Bashar Al Assad sometimes walks the streets of Moscow incognito. This was a prerequisite set by the Kremlin for his stay in Russia.
The Syrian president, who was forced into exile, exactly one year ago on 8 December, 2024, lives in one of Moscow’s top palatial flats in the capital’s business district with his wife and three children with 24-hour body guards who have been assigned to the family for their protection.
Since his stay Moscow, the message has been thrust forward that Moscow takes care of its friends even when they have fallen from grace and/or down in the dumps. Bashar Al Assad, and his father before and who held power since 1970 were always the strongest of allies and Damascus was always seen as Russia’s strategic gateway to the Middle East.
Friendship however doesn’t mean the end of political opportunism and interest. Whilst Assad is allowed to stay in Moscow under the rubric of humanitarian grounds, his asylum follows strict rules: he is not allowed to engage in any political activity nor is he allowed to talk to the press or the media.
He is no longer treated as presidential but a private person. Russian president Vladimir Putin had never met him since he arrived in Moscow nor is he planning to despite claiming otherwise. All Putin would say is he is planning to meet the ex-president ‘sometime’ in the future. Add insult to injury is the fact that Assad has been assigned a lowly figure in the Russian Foreign Ministry as a means of coordination whenever it’s necessary.
But this has long proved a sign of frustration. Today, Assad is alone despite his staff that either travelled with him when he was hastily bungled up last year on a military jet from a Russian airbase near Latakia last year or joined him latter in his residence to start his exile.
With little to do, he spends his days playing video games or going downstairs to the mall in his plush complex to wile his time away, doing it day after day after day. The strong man of Syria, at the top of the helm for the 24 years with ministers, officials, politicians and Ba’ath Party – for theoretically it was this pan-Arab institution that ruled Syria since the late 1960s – is no more.
In Moscow he is a guest with his brother, Maher Al Assad, a former strong man and previous head of the Republican Guard who is staying at the capital’s Four Seasons Hotel. Today they have little political sway with the Kremlin preferring they stay as low as possible and ‘out of sight out of mind’ because of Moscow’s new strategic plans with the new government of Syria lead by previous Al Qaeda extremist-turned-president Ahmad Al Sharaa.
Putin wants to maintain a rapport with the new government because Syria is still seen as the new battleground of political rivalry vis-a-vis the United States, Turkey and Israel. Moscow wants to continue to be a part of the geo-political pie despite the fact that Al Shara has continually called on Moscow to handover Assad to be tried for criminal charges in Damascus, something that was always refused by the Kremlin and Putin.
But politics reflects the interests of both sides for Sharaa wants to be a favorite with everyone, both the West and Russia as demonstrated by his last visit to Moscow last October who continues to have military, strategic, economic and aid ties to Syria from the past Baathist regime.
Thus, although relegated to his luxurious apartments, Assad can still be a valuable political asset to Moscow, being put on hold for the right time as a political chip to be used with the new government of Syria who is desperate to create the needed stability of the country, keep outside powers at bay, check Israeli incursion into its territory and start a program of reconstruction and economic development.
The Al-Aqsa Flood operation marked a turning point in the modern political history of the Middle East. Its repercussions have gone far beyond the Palestinian and regional arenas, extending to the international system and reshaping the foreign policies of global powers toward the region.
The timing of the operation was particularly significant: it came at a transitional moment in the regional order, in the absence of consensus among international and regional actors on the rules of the game. While a fragile balance of deterrence existed between the so-called “Axis of Resistance”—led by Iran (alongside the Syrian regime, Hezbollah, Shiite political forces in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas and Islamic Jihad)—and Israel, the latter was in the midst of a new phase of regional integration through the Abraham Accords.
Several Arab capitals had already normalized relations, and others were on their way, creating an unprecedented political landscape. This shift coincided with the declining influence of traditional Arab powers such as Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, and the rising centrality of the Gulf states. Many analysts began describing this new configuration as a “New Middle East”: wealthy, economically driven, and detached from historical conflicts—unlike the “Old Middle East,” where entrenched crises defined politics.
Turkey, meanwhile, had entered its own phase of recalibration. Once a champion of the Arab Spring and regional Islamist movements, Ankara sought reconciliation with Arab states, even attempting to restore ties with Bashar al-Assad’s regime (though rebuffed by Damascus), while focusing more narrowly on national security and northern Syria.
