For anyone who has followed the Syrian Civil War since it began in 2011, the lightning speed with which the regime of Bashar al-Assad fell in December 2024 was nothing short of astounding. His family had been in power for more than 50 years, and he himself had been president since the turn of the century. And despite the very real threat that the civil war posed to his rule for many years, it had seemed the war was over and Assad was the victor.
The regime’s fall triggered a kaleidoscope of flashbacks to the various stages of the war, which indelibly marked regional and global politics over the past 13 years: the mass anti-government protests in the wake of the Arab Uprisings; the initial violent response by Syrian security forces; the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons on Syrian civilians; the U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State; Russia, Iran and Hezbollah’s intervention on Assad’s behalf; Turkey’s offensive against U.S.-backed Kurdish militants; and through it all, the mass outflow of Syrian refugees to neighboring countries and Europe. Syria’s civil war drove all these shifts in the geopolitical landscape, which in turn have shaped the world we live in today.
Ironically, more recent global shifts facilitated the rebel offensive that began in late November. With Russia, Iran and Hezbollah focused on other conflicts, the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, had evolved into a savvy and sophisticated armed organization able to spring its surprise offensive against the Assad regime with lethal effectiveness.
The Assad family’s autocratic rule and the civil war created interwoven challenges for Syrian society. They will now need to be addressed to create any sort of stability–and for the new government, legitimacy—in the country.
The first challenge that is becoming immediately visible is the scale of the atrocities committed in Assad’s brutal prison system, which predates the civil war but grew in size and severity once the conflict began. That also raises the broader question of transitional justice. The caretaker government led by HTS said it plans to hold officials from the Assad regime accountable, but the degree to which Syria’s institutions will be capable of doing so remains an open question. New institutions will also need to be formed as part of the transition process, and ensuring that those are inclusive will go a long way toward establishing domestic legitimacy. That will be complicated, however, in a society as fragmented as Syria’s, as well as by the fact that the internal conflict is not fully resolved.
There’s also the broad challenge of reconstruction. Syria has been ravaged by the civil war, leaving millions of Syrians in poverty. In the short term, the country will require enormous amounts of humanitarian assistance. In the longer term, it will need to rebuild its entire economy from the ground up. Syria may get a boost from the return of refugees, of which there are millions living outside the country, who could contribute productive forces—as well as potentially capital, depending on where they are coming from—to reconstruction efforts. But reintegrating them will also soak up resources thata re in short supply.
Meanwhile, Assad’s fall also has significant implications for great power competition and for the external actors who have been involved in the country.
Russia is likely to take the biggest hit from the transfer of power. After all, the effectiveness of the HTS-led surprise offensive was already in part attributable to Russia’s weakened ability to project force to the region the way it did prior to having focused its attention and resources on its invasion of Ukraine. Should the new government end Russia’s military presence in the country, Moscow stands to lose a naval base on the Mediterranean Sea and an airfield that it has used as a logistical hub supporting its operations across the Middle East and Africa.
The fact that the U.S. is not playing a meaningful role in managing the crisis in Syria also highlights the ways in which Washington’s ability to shape outcomes in the region has eroded. The diminished U.S. influence is also both a symptom and a cause of the broader erosion of the multilateral system. For example, the U.N. stands to play little role in Syria’s transition of power, a loss not only for U.S. diplomacy but multilateralism overall.
Finally, Beijing’s almost complete absence from the situation is also notable. China has clearly proven itself to be an economic rival of the U.S. and a security power in East Asia, but despite recent efforts—some successful—to gain leverage in the region, its diplomatic heft is still far behind other powers, both in the Middle East and globally.
All of this leaves a vacuum in Syria, opening the door for interference by neighboring and regional powers. Israel has bombarded Syria with airstrikes since Assad’s fall and advanced its ground forces past a buffer zone between the two countries. Meanwhile, Turkey is seeking to advance its proxies in the northeast to take advantage of Assad’s fall, and the Gulf states are similarly jostling for influence with the transitional government. The big question now is whether these regional powers will help rebuild Syria or exacerbate domestic tensions that would impede a stable peace.
WPR will continue to examine these and other key questions about what will happen next. Below are some of the highlights of WPR’s recent coverage of the situation in Syria.