Alone and broke against a renewed insurgency, is Assad’s rule at risk of collapse?

BEIRUT (news agencies) — The last time Syrian President Bashar Assad was in serious trouble was 10 years ago, at the height of the country’s civil war, when his forces lost control over parts of the largest city, Aleppo, and his opponents were closing in on the capital, Damascus.

Back then, he was rescued by his chief international backer, Russia, and longtime regional ally Iran, which along with Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah militia helped Assad’s forces retake Aleppo, tipping the war firmly in his favor.

Now, as insurgents pursue a shock offensive that quickly captured not just Aleppo, but the key city of Hama and a string of other towns across the country’s northwest, the Syrian leader appears to be largely on his own.

Russia is preoccupied with its war in Ukraine, and Hezbollah, which at one point sent thousands of its fighters to shore up Assad’s forces, has been weakened by a yearlong conflict with Israel. Iran, meanwhile, has seen its proxies across the region degraded by Israeli airstrikes.

Moreover, Syrian troops are exhausted and hollowed out by 13 years of war and economic crises, with little will left to fight.

So will Assad’s rule collapse in the near future?

“The coming days and weeks will be critical in determining whether the rebel offensive poses an existential threat to the Assad regime or whether the regime manages to regain its footing and push back on recent rebel gains,” said Mona Yacoubian, an analyst with the United States Institute for Peace.

“While weakened and distracted, Assad’s allies are unlikely to simply cave to the rebels’ offensive,” she wrote in an analysis.

Until recently, it seemed that Syria’s president was almost out of the woods. He never really won the long-running civil war, and large parts of the country were still outside his control.

But after 13 years of conflict, it appeared that the worst was over, and that the world was ready to forget. Once viewed as a regional pariah, Assad saw Arab countries warming up to him again, renewing ties and reinstating Syria’s membership in the Arab League. Earlier this year, Italy also decided to reopen its embassy in Damascus after a decade of strained relations.

In the aftermath of one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, aid groups and international donors in Syria began pivoting toward spending more on the country’s recovery than on emergency assistance, providing a lifeline for Syrians and restoring basic services.

But then the sudden offensive launched by insurgents on Nov. 27 reignited the war and caught everyone off guard with its scope and speed.

It also left Syria’s neighbors anxious, wary that violence and refugees could spill across borders and worried about the growing influence of Islamist groups, a major concern for most of Syria’s Arab neighbors.

Analysts say a confluence of geopolitical developments beginning with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, followed by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza that started on Oct. 7, 2023, helped create the opportunity for Assad’s opponents to pounce.

As the rebels advanced this past week, Syrian forces appeared to melt away, putting up no resistance, with several reports of defection. Russian forces carried out occasional airstrikes. Hezbollah’s leader in Lebanon said the group will continue to support Syria, but made no mention of sending fighters again.

“The rebel assault underscores the precarious nature of regime control in Syria,” Yacoubian wrote.

“Its sudden eruption and the speed with which rebel groups managed to overtake Aleppo … expose the complex dynamics that reside just below the surface in Syria and can transform superficial calm into major conflict.”

Aron Lund, a Syria expert with Century International, a New York-based think tank and a researcher with the Swedish Defense Research Agency, said the developments in Syria are a geopolitical disaster for Russia and Iran.

“They too were surely surprised by what happened, and they have all sorts of resource constraints,” including Russia’s war in Ukraine and Hezbollah’s losses in Lebanon and Syria.

While the country’s conflict lines have been largely stalemated since 2020, Syria’s economic woes have only multiplied in the past few years.