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In light of events in Gaza and Lebanon, has Assad finally exposed his irrelevance?

October 7, 2024 at 6:00 pm

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, In Damascus, Syria On May 03, 2023 [Borna News/Matin Ghasemi/Aksonline ATPImages/Getty Images]

As we mark a year since the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, and the killing of at least 42,000 Palestinians by the Israeli occupation army, we should pause for reflection. This has been a year of horror, which shows no sign of ending. The people of Gaza should be praised for their resilience and fortitude; as the world abandons them, they stand tall. A ceasefire surely has to be implemented immediately.

One year on, and other actors in the region use the Palestinians in Gaza for their own benefit. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has clearly failed in his mission in Gaza; he has made little progress in returning the hostages alive, and seems desperate to prolong the war to save his political skin and avoid corruption indictments. As he makes little headway in Gaza, he has extended the war in Lebanon and killed hundreds of innocent civilians. The opportunist in him has been clear; he wants to “change” the Middle East, and with US President Joe Biden essentially a lame duck until January and Netanyahu betting on Donald Trump being elected next month, he wants to get ahead.

Why has Bashar Al-Assad been so quiet?

The question here is simple: with the current situation in the Middle East being so volatile, why has Syria’s Bashar Al-Assad, one of the region’s most consequential actors in the past decade and half, been so quiet?

Assad has long spoken of himself as part of the “Axis of Resistance” and used this argument for years during the Syrian uprising when facing protests that he claimed were “Western funded”. These claims have always been laughable given the fact that the Assad regime has done nothing to support the Palestinian people over the past half a century and has even massacred Palestinian refugees in Syria in recent years.

Whilst never being a formal ally of Assad, Israel has always been in favour of him remaining as president of Syria rather than a democratically-elected leader who would likely have something to say about the occupation state’s repeated breaches of international law. In the past year, Assad has said nothing about the war in Gaza and has had little to say about Israeli air strikes in Damascus and many other parts of Syria. There haven’t even been any symbolic protests.

READ: Israeli air strike targets three cars in Syria’s Homs, state news agency says

Interestingly, after the recent killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Syrian state TV did not cover his death and maintained very low profile coverage of what has been going on in Lebanon. Hezbollah’s intervention in 2013 in the Syrian civil war on the side of Assad (and the movement’s pride in doing so and declaration about it being sectarian) was considered a key turning point in the conflict. Barely acknowledging Nasrallah’s killing is odd.

Hezbollah has become exposed in Syria over the past decade.

As it worked with Syrian security forces (known for their corruption) and with Maher Al-Assad, Bashar’s younger brother who commands the Syrian Army’s elite 4th armoured division, and became more closely aligned with Russian forces in Syria, it was easier for Israeli intelligence agencies to keep tabs on the movement. Israeli spies were very likely to be operating amongst its personnel. Furthermore, Hezbollah’s involvement in the captagon trade has made individuals even more visible, and for a group once famed for its shadowy, secretive operations, its work in the open in both Lebanon and Syria is strange.

Moreover, Hezbollah has been so entrenched in fighting a war in Syria over the past decade or so, that many of its members and fighters have essentially been programmed into thinking that the many enemy is the Sunni opposition. The movement was involved in many massacres of Syrian civilians in Al-Qusayr, Homs, Madaya, Ghouta and Aleppo, for example. This has left it particularly vulnerable. The killings of Nasrallah, Fuad Shukr and a few other leaders recently and within a few days of the devastating pager and walkie-talkie explosions demonstrates this very clearly.

Iran’s words are worth considering too. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has been surprisingly open about seeking a de-escalation in tensions with Israel. And whilst symbolic missiles have been directed towards the latter, he has spoken of his willingness to re-open nuclear deal talks with the West. Iran is clearly not in a position to be in open warfare with Israel. Assad has been notably cooler towards Iran over the past year as he’s sought normalisation from the Arab states, particularly in the Gulf. Iran may view Gulf support for him as a bargaining chip in nuclear power talks; it is clear that the Syrian president has outlived his usefulness and presides over a shell of the country that Syria was prior to 2011. He is politically and economically dead, having won a pyrrhic victory over the opposition, and is at the mercy of foreign powers.

READ: Hezbollah claims rocket strikes on Israeli military industry complex in northern Israel

Escalation between the Iranians and the Israelis will make Assad’s situation more difficult. He also knows that the Israelis have benefited significantly from keeping the occupied Golan Heights quiet for almost 50 years. Should this continue, Assad’s position becomes irrelevant.

In the midst of this, as the Middle East burns, Assad instead chose to speak to his cabinet about banal domestic affairs and a government reshuffle. There are continuing problems for the government in Dar’aa and Suweiyda in the south; north-western Syria is still controlled by opposition forces and the north east is under the control of the Kurds. There is little sign of the economic situation in Syria improving, and Assad’s other backer, Russia, is distracted in Ukraine. The only ray of light that Assad can see is the idea of normalisation with Turkiye as President Recep Tayyeb Erdogan, under domestic pressure from the right, continues to push to send Syrian refugees back and work with Assad on fighting the Kurds.

Assad faces threats from his allies, who are too distracted to come to his aid.

As the media narrative generally refers to two camps — Israel, the US and most of the Gulf states which want to normalise relations with Israel on the one side; and Russia, Iran and Hezbollah on the other — the latter are seen simplistically to be the “defenders” of the Palestinian cause with Iran and Hezbollah claiming the mantle of resistance alongside Assad. This narrative, however, is simplistic and leaves little room for a third way, one which holds Israel and the US accountable for breaking international law and constant aggression in Gaza whilst understanding that the powers which supported the same tactics in Syria that Israel uses in Gaza, cannot be true allies of any movement which supports human rights and self-determination. The Arab pendulum does not necessarily swing one way or another, and is more closely directed toward a third way which rejects all neo-colonial advances.

The Palestinian people deserve better than to be geopolitical pawns in a wider game.

After a year of indescribable horror, they need our solidarity. The same can be said of the Syrian people who have been suffering under the Assad regime for over 50 years. “The arc of the moral universe will bend toward justice,” said Dr Martin Luther King. The empty support of dictators such as Assad for the Palestinian cause does more harm than good, and it is clear that it will only be grassroots action led by the Palestinian people that will achieve long lasting change and an end to settler colonialism.

The Syrian people are in the same boat, facing tyranny and occupying powers from within. Empty promises from the West have set the Syrian cause back. Ultimately, it will be the Syrian people who determine their own future.

READ: Khamenei says Israel will not defeat Iran as strikes pummel Lebanon

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.