Assad's Fall: Biden's Parting Gift to Trump
How will Trump handle a vastly different Middle East?
Bashar al-Assad has resigned from the Presidency of Syria. Of course, it wasn’t of his own free will. He was rightly pushed out after decades of tyrannical leadership. He and his father ruled Syria with an iron fist for more than five decades and were perhaps the most vile of leaders on the planet.
Just in the past decade of war alone, which began during the Arab Spring of 2011, more than 600,000 Syrians were killed by the Syrian regime. More than 12 million Syrians were displaced (roughly 7 million internally) and turned into refugees living outside the country (more than 5 million). That’s more than half of the country’s pre-war population of roughly 23 million people being uprooted by this diabolical war.
This war was a clear genocide and Assad should be sent to The Hague.
Yet now that Assad has fallen, what comes next is entirely up for grabs. The military victor of the past week - the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamist militant group - has laid claim to leadership. But there are multiple other key factions and players both internally and externally. Internally, there are the Syrian Kurds, the Druze, and the remnants of Assad’s military itself. Externally, Turkey (a NATO and American ally) is watching closely, as is Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel… the list goes on and on.
And then there are of course both Russia and Iran, the strategic losers from Assad’s collapse. These are the two regimes who directly backed Assad during this war, committing grave war crimes and atrocities against the Syrian people at a mass scale. These two countries meddled in Syria for their own reasons. Russia, to get a sea port on the Mediterranean Sea in Tartus and strategic bases in the heart of the Middle East; and Iran, to secure a corridor to its (once) powerful proxy ally Hezbollah in Lebanon and to increase its regional power as it colonized much of the Middle East.
But now Russia, mired in a war with Ukraine that’s forced it to import North Korean soldiers to fight, can no longer spare military assets for weak foreign dictators. And Iran has helplessly watched Assad fall too, as its decades long power projection investments into Hezbollah and Hamas have literally gone up in smoke (h/t Israel). Iranian leaders don’t want to be next and got very pragmatic, calling the troops home to protect the regime from Syria’s revolutionary contagion rather than waste them on a losing cause.
With regional realignment coming, there are several key issues that need to be addressed as the U.S. charts a path forward in this new Middle East:
(1) The U.S. has a direct strategic interest in helping to chart Syria’s future. Unlike with Iraq, we did not invade Syria to facilitate the demise of a Baathist dictator. And we are not responsible for an occupation to try to rebuild a country that Russia and Iran helped Assad break. But we do have our strategic interests there, not the least of which are our allies (Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel) that border Syria, as well as 900 U.S. troops partnering with the Kurds in the country’s east to counter Islamic State terrorists. We should therefore use our extensive convening power to work with our allies now, lest an adversary take advantage of this window. We must be the ones to jump through that window to advance our interests, while helping the Syrian people to chart a new path forward.
(2) Joe Biden needs to determine how to deal with HTS, and fast. HTS was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by President Trump during his first term. It has tried to distance itself from terrorist ties to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, fighting them in fact, but how much they have truly distanced themselves is unclear. But now that they are the de-facto ruler of Syria, if we are to play any role in influencing the future of the country, we’re likely going to need to deal with them. But we can’t if they’re still an FTO, meaning that our diplomacy will be limited, as well as our ability to provide humanitarian and reconstruction assistance. This means that we have to figure out ASAP if they still merit that designation. We must therefore test them and consider their continued terrorist designation based upon two criteria: (1) are they are going to play a constructive role in the future of Syria and (2) are they committed to not pursuing terrorism, especially against Americans. Deciding on this needs to happen now, on President Biden’s watch. We don’t have six weeks to waste.
(3) Donald Trump needs to lean in on Syria diplomacy, not look away. Trump’s first instinct last night was to say that we have no interest in Syria. Nothing could be further from the truth. The stability of a keystone country in the heart of the Middle East - one whose refugees have reached all the way to the U.S. - is worth pursuing. But if Trump thinks that we have no military interest, then he’s got a point. We do have military allies in the Kurds, and the Iranian threat is just over the horizon, but we do not have to militarily occupy Syria to fix it (nor could we). Yet the choice is not binary — military action or nothing. There’s another choice: active American diplomacy to support our key allies and the Syrian people during this period. Trump has a chance to use American diplomacy for real gains. He should take it.
In closing, the dramatic changes in the Middle East that have now occurred on Joe Biden’s watch, with Iran’s proxies decimated, Bashar al-Assad deposed, and Russia in retreat, are strategic victories for the United States and our allies there. Biden is handing Trump tremendous opportunities to reshape the Middle East for the better.
But in foreign policy, there are no magic bullets and the story is never truly over. This means that we can expect more twists and turns in the days ahead. And while Biden will have a role for the next six weeks, in the long run, it’s going to be up to Trump to decide whether the U.S. will take advantage of this moment to help move the Middle East further away from dictators, terrorists, and tyrants and towards greater stability rooted in governments that reflect the will of their people… or if he won’t.
Assad’s fall is Biden’s parting gift to Trump. Will he open it and look inside, or will he turn away and let others enjoy it?