The Fall of Assad and the SAR: An Egyptian Perspective

On December 8th, Damascus was captured by Syrian opposition forces, aided by many foreign fighters, ending 60 years of Baathist rule. The fall of President Bashir Al-Assad and the Syrian Arab Republic (SAR) and the breaking of its backbone, the Russian and Iranian-supported Syrian Arab Army (SAA), has proven to be the most momentous event of 2024 across the Greater Middle East. It's likely to prove more important than the exchange of missiles between Israel and Iran, which both sides waged by limited means, most likely fearing the nuclear deterrent of the other side (yes it's entirely plausible with North Korean and covert Pakistani assistance that the Islamic Republic of Iran already has a few working nuclear bombs).

Moscow Prepares a Plan B for Basing its Forces Across the Med

In one week of military collapse following 14 years of grinding, external powers-fueled civil war, after a decade of direct Iranian and Russian intervention to support Assad, the SAR suddenly melted away, along with its military. Anti-Russian Westerners and think tank ists many of them long-time champions of the 'moderate rebels' plus the hard-pressed Zelensky government in Kiev naturally celebrated this fact. But Moscow has temporarily retained its bases at Kheimmim and the port of Tartus, albeit after withdrawing much of its personnel, entering into negotiations with the new Turkish-allied interim Syrian government about maintaining these valuable assets.

There are also media reports and published commercial satellite imagery indicating that the Kremlin has accelerated its Plan B, which is relocation of Russian troops and aircraft across the Mediterranean to the Libyan General Khalifa Haftar-ruled (and Egyptian-supported) LNA in the city of Tobruk. More on this development from an Egyptian perspective in a future ESW article. For now, it's safe to say any high-fives at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia over successfully driving the Russians out of the Mediterranean, where Moscow has maintained a permanent presence at Tartus since 1970, have been premature.

Most Syrians and Arabs Will Not Miss Assad

In the opinion of this Egyptian, few Arabs will feel sorry and tear up over the dissolution of the Syrian Baath Party. As far back as 1962, after the United Arab Republic of a jointly ruled UAR co-chaired by Cairo and Damascus fell apart, criticisms against the Baath party were stated by the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel El Nasser. The still widely-revered by Egyptians Nasser declared that the Baathists had made uncivil actions against the Syrian populace, valuing party membership over citizenship, and implementing discriminatory policies towards the vast majority of Syrians, regardless of their ethnicity and creed.

The sectarian issue of course, is one that concerns many observers, especially Greek and Syriac Orthodox and Catholic Christians, regarding what's been happening in Syria. Since Assad fled to Moscow, we've seen graphic videos of torture and revenge killings committed against Alawites, Mr. Assad's sect, as well as Sunni Muslim former SAA servicemen. There have also been ugly incidents of threats toward the Christian minority, including the burning of a Christmas tree by some takfiris near Hama, which set off Christian protests and prompted an apology and promises of stepped up security around churches by the interim authorities.

What Will Happen to the U.S.-Armed Syrian Kurds? Will They Disarm or Be Destroyed Per the Turkish Ultimatum?

The Western governments led by the U.S. that celebrated achieving their goal of Assad's ouster are seeking to re-establish embassies in Damascus. Naturally they do not want to have the PR problem of anti-Christian progroms and will put pressure on the Turks and especially Qatari donors to the new government to prevent such. The more explosive issue is the fate of the Allawite minority which has kept arms and explosives from the scattered SAA and hints of an Iraqi Baathists in 2003-style insurgency against the new authorities.

Of course, the biggest headache for US-Turkish relations as the second Trump Administration takes office is the Kurdish minority, the latter refusing Turkish ultimatums to disarm U.S.-armed YPG militias that Ankara alleges are allied with the PKK separatist-terrorists inside Turkey. There are also still 2,000 U.S. troops inside Syria with these numbers recently being 'adjusted' upward in the media, almost certainly because the Pentagon anticipated the rebels would make significant gains even if the Americans themselves were surprised by the speed of the SAA's collapse.

U.S. Used 'Reformed' Al-Qaeda for Its Successful Overthrow of Assad

While people may debate over the Arab Spring and whether it proved beneficial to the region, or was a series of Color Revolutions backed by the CIA (US), MI6 (UK), DGSE (France) etc, or Turkey's role in the Syrian Civil War amid Erdoğan's Neo-Ottoman rhetoric, the fact is most Syrians are either apathetic or pleased that Assad is gone. And many Syrians have welcomed the relative stability, Turkish lira, re-opened schools and clinics the Turks' occupation has brought over the last few years to the Idlib region, where foreign fighters were also concentrated after their defeats by the SAA, Hezbollah and Russian airpower. In December Turkey seized power in the vacuum created by its Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) 'ex' Al-Qaeda proxies, many of them former guests of the U.S. Army's notorious Camp Bucca 'jihad university' in Iraq. That is, as has been well-documented, despite their denials, Langley turned many of their erstwhile 'reformed' Al-Qaeda in Iraq enemies into useful proxies to overthrow Assad and succeeded.

