#1,017: Farewell, Dr. al-Assad?

The past 48 hours have marked a tectonic shift in the political plates and fates of the Middle East. The fall of Damascus at the hands of Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS: Arabic for either “Organization for the Liberation of the Levant” or “Levant Liberation Committee”) and the fleeing of murderous Syrian President Bashir al-Assad and his family to Moscow, have left tens of million in the region - and indeed, around the world - cheering and fearing the future. Already, thousands upon thousands of Syrian refugees are making the trek back to their homeland from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the U.K. and Germany . . . to name but 4 countries where they have been living in exile.

At this early juncture, it would appear that the biggest losers are Iran and Russia, who have been largely responsible for supplying the Assad regime with arms and weaponry. It is, of course, far too early to say with any certainty what the toppling of Dr. al-Assad (he’s a board-certified ophthalmologist who did his post-graduate training at London’s Western Eye Hospital) will have on the future of the country he and his father ruled with an iron fist for more than half a century. Abu Muhammad al-Julani is the nom de guerre of the leader of Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham, which eventually toppled al-Assad and forced him to flee. As of today, al-Jolani is the titular Syrian Prime Minister. Born Ahmed Hussein al-Shar'a in 1982, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to a family whose historic roots were the Golan Heights (hence the nisba* “al-Julani” [roughly translated as “the Golanite”]), his life over the past two decades has been a roadmap of Islamist militancy in Iraq and Syria. He battled U.S. forces in Iraq and was jailed by the Americans for several years. He rose through the ranks of the group then known as the Islamic State of Iraq, or ISI, and then with help from ISI’s successor, ISIS, Jolani founded an Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, which has been designated a terrorist by the United States since 2013.

(* nisba: نسبة “attribution” . . . an adjectival surname indicating the person's place of origin, ancestral tribe, or ancestry, used at the end of the name).

In 2021, al-Jolani (who, since this past Thursday has dropped his nom de guerre in favor of his birth name) emerged from the shadows and sat down for his first interview with Frontline correspondent Martin Smith. Much was to be learned:

Jolani's journey as a jihadist began in Iraq, linked to al-Qaeda through the Islamic State (IS) group's precursor - al-Qaeda in Iraq and, later, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). After the 2003 US-led invasion, he joined other foreign fighters in Iraq and, in 2005, was imprisoned at Camp Bucca, a forward operating base that housed a theater internment facility maintained by the United States military in the vicinity of Umm Qasr, in extreme southeastern Iraq, where he enhanced his jihadist affiliations and later on was introduced to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the quiet scholar who would later go on to lead IS.

In 2011, Baghdadi sent Jolani to Syria with funding to establish the al-Nusra Front, a covert faction tied to ISI. By 2012, al-Nusra had become a prominent Syrian fighting force, hiding its IS and al-Qaeda ties. Tensions arose in 2013 when Baghdadi's group in Iraq unilaterally declared the merger of the two groups (ISI and al-Nusra), declaring the creation of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), and publicly revealing for the first time the links between them. Jolani resisted, as he wanted to distance his group from ISI's violent tactics, thus leading to a split. To get out of that sticky situation, Jolani pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, making the al-Nusra Front its Syrian branch.

From the start, he prioritized winning Syrian support, distancing himself from IS's brutality and emphasizing a more pragmatic approach to jihad. Despite the public split from al-Qaeda and name changes, HTS continued to be designated by the UN, US, UK and other countries as a terrorist organization, and the US maintained a $10m reward for information about Jolani's whereabouts. Western powers considered the break-up to be a façade.

Under Jolani, HTS became the dominant force in Idlib, north-west Syria's largest rebel stronghold, and home to about four million people, many of whom were displaced from other Syrian provinces. To address concerns about a militant group governing the area, HTS established a civilian front, the so-called "Syrian Salvation Government" (SG) in 2017 as its political and administrative arm. The SG functioned like a state, with a prime minister, ministries and local departments overseeing sectors such as education, health, taxes and reconstruction, while maintaining a religious council guided by Sharia, or Islamic law. Although the new government did not mandate the wearing of the hajib (head-covering) for women, many women in the province began donning them in public. Since the beginning of 2024, a former engineer, Muhammed al-Bashir was the chief administrator of the SG.