On the Palestinian front, Israel had grown complacent toward Gaza, convinced Hamas had no incentive to disrupt the status quo. Tensions, however, were mounting in the West Bank, with small armed groups emerging in places like Nablus, Tulkarm, and Jenin. Within Israeli and Western policy circles, talk was spreading about the prospect of a “mini-state in Gaza” as a substitute for a Palestinian state.
At the international level, President Joe Biden’s administration lacked enthusiasm for either the Abraham Accords or Trump’s “Deal of the Century,” yet it effectively followed the same trajectory: pursuing “regional peace” by integrating Israel into a new economic order and reducing the Palestinian question to daily livelihood concerns—employment, services, and economic relief in Gaza and the West Bank—rather than a political resolution.
The Al-Aqsa Flood and the subsequent two-year genocidal war in Gaza shattered these calculations and fundamentally restructured strategic assumptions. Whether the outcome will ultimately benefit or harm the Palestinian cause remains too complex to assess in simple terms, but what is clear is that the pre-October 7 regional order no longer exists.
From a Palestinian perspective, the conflict has restored international attention to the cause, leading to a renewed recognition of its centrality. In the Gulf, the previously dominant security paradigm—which cast Iran as the chief threat while framing Israel as a potential partner—collapsed entirely. A new consensus has emerged: Gulf security is inseparable from the Palestinian issue, and the notion of Israel as a “strategic friend” has been critically reassessed.
Skeptics may argue that these shifts have not altered the balance of power on the ground, and they are partially correct. Yet the strategic narrative has changed. Before October 7, the trajectory was toward the erasure of the Palestinian cause (closing UNRWA, moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, normalization, and de facto annexation of the West Bank). Today, there is growing recognition—regionally and internationally—that Israeli policies themselves are the root of instability, not Iran or other regional actors. As Emirati political scientist Abdulkhaleq Abdulla put it on X (September 25): “When weighing who poses a greater threat to Gulf security and regional stability—Iran or Israel—the evidence points clearly to Israel. Israel’s brutal behavior has made it more dangerous than an exhausted Iran. The Gulf needs a new defensive and geopolitical strategy for the Middle East beyond Iran.”
Israel, however, now perceives a surplus of power and is pressing for a new political and security order that extends beyond the occupied territories. With the partial unraveling of the Iranian alliance and the breakdown of the “Syrian corridor” that once linked Tehran to the Mediterranean, Israel has set its sights on even more ambitious goals, including the proposed “David Corridor” and establishing buffer zones around its borders in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza.
In response, a tentative regional coalition has begun to take shape, bringing together Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and Qatar, with notable support from Turkey and Pakistan. The latter signed a defense pact with Saudi Arabia following Israel’s strike on Qatar and has since become more engaged in regional diplomacy. While fragile and constrained, this alignment presents a rare historic opportunity to rebuild a regional balance of power and establish a new deterrence framework.
Another striking development is the shift in Europe’s stance toward Israel. For the first time, Israel has lost significant ground in Western public opinion and media narratives, particularly among younger generations and in universities. This has pushed Israel closer to isolation—a position from which former U.S. President Donald Trump had tried to rescue it through his proposed Gaza peace plan, which was largely about securing U.S. and Israeli interests, without offering real guarantees for Palestinian statehood or ending the occupation.
In conclusion, it is still too early to judge the full strategic consequences of the Al-Aqsa Flood and the war in Gaza. Scenarios remain open, and outcomes uncertain. Yet one thing is indisputable: the region today is no longer what it was before October 7.
Abu Rumman is an Academic Advisor of the Politics and Society Institute and Professor of Political Science in The University of Jordanand published this article in The Jordan Times.
What should one make of the recent White House meeting between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?
Well, this time Netanyahu was almost summoned to the White House to be told few home truths. This meeting was not like the first time when Netanyahu came to the White House in early February when it was all glow to be unexpectedly told that Trump wants the USA to take over Gaza.
This time around, the meeting was more subdued, almost in a rush, like an after-thought on the part of Trump who keeps chopping and changing as he figures out how he wants to conduct America’s foreign policy in his second “robust” administration.
This time around, although Trump displayed the usual friendliness to Netanyahu, he was somewhat distant because of the tariffs the White House is set upon to start imposing on the rest of the world including best-friend Israel. Its leaders, businessmen are still in shock because Washington has slammed a 17 percent tariff on its products entering the United States.
Israeli industrialists continue to be up-in-arms. It was they who appealed to Netanyahu to seek Washington clarification because they argued that the new tariffs will cost them up to $3 billion in losses, reduce Israeli exports by 26 percent and increase unemployment by 26,000. They are already in a bad situation because of the war on Gaza but this latest step will surely cripple them.
