Abstract
The Syrian Civil War had been raging for more than a decade. Spawned by the Arab Spring, hundreds of thousands have died, and many more have been displaced. This war has also proven to be among the 21st Century’s most geopolitically significant arenas; as the Syrian people split into many factions, the outside world has been gazing on as many regional and global powers have taken sides.
Syria is a diverse land, located in a strategically vital region, with a very long history. Part of the ancient Fertile Crescent, many states, empires, and people groups have made their mark here. Today, the country is home to many ethnic and religious communities. The majority of Syria’s population is Arabic and Sunni Muslim. As war broke out, the Syrian people splintered into factions–allying and fighting one another, merging and dividing. These factions have been, in part, split down ethnic and religious lines. Along with the Sunni Arabs, some of the bigger communities in the news today include the Alawites, the Kurds, and the Druze. The factions that represent them in the war have been supported or opposed by Russia, Iran, Türkiye, the United States, and Israel. As the old Syrian regime has been defeated, it will be up to the new regime, the other factions, and these outside powers to decide what happens next. Will the Syrian Civil War come to a definitive resolution, and if so, how? Or, will the sides fail to find common ground, and plunge back into war?
Historical Background
Assad’s son and successor, Bashar al-Assad, chose to respond to these demands with brutal crackdowns–employing Syria’s infantry, tanks, air force, secret police, pro-government paramilitary groups and likely chemical weapons against its own citizens. This only served to galvanize the populace, which armed themselves under the banners of various rebel groups. At first, these rebels seemed poised for victory, supported by the Western powers, Türkiye, and the Gulf states. Then in 2015, Russian forces (along with military support from Iran and the neighboring Lebanese Hezbollah) tipped the scales back in Assad’s favor. By the March 2020 ceasefire, pro-Ba’athist forces and their allies controlled around ⅔ of Syria’s territory, including most of Syria’s population centers.
Then on February 24, 2022, Russia escalated its 2014 conflict with Ukraine and launched a full-scale invasion of the country. What was imagined to be a short “special military operation” devolved into years of bloody fighting along a static front, as Ukraine put up a spirited defense with the logistical aid of the liberal democracies of Europe, East Asia, and North America. Trying to balance its manpower requirements and heavily sanctioned economy with increasingly strained public approval for the conflict, Moscow quietly focused its attention and resources to Ukraine–and thereby away from Syria. Meanwhile, Israel had been engaged in fighting Iran’s proxies throughout the Middle East. In the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 attack and hostage-taking of Israeli civilians by Hamas, Israel sent its forces into the Gaza Strip to occupy Gaza and dismantle the anti-Israel organization once-and-for-all. Later on, Israeli infiltrated the communication systems of Hezbollah–once among the most militarily powerful non-state actors in the world. In September of 2024, Israel triggered the explosions of thousands of Hezbollah’s electronic devices, eliminating much of the organization’s personnel, including many of its top and mid-level leaders in one fell swoop (along with killing/wounding many civilians). This was followed by an airstrike on Hezbollah’s headquarters, which killed Sec. Gen. Hassan Nasrallah, and then an invasion of southern Lebanon.
Amidst all of this, some of these Syrian rebel groups saw an opportunity to strike the Assad regime. With most of Assad’s allies weakened or preoccupied, the Sunni militant group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (H.T.S.) launched an offensive from Idlib southwards. This gambit paid off for the group, as they arrived in Damascus only eleven days later. Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia as rebel groups and foreign actors alike followed HTS’s lead in captured most pro-Ba’athist territory. HTS’s general commander Abu Mohammad al-Julani, as the new de facto President of Syria, announced to form a unified stable government in order to bring an end to the Civil War for good. Since then, an uneasy peace has settled across the country, as each of the other rebel groups wait to see what the new regime will do next.
