How will the fall of Assad reshape the Middle East?

One hundred years after the world’s major powers conceived the landscape of the modern Middle East, the tumultuous events unfolding in Syria have the potential to enact an equally profound reorientation of the region’s political dynamics.

The Cairo conference of 1921, where Winston Churchill famously quipped that he had created the new kingdom of Jordan “with the stroke of a pen on a Sunday afternoon,” was responsible for creating the modern geography of the Middle East. Present-day Syria emerged from the remnants of the larger domain that had existed during the Ottoman era.

There are practical issues that must be addressed, such as the rehabilitation of an estimated 13 million Syrians

Hafez al-Assad, the Alawite founder of the murderous despotic regime that controlled Syria for more than five decades, often complained that Damascus had been cheated out of its rightful heritage by the Cairo settlement. It was this agreement which also created Iraq and laid the foundations for the eventual establishment of Israel.

The colonial carve-up undertaken by the British and French governments at the end of World War One, with the Sykes-Picot agreement struck in 1916 informing many of the decisions taken in Cairo, was deeply resented by Syrian Ba’athists. It was they who had campaigned for the restoration of Greater Syria — an area that includes modern-day Israel.

The changes to Syria’s geographical landscape are unlikely to be quite so controversial following the overthrow of the unloved Assad clan. Nevertheless, the removal of one of the region’s more notoriously despotic regimes raises the very real possibility that significant changes are about to take place which could have an impact on the Middle East for decades to come.

It is too early to say for sure how the coalition of Islamist rebels will approach the daunting task of rebuilding the country’s governmental institutions after more than five decades of Ba’athist corruption and misrule. There are important practical issues that must first be addressed, such as the rehabilitation of an estimated 13 million Syrians — around half the country’s pre-civil war population — who have been forced from their homes during the past fourteen years of civil strife.

The Islamist leaders of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group that spearheaded the lightning advance on Damascus that resulted in the overthrow of Bashar-al-Assad’s regime, has made encouraging noises about cooperating with other opposition groups. Even so, the prospect of a Taliban-style Islamic republic taking root in Damascus remains a concern, especially as stragglers of the Islamic State fanatics who established their so-called caliphate in the Syrian city of Raqqa still remain active in the country.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would certainly like to see a political settlement in Damascus that reflects his broader desire to recreate the Islamic glories of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish president is said to have given his tacit approval to the Islamist rebellion.

The uncertainty over Syria’s future political direction has already resulted in the Israeli military making a pre-emptive move to secure its northern border with Syria. Over the weekend, Israeli forces moved to take control of the Syrian side of the strategically important Mount Hermon mountain range on the Syrian border.

In addition, Israeli warplanes have been busy targeting the remnants of the Assad regime’s various facilities dedicated to the production of weapons of mass destruction — especially the chemical weapons sites that were used to such deadly effect during the civil war. The Israelis will certainly want to make sure that such weapons will not be accessible to the country’s next generation of leaders, whoever they might be.

Israel will also be looking to take advantage of the extreme challenges facing Iran, the Assads’ closest regional ally. Previously Tehran relied heavily on Damascus to maintain military supply lines to Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon.

Revolutionary Guard commanders have long played a key role in helping to defend the regime. As one of Bashar al-Assad’s main backers, Iran is not held in high regard by Syria’s new Islamist rulers — as can be seen from the attack on the Iranian Embassy in Tehran after Assad and his family fled into exile in Russia.

Suddenly, Iran’s long-held ambition of establishing a “Shia Crescent” from Tehran to Beirut lies in tatters. Tehran’s ability to sustain its terrorist operations in Syria and Lebanon has evaporated. With Iran no longer able to use Damascus airport to transport weapons and supplies through Damascus, its ability to maintain its logistical ties with Hezbollah will be under significant pressure.

The changing political landscape in Syria could also have positive repercussions in neighboring Lebanon, where Hezbollah’s insidious infiltration of the country’s political establishment in recent years is deeply resented. Hezbollah, which relies heavily on the support it has cultivated among Shia Muslims in the south of the country, is deeply unpopular with the rest of the Lebanese population, be they Christian or Sunni Muslim. Many blame the Iranian-backed terrorist group for provoking the recent wave of hostilities with Israel through their insistence on attacking the northern part of the country as an act of solidarity with their Hamas counterparts in Gaza, with both groups being prominent members of Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance.”

If one of the happier consequences of the removal of the Assad regime in Syria is the demise of Hezbollah in Lebanon, it will not just be the Lebanese who celebrate the end of one of Iran’s key terrorist networks.