Shifting sands in Middle East

On December 8, a major political change took place in the Middle-east. The regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria crumbled as rebel forces took control of Syria’s capital Damascus. Assad fled the country that his family had ruled for over fifty years and sought refuge in Russia.

Since March 2011, following the ‘Arab Spring', a series of uprisings and protests that spread across the Arab world starting in late 2010 had major impact on many countries, including Syria. Assad had been facing a civil war triggered by the democratic protests of the Arab Spring. His forces had been maintaining control over most of the country; opposition groups held the northwest and the Kurds controlled the northeast. According to media reports, the civil war has killed nearly half a million people and displaced twelve million—more than half of the country's pre-war population of 23 million. Several international rights groups and prosecutors alleged widespread use of torture and extrajudicial killings in Syria's government-run detention centres.

The Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied rebel factions, backed by Turkey, had been attempting to overthrow Assad for a long time. He met them with military force supported by Iran, Iranian-backed militias like Hezbollah and Russia. Washington maintained its presence in eastern Syria and collaborated with the People's Defence Units (YPG), a socialist Kurdish militant group in Syria and the primary component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—a Kurdish-led coalition of US-backed left-wing ethnic militias and rebel groups that serves as the official military wing of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. Some 900 US troops are stationed there alongside the YPG.

Notwithstanding Western sanctions, neighbouring countries accepted Assad's rule. Lately, the Arab League restored Syria's membership, and in May, Saudi Arabia appointed its first ambassador to Syria since breaking ties twelve years ago.

After the fall of Assad government, Türkiye has opened its Yayladagi border gate with Syria to manage the safe and voluntary return of the millions of Syrian refugees it hosts.

Meanwhile the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Sunday that it had struck more than 75 targets, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) leaders, operatives and camps, to ensure that the armed group does not take advantage of the end of al-Assad’s rule, reports Al Jazeera.

Taking advantage of the crisis, Israel has also launched airstrikes at military targets across Syria and deployed ground troops both into and beyond a demilitarised buffer zone for the first time in fifty years. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that the 1974 border agreement with Syria has "collapsed", adding that he had ordered the Israeli army to seize the buffer zone in the occupied Golan Heights, reports The New Arab. The Israeli military on Tuesday said it had carried out about 480 strikes across the country over the past two days, hitting most of Syria’s strategic weapon stockpiles. Defence Minister Israel Katz said the Israeli navy had destroyed the Syrian fleet overnight. The New York Times reports that Israeli ground forces have openly crossed into Syrian territory for the first time since the 1973 October War, passing the demilitarised border zone. However, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations told the UN Security Council that deployments of Israeli troops into Syrian-controlled areas of the Golan Heights were “limited and temporary measures”.

Reacting to the Israeli attack on Syria, Qatar, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran have decried Israel’s ‘seizure of land’ near the occupied Golan Heights. The Saudi Foreign Ministry called on the international community to denounce the Israeli campaign, stressing that the Golan Heights is an occupied Arab territory.

Interim government

The rebels led by Islamist alliance Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, along with an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias — the Syrian National Army (SNA) — have appointed Mohammed al-Bashir as the country’s caretaker prime minister. Al-Bashir, who headed the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led de facto Syrian Salvation Government (SSG), in Idlib province, will lead a transitional Syrian government until March 1, 2025.

The founder of HTS, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, once a member of the Iraqi insurgency against the US, was an associate of the Islamic State (IS). IS is also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). It was identified as Jabhat al-Nusra when it formed a formal alliance with Al-Qaida more than a decade ago.

HTS was formed in 2016 when Jolani broke ranks with the jihadist group. In recent years, HTS has publicly renounced international terrorism and tries to present a more moderate face. HTS established its strong base in the northwest province of Idlib, where it has largely governed undisturbed for several years. In Idlib province, the group's largely technocratic administrators, known as the 'Salvation Government,' have cooperated with United Nations aid agencies and other international organisations seeking to support the millions of Syrians living there, many of them displaced from other parts of the conflict-ridden country. HTS leaders say they have no plans to apply Sharia law in areas they control and have even started working with Syria's minority Christian communities, allowing them to rebuild churches and returning their dispossessed lands, reports npr.org.

The opposition fighters have also announced a general amnesty for all military personnel conscripted into service under the former ruler.

