Assad got out of Syria, is Iran next?

The Arab Spring has finally reached the end, now for the Persian Spring.

Bashar al-Assad knew he was done the minute the Sunni-led insurgents left Aleppo. Russia made a bare gesture of support, and Iran rattled a non-existent saber. Most of Syria’s troops were not aligned with Assad’s Alawite sect which ruled Syria for over 60 years through the Ba’ath party—they were Sunni conscripts who simply melted away as the Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) coalition sped toward Damascus.

Screen capture from X.com: “Syrian "refugees" across western nations (Germany here) have been out in the streets celebrating the fall of the Assad regime today. I guess now that Syria is "free" they can all go back home...”

Syria now has new bosses. Sort of. With 60 years of single-party rule, and a single family autocratically controlling the country since 1970, the power vacuum is both obvious and palpable. Syrians all over the world—including millions of refugees from years of civil war in Europe and other western nations—are celebrating the end of the awful years of Bashar al-Assad. But like all dictators, Assad had an exit plan, and like many historical figures before him: Napoleon, Antonio López de Santa Anna, Kaiser Wilhelm, Mikhail Gorbachev; Assad may live, in exile, quite well and die in bed at a ripe old age.

Right now, Assad and his family, who bugged out without even informing his own minions, are in Russia, where Vladimir Putin (who has no exit plan and never will) has granted them asylum. Then who’s running Syria? Well, there’s an “opposition” and leaders from Moscow to Jerusalem have begun extending “hands” of various flavors of peace—meaning their own security—toward Damascus. That includes the Syrian government, such as it is. The Hill reported “Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali said in a video that the government was ready to ‘extend its hand’ to the opposition forces and work toward a transitional government.”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted a video also offering a “hand of peace” to Syria. In the video, Netanyahu also took credit for Assad’s demise, which is quite a stretch, and a healthy dose of ego. Israel recognized that the end of Syria’s regime created a power vacuum, as Syrian forces abandoned their posts on the UN-mandated frontier with Israel. Israeli troops have moved into the Syrian positions, which Netanyahu called a “temporary defensive position,” which came with the usual threat to “do whatever it takes” to defend Israel, should a “suitable arrangement” be beyond reach.

I have little doubt that Israeli military intelligence and the Mossad had plenty of signals that HTS was about to break out in a big way. For years, Israel had stood by and watched quietly as Assad’s regime died of corruption, while outside forces from Tehran and Moscow propped up the leader. There’s a hint of truth in Netanyahu’s statement, since it was Israel who pulled the last bricks from Assad’s crumbling foundation and watched everything topple. But the genesis of Syria’s flip was in 2011, the so-called “Arab Spring,” pushed by then-President Barack Obama and his foreign policy of reaching out to Muslim states to free themselves from oppression.

It began in Tunisia and spread to Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and Bahrain. Egypt was briefly overthrown by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is now banned by its current leader, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was killed, and in Yemen Ali Abdullah Saleh was forced to resign and flee in 2012, months after an assassination attempt in 2011 killed many of his bodyguards and ministers. In 2015, Saleh joined the Houthis, and in 2017, the Houthis killed him by sniper after he accused them of treason. What many of the “Arab Spring” countries have in common after booting their leaders is a long, bloody civil war. It’s hardly a “spring” when millions of refugees flee and millions of others die in the fighting or by starvation.

Syria also had a long, bloody civil war, but during it, Assad always managed to survive, more and more by the help of his allies in Iran and Russia. Once Russia had other priorities, and Hezbollah and Iran’s other proxies were effectively decapitated and decimated by Israel, it was only a matter of time before the regime was dismantled. I would not argue that Assad was the final victim (I hesitate to use that word) of Obama’s Arab Spring. It’s likely he will live on in Moscow as long as he wishes. I doubt it would be safe for him in Tehran.

The big question that I see is if the leaders in Tehran are next, or if they think they’re next in the line of overthrown leaders. My first take on this is no. The Syrian regime, like Saddam Hussein’s in Iraq, relied on a small minority ruling over a majority. That kind of situation always involves suppression and repression. In Iran, the Shiite Islamic Republic’s leaders rule over a largely Shiite population. The main issue in Iran isn’t a sectarian one, but a secular versus extremist religious one. The religious police in Iran have immense power, and the military and paramilitary groups enforcing the pronouncements of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei are quite powerful.

Of course, Israel has demonstrated its ability to enter Iranian airspace at will, dismantle its air defense capabilities, and strike whatever targets it wishes. However, Iran still possesses a large stock of ballistic missiles, including some that have the potential to reach orbit. Add to this a fairly quick route to enriching enough uranium to bomb-grade, and Iran is very close to being a nuclear power. That would give Tehran a whole new ballgame in the arena of diplomacy and regional influence. Iran would be in the same league as Pakistan, India, and (though they do not acknowledge it) Israel itself.

Though Netanyahu not long ago sent a video message to the Iranian people after the two countries traded strikes against the other, saying that it will “sooner than you think” be the Iranian people’s turn to throw off their oppression, it turned out that Syria was the weak link, and we will still have to wait for what happens in Iran. I am fairly sure Israel has no intention of letting Iran join the nuclear club, but despite its efforts, it’s not possible to predict how that will turn out. Iran has plenty of capacity to manufacture weapons, and a large country to do it in. The nuclear card is the one thing that keeps Iran on the top of everyone’s boogeyman list. It used to be that plus the regime’s many proxies (the Houthis being one of them), but the main proxies have been—for now—neutralized.

Will Iran be next—or first in the post-Arab Spring version of regime change? I don’t think anyone knows, but I do believe that what happened in Syria is not lost on the leaders in Tehran. Or, for that matter, Riyadh, or Doha, or Abu Dhabi, or Amman, or Cairo. These kings and sheiks rule by the narrow consent of the people, in the way that a large swell of protest can topple any one of them if the right allies decide to turn their backs. Even Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey (officially they want to be called Türkiye) must take care in how such events are navigated, and Turkey has its fingerprints all over Syria, especially dealing with the Kurds.

The fall of Syria might be the brick that topples more regimes, or the spark that leads to more instability and unrest in the Middle East (as if there can be more than there is now). Once things begin to topple, it really is hard to say when the toppling stops, especially since the larger players have more important items to deal with, for now. However, there is a small chance that the “hands” of peace and friendship offered to the new rulers of Damascus might bear fruit. It would be the wish of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees spread around the world for that to happen. It would also be the wish of the host countries where they live. It is undoubtedly the wish of the Lebanese people and their government, to have a buffer state at peace instead of a neighbor tearing itself apart in war and terror.

We don’t know the answer, and it’s just too early to even try to read the tea leaves. But my prayers are for the people, and for the end of bloody civil wars. The end of Assad’s rule might be the best we can do for now, but hope is a powerful lever to move the future.

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