A Quick Arab Pivot: From Welcoming al-Assad to Managing the Chaos

Only weeks ago, Sunni Arab nations, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, were trying to bring President Bashar al-Assad of Syria back into the fold, urging him to break with a weakened Iran.

Mr. al-Assad had already been invited back into the Arab League, an association of Arabic-speaking nations in the region, 12 years after being expelled for his brutal crackdown on the Syrian opposition. Then in September, Saudi Arabia reopened its embassy in Damascus, after nearly a decade of broken relations, an indication of confidence that Mr. al-Assad was there to stay.

Even the European Union had begun to discuss dealing with Mr. al-Assad to curb illegal migration.

But Mr. al-Assad hesitated to turn away from Tehran, even when Iran and Mr. al-Assad’s other main backer, Russia — which kept him in power — were weakened and stretched by wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine.

As late as Saturday in Doha, Qatar, foreign ministers from Arab states, Turkey, Russia and Iran met in vain to try to contain the revolt against Mr. al-Assad and avert the chaos that might ensue with his ouster.

Within hours of that meeting, however, Mr. al-Assad’s fate was sealed, as rebels advanced on Damascus, unseated his government and forced him to flee to Russia. By Sunday morning, Saudi, Egyptian, Qatari and other Arab officials were meeting instead to start thinking through the implications of a post-Assad world in the Middle East, where Iran’s influence is crumbling and the power of Turkey and Israel has been enhanced.

Now everyone is jostling for influence in a key crossroads country, already badly fragmented by years of civil war, and trying to remember the lessons of previous failed efforts in the region at nation-building out of chaos, most obviously in Iraq. Because what has been lost is obvious, but not what is to come.

Geir O. Pedersen, the U.N. special envoy for Syria, who met with the foreign ministers of Russia, Iran and Turkey in Doha, said that they had agreed on trying to work with Syria’s new leaders to form a caretaker government that respects minorities and recreates a central authority for all of Syria.

“The hope is that the armed groups will come together and create a unified Syrian state and not try to retain control over their various territories,” he said in an interview. That would enable the international community to mobilize to allow the displaced and the refugees — nearly half Syria’s prewar population — to come home.

“But I don’t want to be too optimistic,” he said. “It’s a time for cautious optimism but also warnings about the challenges ahead if we don’t pull this together.”

The risk is that the various Syrian armed groups will keep control of their current territories and fight each other for primacy — as happened in Afghanistan — preventing the emergence of a unified Syria. That could allow Islamist radicals to take advantage of another chaotic, failed state that can threaten not only Israel but Sunni monarchies of the Gulf.

The Sunni states have traditionally opposed the reach of Shiite Iran; Mr. al-Assad is an Alawite, a splinter form of Shiite Islam.

Among the biggest uncertainties are the true nature and ambitions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group once closely allied to Al Qaeda, and its leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. Mr. al-Jolani, 42, broke publicly with Islamic State and Al Qaeda and has been saying all the right things about inclusiveness. But in the areas his group controlled around the city of Idlib in northeastern Syria, the group has governed with a conservative and at times hard-line Sunni Islamist ideology.

As Mr. al-Jolani’s group moved on Monday to exercise power in Damascus, Mr. Pedersen said: “Syria cannot be governed like Idlib. No armed group or community can have monopoly.”

Turkey, a key regional player that has supported the group, has its main interests in northern Syria. It created its own buffer zone along the border there and has been fighting Syrian Kurds, whom it considers an enemy of the state. Whether Turkey will cede control of that area is doubtful, but it is sure to have significant influence in any new Syrian government.

The Syrian Kurds have been supported in part by the United States, which has a small number of its own troops on the ground, fighting the remnants of ISIS. That puts Turkey in opposition to the U.S. on the Kurds, even as they pursue the same goals of stability in post-Assad Syria.

Taking advantage of the chaos, on Monday Turkey announced that its allies had seized the town of Manbij from the American-backed Syrian Kurds.

“It will be key to see how Turkey handles its Kurdish problem, which is the main reason it got involved with Syria in the first place,” said Lina Khatib, an associate fellow at Chatham House. “If it is pragmatic, it will have great influence in Syria’s politics and might pave the way for so many Syrian refugees to return home.”

Turkey is hosting nearly four million Syrian refugees who fled Mr. al-Assad’s brutal crackdown, and the economic and social costs of that generosity have become major political issues for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Asli Aydintasbas, a Turkish expert at the Brookings Institution, said the fall of Mr. al-Assad was a win for Turkey and a loss for those who tried to normalize with him.

“For Turkey, this is not about the border but about winning Syria,” she said. With its connections to the opposition both inside Syria and outside, “Turkey will benefit politically from pushing out Iran and economically from reconstruction.”

As for Russia, which supported Mr. al-Assad, it has suffered “an enormous reputational blow,” even if it does manage to hold on to its naval and air bases in Syria, said Hanna Notte, who studies Russian policy in the region. While Sunni Arabs may have loathed Russia for saving Mr. al-Assad in 2015, she said, “Putin got some respect for standing by an ally and showing up the Americans. But now Russia’s lost its leverage.”

Israel, too, has its own interests, sharing a border with Syria and having annexed the Syrian Golan Heights. It has tried to disrupt the flow of Iranian weapons and money through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel tolerated Mr. al-Assad for a long time, said Natan Sachs of the Brookings Institution, believing that his efforts to contain Islamist radicalism outweighed his help to Iran.

Now Israel has already moved to seize the buffer zone on the Golan Heights and bombed chemical weapons depots inside Syria to keep them out of the hands of extremists. It is watching carefully, fearing a chaotic Syria that could foster more terrorist groups who despise Israel.

“The questions are open — is the moderation real or not,” Mr. Sachs said, referring to the rebels, “and to the degree it’s real, does it apply to Israel?”

Israel also sees the fall of Mr. al-Assad as a welcome blow to Iran and Hezbollah, raising the chances of better relations, once the Gaza war ends, with Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are also wary about Islamists.

Ms. Khatib, from Chatham House, is optimistic. She sees the possibility of a major change in the regional order, no longer dominated by Iran and its allies.

Israel, she said, “can move, if it is careful, from a country striving for alliances with its Arab neighbors to one setting the agenda,” opening up the possibility of further normalization with Arab countries.

“It will take a long time to play out, but there is a trajectory in the region beyond the status quo ante, where Iran and nonstate actors were the spoilers,” she said.