Significantly, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani chose to deliver his victory speech from one of the world’s most ancient mosques, Damascus’s 1300 years old Umayyad Mosque. “This victory, my brothers, is a victory for the entire Islamic nation,” he said. To Iranian leaders, his message was very clear and loud. “This new triumph, my brothers, marks a new chapter in the history of the region, a history fraught with dangers (that left) Syria as a playground for Iranian ambitions, spreading sectarianism, stirring corruption,” he said. To Tel Aviv and Washington, where he is considered to be a member of a banned terrorist organisation with a USD 10-million-dollar bounty on his head, Jolani opted for a softer message that says, ‘your interests are understood in the new Syria.’ Jolani’s mosque speech was about arrival and survival. Reacting to his speech, Biden said, he had heard Jolani “saying the right things,” but insisted the rebel leader be judged by his actions.

Immediate losers and gainers after the fall of Assad

One of the big potential losers here is going to be the Kurds and one of the big potential winners is going to be Türkiye. Erdogan is likely to use the current impasse to push for more leverage to go after the Kurds.” Bashar al-Assad had survived the 2011-2016 civil war with the help of Iran and Russia. But Moscow – unlike in 2014-2016 – is bogged down in Ukraine and unable to provide substantial military support for Syria apart from a few air strikes. Asaad’s other staunch ally, Iran, alongside Iran’s Lebanese partner, Hezbollah, have been greatly weakened since a regional war with Israel began a year ago.

Nevertheless, India does not have much direct involvement in the Syrian crisis except its port at Haifa in Israel-Syria border — an escalation of the crisis in the Middle East will have a long term negative impact on India’s economy.

Geo strategic and political importance of Syria

Syria—located between Lebanon and Turkey—is a strategically very important region in the Middle-east where Africa meets with Asia and Europe. Syria has a coastline of 193 km with the Mediterranean Sea and it shares five international land borders with Iraq (599 km); Israel (83 km); Jordan (379 km); Lebanon (403 km) and Turkey (899 km). It’s a country of many races and languages. Though Arabs (50 per cent) dominate the mix, Syria also houses: Alawite ~15 per cent, Kurd ~10 per cent, Levantine ~10 per cent, other ~15 per cent (includes Druze, Ismaili, Imami, Nusairi, Assyrian, Turkoman, Armenian). The largest religious group in Syria are Sunni Muslims, who make up about 74 per cent of the population, of whom Arabic-speaking Sunnis form the majority, followed by the Kurds,

Syria has always been regarded as the bulwark of the Arab unity movement; it is on Syrian soil that the idea of pan-Arabism originated, in the late Ottoman period. There is a well-known Arab saying: “Egypt is the head of the Arab world and Syria is its heart.”

Pan-Arabism—a nationalist notion of cultural and political unity among Arab countries—has its origin in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, among the Arabs of the Middle East. This contributed to political agitation and led to the independence of most Arab states from the Ottoman Empire (1918) and from the European powers (by the mid-20th century). An important event in this evolution was the founding, in 1943, of the Baʿth Party—a pan-Arabic political party—by Michel ʿAflaq and Salah al-Din Bitar, in Damascus, Syria. The Baʿth Party advocated the formation of a single Arab socialist nation. In 1953, it merged with the Syrian Socialist Party to form the Arab Socialist Baʿath (Renaissance) Party. It has branches in many Middle Eastern countries and was the ruling party in Syria from 1963 and in Iraq from 1968 to 2003. The Baʿath Party espoused nonalignment and opposition to imperialism and took inspiration from what it considered the positive values of Islam. Its structure was highly centralised and authoritarian.

France acquired a mandate, after World War I, over the northern portion of the former Ottoman Empire’s province of Syria. The French administered the area until granting it independence in 1946. In 1958, Syria got united with Egypt to form the United Arab Republic. In 1961, the two entities separated, and the Syrian Arab Republic was re-established. In the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Syria lost control of the Golan Heights region to Israel (which it regained in July 2019).

The Syrian Baʿathists took power in 1963, but factionalism between “progressives” and “nationalists” was severe until 1970, when Hafez al-Assad (the father of the deposed President Bashar al-Assad) of the “nationalists” secured control. In Iraq, the Baʿathists took power briefly in 1963 and regained it in 1968, after which the party’s power became concentrated under Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Differences between the Iraqi and Syrian wings of the Baʿath Party precluded unification of the two countries. Within both countries, the Baʿathists formed fronts with smaller parties, including at times the communists. In Syria, the main internal threat to Baʿath hegemony stemmed from the Muslim Brotherhood, while in Iraq Kurdish and Shiʿi opposition was endemic. The Iraqi branch of the party was toppled in 2003 as a result of the Iraq War. Arab Spring protests sought to topple the Syrian regime in 2011, but it survived the attempt after its brutal suppression of the protests which escalated into civil war.

