The Collapse of the Assad Regime Creates Risks as Well as Opportunities for Israel

The collapse of Syria as a cohesive state has dealt a significant blow to Iran and Hezbollah, undermining their influence and logistical capabilities in the region. For Israel, this shift presents both an opportunity to reduce direct threats and a complex theater of emerging power vacuums and regional instability.Israel’s Role in the Dictator’s DownfallIsrael played a role in undermining the Assad regime in Syria, targeting Iran’s regional proxies, most notably Hezbollah. Over the years, Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes against Iranian and Hezbollah positions in Syria, focusing on weapons shipments, storage facilities, and militant infrastructure.The operations intensified following the October 7 Hamas attack against the Jewish state, with Israel, in the face of attacks from Hezbollah, expanded its strikes into Lebanon and launched attacks on high-ranking Iranian and Hezbollah officials. On April 1, Israel struck Iran’s diplomatic mission in Damascus, delivering a significant setback by killing key Quds Force leaders who oversaw operations in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. These actions disrupted Iranian logistics and weakened its influence in Syria, contributing to President Bashar Al-Assad’s instability.“This shift has emboldened Israel, which has effectively dealt with Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi and Iranian militias in Syria, and destroyed the Assad regime’s weapon stockpiles and warehouses. Israel now has significant influence across the region,” Ayman Abdel Nour, a Christian Syrian reformist and defected Assad government adviser, tells The New York Sun.Relations between Israel and the Assad regime have long been marked by hostility, shaped by decades of conflict and strategic opposition. Syria, under both Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar, has consistently aligned itself with Israel’s adversaries, including Iran and Hezbollah, while maintaining claims over the Golan Heights, a region occupied and later annexed by Israel. This week, Israel’s government approved a controversial plan to accelerate the expansion of settlements in the occupied Golan Heights, deepening tensions in the region. Despite occasional indirect contacts, such as during ceasefire negotiations, the two nations remain entrenched in opposing geopolitical blocs, with Israel frequently targeting Iranian and Hezbollah-linked assets in Syria to counter threats near its borders.The Devil You Do or Don’t Know The fall of the Assad regime, however, presents risks alongside opportunities. While it shrinks Iran’s foothold in Syria and rids the region of a long-running tyrant and enemy — welcome developments to Israel and America — it also creates power vacuums and potential chaos that could enable hostile actors to exploit the instability for attacks on Israel. “Sunni jihadism has replaced Shia radicalism as the threat on the northern flank of Israel,” the Sun is told by a senior director of Eurasian Security and Prosperity, Kamran Bokhari, at New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy at Washington, The president of a private intelligence firm called the Ulysses Group, Andrew Lewis, tells the Sun that while it is “understandable to be happy about the demise of Assad,” it is “another to have rosy glasses on about the future of Syria under Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its affiliates.”“We have seen this story play out in the Middle East enough times,” he continues. “I believe there is a very high likelihood of the type of violence and extremism that we have seen in Libya, Iraq, Egypt, and Afghanistan.”In response to last weekend’s crumbling of the 54-year dictatorship, Israel has ramped up efforts to safeguard its strategic interests, including targeting Syrian weapons facilities and securing buffer zones near the occupied Golan Heights. These measures, however, have sparked international condemnation and fears of broader conflict should Israel move further into the embattled country, which the United Nations claims would be a violation of a 1974 agreement. Arab nations, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran, have decried Israel’s actions as a “dangerous” violation of Syria’s sovereignty, while Turkey’s foreign ministry condemned Israel’s entry into the buffer zone, describing it as an “occupation mentality.” In response, President Biden’s National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, stated that Israel’s actions in Syria are for its own defense, highlighting the complex security dynamics in the region. A former Syrian diplomat, Bassam Barabandi, co-founder of People Demand Change, tells the Sun that the Israeli Defense Forces are less than 15 miles from Damascus. He emphasizes s that the country has conducted more than 500 airstrikes on Syria in just a couple of days this week, targeting military facilities, not civilians. “The Syrian army is effectively finished. Israel is acting independently to protect its own security without consulting or considering Syrian opinions,” he said. The situation remains tense, with debates about the legality and implications of Israel’s military operations in Syria.Abraham Accords It’s unclear what impact, if any, this change of governance will have on the Abraham Accords. Despite the turmoil that has engulfed the region since the Hamas attacks in the fall of 2023, the Accords remain strong as they pass their fourth anniversary. No country has reversed its commitment, and diplomatic ties between Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates remain active, though tensions persist. “Assad’s downfall eases Israel’s job of enforcing the Lebanon ceasefire since it’s now much harder to rebuild Hezbollah from the outside. By wiping out Syria’s air defenses, Israel has a clearer path, literally, to attack Iran’s nuclear program,” the foreign policy director of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, Jonathan Ruhe, tells the Sun. “But Saudi Arabia and other Arab states are distancing themselves from Israel mostly over Gaza, which has its own ceasefire considerations.”Others contend that in some ways, the events in Syria and the takeover by a widely-designated terrorist outfit brings Israel closer to Gulf countries — potential signees to the Accords. Mr. Bokhari explains that the new Sunni-led extremist government on its border “is a concern Israel shares Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Egypt.”“There is also the more significant aspect that all these actors are deeply concerned that they now have to deal with Turkey on the path to replacing Iran as the dominant power in the region,” he said. Mr. Barabandi, in addition, sees the unfolding of current events as a driver of the Accords’ expansion. “With the Iranian project dismantled, the Abraham Accords have greater potential for success,” he said.

The Collapse of the Assad Regime Creates Risks as Well as Opportunities for Israel

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