Israel Has Expanded Its Territorial Grip on the Golan Heights and Beyond

Meanwhile, as the 'Axis of Resistance' has warned, Israel is taking advantage of Assad's downfall and the chaos in Damascus by seizing land deep inside southern Syria, well past the deepest extent of its advance during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Israeli conquests include the strategic height of Mount Hermon on the Lebanese border, putting the IDF at the outskirts just twenty miles or less from central Damascus while flanking the south Lebanon stronghold of its Hezbollah enemy from the east. Whether the Israelis will begin to construct settlements through the entire Golan Heights and further extend their buffer zone, and whether Turkey will follow up on Erdogan's rhetoric to reclaim its historic Ottoman province of Aleppo de jure and not just de facto remain to be seen.

Turkey is Not Going to Clash Directly With Israel and Is a Long Way from Standing Up a Turkish Armed and Trained New Syrian Army

Erdoğan and his Foreign Minister former Turkish intel chief Hakan Fidan have condemned Israel's land grab and promised to stand up a new Turkish-trained and equipped Syrian Army with modern Turkish air defenses, drones and artillery. But this process will obviously take many months, transforming militia men into soldiers. Syria's decades old and modern Russian-provided air defense systems have either been withdrawn by Moscow so as not to fall into the rebels' (and possibly through them the Ukrainians) hands, or been destroyed by widespread Israeli air strikes on abandoned SAA depots, so Israeli Air Force jets have free reign over south-central Syria. As 'Axis of Resistance' critics of Erdoğan like to point out, for all Ankara's condemnation of Israeli actions in Gaza and Lebanon, Iraqi Kurdistan and Azerbaijan-originating crude continues to flow through Turkish pipelines to the Mediterranean, and hence by tanker to refineries in Haifa.

Egypt's Policy: Work with and Support the New Authorities in Damascus

What's clear is that 2025 will bring a new Middle East, one regional powers like Egypt and its key allies the UAE and Saudi Arabia will have to carefully navigate. We should note that Egypt and Turkey have been working to improve relations, recently exchanging visits by heads of state and foreign ministers.

Cairo's perspective on the Syrian situation is simple, the Egyptian State believes in non-negotiable principals, which are:

The supreme authority of Syria is the central government which is based out of Damascus, the Egyptian state has dealt with the Syrian State on the basis of it being Baathist for the last 60 years, and will deal with a successor government, no matter who actually controls Damascus. As long as there is a centralized government that fully controls the capital, that is the legitimate representative of the Syrian state.

Egypt does not believe in the model of a militia state, only on the model of a single, centralized national army, Ahmed Al-Saraa (better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani) stated last week that all militias will dissolve and join the new (Turkish armed and trained) Syrian Army. Thus, one more item has been crossed off Cairo's list of non-negotiables.

The U.S. Occupation of Syria Should End

The legitimate Syrian government should be the only state that controls all the land inside Syria, this automatically means condemnation of the Israeli occupation zone in southern Syria, and the American occupation in Syria’s Euphrates River valley and U.S.-occupied zone along the Jordanian border. Any attempt to secede from Syria by the U.S. armed and trained Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—which has entrenched itself in the ethnic-majority area of Syrian Kurdistan, while retaining some American-trained Sunni Muslim fighters—is unacceptable.

Fortunately, President Donald Trump indicated a preference in his first term for withdrawing American troops from Syria, despite being rebuffed in this desire by his own Congressional GOP allies, the Joint Chiefs and Pentagon during his first term. With Assad's ouster, declaring 'mission accomplished' is now politically expedient for Trump to please his 'America First' voters, as his natural businessman preference is to cut deals with the Turks and Gulf States. The GCC and Arab League persuading the Israelis and Turks to end their long-term occupations of Syria appears to be an unlikely prospect.

Egypt Can Aid Syria in GCC-Funded Reconstruction Projects

Overall, the Egyptian perspective to the current events in Syria is rather mellow, as long as the leading actors abide by international law, there is no issue. Egypt will deal with whoever controls Damascus. As long as there is an intact Syrian state, there will be deals. And there's money to be made for Egyptian engineers and construction firms working alongside the Turks in rebuilding the country, including projects funded by Egypt's closest partners from the GCC in the UAE and KSA.