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Diwan
Progress With Few Results in Syria
Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, the Assad regime has seen measured advances in its situation that fall well short of real success.
by Armenak Tokmajyan
Published on September 2, 2024
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Diwan
Diwan, a blog from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Program and the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, draws on Carnegie scholars to provide insight into and analysis of the region.
The war in Gaza has had a paradoxical effect on Syria and the Assad regime in Damascus. Escalating tensions between Iran and Israel in the shadow of the Gaza conflict have heightened the risk that Syria may be drawn into a war that it can ill afford. Yet, the conflict has also shifted international attention back to the Middle East, including Syria. After a challenging 2023 marked by setbacks for the regime—the failed reconciliation between Syria and Türkiye, the stalled process of rapprochement between Syria and the Arab countries, and a worsening economic situation that ignited protests, notably in Suwayda—Syria has regained some significance, breathing new life into previously stalled political processes.
The Syrian regime’s role in Israel’s conflict with Iran and its regional allies has been minimal at best. This has led some to sarcastically question whether Syria remains in the Axis of Resistance. Nearly a year after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, it appears the regime has calculated that it cannot afford any escalation. the Syrian military is stretched thin, and unlike Hezbollah in south Lebanon it has no clear front with Israeli forces in Quneitra. A more active role might invite harsher Israeli reprisals specifically against the regime, for which the primary goal these days is survival, not resistance.
Syria’s passive role was somewhat officialized in August when Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, said, “Syria is not required to enter the fighting given its domestic circumstances,” before he added that the country should play a supportive role.
In the case of an Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Syria’s backing is likely to increase, though cautiously. The option Damascus may well choose is not escalation, but expansion of its role as a support front, particularly as a corridor between Iran and Hezbollah. Not only would Syrian President Bashar al-Assad face mounting pressure from both parties to allow this to happen, he would probably go along with such a decision willingly. After all, the regime still considers Hezbollah a major asset in influencing both Lebanese and regional politics. Israel is likely to respond aggressively in order to sever Hezbollah’s weapons lifeline, though it may spare the Syrian regime for as long as the conflict does not approach the occupied Golan Heights and Syria’s airspace remains open to Israeli airstrikes.
Despite the dangers brought by the war in Gaza, the regime has benefited from renewed international interest in the Middle East. Russia, which has been preoccupied with its war in Ukraine, did make a limited comeback of sorts to the region, and to Syria in particular. The most notable example of this is that Moscow in the past month has expanded its observation posts in Quneitra, along the disengagement line between the Syrian and Israeli armed forces.
The Syrian regime has also gained in other ways. Not far from Quneitra, in the Druze-majority region of Suwayda, the regime has faced protests that erupted in August 2023. The protestors have voiced economic grievances, but also political demands. Damascus responded cautiously, opting to wait out the unrest, rely on exploiting divisions among religious leaders, and increase economic pressure. By eschewing violence, the regime averted a strong reaction from the historically rebellious Druze, or, in a worst-case scenario, foreign intervention. Ultimately, the combination of the regime’s tactics and the Gaza war, which drew attention away from local unrest, led to a reduction in the size and frequency of protests—from thousands of people to hundreds, now occurring only on Fridays.
With respect to normalization between regional states and Syria, there has been renewed interest from Türkiye, Arab nations, and even European countries in mending ties with the government in Damascus. The Gaza war has created a new context in which those seeking to engage in the Middle East have also turned their attention to Syria, given its central role in the region’s conflicts. However, these engagements remain focused on longstanding issues such as security, refugees, and regional stability.
The most significant example of such revitalized contacts is, without a doubt, the ties with Türkiye. A mediation attempt by Iraq this summer sought to renew the old Syrian-Turkish dialogue mediated by Russia. The Gaza war and the difficulties it has created for the United States may have provided an opportunity for Syria, Türkiye, and Russia to pressure the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces and their American backers, each for its own reasons. However, the core issues at stake remain unchanged. Security is a primary concern of Damascus and Ankara, followed by demography, economics, and other factors. Given Türkiye’s weight, the Turkish track is crucial. If successful, it could transform the trajectory of Syria’s conflict on the ground and politically.
On the Arab front, the Syria-Arab rapprochement process is where it was a year ago: frozen. An attempt to revive it last April faltered. Although this represented a setback, it was not a major one for Damascus given that it involved a political process with a list of demands from the Assad regime. The regime, in turn, favors advancing bilateral relations, and there has been small but tangible progress in this regard, particularly with Saudi Arabia. The kingdom granted a significant portion of the Hajj quota to the regime in January 2024, taking it away from the opposition, and appointed an ambassador in May, although he has not yet arrived in Syria. More recently, Saudi Arabia’s chargé d’affaires in Damascus said, “Our relations with Syria are improving and will return to how they were before 2011.”
A more surprising development was Italy’s bold push in July, along with Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Greece, Slovakia, and Slovenia, for the European Union to “change its strategy” toward Syria. Shortly thereafter, Italy appointed a foreign minister’s envoy, Stefano Ravagnan, as its new ambassador in Damascus. The significance of the matter is that now Syria policy is being discussed in Brussels and could lead the EU to update its Syria policy, which dates back to 2017. This represents a small diplomatic achievement for the regime, though not a complete one, since an updated policy won’t necessarily mean rapprochement. And even if European engagement with the regime increases, the complexity of the outstanding issues is such that progress is hardly imaginable.
Nonetheless, the situation today is more favorable than it was last October. At the same time, if Israel is determined to eliminate the threats emanating from its northern border, the chances of war are unlikely to disappear in the near future. Thus far, the regime has benefited from the renewal of diverse political contacts, particularly bilateral ones, rather than from broad political negotiations. If there is one lesson to be learned since 2021, when Jordan first breached the wall of Syria’s isolation, it is that progress in Syria is slow, when it occurs at all. The status quo has become so entrenched, and the repercussions of the war so complicated, that although there are occasional windows of opportunity for progress on various fronts, they seldom lead to any significant achievements.
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