Since 1970, the Al Assad family has ruled Syria and the Syrian Ba’ath Party. From 1970 until 2000, the party was led by the Syrian president and Secretary General Hafez al-Assad. Until October 2018, leadership was shared between his son Bashar al-Assad (head of the Syrian regional organisation) and Al Abdullah al-Ahmar (head of the Pan-Arab national organisation). In 2017, after the reunification of the National and Regional Command, Bashar al-Assad became the Secretary General of the Central Command. The Syrian branch of the Party was the largest organisation within the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party. It ruled Syria from the 1966 coup to the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024.

Al Assad family belonged to the Alawites community that emerged in the Middle East between the 10th and 11th centuries. Their doctrine stems from Shia Islam but includes a distinct esoteric dimension. Sunni Islam at the time strongly opposed these beliefs, viewing them as heretical. Alawites practice their faith privately, with few outward expressions. Their syncretic rituals blend Christian traditions, Babylonian influences, and Platonic philosophy. When protests began in 2011, Assad crafted a narrative portraying the uprising as a foreign plot, involving jihadists, for destabilising Syria. Initially untrue, this rhetoric gained traction with the rise of Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, Al-Nusra Front in 2012 and the establishment of ISIS in 2013. As the civil war unfolded, many Alawites felt compelled to stand with the regime, fearing Islamist retribution if they withdrew support.

Neo-Pan Arabism

Notwithstanding the fall of Ba’ath Parties in Iraq and Syria, Pan-Arabism is unlikely to die. It is likely to be reborn again. It is observed that there have been three competing political identities in the Middle East: (i) Arab nationalism, (ii) Islamic nationalism, and (iii) Nationalist state identity. Arab nationalism, or Pan-Arabism, emerged out of imperial chaos. Pan-Arabism also distinguished itself from Pan-Islamism. Pan-Arabism recognises that the Arab world is culturally Muslim, but it replaces the concepts of caliphate. Its thinkers adopted the terminology of democracy and human rights that prevailed in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Nationalist leaders from across the Middle-east and North African (MENA) region made pilgrimages to Cairo, the newly minted capital of Pan-Arabism, where the League of Arab States (LAS) was founded in 1945, rather than to Istanbul, the former Ottoman capital, or Mecca, the eternal capital of Islam. Thus, in 1947, the Committee for the Liberation of the Arab Maghreb was created in Cairo, bringing together Moroccan, Algerian, and Tunisian nationalists. MENA now consists of 22 Arab countries.

In May 2023, Saudi Arabia used the Arab League Summit in Jeddah as a platform to launch its regional vision in a rapidly transforming world and to cement its role as the regional Arab leader. Political analysts have observed that a new generation of Arab leaders is seeking to protect its power, stability, and future from the juggernaut of Middle Eastern dramas. Its grand vision can be described as four concentric circles; at the outer level is a strong international cooperation with world powers guaranteeing security and free trade; the second circle is that of regional cooperation and de-confliction focusing on ending, or containing, the primary regional conflicts with Iran, Israel, and Turkey; the third circle is of combating Islamic extremism and social liberalisation; the fourth and most central circle is of economic development and wealth accumulation which is ultimately the primary objective of such a vision.

Observations

It is feared that the collapse of Alawite Basher al-Assad regime and rise of Islamist rebels, once affiliated to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Syria, has reopened the chapter of religious radicalisation witnessed when Sunni Islamists under Islamic State of Iraq and Syria(ISIS) flag controlled strips of territory in north Iraq and Syria a decade ago.

Israel’s seizure of a buffer zone in the Golan Heights shows its determination to sabotage Syria’s chance of restoring stability. The Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has asserted that the primary architects behind the recent developments in Syria are the US and Israel. A former Indian Ambassador and an expert on Middle East also alleged that the development in Syria is a result of conspiracy between Israel, Turkey and USA. This cannot be ruled out considering the gains Israel, Turkey and USA have achieved after the fall of the Assad government.

Both Iran and Turkey have distinct language and culture. They do not fit into the Pan Arabism milieu dominated by Salafi (Salafism is a revival movement within Sunni Islam that seeks to return to the teachings of the first three generations of Muslims, known as the Salaf) radical organisations. Under such circumstances, Saudi Arabia may revive the Pan-Arabism dream using the Abraham Accord signed on September 15, 2020 at the White House to witness the normalisation of relations between Israel and two Arab nations: the UAE and Bahrain. The then-US President Donald Trump presided over the signing of the Abraham Accords. Shortly after this milestone, Israel expanded its diplomatic ties by announcing agreements with Sudan on October 23, 2020, and Morocco on December 10, 2020. The agreements were heralded by many as the “dawn of a new Middle East,”

Isolation of Iran and Turkey in the Islamic Arab world will push these countries further to the China Russia axis. Cementing their ties with the BRICS bloc would be more beneficial to them.

Views expressed are personal