Although the Assad regime has historically been famous for being very pragmatic and survivalist in its foreign policy, the coming period will show how much it can maintain this agility after the devastation and loss of power in the civil war.
As the first anniversary of Operation Aqsa Flood approaches, the picture in the Middle East is completely different than it was a year ago. While more than 40,000 Palestinians have been martyred in Israel’s massacres in Gaza, Israel has now set its sights on Lebanon. In the last two weeks, Israel has intensified its attacks, first by blowing up the pagers and radios of Hezbollah members, then by heavily bombing Hezbollah missile sites in South Lebanon, and finally by killing Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and several senior members of the organization in Beirut. At this point, it can be said that Hezbollah’s capacity and will to fight has suffered serious damage.
While Israel has intensified its attacks on Lebanon after Gaza, it continues its airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen and Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq, encouraged by the inaction of Iran and its proxies in the region. In this respect, it would be appropriate to examine the future of Hezbollah’s presence in Syria, the country where it is most active outside Lebanon, and the repercussions of this situation on the Syrian civil war. In addition, how the Assad regime, which constitutes another pillar of Iran’s regional policy, will react to the attacks against Hezbollah may provide important clues for the future of the Syrian civil war.
Hafez al-Assad used the Organization as leverage
The relations between Hezbollah and Syria date back to the establishment of Hezbollah. Hezbollah was founded during the Lebanese civil war to end the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon, while Syria was involved in the civil war and occupied Lebanon. The relations between Hezbollah, which played an important role as part of Iran’s “export of revolution” policy, and Iran-allied Syria entered a different phase after the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1990. During this period, Hezbollah accepted Syria’s occupation of Lebanon and adopted a harmonious approach with Damascus. Under Hafez al-Assad, Syria tried to use Hezbollah as a trump card in its negotiations and struggle with Israel.
However, this changed under Bashar al-Assad, who came to power after Hafez al-Assad’s death in 2000. Syria under Bashar al-Assad further strengthened its relationship with Hezbollah against Israel and supported Hezbollah militarily and politically. However, after the assassination of Hariri, who opposed Syria’s occupation of Lebanon in 2005, Syria was forced to end its occupation of Lebanon due to pressure, which changed the course of relations once again. After Syria withdrew its troops, Hezbollah became the main actor in Lebanon to protect Iranian and Syrian interests and implement their policies. This gave Hezbollah a more autonomous position, relatively free from Syrian control.
The Process that Started with the Arab Uprisings
After the Arab uprisings that caused change throughout the Middle East spread to Syria in March 2011, the military support of Iran and Hezbollah became critical for the continuation of the Assad regime. The Damascus regime was in a very difficult situation due to the anti-regime protests of the overwhelming majority of the population and the clashes between the regime and the soldiers who left the army after the regime’s order to violently suppress the protests. Although Hezbollah members said in their own statements that they intervened in Syria in 2013, it can be said that Hezbollah was involved in the clashes from the moment the clashes started and the regime was in a difficult situation.
Ultimately, with the civil war that started in 2011, the Assad regime was in a position of needing the help of Hezbollah, which it had used and supported as a proxy in Lebanon, which it had occupied for 28 years. This led to a situation in which Hezbollah’s influence on the Assad regime increased as much as Iran’s and especially the control of the Syrian-Lebanese border was left to Lebanon.
What Has the Civil War Brought?
While Hezbollah changed the course of the Syrian civil war, its involvement in Syria also profoundly changed Hezbollah. This change had positive aspects such as gaining space in Syria, increasing military capacity and having a more coordinated relationship with the Shiite militias supported by Iran. Involvement in the Syrian civil war transformed Hezbollah into a regional power, fighting alongside Iran and even Russia, and developing close relations.
In addition, Hezbollah grew rapidly in line with the requirements of the war and became a more important military force than ever before. Hezbollah’s military structure was also transformed from a terrorist organization in the cities and countryside into a regular army. Another advantage is that Hezbollah’s popularity in Lebanon increased after its intervention and military successes against the opposition, and even attempted to make a demographic change by replacing millions of Syrians fleeing the regime with the families of Shiite militias and Hezbollah militants.
What did it cost?
Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria not only brought significant gains, but also created various weaknesses within the organization. The most prominent of these weaknesses is that Hezbollah, which was strong enough to become an alternative state and military structure in Lebanon, over-extended itself in Syria, where it entered the Syrian arena in order to sustain the Assad regime, and wasted its resources on Iranian policy, which was not the organization’s primary goal and interest. And this eventually led to Hezbollah having a serious vulnerability to Israel. In Lebanon, it would be very difficult to fight Hezbollah in bunkers, in the city with civilians and directly embedded in the state structure, whereas in Syria it would be relatively easier to fight Hezbollah, which acts like a regular army, dominates the Lebanese-Syrian border, operates a drug production and distribution network inside Syria and is therefore highly visible to Israel. The organization’s rapid growth and its interaction with irregular Shiite militias and Iranian structures with intelligence problems also made Hezbollah more vulnerable to Israeli influence than ever before. The need to quickly replace Hezbollah members killed in clashes with the Syrian opposition and the need for recruits during the war also paved the way for Hezbollah to recruit members vulnerable to foreign intelligence interference without taking adequate precautions.
