Ariel Cohen
The rapid collapse of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s Ba’athist government is the culmination of a thirteen-year civil war. Key global trends fed into Syria’s suffering: ethnic and religious hostilities, migration, terrorism, militant Islam, and the return of great power politics, as meddling and interventions by Türkiye, Russia, and Iran only made matters worse.
The United States, Europe, Türkiye, and moderate Arab nations must ensure that Syria does not revert to being a Russian and Iranian stronghold in the Eastern Mediterranean again. They must also guarantee that Syria will not serve as a base for future jihadist expansion led by ISIS and that reconstruction efforts include measures to secure equality for women and all ethnic groups, particularly the Kurds, who are American allies, allowing them to coexist peacefully. This will not be an easy task.
With the fall of the Assad regime (supported by Russian president Vladimir Putin and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), the geopolitical balance of power in the Levant has shifted. The borders of Syria, initially drawn by the British Empire and France in the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, may no longer exist. Türkiye and, to a lesser extent, Qatar emerged as clear winners.
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