In eleven days, Bashar al-Assad fell.
Almost 14 years after the outbreak of the uprising in Syria, which many thought was dead, time has sped up sharply.
And the map of the Middle East may be redrawn from scratch.
The fall followed two more cataclysmic events, which led to the — according to some analysts — collapse of the camp adjacent to Iran.
The first was Israel's beheading of the military staff of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.
The second is the assassination in Iran of the leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Ismail Haniya, also attributed to Israel.
It was about two key allies of the deposed Syrian president.
The lightning advance of the radical Islamists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, the former Syrian arm of al-Qaeda, which assures that it has severed all ties with it) and rebel organizations close to Turkey has taken the world by storm. Syrians themselves, friendly and hostile countries, experts, journalists — no one was looking at Damascus, the focus of attention was on the Gaza Strip and Lebanon for over a year.
President Assad appeared immovable, but the striking power of his main allies, Iran, Russia, and also Hezbollah, appeared to be waning, if not collapsing.
He even started procedures to normalize relations with other Arab countries.
All of this dissipated in a few 24 hours. Syrians trample statues of Hafez al-Assad. His son, Bashar, fled.
After Hamas's unprecedented raid against southern sectors of Israel on October 7, 2023, Iran and the "axis of resistance" have been embroiled in a war that, analysts say, has exposed the Islamic Republic's weaknesses.
Hezbollah suffered heavy blows in the war against Israel: its leadership was decimated. Above all, it lost its iconic leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Its supply routes of arms and money from Tehran, hammered by Israel into Iranian soil, are now threatened by the new rulers in Damascus — who have certainly not forgotten its key role in crushing the rebellion.
Other powers adjacent to the Islamic Republic, Yemen and Iran, important pawns for harassing US allies or Sunni regional powers, retain their potential to be a nuisance — but are unlikely to ever upend the status quo.
For Andreas Krieg of King's College London, "the axis of resistance is losing its international dimension and its regional strategic depth."
As for Russia, it remains locked in the war with Ukraine and is soon at risk of suffering a major loss: that of its largest naval base in the Middle East, at Tartus, on the Syrian coast in the Mediterranean. "It's hard to imagine that the new socio-political order in Damascus will allow the Russians to stay, after all they've done for the Assad regime," discounts Mr. Krieg.
On the other hand, Turkey, the protectorate of rebel organizations that participated in the attack, is "the big winner", he believes. However, it may "have influence," but not "control," he points out.
Especially since the Middle East is facing the risk of "war everywhere" with the prospect of "the return of Donald Trump", adds Aaron Lund of the Century International research center.
After "the fall of the Assad regime, questions are raised about his replacement" and how long "it will take" for a new situation to take shape. "We're going to see all kinds of regional consequences," he warned.
In Syria, since 2011 influence has often been measured in petrodollars, distributed among the various anti-regime factions.
Until the Gulf countries — and even the United Arab Emirates — were forced by circumstances to talk again with the once pariah Assad, an ally of their black sheep, Iran.
Now, they are faced with something even worse: "those who were panicking about the Muslim Brotherhood see in Damascus the Muslim Brotherhood in their thousandth strength, much more militant and hostile towards them", according to Mr. Lund.
In the meantime, Israel, like other countries in the region, is waiting for the card that, when dealt again in January, may completely change the game.
From Rabat to Riyadh, passing through Tehran and Khartoum, leaders and their opponents are hoping to secure favors from Donald Trump, known for his trade-off diplomacy.
He has already said, with his characteristic athyrostomy, that the "brothel" of Syria was not "the battle" of Washington.
In any case, the Republican will find before him another Middle East.
Mr. Krieg speaks of "the end of the myth of the stability of authoritarian regimes", and a "warning to the Haftars, the Sisi and the Sagets of this world".
It refers respectively to the civil-military leader of Libya, Khalifa Haftar, to the president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and to the president of Tunisia, Qais Saget.
In 2011, during the so-called Arab Spring, authoritarian regimes that had ruled for decades were overthrown in all three of these countries.
Source: protothema.gr