He was helpless against the Mossad
To make a comparison, although Israel has been blockading Gaza since 2007, it has never had such an intelligence capability within Hamas. This shows how an organization like Hezbollah, which has built its entire rhetoric on fighting Israel and has reached a serious capacity in the region in the last 15 years, is in a state of weakness and helplessness against Israeli intelligence.
As a result of all this, Hezbollah used the civil war as a great opportunity to gain space in Syria, while Iran increased its importance within the framework of its regional policy. However, the openness to Israeli influence due to excessive expansion emerged as the most important point that led to Nasrallah’s downfall.
Will Damascus be crushed while Tehran and Tel Aviv are at loggerheads?
Syria, with its de facto tripartite structure, remains a major source of instability in the region. The presence of Iranian-backed Shiite militias and Hezbollah in the areas under the control of the Damascus government, on the other hand, paves the way for Israel to intervene in Syria and launch arbitrary attacks. Accordingly, Israel has been launching airstrikes against Damascus, Homs, Deir ez-Zor and even Aleppo in order to prevent Iranian arms deliveries to elements in the region and to damage their logistics lines.
In this equation, the Assad regime’s position appears to be quite difficult. On the one hand, the regime survives with the support of Iran and Hezbollah, but on the other hand, it is both becoming dependent on Iran and Hezbollah and therefore exposed to Israeli attacks. Although it is no longer possible for Iran to keep Hezbollah out of the fight against Israel, there is a possibility of using Syria to reduce Israeli pressure on Hezbollah by spreading it across the region. Accordingly, Iran may choose to turn the country into a battleground of this rivalry by launching attacks on Israel from Syrian territory.
Regime to Approach Moscow
At this point, however, the Assad regime’s attitude will not be positive, even in these circumstances where it needs the support of Iran and Hezbollah. In fact, for Damascus, the survival of the regime is seen as a top priority outside this regional rivalry. This may create a plane in which the regime will be more inclined towards Russia after the post-Nasrallah Hezbollah loses ground both in Lebanon and Syria and the organization loses its strategic wisdom. The method for this may be to forget the regime’s Iran-friendly Alawite identity, which is part of the resistance axis, and remind it of its secular Arab identity. Accordingly, it will try to survive by giving the impression that it is a secular Arab state and does not pose a threat to Israel.
Russia, as it has been doing for the last year, will continue to try to save the Assad regime from being part of a possible Israeli-Iranian war. To this end, it will further encourage the Ankara-Damascus normalization, which it already supports, to fill the vacuum created by the weakening of Hezbollah through diplomacy and to try to distance the regime from Iran and bring it closer to itself and partly to Turkey. However, for this to succeed, the regime will need to show serious flexibility and prevent the process from being undermined.
Who will fill the vacuum?
By calling the operation that killed Nasrallah the New Order, Israel hints at something beyond these attacks. Considering Netanyahu’s use of the phrase “changing the Middle East”, it is clear that Israeli expansionism threatens Lebanon and other countries in the region after Gaza. At this point, given that the US has no intention of stopping Israel and Iran does not even respond to the killing of Nasrallah if necessary to avoid confrontation with Israel, a regional struggle against Israel seems quite difficult.
With the Israeli ground offensive, Hezbollah will be forced to shift most of its militia to Lebanon. This could create a vacuum on the ground in Syria. Since it is very difficult for the Shiite militias targeted by Israel or Russia, which is focused on the Ukraine war, to fill this vacuum, alternative approaches will be necessary. Therefore, Russia will try to close the security gap for the Assad regime by setting up a diplomacy desk for Damascus. Although normalization negotiations with Turkey come to the forefront here, a compromise seems quite difficult due to the Assad regime’s maximalist demands and its approach that characterizes the Turkish Armed Forces as occupiers.
Zionist Occupation Inevitable
Although the Assad regime has historically been famous for being very pragmatic and survivalist in its foreign policy, the coming period will show how much it can maintain this agility after the devastation and loss of power in the civil war. Moreover, even if this is possible, the risk of steps undermining the regime’s policy is very real due to the significant Iranian and Hezbollah influence within the regime.
In addition to Israeli expansionism, under normal circumstances, the PKK/YPG terrorist state project is a problem that the entire region must fight against as it means creating a second Israel in the region. While the Assad regime should take action against this problem, it is likely that, just like Iran’s policy, the Assad regime will continue to maintain its relationship with the PKK/YPG in order to show that it will not pose a threat to Israel and even find a ground for reconciliation with the US in the future. However, this will not be enough, and like Nasrallah, the Assad regime will eventually have to deal with Israeli expansionism, even if it avoids it. At the end of the day, it is certain that Hezbollah’s loss of power after Nasrallah will force serious changes in the Syrian arena and create new opportunities as well as new threats for the actors involved.
