The fall of the Syrian government was rapid and abrupt, a surprise to many observers and policymakers that came largely because of internal corruption and a lack of support from other countries, panelists said at a Perry World House discussion.
Titled “Syria: What Happened and What Comes Next,” the virtual event featured Richard Fontaine, CEO of the Center for a New American Security and a Perry World House visiting fellow; Marie Harf, executive director of Perry World House; and Brendan O’Leary, Lauder Professor of Political Science. It was moderated by Michael C. Horowitz, director of Perry World House.
For more than five decades, the Assad family controlled Syria. First it was father Hafez al-Assad and then son Bashar al-Assad. For the last 13 years, the country had been locked in a civil war sparked by the Arab Spring protests. As rebels rolled into the capital last week, Bashar al-Assad fled to former ally Russia. In the immediate future, Harf said, “there’s a higher likelihood of more societal breakdown, more violence, more fighting in Syria than not.”
The speed of the collapse took many by surprise, Fontaine said. “The U.S. government had been seeing some things sort of moving over the last couple of weeks, but the speed with which all this happened seems to have been a shock to people in Syria, to the Iranians, to observers in other places as well,” he said.
O’Leary noted that the regime fell “fundamentally, because its external support was removed, and that external support was vital for propping it up.” He added, “One of the reasons it did collapse was partly because it was so corrupt, and it lost control of its own officialdom and all of its units.”
Harf agreed, observing that the lack of Russian support for Syria was largely due to the resources it has committed to the Ukraine conflict. “They did not have the same amount of support left to give the Assad regime,” she said.
Equally important, Fontaine said, was al-Assad’s insistence on looting the country for his family’s benefit. The military especially was saying: “We’re fighting to preserve a … regime headed by a mafioso-style family that is enriching itself while we get poorer and poorer. Under the sanctions, we become a narco-trafficking state, and life hasn’t improved. So, what are we doing this for?” Fontaine said. “And at the end of the day, it turns out that they weren’t willing to fight for that regime.”
Some panelists urged caution and a frank assessment of the scope and scale of internal Syrian politics. “I think it’s vital that while people celebrate the removal of this appalling regime, that they not be far too optimistic,” O’Leary said. “Syria is a binational place. There are two nations, the Kurds and Arabs. It’s multireligious; there’s Sunni, Shia, Christians, Druze, and others, a whole range of micro-minorities.”
In the immediate future, the collapse is being regarded as a foreign policy win by the governments of Turkey and Israel, O’Leary said. Still, he noted, Israel is “deeply worried about the repercussions, and that’s one reason why they’ve embarked on the very adventurous military policy of extinguishing what’s left of the official forces of Syria.”
Less than a week after it took power, the new Syrian government is still a work in progress, speaking with members of the “old guard,” discussing amnesty, and mapping out how to work with lower-level fighters, Harf said. The new regional landscape is also taking shape, with Iran in particular feeling threatened. “What the Iranians do in the coming days and weeks vis-à-vis the new government in Syria will be very important to see,” she said.
O’Leary said that how the incoming Trump administration views the situation is yet to be determined. “Trump has already declared his desire not to be involved,” O’Leary said. “And personally, I think it would be a very good idea if America is only minimally involved in the possible reconstruction of Syria.”
Fontaine said there are grounds to be guardedly optimistic. “Syrians have seen a lot of war for a very long time, and there is a certain exhaustion in that country and a certain hope for a better day,” Fontaine said.
The entire discussion can be watched on Perry World House’s YouTube channel.