Earlier today (Tuesday, Dec. 11) al-Bashir has been appointed post-Assad Syria’s interim prime minister. The decision came after Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader met with the outgoing Syrian Prime Minister and Vice President Faisal Mekdad to discuss a transitional government just yesterday. "The general command has tasked us with running the transitional government until 1 March," Bashir said on Tuesday, according to state media.

So what happens next? Anyone got a crystal ball they truly trust? al-Assad’s downfall evokes memories of the 2011 uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen, each of which brought about either civil war or authoritarian rule. Global responses, both rhetorical and real, are pretty much what one would expect: we are truly glad the Assad regime is on history’s ash-heap, pray that the rebels will turn their spears into pruning hooks, but beyond that, who knows?

In Washington, deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East Daniel Shapiro said, “No one should shed any tears over the end of the Assad regime.” He said that the U.S. would maintain a presence in Eastern Syria “to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS,” and would take all necessary measures to defend its forces in the area.

IT proclaimed on his social media site that the United States should stay out of Syria: “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT,” he declared in his ALL CAPS style.

Turkey: Hakan Fidan, the Turkish foreign minister said, “Syria has reached a stage where the Syrian people will shape the future of their own country. Today there is hope.” Turkey is obvious glad that Assad is gone; perhaps now Turkey can see the more than 3 million Syrians living within their borders return home.

France: President Emmanuel Macron wrote that “the barbaric state has fallen . . . In this moment of uncertainty, I send them my wishes for peace, freedom and unity. France will remain committed to the security of all in the Middle East.”

Iran: Although the country has long been among Dr. Assad’s staunchest supporters, its foreign ministry wrote in a post that “determining Syria’s future and making decisions about its destiny are solely the responsibility of the Syrian people, without any destructive interference or external imposition.”

Israel: P.M. Netanyahu took a victory lap, proclaiming that Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon had caused a “chain reaction” that helped precipitate the collapse of the Assad regime, which he called “ . . . a key cell in Iran’s axis. This [is] the direct result of the blows we dealt Iran and Hezbollah.” Earlier today, Israel said that it had destroyed Syria’s navy in overnight airstrikes, as it continued to pound targets in Syria despite warnings that its operations there could ignite new conflict and jeopardize the transition of power to an interim government.

Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said that the Israeli military had “destroyed Syria’s navy overnight, and with great success.” His remarks appeared to confirm Israel’s responsibility for the destruction documented in the Syrian port city of Latakia, where photos showed the smoldering remains of ships sunk at their dock.

Britain: “It’s too early to remove Syrian rebels from the terror list.

In boning up on, and familiarizing myself with, Ahmed Hussein al-Shara’a, I find myself convinced of 3 things:

He is sharp as a tack;
He possesses the inscrutability of the truly unknowable;
He is an utter pragmatist.
This last point could be, when all is said and done, the most important and telling of all. History teaches that once the shooting stops, leaders of successful rebellions and/or revolutions are frequently failures when it comes to governing. Take the Hasmoneans (Maccabees) as an early example; they were uncanny guerilla fighters who, though totally unskilled as warriors and going up against what was perhaps the very first professional army in the history of the world (the Greco-Assyrians of King Antiochus Epiphanes) they managed to pull off a miraculous victory. However, when it came to leading a state at peace, they were utter failures at governance and had to ‘invite in” a group to help them (the Romans), who would eventually be responsible for destroying all they had created. They lacked both vision and an understanding of pragmatism.

Ahmed Hussein al-Shara’a appears to be a pragmatist. Once he and HTS conquered Idlib, he and his lieutenants removed their headpieces, trimmed their beards, put on western clothing and began creating a civil government. They also jettisoned their early sponsors’ notion of worldwide jihad and began proclaiming themselves to be interested in remaking Syria. Period. Just how much religious fanaticism will be on display in the new Syria is anyone’s guess; however, there is always their first test case in Idlib. There, they created a civil administration which, if not favorable to all (I mean, who likes paying increased taxes?), at least they had the support of enough people to not have the problem of counter-revolution hounding them every hour of the day. And within hours of getting Dr. al-Assad to flee, began the process of governmental transition which, as we in the U.S. have learned of late, is not always a given.

What tomorrow will bring to Syria and the rest of the Middle East is anyone’s guess. But at least for now, Iran and Russia seem to have lost a supportive conduit, which is a good start. Let’s hope that Tevya’s rabbi’s blessing for the Tzar will be the same for Dr. al-Assad . . . that “G-d bless and keep him . . . far away from us.”