At the White House meeting last Monday, with a chitchat in front of the cameras that looked as if it was a rehearsed meeting with Trump dominating the conversation and everyone taking their que to speak only when they are told, he pointed out to Netanyahu that he “may not” consider reversing tariffs on Israeli exports because “we give Israel $4 billion a year. That’s a lot.” He really sounded like lecturing to the Israelis.
For a man considered to be greatly influenced by the Israeli lobby that seemed to be tough talking for in the immediate conversation Trump told Netanyahu that there would be and for the first time direct face-to-face talking with Iranians about their nuclear file.
This seemed to be another unsuspecting blow. If there was a “shock” on his face, Netanyahu didn’t show it as he just nodded; the Israeli Prime Minister was looking for a tough military stance on Iran, possibly going to war and striking the country’s nuclear facilities. It was he, who persuaded Trump in 2018 to exit from the 2015 nuclear deal brokered by the UN with other world powers of Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany at the behest of the Barack Obama administration.
Now with Trump in the driving seat, and wanting a “tainted-Donald” deal, Netanyahu couldn’t but agree with an alluring American president. If he had any misgivings, he kept them to himself except to say Tel Aviv and Washington had an objective not to let Iran have nuclear weapons, but Tehran constantly said and throughout the past years that their nuclear program was for peaceful purposes unlike the clandestine extensive Israeli nuclear program.
Although he may not have outwardly shown it, Trump may have been a little irritated by Netanyahu in other ways. Take Gaza for example when Israel restarted its war on the enclave on 19 March exactly two months after a ceasefire took effect ending a 15-month genocide and which was brokered by Trump and his team lead Steve Witkoff.
The recent talks in the White House, and shown in front of the cameras suggest Trump would have like more time for the Doha negotiations to take hold between Hamas and Israel to see the release of the 59 remaining hostages – which include one American who is still deemed to be alive – hidden in the Gaza enclave.
The relaunching of the war, and so quickly, and with the breaking of the 19 January ceasefire is adding to the tension between Washington and Tel Aviv and is sending signals that Netanyahu wants to continue the war in Gaza and doesn’t particularly care about the remaining hostages, and whether they come out of their nightmare dead or alive.
Trump, and as shown by the White House meeting, is showing a diversion from thoughts projected by Netanyahu. As well as Iran, he has told Netanyahu, he favors Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and that he has a ‘very, very good relationship with Turkey and with their leader…”, adding that “I happen to like him, and we never had a problem” and he offered to mediate between Israel on any problem between the two countries.
Such words may have suddenly added to the glum mood of the Israeli PM who fears that Turkish influence in Syria despite the fact it is Israel that is today bombarding different Syrian cities and occupying parts of their territory, a situation that increased after the toppling of the Bashar Al Assad regime on 9 December, 2024 by a new government in Damascus, and which is seen as a threat to Israeli security by Tel Aviv.
What is worrying Netanyahu is the fact Trump recognizes Turkish influence and Syria and Ankara’s relationship with the new government in Damascus, and apparenty the man in the White House, is “ok” with it.
With all this going on, Netanyahu is not sure anymore of the way the White House is going despite the fact that Washington continues to be the main supplier of weapons to Tel Aviv. But with Trump as “fickle-minded” as he is, all cards are on the table for a new and changing relationship between the USA and the rest of the world with the strong possibility of including Israel in the new international set of thinking.
This comment is written by Dr Marwan Asmar, chief editor of the crossfirearabia.com website.
With the fall of the Assad regime, Syria has turned a new page, with the opposition forces now holding the reins of the country .
An 11-day-long opposition blitzkrieg forced Bashar al Assad to flee to Moscow, dealing a death blow to the regime after 13 years of the brutal war.
Though various revolutionary groups fought for this decisive moment, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which means Levant Liberation Committee, emerged as a dominant force under the leadership of Ahmed al Sharaa, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al Jolani.
The US and its Western allies has designated the HTS as a terrorist organisation, putting a bounty of $10 million on his head, which was lifted recently.
But the 42-year-old Syrian leader has emerged as an indispensable force, wielding strong influence over the war-ravaged country. In late December, Sharaa met Turkish and Ukrainian foreign ministers as well as top diplomats from the US and the UK, signalling that he is the de facto leader of the new Syria.
Sharaa had a joint press conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, during which the top Turkish diplomat “thanked” the Syrian leader for his “friendly” welcome to the country.
