitics Review - 20th January 2025

Syria Looking Forward

Contents

1. Introduction

2. The Latest Developments

3. Looking Forward

4. Concluding Remarks

5. Other News In Geopolitics This Week

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Bitesize Edition

• Over the past month, I’ve released posts on the history of Syria and the events that led to and occurred throughout the Syrian Civil War. Today, I’ll dive into the collapse of the Assad Regime and its aftermath. With the collapse unfolding over a month ago, more pieces have fallen into place, while others remain to be placed on the field of play.

• Despite the pace of HTS’ moves against the former Assad Regime, they are still far from controlling the entirety of Syria. The Kurds remain in the North East, and Israel is pushing further into the Golan Heights. Multiple states and non-state actors remain interested in the future of Syria and will influence its direction moving forward. Who are these groups, and how will they interact with one another? Let’s dive in.

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Introduction

In this final part of my miniseries on Syria, we’ll look towards the future. What scenarios could Syria see itself heading towards over the coming months and years, and how will these shifts within Syria affect the Middle East and the wider world?

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The Latest Developments

By some accounts, the rebels informed Turkey that they were hoping to launch an assault on the Assad regime over six months ago. This was approved by the Turks without anybody else’s knowledge, but it wasn’t expected to be as successful as it was. When the scale of the surrendering of Assad’s forces was clear, the United States and Israel moved to take advantage of the situation.

There were whisperings in recent months of the potential for improved Turkey-Syria relations. If this had occurred, would we have seen the fall of Assad? The Turks offered Assad normalisation in exchange for aid against the Kurds in Northern Syria. The weaver of the geopolitical timeline that Syria has travelled through appears to be the Turks, who had both sides in the palm of their hands. When it became clear that a deal with Assad wouldn’t occur, the rebel strategy unfolded. Even without direct involvement, the Turkish would have ended in a stronger geopolitical position. They set up the playing field, and so it comes as no shock when they ultimately found themselves in a winning position.

So, who are the rebels? The group known as HTS controlled territory in Syria’s north, in the Idlib province. However, we’ve come to know the group better through their leader, who we saw in an interview with CNN on December 6th. He is a former member of Al Qaeda who says he has put this past behind him. Previously, he was known as Al-Julani but now goes by Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Photo by Mahmoud Sulaiman on Unsplash

He states in the interview that a huge contributing reason to this occurring now was the institutions formed in the liberated areas in Idlib, and the military reforms that also occurred, bringing together many different groups with one common goal to remove the Assad regime. His group through ruling in Idlib for many years have established what they call the Syrian Salvation Government which includes a Prime Minister and government departments. It has functioned with state-like features since 2017. However, HTS is still a designated terrorist organisation, with a $10M bounty on al-Julani in the United States (this has since been removed). The leader also stated he would ensure all groups and minorities within Syria would be allowed to live there and would be fully respected for their beliefs. The group has, however, arrested critics in Idlib in the past. Al-Julani says he would like to be judged by his actions, not his words. The world will certainly be waiting patiently to do just this.

Secular rule under Assad was seen as a tyrannical system. Hence the new leadership is pursuing something different. They will pursue Islamist rule with Sharia Law, but even then, HTS has stated that they don’t particularly know what this system of rule will look like. Syria remains in a state of flux.

We now turn to the geopolitical actors who have benefited from this situation and those who have suffered.

Did Turkey, the United States, and Israel work together in this? Turkey-backed rebel groups in Syria for years such as the SNA and if Syria becomes more stable, the Turks will have less of a refugee crisis to manage and could focus attention on the Kurds. Since the collapse, the United States has bombed ISIS targets in Syria to ensure they couldn’t gain strength amid the chaos, and Israel created a buffer zone in the Golan Heights and has pushed into Syria proper.

Russia is preoccupied in Ukraine, but also held exercises in the Eastern Mediterranean, and launched airstrikes on some rebels in Syria. Russia, however, is q clear loser here. They have lost two bases, an air base in Hmeinim and a naval base in Tartus. They were spotted pulling equipment out of their only Mediterranean Naval base, and the air base was frequently used as a bounce point for Russians heading to Africa. These assets have been relocated to Eastern Libya.

Some analysts have stated Russia’s attempted constitutional reform in Syria from the Astana Summit, rejected by Assad, could return to the table. However, with Russia cutting their losses and leaving Syria completely, the chances of this occurring are dramatically slim.

Before the collapse, Iran sent militias from Iraq to help maintain the Assad Regime, since they benefited from the land corridor connecting Iran-proper, through Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, giving Iran access to the Mediterranean. Now, a part of that path has been destroyed. Iran is most certainly one of the biggest losers in this event, and the speed at which the Syrian Government declined is the opposite of a show of strength for the Iranians. The Iranians have also lost their front-line access to Israel, and a bridge to a weakened Hezbollah in Lebanon.

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Looking Forward