The Bashar al Assad regime is tottering with reports that the president has already left Damascus. The Syrian army, once bolstered by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah fighters  have given up and  over a 1000 soldiers are said to have fled to Iraq. Russia is now busy in Ukraine, and Iran’s proxies no longer have either the manpower or the fire power to make a difference on the ground.

However, while critics across the world may be delighted with the fall of the Assad presidency, what happens next is also of grave concern.  Chaos and infighting in Syria would further destabilise an already volatile region. The emerging situation is complex as various  rebel groups that unitedly worked against Assad may now fight  for the loaves of office. 

It could also be a smooth process as in Afghanistan, when the Taliban took over Kabul in August 2021. There were fears of bloodshed in the streets of Kabul but the army simply gave in and negotiated with the Taliban without a fight. In 2001 too, when the US and NATO forces entered Kabul, the Taliban simply melted away. 

The Sunni rebel group leading the current  fighting is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which had its origins in Al Qaeda and was designated a terror outfit by the US and the UN. This outfit as well as various rebel Sunni groups ranged against the Syrian regime are all backed by Turkey. James Jeffrey, a former US envoy and special representative to Syria, said in an interview to Al Jazeera that the US believes the organisation has changed and that despite the fact that it is terror group, Americans have been in touch with HTS indirectly. Jeffrey also made the point that for the last four to five years the group has not targeted either the US soldiers stationed in some enclaves in Syria or any other Western country. So the stage is set for the terror tag to be removed from HTS.

However, for Kurds in Syria–who are the largest ethnic minority in Syria making up around 10 per cent of the population–the picture may not be as rosy. The Kurds in Syria have had the solid  backing of the US and the West. They  had also fought against the Assad government in the over 14-years of the civil war. The Syrian Kurds were able to get a degree of autonomy during this time. The Kurds now may once again face problems, more so as the victors comprising of Sunni armed groups, Islamists and other smaller local outfits will not be willing to give the Kurds the self-rule they enjoyed so far. More so because the rebels are backed by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who has been repressing the Kurds in his own country and fear that Kurds across the region could one day have their own homeland. 

The US and its allies at the moment are extremely happy with the turn of events in Syria. West Asia  is rid of the "enemies’’. The Russia-Iran-Syria axis has been broken, with much thanks to Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon, and its airstrike on Iran that has destroyed much of Tehran’s air defences. With Russia and Putin busy with its own war, the world looks "safer" for the West. While the US will not be directly involved on transition negotiations, it will work behind the scenes through Turkey, a NATO member, as well as Qatar and other GCC countries to ensure that Syria does not become another Libya. Whether everything will work according to plan remains an open question.