Dramatic fall of Assad regime creates new reality for the entire region
The fall of the Assad regime was another crushing blow to Tehran, cutting off its land route to Lebanon, Hezbollah’s oxygen supply line.
Syrian President Bashar Assad speaks to pro-Kremlin journalist Vladimir Sovolyov, March 2024.(photo credit: screenshot)ByMARK WEISS
In the early hours of Sunday, December 8, President Bashar al-Assad flew out of Syria to Moscow, ending a 54-year dynasty during which the Assad family had ruled the country with an iron fist. Hours earlier, rebel forces had entered the capital, Damascus, simultaneously seizing control of the strategic city of Homs to the north, after a lightning 12-day campaign that began with a surprise attack on Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, on November 27, the same day that Israel and Lebanon signed a ceasefire.
The dramatic fall of the Assad regime, with barely any resistance, creates a new reality for the entire region and raises many questions which will only be answered in the coming weeks and months. In the short term, the events have taken Syria out of the Iranian axis in a strategic blow to the Shi’ite Ayatollah regime. It opens the way for Syria’s return to the Arab fold, opening up the possibility for new alliances between Damascus and moderate Sunni forces in the region. However, much depends on how events play out in Syria, which groups will assume power, and if a stable regime can emerge from the current chaos. In the wake of the fall of the Assad regime, IDF tanks crossed the Golan Heights border and took up positions in the buffer zone. Israel also reportedly attacked a convoy of some 150 armored vehicles of Hezbollah Radwan fighters, who backed the Assad regime, as it fled Homs and the city of al-Qusayr toward the Lebanese border. Earlier, rebel forces seized control of the city of Quneitra in the Syri an Golan near the Israeli border, and the Israeli military reported that IDF forces helped repel an attack by militia forces on a UN post in Syrian territory near the Israeli border.
The rapid advance of the rebel forces took the entire region by surprise, including the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate and the Mossad. Within days, the militia fighters captured Aleppo, and a few days later Syria’s third-largest city, Hama, also fell. They quickly moved on Homs, farther south on the road to Damascus. Resistance by the Syrian army was feeble, and different rebel groups in other areas joined the fray. Kurdish militia groups expanded their area of control in the northwest, and rebel forces in southern Syria captured most of the Deraa region on the border with Israel and Jordan, where the 2011 uprising against Assad had begun.
It had been expected that Tehran, Hezbollah and the other Iranian proxies would come to the rescue of the regime as they had in the civil war, but the opposite happened. On December 6, Iran began withdrawing its military and diplomats from Iran. Top commanders of Iran’s powerful Quds Forces left the country, along with staff from the Iranian embassy in Damascus and Iranian civilians. Some left by plane to Tehran, while others traveled to Lebanon, Iraq, and the Syrian port of Latakia. Tehran abandoned its most important ally in the region.
On December 8, the Israeli Air Force conducted a series of targeted strikes in Syria, focusing on weapon depots, air defense batteries and missile manufacturing facilities, while the IDF swiftly occupied a buffer zone on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon. The Hermon range is considered strategically important because it provides a high view of the entire area, enabling Israel to anticipate any potential invading force.
Speaking at an observation point on the Israeli-Syrian border earlier in the day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the IDF to seize control of the buffer zone, which had been demilitarized since 1974 after the Syrian army withdrew from the area.
Damascus, Syria (credit: SHUTTERSTOCK)
“The collapse of the Assad regime, the tyranny in Damascus, offers great opportunity but also is fraught with significant dangers,” he said.
“The Syrian army abandoned its positions. We gave the Israeli army the order to take over these positions to ensure that no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel.”
Daily security assessments were held in Israel, but it was difficult to keep abreast of the rapidly unfolding events. As the rebels closed in on Damascus, Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi said that the IDF was closely monitoring developments. “There is a very strong offensive and defensive response,” he said, adding that the military is “working to thwart and prevent threats but is not intervening in events in Syria.”
