The downfall of Syria’s Assad regime is a heartening assertion of freedoms which urgently need to be preserved in the face of regional and global power-brokers, just as much as against domestic opponents. Syria’s tangled history, geography and politics ensure both elements are in play as the new government is formed and relates to neighbouring states.
The country deserves maximum international support as it confronts the mammoth tasks of establishing a new political and legal order, stabilising its regions, organising humanitarian aid and beginning reconstruction.
Regional powers have a special responsibility here. Although the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham movement leading the revolt has roots in radical Islamism and is classified as terrorist by major powers, its leadership has ruled the region it dominates pragmatically and says it wants an inclusive Syria for the country’s minorities. Those commitments will be severely tested as it confronts the old regime’s remnants, and realises just how fragmented are the regions and how impoverished its economy and state coffers.
Turkey has emerged as the principal regional power-broker and supporter of the new regime, but has its own distinct interests in the Kurdish area where it has established a buffer zone.
‘My ex has broken up with me six times in eight years. How do I break the cycle?’
Wellness staycations around Ireland: Self-improvement breaks right on your doorstep
Breda O’Brien: Nicole Kidman’s Babygirl isn’t the ‘hottest film this year’. It might be among the most depressing
Pat Leahy: Angry Dáil scenes were partly the result of Sinn Féin’s determination to be a more aggressive Opposition
Israel too acted swiftly and pre-emptively to create a security zone beyond the Golan Heights and to destroy Syrian arms dumps and military facilities. Its interest is to push back Hizbollah and its state sponsor Iran further after the campaign against them in Lebanon.
Iran and Russia proved unable to support the Assad regime militarily and have suffered a major loss of regional leverage as a result, as has the Shia regime in neighbouring Iraq. Arab states such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and in the Gulf are assessing how to fill that vacuum and avoid any popular spillover from the Syrian rebellion to their own regimes. The horrors being perpetrated on Palestinians in Gaza shape the backdrop to all of these regional shifts.
The United States is also assessing its strategic interest in the transformed Syria, including whether to lift its terrorist classification of the new leaders and if the incoming Trump administration will keep the 900 troops based in the Kurdish area to counter Islamist extremism, which cuts across Turkey’s role. The US, like China, has been relatively passive so far, as Middle Eastern powers take prominence.
That opens up room for multilateralism, from the United Nations and also from the European Union. The EU and its members have a real diplomatic responsibility here. Collectively, they are potentially major beneficiaries of the stability flowing from a peaceful, thriving and reconstructed Syria, or losers if it reverts to a chaotic domestic disorder stoked by regional powers.
