The Russia-Iran-Assad ‘axis of the vulnerable’ is cracking in Syria

NEW DELHI: The so-called “axis of the vulnerable” is breaking in Syria. Starting in 2016, Russia and Iran, propping up the regime of Bashar al-Assad, needed more than a year of bombing, ground assaults and siege to break the rebel opposition in the east of Syria’s largest city, Aleppo.

Now, in 2024, the rebels needed less than four days to liberate the city and most of Aleppo province.

They also regained territory in neighbouring Idlib province and moved south into northern Hama before the Assad regime established defensive lines. Russian forces remained in their bases on the Mediterranean. And Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah were caught by the rebel advance in their positions in north-west Syria. They abandoned them, but not before at least two commanders were slain.

Since 2020, after Russia and Iran helped his forces roll back the opposition in much of Syria, Assad has presided in name over part of a fractured country. He and his allies held most of the largest cities, including Aleppo and the capital Damascus, while Turkish-backed opposition groups controlled most of north-west Syria and US-backed Kurdish factions had autonomy in the north-east.

Now Assad does not even preside over his share of the partition. And his Russian and Iranian enablers, overstretched and isolated by much of the world, are not in a position to restore his paper rule.

From the start of Syria’s uprising against the longtime rule of the Assads in March 2011, Russia and Iran provided political, logistical, intelligence and propaganda assistance to the Assad regime. Iran effectively took over the Assad military from September 2012, training tens of thousands of militiamen to fill depleted forces. Hezbollah sent in its fighters from 2013 to save the Assad regime near Lebanon’s border. And Russia intervened with special forces and air power from September 2015.

Much of the success of Assad and his allies lay in their ability to wear down the international community.

The Kremlin spread disruptive disinformation to cover for the regime’s deadly chemical attacks and to denigrate opposition activists and Syria’s White Helmets civil defence.

The Obama administration, rather than holding the regime to account, was led by the nose into fruitless discussions of a ceasefire. The EU was sidelined, the UN rendered impotent, and Arab governments eventually sat on their hands.

The regime’s greatest triumph was perhaps the portrayal of the anti-Assad movement’s downfall as extraordinary. East Aleppo was reclaimed in December 2016. Daraa province, the original site of the protests, and the rest of southern Syria succumbed in 2018. And an 11-month offensive reoccupied Hama province and parts of Idlib before a ceasefire, brokered by Russia and Turkey, in March 2020.

But that portrayal was also an illusion covering up weakness. Russia’s bombing and sieges had levelled and choked much of the country, yet Moscow, Iran and Hezbollah still did not have the forces to help the regime claim the rest of north-west Syria or to remove the Kurds in the north-east.

“Reconstruction” was a deceptive label in areas retaken by the regime. Long burdened by the kleptocracy of the Assad elite, the Syrian economy lost more than half of its GDP between 2010 and 2020. The Syrian pound, which was valued at 47 to the US dollar in 2011, has now collapsed to 13,000 to the US dollar and is unofficially far weaker. And international sanctions, imposed because of the regime’s mass killing and repression, are still in place.

While the regime could count on outside assistance, it could maintain the illusion of power. But then Russian president Vladimir Putin gambled on his invasion quickly conquering Ukraine in 2022. Almost three years later, he has poured most of Russia’s resources into operations there and has put the country under international economic pressure.

Iran’s leadership has been beset by mass protests over social issues including women’s rights. The economy is still staggering between inefficiency and sanctions. And targeted assassinations and covert operations by Israel and the US have weakened the military.

Hezbollah has been decimated by Israel’s attacks in the past three months, from exploding pagers to the killing of commanders including overall leader Hassan Nasrallah. A shaky ceasefire has not freed fighters from the threat of Israeli airstrikes and ground assaults.

So, when the rebels attacked last week, they were not facing a vaunted axis of resistance. They saw only the disappearing shadow of Assad’s supposed authority.

Where next for Assad and his backers? The answer could now lie with Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan may not have launched the rebel offensive – sources say Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of the Islamist faction Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, made the decision – but he is the beneficiary of the outcome. Turkey’s political and economic reach in north-west Syria has expanded since 2016 to include the country’s largest city.

Ankara has leverage over the terms of negotiations. It can encourage and even equip the rebels to press on, or it can call for a halt and consolidation in preparation for a sit-down with the Russians and Iranians.

The Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, has already hosted his Iranian counterpart in a show of diplomacy.

But that raises further questions. Erdogan’s primary foe in Syria is not Assad but the Kurdish authorities, whom he views as part of the Turkish-Kurdish insurgency group, the Kurdistan Workers’ party. So far, the Turkish-backed rebels have not had serious clashes with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF and Kurdish officials have reportedly pulled out of areas in Aleppo province, retrenching in north-east Syria.

But will Turkey accept this or, as in 2019, will it pursue an attack on the north-east? Ankara has reportedly initiated talks with the Assad regime about a Turkish-controlled “buffer zone” well inside the border. That brings in the US, which has been the essential backer of the Kurds and the SDF. For now, Washington is likely to maintain that commitment. But from January, all bets are off because Donald Trump is returning to the White House.

After a phone call with Erdoğan in late 2018, Trump tried to withdraw all US troops from Syria. He was outmanoeuvred by the Pentagon, but another call with Erdoğan in October 2019 green-lit a Turkish cross-border invasion.

The axis of the vulnerable is breaking, but Syria’s era of uncertainty continues. Syrian citizens can only hope that now it is not so deadly or destructive.

Lucas is Professor of International Politics, Clinton Institute, University College Dublin