“I saw that he (Sharaa) and his friends had very clear ideas about the establishment and transition process of the new system,” said Fidan, referring to the transition process from the Assad regime rule to the new government.
Fidan and Sharaa also sat down for a tea stop in Damascus’s famous Mount Qasioun, which overlooks the capital. Mount Qasioun is believed to be the site of legendary events, such as the Biblical and Quranic figure Abel’s murder by Cain.
From a fighter in battle fatigues to a statesman in a Western suit and a trimmed beard, Sharaa’s transformation reflects the changes in the country since the fall of the Assad regime.
Since the beginning of the 11-day lightning offensive against the Assad regime, Sharaa has given several interviews and statements from CNN to Saudi state-owned Al Arabiya TV, reflecting a fair degree of moderation in his worldview.
He has pledged to ease sectarian tensions and rebuild the country along the margins of justice and equality. The HTS leader also sent a message to the Western camp saying that “your interests are understood in the new Syria.”
He suggested working with Russia, an ally of the Assad regime, and sent a conciliatory message to Iran, in which he offered to develop a positive relationship even though Tehran fiercely backed Bashar al Assad in the past.
“This new triumph, my brothers, marks a new chapter in the history of the region, a history fraught with dangers (that left) Syria as a playground for Iranian ambitions, spreading sectarianism, stirring corruption,” he said, during one of his first speeches after the overthrow of the Assad regime in Damascus’s Umayyad Mosque, one of the most decorated and oldest Muslim religious structures.
In his latest interview,Sharaa suggested that elections and drafting a new constitution replacing the current Baathist charter will take several years due to the fact that the civil war has led to a large displacement and a lot of disruption in many public services.
A moderate leader?
The Biden administration has also signalled that depending on Sharaa’s path, Washington might consider removing the HTS from the US terror list.
“We have taken note of statements by the leaders of these rebel groups in recent days, and they’re saying the right things now, but as they take on greater responsibility, we will assess not just their word, but their actions,” Biden said on Dec. 8.
In a recent interview, Sharaa urged the Western leadership to lift sanctions because they were “issued based on the crimes” of the Assad regime, which is gone after the opposition victory. As a result, “these sanctions should be removed automatically”, he said.
Not only the US but also regional powerhouses like Türkiye, which has backed the opposition’s democratic aspirations against the Assad regime, also closely watching Sharaa and the new Syrian administration’s ongoing policies.
With an overwhelming majority of Syrians having lost so many loved ones in the brutal war, they are now hoping for a long-lasting peace and a life with dignity and honour.
“I have an advice for him (Sharaa/Jolani), I hope he is smart enough to know it by himself: don’t even try to be the new Assad. The Syrians who did a revolution against Assad, can do it again easily against you as well,” says Omar Alhariri, a Daraa-based Syrian journalist.
“We are looking for the future, being a good part of it. We are waiting for justice,” Alhariri tells TRT World, adding that Sharaa should lead a process in which “Syrians themselves should choose their leaders” in a democratic process.
Sharaa has recently shown his openness to a democratic order, saying the HTS and its armed allies intend to form a “council chosen by the people” and a state operating through institutions.
In March, however, he faced large protests in his previous stronghold Idlib, where protesters accused him of corruption and suppression. It remains to be seen whether his moderate rhetoric will match his future actions.
What is his background?
Born in Saudi Arabia to Syrian parents who are from the Israel-occupied Golan Heights, Sharaa grew up hearing the stories of his family’s displacement.
During the infamous Arab-Israeli War of 1967, Israel occupied the Golan Heights, rendering its inhabitants, including Sharaa’s family, homeless.
Assad’s ouster under the leadership of Sharaa is, in a way, life coming full circle. His father Hussein al-Sharaa was a pan-Arab nationalist, who was imprisoned in the 1970s by Bashar al Assad’s father Hafez al Assad. After his release, Sharaa’s father sought asylum in Saudi Arabia where he worked as an oil engineer.
In 1989, when he was seven-years-old, the Sharaa family returned to Syria’s Damascus. The young Sharaa pursued journalism, studying media.
In the 2000s, the Second Intifada left indelible marks on Sharaa’s life. While his father had cultivated strong ties with the Palestinian armed groups affiliated to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the young Sharaa established contacts with radical groups like Al Qaeda.
“I started thinking about how I could fulfil my duties, defending a people who are oppressed by occupiers and invaders,” he said during an interview with Frontline in 2021, referring to the Palestinian resistance against Israel.
