The collapse of the Bashar-al Assad regime in Syria was unexpected; more so as Assad appeared to have Syria in control except for the area near the border with Turkiye, and was now acceptable to the Arab leaders who had once treated him like a pariah. Yet, the end came swiftly with the Syrian army offering no resistance. The end of the Assad dynasty’s rule has changed the power equation in West Asia. There has been a dramatic reshuffle on the chess board of the region. The Russia-Syria-Iran axis has been broken. Supporters of the Sunni rebels, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and other Gulf-Arab states will now be calling the shots. The US and its European allies are delighted because Bashar al Assad, with his close ties to Iran and Russia was the enemy on the ground.

The Assad regime, despite its many faults, was largely secular and did not discriminate on the basis of religion. On a visit to Syria just before the civil war began, a nun in a convent-seminary on the outskirts of Damascus was terrified at the prospect of the Sunni rebels taking over the country. There were widespread rumours that Idlib and other areas adjoining Turkiye were under the control of rebel forces. "It will be only a matter of time before they enter Damascus and take over the country,’’ said Agastha, a Catholic nun. "We will probably all be shot dead as kafirs,’’ she predicted. This was before 2011, when the fighting really started and the civil war was in full force. She was also surprised that the "Christian nations like the US and Europeans do not understand our plight and the threat to our church.’’ Sister Agastha was unaware of geo-politics and strategic interests of nations that made for strange bedfellows.

Peaceful takeover of Damascus

So far, the main rebel group led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has acted responsibly. He has instructed his fighters not to shoot at civilians, ensure that public property is not damaged and assured minority Christians, Alawites, and Druze that they will not be harmed. However, considering that the rebel fighters are made up of diverse groups with different ideologies, the fear that radical elements will take control is always there. European leaders are aware of this. German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock warned that “the country must not now fall into the hands of other radicals”. France has also said as much. Meanwhile, the US has begun air strikes across Syria from late Sunday in an effort to get at "the ISIS leaders, operatives and camps’’, the US Central Command said in a statement. It also warned ``CENTCOM, together with allies and partners in the region, will continue to carry out operations to degrade” ISIS’s capabilities even during what CENTCOM called “this dynamic period in Syria.” The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is a dreaded terror group that carried out the most brutal killings and terrorized European capitals. It was at its most powerful during 2015 when it held territory in both Iraq and Syria. By 2017, it lost ground; today it operates in certain pockets in Syria.

The US is hoping to neutralise the ISIS and ensure it does not emerge again as the transition process begins in Syria. Israel also bombarded certain areas in Syria to destroy remnants of the regime's chemical factories.

The big winner here is Turkey’s strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had backed the various factions of Sunni rebels ranged against the minority Alawite dynasty. Alawites are a sect of Shias and Erdogan sees himself as one of the most prominent leaders of Sunni Islam, challenging Saudi Arabia’s dominant position. As the keepers of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest shrines of Sunni Islam, Saudi Arabia enjoys a special status among Sunni Muslims. However, despite their rivalry Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, the UAE as well as other Arab sheikdoms were together in their support for the rebel factions.

Erdogan has been fighting not just the Asad regime but the Kurds in both his own country and in Syria. He is now in a commanding position as his years of support for the Sunni rebels will give him considerable leverage with the new government, whenever it takes control in Damascus. Syrian Kurds are concentrated in the north-eastern part of the country that borders Turkiye and Iraq. Erdogan has been fighting Kurds in his own country and regards Syrian Kurds too with a great deal of suspicion. The US has backed Syrian Kurds, who, thanks to the civil war and the weakness of the Asad regime, were able to enjoy a certain degree of autonomy. This could be threatened by the next government in Damascus and lead to confrontation between the US and Turkiye. The US has military bases in the Kurdish area of Syria.

Erdogan has been fighting the Kurdistan Workers Party or the PKK, in his own country. The PKK has long waged an insurgency for greater political and cultural rights in Turkiye.

Besides Turkiye, other winners are the US and the West. Asad was backed to the hilt by Russia and his regime would have collapsed much earlier without Russian troops on the ground. President Vladimir Putin’s involvement in Syria gave him a foothold in West Asia and helped Russia to pull far above its weight in the region. Assad had allowed Moscow a naval base in Tartous and an air base in Latakia. Tartous is a large port city in Syria, second only to Latakia. The naval base gave Russia a strategic presence in the region while the airbase had made it easy for Russia to enhance its strike capability. The new government whenever the power transition is done is unlikely to allow Moscow these privileges.

With Russian troops busy in the Ukraine front, there was no help forthcoming from Putin. Washington will be delighted by the fact that Russia’s influence in Syria and the region is now vastly diluted. Many in the West are crediting Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war in Gaza and Lebanon and its face-off-with Iran as the main reason for the collapse of the Asad government. Israeli has broken the back of Hezbollah, killed its leader and decimated its command structure. It is no longer in a position to bolster Asad’s army. The Syrian army collapsed like a house of cards without the help of Russia and Hezbollah to bolster its defences. Despite the bombings regularly carried out by Israel on Syrian targets, Israel had working relations with Asad. Even when the Iranian mission in Damascus was bombed by Israel, Syrian response was muted.

Iran is a major loser

The fall of Asad is a major blow to Iran and has further eroded its position in the region. The Shia crescent that stretched from Iran to pockets in Iraq, down to Syria and Lebanon has collapsed. Getting any of its earlier proxies reorganized and ready would not be easy. Iran is in all sorts of trouble with an emboldened Israeli Prime Minister ready to take further risks. Netanyahu could well aim at striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, considering it destroyed much of the country’s air defence in its retaliatory raid on Iran in October this year.

India

India has always had cordial relations with Syria and the Assad dynasty. It had consistently sided with India on Kashmir, at a time when most Arab countries solidly backed Pakistan. Again, during the government’s scrapping of article 370 in 2019, Damascus said it was India’s internal matter. In 2008, Bashar al-Assad’s visit to India led to signing of agreements in agriculture and IT, underscoring the strong economic ties between the two countries. Foreign Office Consultations between India and Syria were held in Delhi on November 29. At the end of the talks, the MEA in its statement said: ``Both sides also discussed avenues to deepen the bilateral relationship with a special focus on areas like pharmaceuticals, developmental partnership and capacity building. The two sides also exchanged perspectives on important regional and global issues of mutual interest.’’ All this will for the moment be in limbo.

Like other countries, New Delhi is watching developments there. However Indian investments in. "We are monitoring the situation in Syria in the light of on-going developments. We underline the need for all parties to work towards preserving the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria. We advocate a peaceful and inclusive Syrian-led political process respecting the interests and aspirations of all sections of Syrian society. Our Embassy in Damascus is in contact with the Indian community, for their safety and security’’ the MEA said in a statement on Sunday.