Russia and the Alawites
The Soviet Union/Russian Federation has long had ties to Ba’athist Syria. All the way back in 1971, Syria gave the Soviet Union access to its naval base in Tartus, as a way to counter N.A.T.O.’s Mediterranean naval base in Gaeta, Italy. (RealLifeLore 2025) Then in 2015–four years into Syria’s Civil War–the Assad regime built the Humaymim Air Base for the Russian Air Force. Russian air strikes and general air superiority had been vital in the fight against both Syrian rebel group and ISIS. (RealLifeLore 2025) Both Tartus and Humaymim serve as a link between Russia and Africa. From Syria, Russian mercenaries are sent to Tobruk-based Libyan House of Representatives, and eventually to Russia-supported forces in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Sudan. These mercenaries then bring gold, uranium, and other natural resources back to Russia–serving as a source of both income and raw materials for the heavily sanctioned Federation as it continues its costly war in Ukraine while also doing its best to maintain a good enough standard of living at home. (RealLifeLore 2025) Both Tartus and Humaymim lie in the Alawite Mediterranean coast. Whether or not Russia cares about the rights of the Alawites, they will want Tartus and Humaymim to be safe, stable, and friendly for their armed forces. The Assad family is Alawite, and after decades of repression and years of war, there exists a lot of animosity to the Assads and anyone associated with them–including the Alawites, Russia, and the military bases. Many reports of attacks targeting the Alawites–from gun violence and sexual assault to kidnapping. It remains to be seen how the new Syria will approach Russia, and how Russia will respond.Iran, Iraq, and the Alawites
Iran and its affiliates are more sympathetic to the Alawites. As Iran sees itself as the defender of Shiʿism at home and abroad. Originally, Iraq and Syria were both led by Ba’athist parties. However, after their failed union with Egypt, a subset of Syrian Ba’athists under Assistant Regional Secretary Salah Jadid launched a coup against Sec. Gen. Michel ʿAflaq. While ʿAflaq and the traditional Ba’athists still aimed for pan-Arab unification, these “neo-Ba’athists” largely abandoned the pan-Arabic project in favor of a kind of “Ba’athism in one country”. (The Cold War 2025)ʿAflaq fled to Iraq and continued the pan-Arab project. Throughout the 1970’s, both Syria and Iraq started to become stable and prosperous. Reconciling the previous Ba’athist schism, Assad, ʿAflaq, and Iraqi Pres. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr saw another window of opportunity to unify their two countries. However, doing so sidelined Saddam Hussein. (The Cold War 2025) In 1979, Hussein deposed Pres. al-Bakr in order to secure his own power, before purging many of the government’s officials, including those loyal to al-Bakr. As Ba’athist Iraqi leader Sadaam Hussein declared war on the nascent Islamic Republic of Iran, Tehran had found a natural ally in neo-Ba’athist Syria. Iran and Syria had shared enemies in Hussein’s Iraq, Israel, and the United States (The Cold War 2025). Syria under Bashar al-Assad continued its partnership with Iran as part of its Axis of Resistance. Saddam ruled Iraq for 24 years, until the United States and a coalition of allies invaded Ba’athist Iraq and toppled him in 2003. While a new U.S.-aligned government was put in place, that government was very weak. A little more than a decade later, ISIS claimed its caliphate’s territory across both Iraq and Syria, while the Kurds exercised more autonomy in the name of self-defence and nationalism. Iran also worked to counter ISIS, granting them more and more influence in the already Shiʿa-majority Iraq. During and after the war with ISIS, Iran was able to send advisers, rockets, and other supplies through friendly parts of Iraq to Syria and on to Hezbollah. This was Iran’s way to set up deterrence against attack by Israel or the U.S.
The Alawites and neighboring Lebanon make up the western end of the Shiʿia Crescent–a crescent shaped region of the Middle East inhabited by shīʿiyyūn. As such, the Islamic Republic sees the region stretching from its western border, through northern Iraq and towards the Mediterranean as its sphere of influence. If it is able to, Iran or its proxies would likely want to protect the Alawites, similar to how Russia seeks to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine, Transnistria, the Baltic, and Kazakhstan. However, as Israel has effectively neutralized both Hamas and Hezbollah, and with Assad’s regime toppled, Tehran is left vulnerable; they would need to choose how they respond very carefully–especially with an unpredictable and anti-Iran Donald Trump back in the Oval Office, who is also good friends with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. As of now though, with the Alawites’ associations with the Assad regimes, they are not left with much power to seek many rights or guarantees.
Opposition Forces
Opposing Assad, the rebel groups in the news include the Free Syrian Army, HTS, and the Kurdish SDF (see D.A.A.N.E.S. below). These have been supported by Türkiye, the United States, and Israel respectively. It also includes ISIS, who was not supported by any power. Focusing on HTS and for now, they separated from al-Qaeda to form their own Islamist extremist group–al-Nusra Front. Over the course of the war though, they rebranded themselves as Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (Ar.–“Levant Liberation Organization”), with al-Julani adopting a more Western-friendly appearance and espousing a more liberal, inclusive vision for Syria. However, al-Julani and HTS still do not have a completely innocent track record, even recently. Their motives toward pivoting towards moderatism are still unknown. As they are the ones who captured the capital Damascus, and also the ones with the media spotlight, it is now their turn to reveal who they are, what they stand for, and what kind of Syria they envision.