In the preceding months of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, he joined the Al Qaeda ranks, fighting against the American occupation.
By the mid-2000s, he was imprisoned by US authorities in Iraq and subjected to difficult conditions in America’s notorious dark sites for at least five years. On his release in 2011, Sharaa stepped into a different world.
The Arab Uprisings were spreading across the Middle East, reaching Syria too. Sharaa quickly joined hands with the anti-regime forces, launching another battle against the Bashar al Assad’s rule in Syria.
Toward being a top operative
After his move to Syria, Sharaa formed Jabhat al Nusra, the Syrian wing of Al Qaeda. In 2013, when Daesh wanted to annex Syria and merge it with the parts it had captured in Iraq, Sharaa rebelled, triggering a fight between the two groups.
While Daesh lost control across both Syria and Iraq thanks to an American-led coalition interference, Sharaa’s Nusra Front survived, partly due to its anti-Daesh stance.
In 2016, Sharaa rebranded his group Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (Front for the Conquest of Syria), indicating that the new structure has its own agenda, straining its ties with Al Qaeda. The next year, he once again changed the group’s name to its current format, publicly saying that the HTS has no connections with al Qaeda.
In the last seven years, Sharaa’s HTS has focused on Syria, increasing its hold over the Idlib province, which was the last opposition stronghold in the country prior to November 27, when the 11-day offensive against the Assad regime began.
Syria has just turned a gloomy chapter of its long turbulent history that lasted for at least half-a-century. The question now is: Will this new era bring better or worse news for this beleaguered country and its people?
The new local stake holders on the ground and outside players are showing different and often conflicting signals of what lies ahead. A month ago, the totalitarian Assad dynasty regime collapsed, its dictator fled the country, his strong men melted into the caves, his father’s imposing statues downed and his foreign supporters’ influence, Iran and Russia, evaporated. From this underdog dark side, the game was over!
But it was not so on the other rising side of the game, where you have the local opposition of multiple groups and their new de facto foreign partners and friends, celebrating the defeat of the bygone oppressive regime.
All they see is a helpless, desperate and a lone prey for the cut! In real terms the country, so far, is being divided into different de facto regional enclaves or mini-states. Each is controlled by its own local leaders. Members of each community share either the same faith, or speak the same language, or adhere to a host of old norms and traditions inherited from their ancestors.
Both leaders and their followers of each faction are finding themselves at a crucial turning point. Do they want to repeat what their previous leaders did when they, willy-nilly, allowed the central government under the Assad regime, run their daily life affaires, and then when it was too late, discovered that they were either deceived or coerced by the now defunct regime’s agents? Or are they saying no more of this stuff this time, and accordingly acting more independently to preserve their special identity and immune their rights?
The idea of partitioning Syria as we know it since its independence in 1946 is not new! It can be traced back to its pre-independence original format, conceived then by the French mandatory power in the early 1900s, when the Ottoman’s four centuries rule, of the whole of Arabia and North Africa, came to an end.
At that time, France, sanctioned by League of Nations, suggested to divide the country into five main enclaves or mini-states: An Alawite enclave on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean with Latakia as its capital, an Aleppo enclave in the north, a Jabal Druze enclave in the south, bordering Jordan, Alexandretta enclave which was taken by Turkey and renamed as the Hatay province, and finally the dominated Sunni region in the center with its capital Damascus.
Today, the US, with the consent of other good wishers, are openly pushing, by deeds and words, to create an additional enclave in the autonomous Kurdish oil-rich region in the north-eastern part of Syria. On the Golan Heights, the new strong players are turning a blind eye to the serious Israeli military encroachments inside proper Syrian territories, previously recognized by the world community and UN resolutions. At the same time, the emerging clashes in the east and west of the country and other places in the center, between rivaling armed groups, leave little room for optimism.
The most important step Syrians need today is a constitution that can stand at the same distance from all components of the society. But surprisingly, the last statement attributed to the new top man in Damascus saying such a constitution might take four to five years to come to life, can only send discouraging and negative signals to all the components of Syrian society and others!
A final question that must be asked: Is Syria nearing to lose its last chance to avoid falling back in the pre-independence fragmentation trap?
This opinion was especially written for Crossfire Arabia by Saleem Ayoub Quna who is a Jordanian author writing on local, regional and international affairs and has two books published. He has a BA in English Literature from Jordan University, a diploma from Paris and an MA from Johns Hopkins University in Washington. He also has working knowledge of French and German.
CrossFireArabia
Saleem Ayoub Quna
