By: The Editorial Board – wsj.com – December 8, 2024

It’s a defeat for Russia and Iran, and it offers openings for Trump.

The Kremlin said Sunday that Bashar al-Assad had fled Damascus, and Russian state media reported that he had been granted asylum in Russia. It speaks volumes about Russia that it has become the ultimate protector of the man who murdered more of his own people than even his father, Hafez al-Assad.

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The elder Assad took power in a coup in 1970 and ran the country like a mafia regime. Bashar’s older brother was supposed to succeed his father but died in a car accident. The younger son, trained as an ophthalmologist, became the unlikely heir and the Baathist regime’s bloodiest leader in putting down the various opposition groups that sprung up with the Arab Spring in 2011.

It’s worth recalling Barack Obama’s role in keeping Mr. Assad in power. Mr. Obama declined to support the opposition in any important way and then refused to enforce his “red line” against Mr. Assad’s use of sarin and chlorine gas to kill his own people.

Incredibly, Mr. Obama invited Russia to help end the civil war. Vladimir Putinobliged by joining with Iran to prop up Mr. Assad, elbowing the U.S. out, and establishing an air base and a long-desired naval base on the Mediterranean. This misjudgment helped Iran expand its Axis of Resistance from Tehran to Beirut. It also reversed the strategic triumph achieved by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the 1970s in minimizing the Soviet Union’s influence in the Middle East.

The fall of the Assad government is a defeat for Russia and Iran. It shows the Kremlin can’t always protect a client state, which could have ramifications elsewhere as Mr. Putin tries to build an anti-American axis with China. It’s a particular defeat for Iran, which loses its Alawite ally to what is likely to be a Sunni Arab government. Iran’s arms supply route to its Hezbollah proxies in Lebanon will be disrupted.

None of this is the result of President Biden’s foreign policy. Like Mr. Obama, his Middle East priority has been appeasing Iran. This culminated in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre by Hamas that led Iran and its proxies to imagine they had Israel on the run.

But Israel turned the tables, first by diminishing Hamas in Gaza, then by eliminating Hezbollah’s leadership, and demonstrating it can strike even heavily defended targets in Iran. Tehran’s mullahs couldn’t protect Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas’s leader Yahya Sinwar, and now Mr. Assad in Syria. All of this is the result of Israel’s daring and fortitude in self-defense, even in the face of Mr. Biden’s opposition.

Mr. Biden is now barely a caretaker President, but Mr. Assad’s fall creates new openings for the Trump Administration. Donald Trump said on Truth Social before Damascus fell that the U.S. should stay out of the conflict, but with Mr. Assad gone the U.S. still has interests to protect in Syria.

One interest is to block the rise of a jihadist state or enclave in Syria. The U.S. has a small military base in Syria with a mission of protecting against the revival of Islamic State. Thousands of ISIS fighters and families are detained by Kurdish forces in Syria.

The rebel charge into Damascus was led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization. But its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, broke with ISIS in 2012 and al Qaeda in 2016 and has been saying he wants a diverse government that tolerates minorities. The U.S. can engage with Mr. Jawlani and test his sincerity. A stable Syria that wants to rebuild rather than export revolution would be a welcome development.

Another U.S. interest is defending allies. Jordan could become a renewed target for jihadist revolt. Israel will also be wary of radical intentions and on the weekend bombed a chemical plant used for weapons in Syria lest it fall into the hands of the next regime. The Kurds, who control parts of northern Syria, are friendly to U.S. interests and are a target for Turkey’s Islamist leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

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Then there is Iran, which may respond to its new weakness by accelerating its nuclear program. The Institute for Science and International Security, run by close Iran-watcher David Albright, said Friday: “From today’s IAEA [U.N nuclear watchdog] update on Iran, it is clear that Iran is instituting a capacity to make weapon grade uranium, under the guise of making 60 percent, at the Fordow underground enrichment plant.”

Mr. Trump will face an early decision on whether to destroy this capacity before Iran gets a nuclear weapon.

Optimism is rarely warranted in the Middle East, but realism and strength can increase deterrence. The Oct. 7 Hamas massacre is turning out to be a miscalculation for the ages, leading to defeats for the forces of Mideast mayhem. Mr. Trump can exploit the opportunities.

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Source: After the Fall of Syria’s Assad – WSJ