Türkiye and the Kurds
The Republic of Türkiye emerged from the bloodied corpse of the post-WWI Ottoman Empire. The Young Turks saw the large multinational empire as politically weak and unwieldy, and the institution of the Muslim Ottoman caliphate as socially and technologically backwards. Just like similar movements throughout the Middle East, the Young Turks sought a strong, developed, secular Westphalian nation-state that could stand up to the European colonial empires. After the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, Mustafa Kemal led a new Turkish republic to try and reclaim as much former Ottoman territory as they could. Alongside the Greek and Armenian Genocides, ethnic and religious minority groups including the Kurds were persecuted in order to secure the borders of this nation-state in the name of creating a strong national identity. The British and French had floated the idea of a Kurdish state, but instead divided Kurdistan between the post-Treaty of Lausanne Türkiye and their own League of Nations Mandates (Iraq and Syria).While Türkiye stayed neutral during most of World War II, it declared war on the Axis in its last months, and therefore secured its position in the United Nations. More significant was the role Türkiye played in the Korean War as a key component of the allied UN forces. Türkiye joined NATO in 1952, and sat solidly in the capitalist West. That being said, communist movements did arise in the country. A few of these would merge into the Kurdish Workers’ Party (P.K.K.), who sought a leftist Kurdish state in their home of southeastern Türkiye (Kur.–“Bakurê”, meaning ‘north’). Later on, their position would soften towards Kurdish rights and an autonomous region within Türkiye. Both Türkiye and the United States had labeled the PKK a terrorist organization, and Türkiye had fought an insurgency against the group for decades.
Fast-forward to the 21st Century, and the Kurds would prove to be important allies of the United States–first Iraq’s Kurdistan Region (K.R.I., Kur.– “Başûrê”, ‘south’) against Saddam Hussein, and later the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (“D.A.A.N.E.S.”, Kur.–“Rojava”, ‘west’) against ISIS. This has caused friction between the US and Türkiye. While Rojava Kurds have garnered much support from the US and other Western countries as heroic feminist fighters defending their homes and way of life from both Assad and ISIS, Türkiye questions how liberal and democratic they actually are, and saw them as closely associated with the PKK, if not two parts of the same organization.
Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his right-leaning Justice and Development Party, the Turkish Armed Forces moved to occupy northern Syria to fight Assad, but also to root out PKK elements found across the border. Türkiye (majority Sunni, albeit secular) has formed a close partnership with Syria’s majority Sunni Arabs. Firstly, the Free Syrian Army, the group who originally opposed Assadist Syria at the outbreak of Syria’s Civil War, has essentially become a part of the Turkish Armed Forces. Later on, Türkiye also threw its support behind HTS. It is these groups that find themselves as the leaders of this new Syria, with Türkiye still occupying the north.
In the wake of Assad’s defeat and HTS leader al-Julani promising a peaceful democratic Syria, on May 12, 2025 (as I write this), the PKK voted to dissolve. Meanwhile, DAANES is still holding firm, while also expressing commitment to being a part of the new Syria (Arraf 2025). Both groups are seeking either DAANES to be made official in Syria’s new government (similar to Iraq’s KRI), or for Syria to adopt a federal government structure (TeamStratNews 2025). However, HTS and the Sunni Arab majority seem to be adamant for a single unitary republic. (Ker-Lindsay 2024)
While I find it unlikely for HTS and Türkiye to agree to Kurdish demands, there might be a possibility. In the short-term, if Türkiye no longer sees the PKK as a threat, they might be more likely to push for some kind of autonomy or federalism in the new closely-allied Syria. As Iran’s position weakens in the Middle East, this might give Ankara–through the Kurds–more influence in the Iraqi KRI, and maybe even Iranian Kurdistan (Kur.– “Rojhilatê”, ‘east’) and the Azeri regions of Iran (Türkiye is friends with Azerbaijan, and both don’t like Iran). As Erdoğan’s more traditionalist Türkiye has been looking to assert itself as a regional power in the largely Muslim Middle East–more independent from the US and Europe, Ankara would now find it in its best interest to champion Kurdish interests.
Israel and the Druze
Israel declared independence from the British Empire in 1948, and shortly after found itself at war with its Arab neighbors.This first First Arab–Israeli War saw the Arab forces, including Syria, defeated. Twenty years later, the 1967 Third Arab–Israeli War “Six-Day War” saw another Arab defeat–though this time, Israel occupied some of the Golan Heights. The 1973 Fourth Arab–Israeli War “Yom Kippur War”/“Ramadan War” resulted in yet Arab defeat. For Syria, it meant Israel extended its occupation of the Golan Heights over Bashan. It was during this period, during the 1970’s, in which Israeli’s began settling in the Golan Heights. In 1981, Israel’s Golan Heights Law extended Israeli law and administration over the occupied Golan Heights. While other Arab countries have normalized their relations with Israel, Assadist Syria never did, so the two are still officially at war.
