Assad’s fall and Syria’s chaos: Israel’s high-stakes moment in a ‘new Middle East’ - analysis
The New Middle East is a region where war and enmity still dominate but where the balance of power has shifted dramatically.
Ladies and gentlemen say hello to the New Middle East.
No, it’s not a new Middle East in the way former president and inveterate dreamer Shimon Peres envisioned when he coined the phrase in the 1990s after the Oslo Accords. For Peres, this was to be a Middle East of peace and harmony, born out of Israeli diplomatic daring and initiative, flowing from an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.Instead, the New Middle East – the one the world woke up to on Sunday morning with the fall of Bashar Assad and the end of his family’s brutal, 54-year reign in Syria – is a region where war and enmity still dominate but where the balance of power has shifted dramatically.Syria was the central pillar in Iran’s strategy of surrounding Israel with an arc of proxies bent on its destruction. With Assad’s fall, this arc – which began in Iran and stretched through Iraq, Syria, and northern Lebanon and extended through Yemen and southern Gaza – has been fractured.The vaunted “axis of resistance” is now a shadow of what it was just three months ago. Iran no longer stands as the dominant force sweeping through the region with momentum and an air of inevitability – one key Arab city after another falling under its influence: Damascus, Beirut, Baghdad, Sanaa, and Gaza City. Who will replace it remains unclear, but the fact that Iran’s overall sway is on a steep decline means there is a new Middle East.
Whether it will be an improved Middle East will take months and years to assess. But it is undeniably new, with fresh possibilities and new threats.
Israel's role in Assad’s fall
Israel has played no small part in shaping this reality, as Peres once hoped – but not in the way he imagined. This transformation came not through diplomatic daring but through military audacity.That audacity saw Israel dismember Hamas militarily over the last 14 months, decapitate and defang Hezbollah, and deliver a decisive blow to Iran itself. These three developments – triggered by Hamas’s brutal attack on October 7 – set off the chain of events in Syria over the last eight days, culminating in something no one seemed to see coming: the fall of Assad.Oh, what irony: Hamas head Yahya Sinwar attacked, hoping to trigger a chain reaction from the “axis of resistance” that would bring about Israel’s downfall. Instead, it set up a chain reaction leading to the weakening of that very “axis of resistance” and to Assad’s downfall.This was not an objective Israel set out to achieve, but it is unmistakably a byproduct of its actions.Now what? How should Israel now navigate the chaos that is Syria – with rival rebel groups representing different ideologies and ethnic groups certain to struggle for dominance – to ensure these developments do not jeopardize its national security?To do so, Israel must adopt a strategy similar to its approach in Lebanon since the ceasefire was established nearly two weeks ago: setting clear ground rules.Within hours of the ceasefire, Hezbollah tested Israel’s resolve by sending operatives to Kafr Kila just across from Metulla, approaching IDF tanks near the border, and encouraging people to return to villages in the south contrary to the agreement, which calls for the Lebanese army to deploy there first.Israel’s response – though somewhat confused in the first few hours after the ceasefire – was decisive: it will not tolerate breaches of the agreement. It will not allow Hezbollah to reestablish positions south of the Litani River and will prevent efforts at rearming.If Hezbollah believed Israel would, for the sake of preserving quiet, accept violations of this agreement as it has in the past – specifically UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006 – it has miscalculated.Israel has been active in Lebanon since the November 27 ceasefire, ensuring the terms of the agreement are upheld. According to the IDF, several dozen Hezbollah positions have been hit and some 25 Hezbollah operatives killed for violating the truce.Even though Israel has no formal agreements with any of the Syrian factions that have just toppled Assad – though it has cooperated with certain rebel groups in the past – it will need to act in Syria as it has in Lebanon: take preemptive measures against emerging threats.ISRAEL MUST establish ground rules early in the new rebel-run Syria, just as it did in Lebanon after the ceasefire went into effect. This includes preventing any rebel forces from entering the UN-mandated buffer zone that has been respected for 50 years, which Israel made clear it intended to do on Sunday by moving tanks and troops into the area.Establishing ground rules early also means ensuring that strategic weapons – including chemical arms – do not fall into the hands of rebels, some of whom are jihadists. This is already being done by the IDF, which, over the last few nights, has reportedly struck sensitive weapons depots and caches inside Syria.When discussing the agreement he brokered in Lebanon, US envoy Amos Hochstein said it was a “fantasy” to believe a security zone could be carved out of southern Lebanon to distance Hezbollah from the border.Amid the chaos and uncertainty in Syria, however, such a no-go buffer zone on the Golan Heights must be maintained, and anyone entering it must realize they do so at their peril. In the chaos of Syria, Israel cannot allow hostile forces to approach its borders unchecked and must act decisively to prevent this.This is one of October 7’s cardinal lessons.Israel must also be willing to do this alone. US President-elect Donald Trump, in a social media post on Saturday, made clear that Israel’s potential problems in Syria will not be resolved by the US.“Syria is a mess,” he wrote, “but it is not our friend, and THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!”Trump and the US can afford to take this position because Syria is, indeed, not America’s friend, nor is this their fight. Geographically distant, events in Syria will not immediately or directly impact US security, though they are likely to do so indirectly in the future.As a paraphrase of an old adage goes: You might not be interested in the Middle East, but the Middle East is interested in you.This distance gives the US the luxury of treating Syria’s turmoil as a peripheral issue, at least for now. But for Israel, proximity means that the stakes are immediate and unavoidable. While what is happening now inside Syria may not be Israel’s fight, the outcome of this turmoil – and what those who seize power do next – is of great immediate concern.After all, another cardinal October 7 lesson is the absolute folly of adopting a laissez-faire approach to developments in a neighboring country or territory that poses an immediate threat.This was Israel’s approach to Gaza after withdrawal in 2005 – let them fend for themselves and let the chips fall where they may; the Jews across the border will hunker down behind an impenetrable border.This does not mean that Israel should be involved in engineering Syrian political reality in the post-Assad era. It does mean, however, that Jerusalem must act forcefully and with determination when it sees developments inside Syria during this twilight period between the end of Assad’s rule and the beginning of a new political reality that poses a threat to its national security.Trump’s social media post should remind Israelis that regardless of how supportive the president-elect might be of the Jewish state, Israel cannot rely on others to safeguard its interests. To ensure that jihadists do not establish positions along its borders or that chemical weapons do not fall into rebel hands, Israel will need to act independently to secure its national interests.In the immediate aftermath of Assad’s fall, Jerusalem has shown it understands this well and intends to act accordingly.
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