The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s regime is the result of a tectonic change with a profound impact on the Middle East and the global balance of power.

Syria’s civil war has lasted more than 13 years, causing death and destruction as outside powers turned Syria into a battleground for their own ambitions, the Wall Street Journal reports in an analysis.

When Assad’s government finally fell on Sunday morning, after a lightning advance by rebels that caught his friends and foes by surprise, it was overthrown by Syrians themselves, with core supporters weakened by their involvement in other conflicts.

Much will depend on how smooth the transition to a new rebel-led administration is, and to what extent rival Syrian factions – including the Kurds and Alawite minorities – can avoid further conflict.

Winners and losers have already emerged, though those gains and losses could prove illusory in a country as traumatized and mired in violence as Syria, the WSJ notes.

“We are seeing a huge change in the region. Turkey has become stronger, Russia has become weaker, Iran has also lost its strength,” said Badr James, an anti-Assad opposition politician. “But it is the Syrians who will play a big role now, not like before. Everyone should hear our voice and our decisions.”

Iran, whose embassy in Damascus was ransacked soon after the rebel takeover, has lost its main ally in the “axis of resistance” and its vital land link with the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.

Russia, which has long boasted that, unlike the US in Afghanistan or Vietnam, it never abandons its vassals, has also suffered a humiliating blow as it is called upon to decide the future of its critical naval and air bases in Mediterranean.

Turkey’s aspirations

Turkey, for now, is in an advantageous position. With Assad gone, Ankara will clearly wield much more power over its southern neighbor and the entire Levant (synonymous for the eastern Mediterranean countries), favoring the neo-Ottoman ambitions of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey openly backs the Syrian National Army militia, which has focused its actions mainly on fighting Syrian Kurds in recent weeks, with clashes continuing on Sunday. Turkey has also provided tacit support to the most powerful Syrian rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

HTS, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the US because of its past links to al-Qaeda, led the rebel offensive that captured the cities of Aleppo, Hama and Homs before Damascus fell on Sunday. The Syrian capital was captured mostly by rebels from southern Syria, many of whom were rebels once backed by Saudi Arabia, which later reconciled with the regime as part of a peace process overseen by Russia.

“Turkey has the primary responsibility to ensure that change results in greater stability and refugee returns and a new Syria, rather than a new civil war and a redrawing of the lines on the map between Arabs, Kurds and other factions. said Charles Lister, director of the Syria program at the Middle East Institute. “Turkey has the means.”

Officials in Ankara, as in almost all other capitals, expressed surprise at the unexpected extent of the Syrian rebels’ success. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said in Doha on Sunday that maintaining the unity and territorial integrity of Syria is Ankara’s main goal, as is the fight against “terrorists” in Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria.

“From Turkey’s point of view, the new element of danger is the collapse of the Syrian state,” said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat and director of the Edam think tank in Istanbul. “The fragmentation of Syria’s political unity could lead to the emergence of an early Kurdish entity state, with the possible support of the US and Israel.”

Unlike the Syrian National Army militia, HTS has largely avoided fighting the Kurds in recent weeks. The group allowed Kurdish militias to safely withdraw from areas of Aleppo and spoke of the need to protect Syria’s ethnic and religious diversity.

The fear of new unrest

Gulf monarchies such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar – which once funded Syrian rebels – are also working to ensure that Assad’s fall does not spark a new wave of unrest against the region’s rulers and a resurgence of extremist movements such as Islamic State, which followed the 2011 Arab Spring.

“There are many injuries in the area. Good news turns to bad news very quickly,” said Mahed al-Ansari, senior adviser to Qatar’s prime minister. “We don’t want what happened in other nations after the Arab Spring to happen in Syria. We would like to see a pro-people transition in Syria.”

Israel’s role

Israel, which moved troops into Syria along the Golan Heights this weekend, scored a strategic achievement by breaking the Iranian-led axis of resistance that is its most dangerous enemy. It was Israel’s earlier success in destroying the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, which provided Assad with ground forces, that allowed the Syrian rebels to defeat the regime’s army.

Israeli officials, however, are also concerned about the rise of a Turkish-backed Sunni Islamic State on its border, a state that may try to retake the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in 1967, and which could ally with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group.

HTS leader Ahmed al-Sara is descended from Syrians who fled the Golan Heights after its Israeli occupation. The rebel commander, who returned to Damascus, making a triumphant appearance at the capital’s ancient Umayyad mosque on Sunday, said he first converted to Islam during the second Palestinian intifada that began in 2000.

Iraq has similar concerns, with officials there worried that events in Syria could spark a new Sunni insurgency at home. Jaulani began his activities as a Sunni Islamist insurgent in Iraq in 2003. In a video message to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani last week, Jaulani warned Iraqi Shiite militias to stay away from Syria and not to attempt the rescue of Assad, advice that was finally heeded by the Baghdad.

What will the US do?

The US, which maintains troops in Syria’s Kurdish enclave in a desert region on the border with Jordan, has remained on the sidelines as the Assad regime crumbled. President-elect Donald Trump endorsed that stance, writing in a social media post on Saturday that Syria is “not our fight” and that the U.S. “should have nothing to do with it.” As for Russia, he added in another post after Assad fell, there was no reason to be in Syria in the first place.

The defeat of Russia

On Russian social media, the fall of Damascus was treated as a geopolitical disaster, with ultranationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin describing it as a “tragic event”. Russia deployed troops to Syria in 2015, managing to prevent the regime from collapsing at the time.

“What happened is a huge blow to Russia’s regional influence and prestige,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “Supporting the Assad regime, intervening in the Syrian civil war on Assad’s side with the Iranians, has demonstrated Russia’s capabilities.”

The bases on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, the naval facility at Tartus, which Russia leased for 49 years in 2017, and the airport at Khamenei, are vital to Russia’s ability to influence developments in the Middle East and Africa. where it is involved in conflicts in Libya, Sudan, Central African Republic, Mali and Niger.

Some diplomats involved in the Syria talks between Russia, Iran, Turkey and Arab states held in Doha, Qatar, on Saturday, hours before Assad fell, said Russia likely received commitments it could keep. bases as part of a transition of power.

It is unclear, however, to what extent these commitments would be honored by the Syrian rebels, especially given Russia’s history of bombing Syrian cities over the past decade. One factor is that the future Syrian government would likely be interested in at least some military cooperation with Moscow because most of its weapons, seized from Assad, are of Russian or Soviet origin.

“The Syrian army was trained and established by the Russians, and the army’s governance software is Russian,” said Ammar Kahf, executive director of the Omran think tank, which is linked to the Syrian opposition. “Syria could become a neutral state that has good relations with the US and good relations with Russia, but the Syrian army will remain primarily Russian.”

For now, Syrian rebels treat Russia differently than Iran. A rebel statement after the fall of Aleppo said the Syrian people have no quarrel with Russia. While the rebels gleefully ransacked the Iranian embassy in Damascus, the Russian mission was spared.

While Iran has clearly taken a hit, it has not necessarily lost all influence in Syria. The Afghan Taliban, a Sunni Islamist movement, also ransacked the Iranian diplomatic mission in Mazar-e-Sharif, with militants killing several diplomats in 1998. But over the next decade, Tehran managed to establish a good relationship with the Afghan Taliban. , ties he solidified once the Taliban returned to power in Kabul 2021.

“What happened in Syria is certainly a temporary setback for Iran, but it’s important to remember that Iran is opportunistic and used to operating in unstable environments,” said Dina Esfandari, senior adviser to the International Crisis Group. “Iran endures the long game.”