Israel also gives support to the Suwayda Druze population. In 2025, Israel declared it will not allow Syrian forces south of Damascus. Israel plans on occupying parts of southern post-Assad Syria “for an indefinite period of time”. They demarché’d any groups in Syria from attacking the Druze. Israel plans on creating a buffer state between themselves and their northern neighbors. In a region of the world so small and narrow, Israel wants as much space in between Israeli population centers and their enemies (Eg.–Iran, the Axis of Resistance) as possible. Some extreme right-wing voices in Israel have called for a ‘Greater Israel’ (Heb.–“Eretz Israel”)–restoration of the Biblical Kingdom of Israel[1] and full annexation of, among other territories, southern Syria as far north as Damascus. While Prime Minister Netanyahu has never mentioned such territorial ambitions himself, he is surrounded by some that have. (Ker-Lindsay 2025) His concerns seem to be security and stability rather than revanchism. Either way, Türkiye has counter-demarché’d Israel’s actions as “expansionist”. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called for a federal Syria, though Türkiye and the new Syrian government warn that this is an attempt by Israel to divide and conquer the new republic. (The New Arab Staff 2025)
Conclusion
It is, of course, impossible to know what is going to happen. From recent developments over the past few months, it seems like the new Syria will be a unitary state. If so, whether rights for the ethnic and religious minorities are legally guaranteed, that is left up to how moderate or extremist HTS really is. A federal Syria seems most unlikely, if that means ceding influence to Israel and reconciling with the Alawites. A unitary state with an autonomous Syrian Kurdistan is possible if Syria and Türkiye see it as beneficial; but even then, Damascus might need to explain why the Kurds can have autonomy and not the Druze and Alawites. While the Kurds have built a relatively strong territory and have a friendly backer in the US[2], the Druze and Alawites are much smaller players, with negative associations to Israel and Russia respectively. Iran doesn’t seem to be in a position to save the Alawites, and a deal with Russia might only include the military bases. In short, while the Kurds have a slim chance to end the war on good terms, the Druze and Alawites are still caught in the middle.
Then again, Bashar al-Assad seemed pretty secure for quite some time before he fled. The Arab League even took initial steps to welcome Ba’athist Syria back into the organization after suspending it for its harsh repression of the Arab Spring. History often changes very little over long periods of time, before lots of history happens all at once. The results of this anti-Assad victory might be just as unexpected.
1. As far as I have heard, there was never any historical United Kingdom of Israel. Instead, there are records from the surrounding Iron Age powers (Egypt, neo-Assyria, neo-Babylonia, etc.) of a northern Kingdom of Israel and a southern Kingdom of Judah. The Biblical united kingdom served essentially as Iron Age propaganda written by the Judahite Babylonian captives, who sought independence from the neo-Babylonians, along with claims over the northern lands. The descendants of Judah became the Jews, while the descendants of Israel became the Samaritans. The Golan Heights could’ve been part of this Israel or its neighbor of Aram-Damascus. However, we are referring to a range of hundreds of years during a time when borders were fuzzy and didn’t mean what they do today. Borders were more about de facto taxation, trade, and military access, rather than de jure lines on a map.
2. This new second Trump administration may or may not be as friendly with the Kurds as before. Seeing Trump’s unabashedly IR-realist stance with Ukraine, Denmark, Panama, NATO, etc. he most likely will be amiable to the Kurds if there is something in it for the United States. However, the Kurds might not agree to Trump’s demands. Just as with Ukraine and Russia, Trump could play the Kurds, Syria, and Türkiye off one another for the US’s benefit.
References
Arraf, J. (2025, March 11). In Syria, U.S.-backed Kurdish forces reach agreement with new government. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2025/03/11/nx-s1-5324395/in-syria-u-s-backed-kurdish-forces-reach-agreement-with-new-government
Prof. James Ker-Lindsay. (2024, Dec. 18). Will Turkey Eliminate Syrian Kurdistan? [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/nMS_5qGTUag?si=Q50_S_wxCfkJey2f
- James Ker-Lindsay has a PhD in International Conflict Analysis. He is a professor at the London School of Economics and Politics, and has been described as “...an authoritative voice...to help one make sense of a surprising amount of the international news." by E-International Relations. In this video, he details Syria’s northern front, as tensions grow between ‘green’ Syria, Türkiye, and DAANES over the future of Rojava.
- In this video, Prof. Ker-Linday turns his attention to Syria’s southern border, as ‘green’ Syria, Israel. and the Druze fight for territory.
- This YouTube video provides a comprehensive deep-dive into the wider geopolitics of Assad’s fall. I will admit, I do not know much about RealLifeLore’s background, but there is a lot of sound information in this video, which puts Syria’s civil war into a wider global context.
- This news website was the earliest publication of this announcement.
- ‘The Cold War’ is a history YouTube channel which prides itself on thorough research and academic rigor. This video is a historical background of both the Ba'athism movement and the history of relations between Syria and Iraq. Understanding this brings context towards how Syria, Iraq, and Iran all interact today.
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