Basil al-Assad died on January 21, 1994, in what the Syrian government called a car accident. Official dispatches said he had been speeding toward the airport and lost control. Steven A. Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations wrote that the story was believable, yet “the kind of accident that did not happen to the sons of Middle Eastern dictators,” especially those being prepared to rule.
His death put his younger brother Bashar next in line. Bashar was in London at the time, training as an ophthalmologist. Their father, Hafez al-Assad, who had held power since 1971, spent the years from 1994 to 2000 giving his unplanned heir a crash course in running Syria.
Now Bashar is gone, and so is the dynasty. Cook describes the collapse as a two-week sweep in which the Islamist group Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its partner, the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, moved out of Idlib province and took the country. Bashar, he writes, barely put up a fight once Russia and Iran abandoned him.
Open questions in Damascus
Cook sees reasons for caution. HTS is an offshoot of al-Qaeda, and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, has made much of a break from jihadist extremism. Whether that break is genuine or a way to deflect criticism is still unclear, in Cook’s view. Jolani’s record in Idlib, which HTS ran with Turkish patronage, is mixed: he seems to have avoided the harshest forms of control, but HTS “still ruled with an iron fist.” While its fighters emptied Assad’s prisons, Cook notes, Jolani’s opponents were describing abuses in HTS’s own jails.
There were reports that Syria’s central bank was looted in the day after Assad left. It may be an isolated case. Cook points to the sacking of Baghdad in 2003 as a reminder of how such moments can go, while accepting that Syrians liberating themselves is hard to compare with Iraq. He also warns that Syria is awash in weapons and that some people now have little to lose. An insurgency against the new order is not inevitable, he says, but it should be considered.
Neighbors and powers
Cook argues that the region’s Arab governments will not be relaxed. The Emiratis, Saudis, Jordanians and Egyptians, most of whom had welcomed Assad back in recent years, are deeply opposed to Islamist political power. Israel, he writes, helped bring Assad down in an unintended way through its military operations against Hezbollah. Yet Israel now faces the prospect of an Islamist-led government in Damascus. He also notes that the name “Jolani” nods to the Golan Heights, which Israel took in the June 1967 war.
Turkey is the only neighbor that stands to gain, Cook writes. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has moved from patron of Bashar to critic demanding his removal, and then to seeking normal relations. Ankara could shape the successor government, but HTS may not cooperate.
On American policy, Cook is blunt. Both President Biden and President-elect Trump have said the United States should stay on the sidelines, and he agrees: “Syria is for the Syrians.”
