How Turkey Won the Syrian Civil War - Assad’s Downfall Is a Boon for Erdogan—at Least for Now
In most capitals across the Middle East, the news of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fall sparked immense anxiety. Ankara is not one of them. Rather than worrying about Syria’s prospects after more than a decade of conflict, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees opportunity in a post-Assad future. His optimism is well founded: out of all the region’s major players, Ankara has the strongest channels of communication and history of working with the Islamist group now in charge in Damascus, positioning it to reap the benefits of the Assad regime’s demise.
Chief among the rebel forces that ended Assad’s rule on Sunday is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a Sunni Muslim group that was previously affiliated with al Qaeda and is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the United Nations. Despite those designations, Turkey has provided indirect assistance to HTS. The Turkish military presence in the northwestern Syrian town of Idlib largely shielded the group from attacks by Syrian government forces, allowing it to run the province undisturbed for years. Turkey managed the flow of international aid into HTS-run areas, which increased the group’s legitimacy among locals. Trade across the Turkish border has provided HTS economic support, too.
All this has given Turkey influence over HTS. In October, Erdogan quashed plans for a rebel offensive in Aleppo; when rebel forces launched their campaign late last month, they likely did so with Erdogan’s approval. For years, Assad had been dragging his feet as Erdogan sought to mend ties with Damascus and repatriate the millions of Syrian refugees whose presence in Turkey undermined support for his ruling party. With Assad’s regional allies weakened by the Israeli campaign in Gaza and Lebanon, and Russia distracted in Ukraine, Erdogan saw an opportunity to force the Syrian leader to the table.
The rebels’ whirlwind success came as a surprise. Now, Assad is out of the picture altogether, and Erdogan is getting ready to cash in on his years-long investment in the Syrian opposition. Iran and Russia—Turkey’s main rivals in Syria—are chastened; a friendly government could soon be set up in Damascus, ready to welcome back refugees; and Assad’s departure could even open a window for remaining U.S. troops to leave, fulfilling a long-sought goal of Ankara’s. If it can avoid the potential dangers ahead, Turkey could end up a clear winner in Syria’s civil war.
ROUGH START
Erdogan’s path to influence in Syria has been rocky. After the uprising in the country began in 2011, Ankara became a fervent supporter of the anti-Assad opposition, providing financial and military aid to rebel groups and even allowing them to use Turkish territory to organize and launch attacks. Ankara hoped that with an Islamist-run government in Damascus, Turkey’s regional clout would expand. But as the Syrian civil war dragged on, it created problems for Turkey. Ankara’s efforts to induce regime change strained its previously friendly ties with regional autocrats. It fell out with Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as with Assad’s most powerful backers, Iran and Russia. Such isolation led Ibrahim Kalin, at the time Erdogan’s chief policy adviser, to refer in 2013 to Turkey’s commitment to the Syrian opposition and the Islamist cause as a foreign policy of “precious loneliness.”
Critically, the Syrian conflict also turned Turkey’s already fraught relations with the United States into a strategic nightmare. The U.S. decision in 2014 to airdrop weapons to the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG)—a group Ankara considers a terrorist organization—was a turning point in bilateral relations. From the United States’ perspective, support for the YPG became a strategic imperative after months of failed efforts to convince Turkey to do more to subdue the Islamic State (also known as ISIS). Washington, increasingly frustrated over Turkey’s seeming indifference to ISIS activities within its borders, saw no better option. Ankara, for its part, felt betrayed by its ally’s decision to arm its enemy.
As Turkey’s problems with the United States worsened, Russia benefited. Moscow intervened in Syria in 2015 to save the Assad regime, putting its interests in conflict with Ankara’s. Russia had the clear upper hand in Syria, and Erdogan saw no choice but to work with President Vladimir Putin. It was only with Moscow’s green light that Turkey was able to launch a military incursion in 2019 into northern Syria to curb Kurdish advances there, a goal Erdogan saw as necessary to solidify his domestic alliance with Turkish nationalists. There is some speculation that Erdogan’s decision to purchase S-400 Russian missile defense systems—a move that caused a rift with the United States and NATO—was to secure this approval from Moscow.
BIG PAYOFF
Today, with Assad gone, this balance of power has rapidly shifted in Erdogan’s favor. Not only does Russia’s loss give Turkey freer rein in Syria, but it will also damage Moscow’s standing in other places where the two countries compete for influence. Africa is one such region. The intervention in Syria had helped Putin project an image of Russia as a great power and a reliable backer. He leveraged that reputation to cultivate close ties with African autocrats, particularly in the Sahel, while Turkey sought to position itself an alternative to Moscow. Assad’s collapse will tarnish Russia’s image and threaten its partnerships. And without a military footprint in Syria, Russia’s logistical support for its operations in Africa, particularly in Libya, will be compromised, potentially leaving a void that Turkey can fill.
Assad’s collapse will strengthen Turkey’s hand in relations with Iran, as well. The two countries have long been regional rivals. In Syria, Iranian-backed forces coordinated with the YPG in fighting ISIS, thus sidelining Turkish-backed forces in some areas. Iran-backed militias within the Popular Mobilization Forces, Iraq’s state-sponsored paramilitary units, have also complicated Turkey’s fight against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed separatist group active in Turkey that both Ankara and Washington have designated a terrorist organization, in northern Iraq. And in the South Caucasus, Ankara and Tehran have pursued conflicting agendas: Turkey has tightened its cooperation with Azerbaijan in ways that Iran sees as a threat, and Iran maintains friendly ties with Armenia, which has a contentious relationship with Turkey.
