Assad is sitting tight as Syria burns

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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The writer is director of regional security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies 

With the world understandably focused on the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, little attention is being paid to the worsening tragedy next door. Largely unnoticed, Syria is going through a spasm of violence that bodes ill.

Every corner of the country is affected. Israel is conducting almost daily raids against Iranian and Syrian command and military sites, including in Damascus. In September, it destroyed a major scientific and military production facility jointly run by Iran, Syria and Hizbollah in the Alawite heartland. Iranian-backed Syrian militias have attacked US outposts in the east, prompting large US reprisals. Turkey intensified its shelling of Kurdish positions in the north-east after an attack against a state-owned defence company in Ankara last month. The Syrian regime’s army and its Russian ally are pounding the last rebel holdout in Idlib, perhaps ahead of a new ground campaign. Isis is rearing its ugly head in the eastern desert.

Add to that rapidly declining humanitarian assistance for nearly 17mn people and an additional half a million or so Lebanese and Syrian refugees fleeing the war in Lebanon, and this is a recipe for worsening dynamics.

Watching all this with great trepidation is President Bashar al-Assad, who owes his continued hold on power to the involvement of Iran and Hizbollah during the Syrian war. Weak and easy to punish, Assad is acting out of self-preservation. He has acquiesced in the use of southern Syria for the firing of rockets and drones into Israel by Iranian-backed militias, but his military is in no state to join the fight and his security apparatus is penetrated by Israeli intelligence. He runs the risk of a larger Israeli attack otherwise, one that could decapitate his regime. This is why Assad has been conspicuously silent over Gaza, even as he lambasts Israel. He never forgave Hamas for siding with the Syrian rebellion.

The Syrian president now sees an opportunity in the great resetting of the regional balance currently under way. He has felt constrained and humiliated by his dependence on Hizbollah and Iran. Assad once saw the late Hassan Nasrallah as a mentor and Hizbollah as a source of regional legitimacy. Tellingly, it took him two days to issue a lyrical statement following the assassination by Israel of the Hizbollah leader. The message behind the flowery rhetoric might best be summarised as follows: “Thanks for your service. It was nice knowing you. Bye.”

In Assad’s view, a weakened Iran and Hizbollah could allow him to rely more on Russia and to court the Gulf and other Arab states. Seeking funding and political respectability, he sees Moscow as well placed to counter western influence, facilitate a rapprochement with Turkey and accelerate Arab re-engagement. This is why he was beaming while attending the Riyadh conference to promote Palestinian statehood last week. He particularly enjoyed the meeting with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who had ended his exclusion from the Arab League in 2023.

Attempts to rehabilitate Assad are picking up steam. Several European countries — including Italy, Hungary and Greece — are keen to abandon the current policy of isolation. They want to return Syrian refugees to the country despite the unwillingness of the regime to pursue genuine reconciliation. They hope that in exchange for financial support and political cover, Assad will agree to allow back large numbers of refugees living not just in Europe but also in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

These expectations are misplaced. For Assad, negotiations over security, refugees and drugs are means to entangle foreign governments in drawn-out processes in which the other side pays and concedes as he talks and cedes nothing. Assad hopes that the incoming Trump administration will withdraw its troops from Syria and lift stringent sanctions without requiring it to engage in a political process.

Turkey has shown interest in normalising with Assad, but he has demanded prior withdrawal of Turkish troops from northern Syria, something Ankara cannot countenance at present. The Lebanese crisis too could benefit him if Russia includes Assad in a regional deal to end the war there. Above all, though, Assad is not about to break with Iran. In this hour of great danger, his calculation is that Tehran needs him more than the other way around.

Assad has always regarded the offering of concessions as a mark of weakness. Better to remain steadfast and wait for the environment to change. He probably did not expect as big a transformation as the one currently taking shape. He may still get his way. Or else he could lose everything.