The dramatic toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria could have far-reaching consequences for the Middle East and other countries, such as Greece and Turkey, in the region.
The overthrow of Assad was greeted cautiously by Western nations who are wary of the potential for further bloodshed and of a power vacuum in Syria if a chaotic and contested transition of leadership takes place.
The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs hailed the downfall of the Assad regime and expressed its hope that it will open the door to the return of millions of refugees. It also called for a speedy transition to a democratic, representative government and the protection of religious minorities and monuments.
Syria: Power sharing or endless power struggles?
Strategist John Sitilides told Greek Reporter that no one has any idea at this early moment what the near-term or long-term future of Syria and the region will look like or how events will play out.
“The question right now, for Western policymakers is whether the future of Syria’s governance involves power sharing or endless power struggles between various factions, terrorists and external countries with proxy groups inside of Syria.”
There is a power vacuum in Syria and external powers such as Russia, Iran, Turkey, Israel, and the United States will strive to shape the future of the country.
The rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has been classified as a terrorist organization and has its roots in al-Qaeda and a violent past. They have spent recent years trying to rebrand themselves as a nationalist force, and their recent messages have a diplomatic and conciliatory tone.
However, many are not convinced and fear their intentions. Already, al-Qaeda is urging the rebels to turn on “Jews and Crusaders” (their term for all Christians).
“The organization is promoting and projecting a profile of moderation and tolerance and protection of minorities, but it may simply be playing the West for fools and masking its long-term objectives in ways that could be permanently very destructive to the long-suffering people of Syria,” Sitilides notes.
Greece right to be concerned about the Christian minority
“Greece and Cyprus are right to be concerned, not only from Greece’s and Cyprus’s perspectives but all of us who care about Christian minorities and all minorities,” Archbishop Ieronimos said.
Archbishop Ieronimos, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church has raised concerns and appealed to the Greek government to do its best to help the Christians of Syria.
“The advance of extremist armed elements and the occupation of Aleppo endangers the interreligious composition of the population of the region, which, among other things, has had a Greek-born and Greek Orthodox population since ancient times,” he said in a recent statement.
Sitilides, who chaired the State Department’s Advanced Area Studies Program for Southeast Europe (under a US government contract) at the Foreign Service Institute, the primary training institution for US diplomats and other foreign policy professionals between 2006 to 2023, notes that Syria is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society.
“You may see power struggles within the Muslim communities between the Alawite minority and the Sunni majority there in Syria. The Sunnis may be out for revenge against the Alawites who had the protection of Assad at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Sunni Syrians who were either jailed or murdered by the regime,” Sitilides said.
“Then you have, of course, the Kurds in northeastern Syria. They’re looking at their territory, especially against the Islamic State terrorist organizations that the US is in the region to try to keep contained so that they don’t threaten Damascus or other minorities,” he added.
“The Orthodox Christian and other Christian minorities flourished relatively well under the protection of the Assad regime,” Sitilides says. “And they have every reason to be concerned about the HTS, Islamist, jihadist, terrorist organization that openly calls for the liberation of the Levant, which means Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel, again, masking their true intentions.”
The Greek-American strategist suspects that HTS is portraying a moderate image to prevent a US and Israel attack that would destroy them at the outset. It may concentrate on consolidating power in Syria, and then over time, patiently, it may decide to turn against the Christian minority population of Syria. “It’s a very grave and it’s a very serious concern,” he concluded.
Is Turkey the big winner from the chaos in Syria?
Turkey, which shares a 911-kilometer-long (566-mile-long) frontier with Syria, has been a main backer of opposition groups aiming to topple Assad since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011.
While Turkish officials have strongly rejected claims of any involvement, observers believe that the offensive, which appears to be aligned with Turkey’s long-time goals, could not have gone ahead without Ankara’s consent.
“At this point, Turkey probably has scored a significant advantage out of the chaos in Syria. With their ties with the Syrian National Army and the Free Syrian Army and their sort of wink and nodding understanding with the HTS terrorist organization leadership, it’s probably in a prime position relative to other external players,” Sitilides said in speaking to Greek Reporter.
HTS is listed as a terrorist organization by Ankara. However, Turkey has operated alongside it for years in northern Syria and is believed to exert significant influence over the group.
Turkey stands to benefit because of the outsized influence, militarily and politically, with the new regime in Damascus. There could be a continuous outflow of millions of Syrian refugees that have been in Turkey since 2015 to 2016.
He adds that Iran has suffered a grievous geo-strategic loss with the defeat of its ally in Damascus, which was critical to Iranian support for Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Russia has also suffered a serious setback, both in terms of its international profile, because of its inability to defend its allies, the Bashar regime, since 2015, and the potential loss of two strategic bases, the naval base in Tartus and the air base in Latakia. It is going to be very difficult for Russia to defend those bases and maintain them given the new government and its likely antipathy towards Moscow.
Greece and Cyprus need to work with the US on Syria
While the fall of Bashar al-Assad may allow Syrian refugees to return, Greece is bracing for potential instability, especially if new conflicts emerge, such as with Kurdish groups. Greece was among the first to suspend asylum applications, a move later mirrored by Germany and Austria.
“Greece and Cyprus should encourage Syrian immigrants that are in Greece and Cyprus to return to Syria and start new lives there and ease the pressure on the Greek and Cypriot governments, economies and societies,” Sitilides says. He also calls for closer cooperation with the US.
Sitilides also stated:
“It’s incumbent upon Greece and Cyprus to work closely with the United States directly, given that the US probably has a larger interest now in converging power projection capabilities that combine Souda Bay and Alexandroupolis in Greece, along with the Evangelos Florakis Naval Base in Cyprus and the Andreas Papandreou Air Base in Paphos in Cyprus.
Then [see how] we can either neutralize the Russian bases in Syria or ideally even bring them somehow into some type of a US-European international framework maybe that protects the Alawite minority in that part of Syria and enhances Western power projection capabilities throughout the Eastern Mediterranean.”
“I emphasize that Greece and Cyprus should work closely with the United States on this because I sense that the European Union is constitutionally incapable of determining a cohesive position to deal with geopolitics amid the chaos of Syria,” Sitilides explained in speaking to Greek Reporter.
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