A direct line connects the Israeli airstrikes against Iran and Hezbollah’s crushing defeat in Lebanon with the events in Syria. Iran’s position as a regional power had been undermined, it was left without an effective air defense, and Hezbollah was left battered and bruised. The various rebel groups in Syria correctly assessed that the once-powerful militia was in no fit state to send its fighters across the border to bolster the Syrian army. The fall of the Assad regime was another crushing blow to Tehran, cutting off its land route to Lebanon, Hezbollah’s oxygen supply line.
Israel sees both dangers and opportunities in the new reality
There were unconfirmed reports that the IDF struck a Syrian chemical weapons cache to stop the arsenal being captured by the rebel militias. The IAF also struck the Al-Arida and Jousieh border crossings between Syria and Lebanon, rendering both crossings inoperable, to disrupt arms smuggling from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel’s immediate concern is that the conflict could spill over into areas near its northern border and threaten Israeli communities or that weapon systems, including missiles and perhaps chemical weapons that are in northern and central Syria, could fall into the hands of the jihadist rebels.
Abu Mohammed al-Golani, leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main rebel group leading the fight against the Syrian army, said his aim had been to topple the Assad regime, and he expressed a desire to see all foreign forces – including those of the US, Russia, Turkey, Iran, and their proxies – leave Syria.
In the short term, the rebel advance may provide key strategic benefits for Israel, but Jerusalem is also concerned that chaos could reign in Syria. “A situation where another country on Israel’s border turns unstable is a very disturbing and worrying development. We need to be prepared for all possibilities, including the collapse of the Assad regime and the risk that terror organizations pose a new threat to Israel,” an Israeli source said.
The dizzying pace of the events in Syria overshadowed the ceasefire with Lebanon which ended more than 13 months of violence that began when Hezbollah launched rockets into the Galilee the day after the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Under the terms of the Lebanese ceasefire, Israel will withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon within 60 days, and Hezbollah gunmen must redeploy to north of the Litani River, some 30 kilometers from the Israeli border in most areas. A five-country monitoring panel, led by the US, is overseeing the implementation, with 5,000 Lebanese Army Forces troops due to deploy in areas the IDF vacates, alongside UNIFIL the United Nations peacekeeping force.
Even though both sides accused the other of violations, the initial indications were that the ceasefire was holding, and the Israeli assessment was that neither Hezbollah nor its Iranian-backers had an interest in renewing hostilities, particularly after attention switched to the Syrian theater. Israel made it clear that it will act aggressively and immediately if Hezbollah violates the terms of the ceasefire, and a letter ensuring Israel’s right to respond was signed between Israel and the US.
The biggest achievement from Israel’s perspective in the ceasefire was the severing of the link between the northern front and the war in Gaza. Throughout the war, Hezbollah had rejected numerous ceasefire proposals, saying it would continue firing projectiles as long as the fighting in Gaza continued. After the Israeli ground invasion on October 1, Hezbollah dropped the linkage and the ceasefire ended the Hamas dream of bogging Israel down in an ongoing, multi-front regional conflict.
The only opposition within the Israeli leadership came from National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, who described the agreement with Lebanon as “a big mistake,” saying it represented a “historic missed opportunity to eradicate” Hezbollah. “Now, when Hezbollah is weakened and desperate for a ceasefire, we must not stop,” he urged.
Similar sentiments were voiced by mayors of northern border communities, representing the more than 60,000 residents who were evacuated or fled their homes to avoid rocket fire from Lebanon. Kiryat Shmona Mayor Avichai Stern said he realized it wasn’t realistic to insist that all Hezbollah’s capabilities be destroyed, but he said Israel should have insisted on the creation of a buffer zone on the Lebanese side of the border.
Despite the apprehension, evacuees began returning to their homes after the ceasefire was signed. For many, it was their first time back since October 2023.
In some communities, particularly those adjacent to the border fence, many homes and communal buildings have been totally destroyed, and the reconstruction process will take years. Many of the evacuees said that they prefer not to return to the northern border area, at least for now.
