The rapid collapse of the 50-year rule of the Assad family December 7 ended a brutal regime in Syria, but also precipitated bombings and attacks by Israel, the United States, and Turkey, where each is worried about what might happen in a power vacuum. Abandoning Assad's regime will also have ramifications for Iran and Russia.
We invited a group of RAND experts to discuss the rebel group that led the overthrow, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, as well as the regional and global implications.
Q: Russia, through air strikes, and Iran, through Hezbollah's ground forces, had helped keep Assad in power for years. Why did they abandon the regime this time? Was it simply that they were stretched thin by other conflicts?
Raphael Cohen Both Moscow and Tehran would have preferred Assad to remain in power. Assad's downfall puts the future of Russia's military bases there in play and HTS has explicitly stated that it wants Syria to stop being a “playground for Iranian ambitions.” As to why they didn't get involved, a lot of it comes down to both Russia and Iran being tied down by the war in Ukraine and war in the broader Middle East.
Karen Sudkamp An additional calculation could be that protecting the Assad regime was no longer worth the investment. In addition to supporting proxy militias, Iranian forces spent years training the Syrian army. During HTS's advance from Idlib Province, the army often did not exhibit a will to fight against HTS forces or to protect the Assad regime. Russia and Iran likely considered the effort and capabilities of the Assad regime and its inability to protect itself and made a strategic calculation.
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