Washington, DC – A lightning-quick offensive has seen Syria’s opposition take management of main cities and enormous swaths of territory, toppling the federal government of longtime chief President Bashar al-Assad and indelibly altering the war-torn nation’s future.
The occasions signify a outstanding reversal of fortunes in Syria and enlivened a multipronged civil warfare that appeared largely stagnant for years. The scenario, analysts instructed Al Jazeera, additionally seems to have been largely unanticipated by the administration of United States President Joe Biden, and raises galling questions over how Washington will proceed within the weeks and months forward.
“I feel all the pieces that’s taking place caught them without warning,” Qutaiba Idlbi, a senior fellow on the Washington, DC-based Atlantic Council, instructed Al Jazeera. “So many people analysts and Syria watchers have been questioning what’s going to return subsequent.”
“[The Biden administration] might want to recalibrate their strategy to Syria,” added Idlbi, who can be a Syrian refugee. However that’s all however assured to be constrained by Biden’s diminished energy earlier than he palms over the workplace in January to president-elect Donald Trump, he mentioned.
“I really feel that the occasions on the bottom are transferring approach too rapidly for them to catch up, particularly on this lame-duck session.”
‘Historic alternative’ or ‘threat and uncertainty’?
Talking on Sunday – hours after opposition teams led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered the Syrian capital of Damascus and despatched al-Assad fleeing the nation – Biden gave his first response to what he described as each a second of “historic alternative” and “threat and uncertainty”.
Biden mentioned the top of al-Assad’s presidency was partially because of US help for Israel’s warfare on Gaza and its struggle towards Hezbollah in Lebanon, in addition to help for teams in Syria and Iraq that weakened Syria’s shut ally, Iran.
He additionally pointed to US help for Ukraine’s warfare towards Russia’s invasion, which siphoned assets from Moscow, an in depth ally of al-Assad: “The upshot of all of this, for the primary time ever, neither Russia [nor] Iran or Hezbollah may defend this abhorrent regime in Syria,” Biden mentioned.
Trying forward, Biden mentioned Washington would prioritise supporting Syria’s neighbours – together with Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Israel.
He mentioned US forces would stay in northeast Syria, the place they help the Kurdish-led Syrian Defence Forces towards ISIL (ISIS). About 900 US troops are at present within the northeast of the nation.
Lastly, Biden pledged to interact “with all Syrian teams”, whereas vowing to “stay vigilant”.
“Make no mistake, a number of the insurgent teams that took down Assad have their very own grim document of terrorism,” he mentioned.
A senior US official quoted by Reuters, nonetheless, mentioned that HTS was “saying the fitting issues”.
‘Six weeks left on the clock’
The primary official response from the White Home underlines a number of key questions that can decide the form of US coverage on Syria going ahead.
However Biden – throughout his quick time left in workplace – is unlikely to offer these solutions, in accordance with Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow on the Carnegie Endowment for Worldwide Peace and a former Center East analyst on the State Division.
“You’re speaking about an administration that has six weeks left on the clock,” he mentioned. “And with six weeks left on the clock, I’d simply attempt to forestall and guard towards potential issues or catastrophes.”
Meaning most main selections will possible be made by Trump.
Throughout his first time period, Trump repeatedly sought to withdraw US troops from Syria. He appeared to re-up that effort on Saturday, writing on his Fact Social account that the US “would don’t have anything to do” with the nation.
The Biden administration has additionally not articulated the way it will mediate its help for the SDF’s struggle towards ISIL with the evolving panorama on the bottom. Like different insurgent teams, the SDF has seized new territory – together with the japanese metropolis of Deir Az Zor and the Abu Kamal border crossing with Iraq – in latest days.
Chatting with reporters final week, Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder mentioned US forces weren’t “collaborating in mixed arms manoeuvre with the SDF” of their offensive.
However the fluid scenario on the bottom may see extra alternatives for escalation between the SDF and the Turkish-backed Syrian Nationwide Military (SNA) group, in accordance with analyst Idlbi.
“In fact, these questions are nonetheless pending,” he mentioned.
The Biden administration can be extensively anticipated to revisit its designation of HTS as a “terrorist organisation”, which may limit US engagement with any fledgling transitional authorities.
Jabhat al-Nusra was fashioned in 2012 by ISIL however broke from the group a yr later and pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda. It joined with different factions and broke from al-Qaeda in 2017, rebranding as HTS.
Its chief, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, whose actual identify is Ahmad al-Sharaa, has since portrayed himself as a supporter of pluralism and equality, however wariness stays for a way the group would deal with the vastly numerous communities that make up Syria’s inhabitants.
The US authorities continues to have a $10m bounty on his head.
‘Backburner’
Regardless of Biden’s celebration over al-Assad’s ousting, Idlbi mentioned he stays cautious that this was the result the administration needed to see.
On the very least, he mentioned the Biden administration had been caught flat-footed between diverging colleges of thought: One which supported conserving al-Assad in energy to keep away from a vacuum, whereas coaxing him away from Iran, and one other that supported wider regime change.
He pointed to a Reuters information company report final week that mentioned the US and United Arab Emirates had lately mentioned the potential for lifting sanctions on al-Assad if he agreed to drag away from Iran and lower off weapons routes to Hezbollah.
The ideas of the Biden administration’s strategy to the scenario, with its deprioritisation of Syria since taking workplace in 2021, by no means absolutely took kind, he added.
“Syria has been placed on the again burner for the final 4 years, and the burner has been turned off,” Idlbi mentioned.
In some ways, the muddied technique has mirrored US coverage all through the warfare, which noticed help for some opposition teams fizzle right into a diplomatic strain marketing campaign towards al-Assad.
The administration of former US President Barack Obama had initially embraced opposition to al-Assad as related fashionable uprisings stretched throughout the Center East, supporting a coalition of insurgent teams largely primarily based in pockets of the nation’s east and south.
That help concerned a since-declassified CIA programme that noticed the US, the UK and several other Arab nations funnel cash, weapons and coaching to some insurgent teams. The programme has been criticised for inadvertently funnelling weapons to teams thought-about “terrorists” by the nations concerned.
Obama additionally famously mentioned that al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons towards Syrians would represent a “pink line”, however he balked on direct navy intervention following the federal government’s chemical assault on Ghouta in 2013. 4 years later, Trump did strike a Syrian air base in response to the Khan Sheikhoun chemical weapons assault, the primary US assault of its sort for the reason that warfare started.
Chatting with Al Jazeera, Mahmood Barazi, the president of the American Coalition for Syria, a grouping of US organisations that has opposed al-Assad, mentioned the rapidly shifting scenario has prompted him to rethink methods to strategy advocacy with the incoming Trump administration.
Given Trump’s distinctive mixture of isolationism and hawkishness in the direction of Tehran, Barazi had deliberate to give attention to Iranian affect in Syria to persuade officers of the necessity to flip the screws on al-Assad.
Now, he’s attempting to determine one of the best ways to “create a system with this administration to maintain a really aware and proactive strategy in the direction of Syria”.
“For me, this a chance,” he mentioned.