The fall from power of the already former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is related to processes in which the topic of the future of the country in question is inextricably linked to the geopolitical constellation in The Middle East. The latter stems from the fact that, since 2011, Syria has become a state with lost sovereignty, whose territory has been exploited by the interests of other countries. This will continue to be the case. Syria, plus - minus Assad, will be the object of a foreign government, and not the subject of its own state-legal declaration of will, including in relation to functions that the theory of the state and international law assign to individual countries.
But if Damascus will continue to look at the world through bars, then its supervisors will be different.
Turkey is the country that benefits the most from the circumstances that have developed. They will allow Ankara to pursue with greater freedom and scope the achievement of its key interests vis-à-vis Syria: compromising the possibility of autonomy for the Kurdish enclave of Rojava in northern Syria, the return of Syrian refugees on Turkish territory, and the establishment of such an authority in Damascus, which Ankara perceives as a partner in the strategic convergence between the two.
It is Turkey, through its proxy on the ground, the Syrian National Army, as well as the actions of its regular military forces, that continues its pressure on the Kurds. The fall of Assad and the mass withdrawal of Russian military police, which were supposed to patrol some of the territories controlled by the Kurds, have meant that Ankara is now thinking much more ambitiously. If before it wanted the withdrawal of the Kurds in depth from their common border and insisted on the right to intervene in these territories at its discretion, today it is difficult to imagine that the incoming Syrian government will be in a position to resist Turkish demands. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which will be a leading element in the construction of the new power in Damascus, will find themselves in a difficult situation: on the one hand will be the interests of their partner Ankara, on the other, the desire of the terrorist group in question to establish working relations with The Syrian Democratic Forces (predominantly Kurdish) and not be criticized for, like Bashar al-Assad, making compromises with Syrian sovereignty.
However, Turkey's accounts may be further eased if Donald Trump withdraws US forces from Syria, since one of their main functions, like those of Russian contingents in the north of the country, was to stand as a symbolic shield in defense of the Kurds against Ankara.
But if Turkey's role in Syria was already big before Bashar al-Assad lost his power, Israel's has increased after the recent events in Syria. Tel Aviv is carrying out even more intensive bombing of Syrian and Iranian targets on the territory of Syria. Israel's priority is to destroy Syria's air defense system, its missile and chemical arsenal. As the public argument for its actions, Tel Aviv points to the fear that these assets could fall into the hands of Salafi-jihadi groups. In parallel and with similar considerations, Israel has also carried out strikes on the Syrian navy.
But the key difference in Tel Aviv's actions came from the ground invasion of Syrian territory. In violation of the 1974 agreement, the Israel Defense Forces occupied the buffer zone between Israel and Syria provided for in the document in question (the first critical reaction to which came from Saudi Arabia and Turkey). It also includes the Syrian Mount Hermon, control of which gives Tel Aviv a number of strategic advantages. Among them is the possibility of monitoring both the Lebanese Bekaa valley and the Syrian foothills towards Damascus.
Given that in his first term, Donald Trump, in violation of all relevant UN Security Council resolutions, recognized Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights, it is quite possible that Benjamin Netanyahu has similar expectations from the Republican's second administration to the Syrian lands captured by the ongoing actions of the Israel Defense Forces. In that case, Tel Aviv's actions may not be as temporary as the authorities of the country in question are currently insisting. However, for her, the fall from power of Bashar al-Assad is evaluated as a rather positive development of circumstances, given that during his time Syria was cemented in the Iranian sphere of influence.
But if Turkey and Israel are profiting from the events in Syria, the balance sheet for Russia and Iran is exactly the opposite.
The preservation of Bashar al-Assad's regime was used by Moscow in several directions.
First of all, purely political. So, for example, on the back of Syrian sovereignty, Vladimir Putin traded with Benjamin Netanyahu: in order to prevent real Israeli support for Ukraine, the Russian president allowed freedom of action for Israeli warplanes against Iranian assets located on Syrian territory. Syria, as an incubator of refugees for years, was an occasion for Russian pressure both on Turkey and on Europe. By means of his intervention in the war in Syria, Vladimir Putin managed to rehabilitate his importance after the occupation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014. The West had put a sanitary corridor around it.
Secondly, the regime of the former Syrian president was used strategically by the Kremlin. Taking advantage of Assad's weakness and dependence, Russia secured the right to use for a 49-year period the Russian bases located on the Syrian coast - the naval base in Tartus and the air force base in Khmeimim. Their role is to serve as a hub for the projection of Moscow's influence towards North Africa (Libya), the Red Sea (Sudan) and the Sahel (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger). These bases also have their importance as a counterpoint to NATO's southern flank towards the Mediterranean Sea. Their importance became even greater in the context of the war with Ukraine, because Turkey closed the Bosphorus to Russian warships, and Kiev inflicted some damage on the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. Keeping the bases in question in Tartus and Hmeymin is the main reason why the Kremlin established contacts with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, with whom Moscow has yet to hold talks on the future of its military installations in the country.
Thirdly, Assad's survival was exploited by the Kremlin and purely propaganda: the dictatorship was explained as something positive, and the opposition to it - always as a form of terrorism. That is why Russian propaganda put under a common denominator all those who were against the Assad dictatorship. For obvious reasons, Syria was only used as an occasion to spread such an apology for authoritarianism.
Along with Russia, Iran was the other big loser from the change of power in Syria. Damascus was a "stop" in the pro-Iranian corridor Tehran-Baghdad-Beirut, called the "axis of resistance". For Iran, it had both defensive (to keep Tehran's conflicts away from Iranian territory) and offensive functions (to put Israel under permanent threat and pressure by supplying ammunition and funds to organizations such as the Lebanese Hezbollah). The dethronement of Bashar al-Assad is a subsequent step, after the derogation of Hezbollah's combat capabilities, in compromising this Iranian axis. Against this background, the refusal of the Iraqi authorities in Baghdad - in this case mainly referring to the otherwise close to the regime of the Ayatollahs Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani - to send fighters in defense of Assad's rule followed as a further blow to Tehran.
Precisely in the Iranian capital these days there are conversations about who and why is to blame for the circumstances that have arisen. However, Iran, despite its opportunities cut off by the sanctions, has invested a lot in preserving the power of the former Syrian president: in addition to financial and natural resources, and blood (its own, in the form of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and foreign, in the form of the pro-Shiite formations of Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan).
From here, those in power in Tehran are in explanation and damage control mode. So we hear how Bashar al-Assad deserved his fate. One time, because of the weakness of his own armed forces. The second time, because he tried not to take part in the conflict between Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran on the one hand, and Israel on the other. By the way, those two things are true. Also, if the resource allocated by Tehran to its Shiite network in the Middle East had been invested inside the country, the Iranian authorities would not have to answer so many questions today.