Syria
Written by: Vidur Srikrishna
Summary:
On December 8th, 2024, Syrian rebels led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani took over the city of Damascus, ending the Assad Regime in the nation and a 13-year civil war. This comes soon after the surprise takeover of Aleppo on November 30th, 2024. The rebels swiftly took city after city; after Damascus fell, Bashar Al-Assad, the previous ruler, fled to some country. Later, it was rumored that he escaped to Russia, a close ally to the Assad-led Syria. Some sources even state that he was allegedly poisoned in Russia in the past week, however, this is uncertain. The news of the fallen Assad regime has been met with joy and sadness. Some are saying that Assad’s rule was terrible for the people, while others have taken to the internet to state how they only believe in the flag of Assad’s regime. One reason people think the new regime is good is especially because of new hopes for the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Some Palestinians believed that Assad was the guardian of Israel, and they believe that the new rulers will be more willing to help Palestinians.
Analysis:
The end of the Assad Regime marks the end of the Syrian civil war, however, some would argue that it’s the end of terrible rule. There are also accusations of the Assads severely violating human rights and launching brutal assaults against civilians. Starvation was used as a weapon of war and they even carried out a gas attack in 2013, claiming the lives of over 1,400 people. They also enforced disappearances and killings and deliberately bombed civilian buildings such as schools and hospitals. In Assad’s detention facilities, opponents of the regime “disappeared” and there were many reports of torture. According to CNN, an Amnesty International report claimed as many as 13,000 people had been hanged from 2011 to 2015 at Saydnaya Prison.
The rebels took over by timing their advances perfectly, given the conflicts happening among the supporters of Assad. With Russia and Ukraine still at war, Moscow was not able to save Assad as it had in 2014. Another one of his allies was Iran, but due to the recent conflict (Lebanon and Israel), Hezbollah, an Iran-backed organization in Lebanon, cannot come to his aid as they had previously as well. With all these conflicts going on at the same time, the rebels took it as their chance to strike at a time when Assad’s allies had other things to worry about. Given that Iran’s influence has been weakened now by this drastic power change, Israel may exploit this instability in the nation to attempt to take as much power as possible. Iran has been a big part of the fight against Israel, as they back organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas.
Given that Iran, a major fighter on the Palestinian side against Israel, has now lost its influence in Syria, how is Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani going to react? They may continue to fight for Palestine, helping Iran, however, how would Iran react given this? I think Iran would attempt to gain back influence, as they would back the rebel group in their fight. This would then reestablish Iranian power in the region. Israel may respond to this with attacks similar to those carried out in Lebanon. This would then lead to more power in the region for them and less for Iran.
