Perspectives for Syria: The United States and the Syrian Dialogue of Syrian President Receiptism after a decade of War

Turkish leader would like to have more than 3 million Syrian refugees back in Turkey. Some have already begun doing so. Turkish construction companies are well placed to rebuild Syria after more than a decade of war.

He would like to shape a new government in Syria according to the author of the book.

There are many developments that are still on the horizon. Here’s a preliminary look at what the upheaval could mean for a range of countries that have interests in Syria.

According to the U.S. Central Command, “dozens” of Isis leaders were struck by the U.S. planes on Sunday. On Monday, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said: “Centcom, together with allies and partners in the region, will continue to carry out operations to degrade ISIS capabilities, even during this dynamic period in Syria.”

President Biden said the U.S. would keep its military presence. He said the U.S. would work with Syrians as they formed a new government after Assad’s ousting.

Donald Trump is striking a different tone. He said Syria is not a U.S. issue and that the U.S. should let the events play out.

Mouaz Moustafa, with the Syrian Emergency Task Force, an American aid group, said the U.S. forces have supplied humanitarian assistance to displaced civilians in a barren area on Syria’s southern border.

“If you spoke to any of these people and you asked them about the United States military, and you asked them about the relationship between the two, those Syrians love the American military,” Moustafa said.

For Iran, losing Assad as an ally has further eroded its influence — especially after Israel’s war against its regional proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. Hezbollah often used Syria as a conduit to transfer weapons to Lebanon, helping keep Assad in power.

Iran was critical to Assad as he battled to stay in power during the country’s civil war that erupted in 2011. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards pulled out of Syria last week, just ahead of rebel advances. Iran also used Syria as a bridge to ship weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

But now Assad is gone, Hezbollah has been greatly weakened by its war with Israel, and another Iranian proxy, Hamas in Gaza, has been devastated by its own war with Israel.

“Losing Syria will deal a huge blow to Iran and its proxies in the region. The leaders in Tehran must be feeling anxious, according to the Middle East Institute in Washington. “This is a moment where Iran’s regional strategy has been dealt a huge blow, and at a time when the regime at home is being questioned by millions of Iranians.”

Syrian rebels overtook the cities of Hama and Homs before entering Damascus on Sunday, a fact that Russia mostly kept a low profile. Mr. al-Assad is now gone, his departure celebrated by crowds of ecstatic Syrians. In Russia, where Mr. al-Assad has fled, the fall of his government amounts to a devastating loss. The decades of Russian military and political investment in the Mediterranean is in danger. There is no way that Putin could retain his stake in Syria, even though he may yet manage to do so.

Russia’s ties with the Assad family go back to the 1970s, when Hafez al-Assad — Bashar’s father — solidified Syria’s place in the Soviet orbit. The younger Mr al-Assad met a peaceful uprising with a violent cracking down that was followed by a bloody conflict which resulted in Russia vetoing a UN Security Council resolution calling on him to resign. The year before, Mr. Putin, then prime minister, had lambasted a separate U.N. resolution authorizing airstrikes against the Libyan dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi as a “medieval call for a crusade” and was said to be livid when Colonel Qaddafi was killed. He was determined that Mr. al-Assad not suffer the same fate.

They considered Assad the devil and were always at odds with him. Israel acknowledged that Assad kept the frontier with Israel largely calm, even when the wider region was aflame.

Israel will face a Syria that’s highly unpredictable, with Islamist groups likely to assume a prominent role. For the past year, Israel has been fighting one such group to its south — Hamas in Gaza — and another to its north — Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel does not want to see a similar group in Syria.

Israel moved into the demilitarized buffer zone with Syria after rebels took the Syrian capital. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights — an area seized from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed by Israel — proclaiming that the move into the buffer zone was a “temporary defensive position.”

The Islamist rebels whose swift seizure of Syria over the weekend toppled long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad have not only ushered in an unsettled new era for the troubled country, but they promise to reshuffle the region’s fraught geopolitics.

The ousting of Assad, who ruled Syria for a quarter century after assuming power from his father, leaves a dangerous political vacuum. The head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is at least nominally headed by the man formerly known by his name,Ahmed al-Shara. He and his group are at the helm of a fractious rebel alliance that fought Assad over more than 13 years of civil war. Formerly known as the al-Nusra Front, HTS was once affiliated with al-Qaida. The United State Department considers HTS to be a terrorist organization.

