The stunning collapse of the brutal Assad regime in Syria, a family business since the 1970s, is a geopolitical earthquake creating winners and losers around the world. First, the losers:
• Iran is a big loser; Syria has been a close ally and a vital overland transport link to Lebanon and Hezbollah. Iran supported Syria as President Bashar Assad fought to remain in power during the country’s horrifying civil war, and it used Syria to project power around the region. Iran has been badly weakened in recent months, and this adds to the sense that Iran’s regime is possibly vulnerable and certainly a lesser power.
One question is whether all this adds to the arguments within Iran’s leadership to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent.
• Russia likewise loses an important ally, and it will presumably also lose its valuable military bases in Syria. In 2015, Russia intervened militarily to back the Assad regime in the civil war, dropping bombs on civilian targets and adding to its unpopularity among ordinary citizens.
Russia particularly values its naval base at Tartus, which allows it to support warships in the Mediterranean Sea.
• Hezbollah backed Assad in the Syrian civil war, and it depended on weapons shipped from Iran through Syria to Lebanon. The Assad regime for decades interfered violently in Lebanese politics. That said, Hezbollah remains a significant force in Lebanon, even if weakened.
• The Alawite sect in Syria, an offshoot of Shiite Islam amounting to perhaps 10% or more of Syrians, will now be at risk. The Assads were Alawites, and Alawites were resented for the privileges they enjoyed. I would be terrified if I were an Alawite in Syria today.
I worry that Syrian Christians, who had to some degree been protected by the Assads, may also be targeted and harassed, and that women will lose rights. The triumphant forces aren’t the Taliban, but they are a step in that direction. That said, the civil war in Syria hurt everyone, including women and Christians.
So who are the winners as Syria changes hands?
• Sunni Muslim Islamists have been savagely suppressed in Syria for decades, and they are finally in charge. The new leadership includes forces that had been involved in the Islamic State group and al-Qaida, although they have disavowed that extremism. We’ll see. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m wary.
• Israel gains, at least for a time, by the weakening of enemies like Iran and Hezbollah, not to mention the Assad regime itself. But having a hard-line Islamist regime next door, if that’s the direction Syria goes, may not be great for the long term.
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• Turkey wins influence next door. It may use that influence to try to rein in Kurds around the region.
• The United States may also gain in the sense that Russia and Iran are clear losers, but much depends on what comes next. I’m hopeful that Austin Tice, an American journalist believed imprisoned in Syria since 2012, may be freed and allowed home. Releasing him would be a way for Syria’s new leadership to show its bona fides.
Anyone who values human rights has to feel relief at the departure of the Assad regime. But we’ve also seen how hard-line Islamists can rule in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and I fear revenge attacks in Syria. So two cheers for the overthrow of Assad, but be vigilant about what comes next. One hard lesson I’ve learned from covering the world: Sometimes what follows a terrible regime is just as bad, or even worse.
Nicholas Kristof is a New York Times columnist.