Erdogan is getting ready to cash in on his investment in the Syrian opposition.
Iran, however, has been weakened, first by the Israeli war in Gaza, which has dealt a blow to the Iranian-led “axis of resistance,” and now by the ouster of Assad, who had been Tehran’s stalwart ally. Syria played an important role in Iran’s strategy of supporting militant groups and proxies across the region. It served as a land bridge over which Tehran could transport weapons and other supplies to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Losing Syria will limit Iran’s ability to project power, giving Turkey more room to maneuver, from Iraq and Syria to the South Caucasus.
The fall of the Assad regime is likely to offer Erdogan another benefit: the chance for reconciliation with Washington. The United States’ military presence in Syria and cooperation with the YPG have strained bilateral ties and complicated Turkish operations in the region. In 2019, days after President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, Ankara ordered a military campaign against Washington’s Syrian Kurdish allies. An angry Trump slapped sanctions on Turkey and pledged to keep a “small number” of troops in parts of Syria to protect oil installations. Ankara has long wanted U.S. forces withdrawn, and Trump’s election to a second term revived hopes that he would finally bring the remaining troops home. Assad’s departure could make this outcome more likely. As the Syrian rebels reached the suburbs of Damascus to storm the bastion of Assad’s regime, Trump insisted that the United States “should have nothing to do with” their fight. When he takes office, Trump might agree to a deal in which Turkey commits to containing ISIS and the United States removes its troops from Syria, thus setting up Ankara for a productive relationship with the new administration.
CAUTION AHEAD
Although a post-Assad Syria offers opportunities for Ankara, there is also an unignorable risk that the Islamist-led forces that toppled the dictator could foster instability and extremism. Power transitions of this kind are rarely smooth. Thirteen years after an uprising in Libya, backed by NATO, led to the overthrow and death of Muammar al-Qaddafi, that country remains mired in conflict and chaos, and its population is suffering despite its abundant oil wealth. Following Saddam Hussein’s ouster in 2003, Iraq’s new leaders struggled to consolidate democracy and the country endured brutal violence. Syria today faces challenges on a similar, perhaps even greater, scale, having suffered more than a decade of civil war that caused widespread destruction and deepened social and political fractures.
Whether the groups that replaced Assad can address those problems is uncertain. The rebels have announced an interim prime minister, but the new government’s control is not yet fully established. If it is able to move toward the massive reconstruction effort that Syria now needs, Turkey will certainly have a role to play. Its support for the groups in charge, the long border it shares with Syria, and its military presence in the country give it significant influence. Even so, Ankara will not be able to dictate how the new leaders in Damascus will rule.
The HTS-led rebel coalition has not provided many details about its plans for governing Syria, but Western and Arab countries fear that it may try to establish a hard-line Islamist regime. In some respects, however, HTS has tried to present a moderate face. Its leader has publicly disavowed international terrorism. After bringing down Assad, the group pledged not to destroy state institutions and promised to respect the country’s ethnic and religious diversity.
There is a risk that the forces that toppled Assad could foster instability and extremism.
Yet there are good reasons to be skeptical. HTS’s governance in Idlib has hardly been democratic. Ankara may push a new Syrian government to guarantee rights for women and minority groups, in part to help it secure Western favor, but that does not mean the rebels will listen. And Turkey, a country that refuses to grant its own Kurdish population basic rights, is unlikely to seek generous terms for Syria’s Kurds. An unresolved Kurdish problem would invite continued instability in northern Syria, with the potential to spill over into Turkey. And if the rebels fail to enshrine equal rights for all Syrians in law and practice, the new Syria might not look that different from the old one. That outcome would not be good for Ankara. Erdogan wants the Syrian refugees now residing in Turkey to return to their country voluntarily. Without assurances of a democratic future, many may not want to.
There is also a risk of an ISIS resurgence. Syria’s new leaders will have a lot on their plates in the year to come. The Syrian Kurdish militia that is now securing the prisons and detention centers that house tens of thousands of Islamic State fighters will also have its own future to consider. Capitalizing on this period of chaos, the jihadi group could try to reestablish itself. Turkey is particularly vulnerable to terror attacks, as it is home to active ISIS networks. This year alone, Turkish authorities have rounded up more than 3,000 suspected ISIS members in operations targeting these networks.
Syria’s political development in the near term will depend not only on the new government’s intentions and capabilities but also on the actions of outside powers to help stabilize and rebuild the country. Syria will need foreign investment in infrastructure, humanitarian aid, relief from sanctions, support for refugee returns, and assistance with disarming militias and retraining the security services. But if the HTS-led coalition ignores international pressure to fulfill its promise to form an inclusive government and civil institutions, it will be shunned by the world, and an isolated Syria could easily fall back into violent disarray. Turkey will then have to deal with an economically devastated neighbor being torn apart by rival armed groups.
As the power broker whose actions led to the downfall of the Assad regime, Turkey will own Syria’s problems. Many in Ankara were quick to declare victory after Assad fled the country. Having a friendly government in Damascus may indeed open doors for Erdogan. He wants refugees to return to Syria, and his allies in Turkey’s construction sector want to take part in rebuilding the country. This win in Syria has afforded him status, which Erdogan will hope to use to his advantage in relations with the West and with countries in the region. But if Syria slides back into chaos, producing terrorism and instability that could send more refugees across the border, Turkey’s strongman may come to regret the rebels’ catastrophic success.