Assad and other regime figures left Syria in the early hours of the day, but Prime Minister Mohammad Jalali remained in office. Jalali told Sky News Arabia TV that they are working to make the transitional period quick and easy.

Having Assad’s prime minister stay on was “clearly an arrangement” with the rebels, says Joshua Landis, a Syria specialist at the University of Oklahoma. The handover of power seems to have been a peaceful one.

Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the London-based think tank Chatham House, says it is too early to signal any outcome. “I think we have to give everybody a bit of time to figure it out,” she says.

For Jordan, Vakil says, Assad’s ouster could be a positive, “if there is eventually parliamentary democracy and more inclusive parliamentary democracy” in Syria. “And if, on the other hand, you do see a sort of Taliban-like scenario emerge, that’s not going to be particularly positive for a country like Jordan that has its own Muslim Brotherhood.”

The power base of the Assad regime was drawn from Shia Muslims and there was a small but influential Alawite religious minority that made up more than 15% of the population. More than one-third of Syria is accounted for by Sunni Muslims.

The Alawite minority, concentrated mainly on the Mediterranean coast, has now suddenly found itself out of power and potentially more vulnerable. There’s a lot of tension between the two main Muslim groups. But so far, there are no signs of reprisals by the new leaders, he says. Everyone is trying to figure out “whether there’s going to be revenge killings or real disturbances in the Alawite territories,” Landis says.

There is fear that Syria could follow in the footsteps of Afghanistan, although the country’s new leaders have made statements to try and alleviate that fear.

What the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, and the United Nations say about the Assad regime in Syria

The rebels instructed their fighters that it is forbidden to interfere with women’s dress or impose any requests related to their clothing or appearance.

But U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen, speaking in Qatar, on Sunday, sounded a word of caution, saying he was hearing “contradictory messages” coming from the new leadership. “This is now my key message to all – avoid bloodshed, make sure that it is inclusive, that all communities in Syria are included, and that the nervousness that some are facing, are fearing, that we can address this, and move forward to peace and stability,” he said.

The UN high Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said that “Syria is at a crossroads, between peace and war, stability and lawlessness, reconstruction or further ruin.”

“As far as they are concerned, many of them will want to go home,” said Landis, and added that he thinks most will wait and see.

Millions of Syrian refugees are likely to return to their homes in an environment of good governance and active reconstruction according to a Middle East expert at the Atlantic Council.

Even so, President Biden, in a televised address on Sunday, expressed concern about the post-Assad government in Syria: “Make no mistake, some of the rebel groups who took down Assad have their own grim record of terrorism and human rights abuses,” Biden said. We have taken notice of thestatements by the leaders of these rebel groups, and they are saying the right things. But as they take on more responsibility, we will assess not just their words, but their actions.”

There are mostly oil-rich regions in Syria where United States troops are stationed. The US has prevented the Assad regime from gaining access to some of the country’s oil fields.

The U.S. will be in re-evaluation mode over the next six months. If it wants to have a good relationship with the new state, it can’t keep withholding the oil forever.

Russia — a staunch ally of Assad and the destination for his immediate exile after fleeing Syria over the weekend — appears to have little recourse but to accept the new reality in the country.

Source: 5 things to watch as Syria confronts a new future

Envoy Hochstein: “I wouldn’t want a foreign country in Syria” and “how will the United States negotiate with the regime?”

Speaking in Doha, Qatar, on Saturday, as Syrian rebels were closing in on Damascus, U.S. Envoy Amos Hochstein said Iran’s withdrawal from Syria would “make it very difficult … to transfer weapons in.”

“I wouldn’t write Russia off as out of place.” And I will also say the same thing about Iran,” Vakil says. “I think both countries will look for ways to maintain ties for different purposes over the course of time.”

Political backing combined with Russia’s military support. The peace conferences that tried to negotiate a settlement to the conflict had Mr. Putin and al- Assad as thick as thieves. In 2013, Mr. Putin had emerged as Mr. al-Assad’s knight in shining armor — and incidentally exposed the weakness of President Barack Obama’s “red line” in Syria — by vouching for the destruction of Mr. al-Assad’s chemical weapons within a year and heading off the prospect of American airstrikes. (A few years later, more than 80 Syrian civilians would be killed in a sarin attack that the United States attributed to the regime’s forces.)