WASHINGTON – From the White House, President Joe Biden on Sunday called the collapse of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime “a moment of historic opportunity” for the country’s long-suffering people.
What he didn’t say: It’s also potentially good news for the United States.
Assad’s fall not only ends his family’s bloody, half-century reign, it weakens Russia’s and Iran’s standing in the Middle East, provides the U.S. with another partner in its campaign to contain the Islamic State and opens the door for the U.S. to finally secure the release of missing journalist Austin Tice, who was captured more than a decade ago in Syria.“This is definitely a golden opportunity,” said Qutaiba Idlbi, a Middle East expert at The Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington.
Biden and his administration have signaled that the U.S. is ready to work with a new government in Syria but insist that the future of the country will be determined by the Syrian people.
There are risks involved, however.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, the main Islamic rebel group that toppled Assad and is setting up a new transitional government, was designated by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization in 2018. The FBI has offered $10 million for information leading to the capture of the group’s leader, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, who was once linked to al-Qaeda but has since sought to distance himself from the militant organization.
Now that HTS is in charge, the Biden administration is in the awkward position of dealing with an organization that it considers a terrorist. NBC News reported Tuesday that the administration is considering lifting the group’s foreign terror designation.
Regardless, the administration says it has channels to communicate with groups in Syria and that it has been in touch with those groups to support the Syrians through their transition.
“We believe it is in our interest, our national security interest, that Syria be stable and secure, and that, again, the Syrian people are able to determine their future,” John Kirby, the White House spokesman on national security issues, told reporters on Tuesday.
Still, as Biden noted in his remarks on Sunday, some of the rebel groups that took down Assad have their own grim record of terrorism and human right abuses, though al-Golani has spoken in recent days about protecting minority rights.
“They’re saying the right things right now,” Biden said, “but as they take on greater responsibility, we will assess not just their words, but their actions.”
Assad’s fall was a serious blow to Russia, and “anything bad for Russia will be good for the United States,” said Steven Simon, who served as a senior director at the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton and held senior positions at the State Department under Barack Obama.
Russia, as part of the Soviet Union, backed the ex-Syrian leader’s father during the nearly 30 years that he ruled the country. Russia continued its political and military support for Syria when the country dissolved into an internal conflict in 2011 that turned into civil war.
When Assad’s regime appeared near collapse in 2015, Russia intervened by sending in military planes while Iran provided ground forces. When Assad’s reign finally ended on Sunday, the ex-dictator fled to Moscow, where Russian President Vladimir Putin granted him asylum.
Assad’s downfall was an embarrassment for Russia because it showed the limits of Moscow’s power at a time when it is at war with Ukraine, said Simon, who is now a professor at Dartmouth College and a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washinton-based think tank specializing in foreign policy.
While the U.S. has had mostly limited interest in Syria, it has in recent years worked to contain the influence of the Islamic State, or ISIS, which seized large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014. The U.S. has had troops in Syria over the past decade to help contain ISIS, and most of the territory it controlled had been liberated by 2017.
The U.S. still has 900 troops deployed in the northeastern part Syria to keep ISIS in check. Though severely weakened, ISIS is still active in Syria.
The collapse of Assad’s government should make it easier to contain ISIS, Idlbi said. Neither the Syrian Defense Forces nor the rebel groups that overthrew Assad’s regime seem to have any interest in ISIS regaining strength, he said.
“No one is interested really in keeping ISIS as a card on the table, so I think there are more partners for the U.S. to work with on this issue,” Idlbi said.
Following Assad’s fall, the U.S. conducted dozen air strikes targeting ISIS camps and operatives inside Syria. The U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the region, said it had struck more than 75 targets to make sure the terrorist group doesn’t try to take advantage of the end of Assad’s reign.
“There should be no doubt – we will not allow ISIS to reconstitute and take advantage of the current situation in Syria,” said Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who heads the Central Command. “All organizations in Syria should know that we will hold them accountable if they partner with or support ISIS in any way.”
ISIS is unlikely to completely disappear, Idlbi said, “but with this transition, I don’t see ISIS as a major threat.”
The fall of Assad’s government gives the U.S. a new opportunity to learn the fate of Tice, the freelance journalist who disappeared in Syria in August 2012 while reporting on the country’s civil war.
Tice, a former U.S. Marine from Houston, has not been seen or heard from since the release of a 43-second video five weeks after his disappearance. In the video, he was blindfolded, surrounded by armed men and being led away by his apparent captors on a rocky hillside.
Biden had accused Assad’s regime of detaining Tice. Syria, however, denied it was holding him.
Biden said Sunday the U.S. believed that Tice was still alive but had no direct evidence of his status.
Idlbi said authorities have a list of locations where Tice could possibly be held and, now that Assad is out of the picture, is working to secure those locations to see if he is there.
Michael Collins covers the White House. Follow him on X @mcollinsNEWS.
