Assad and Hezbollah hunker down in Syria

This article is part of an MEI strategic initiative that examines how to enhance regional cooperation between the United States and its partners on addressing the challenges posed by Iran across the region, particularly in key areas like Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Israel-Palestine, and the Ukraine war. Through a series of articles, short papers, events, podcasts, and a final policy report, the initiative will showcase a broad range of viewpoints and subject-matter expertise to inform a holistic and resolute approach toward Iran.

The Middle East has experienced an extraordinarily tumultuous year, as the ripples from Hamas’ assault on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, continue to fuel hostilities in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the waters of the Gulf. The more recent intensification of conflict in Lebanon following Israel’s devastating pager and walkie-talkie attacks on Hezbollah has triggered a cycle of tit-for-tat escalation between Israel and Iran, placing the region onto a collective knife-edge. Meanwhile, the Houthis in Yemen have emerged from the tumult as an actor of considerable regional significance, having survived everything thrown their way by the United States-led military strike campaign and multiple maritime taskforces seeking (and failing) to deter their attacks, which have targeted more than 90 vessels to date, including US warships.

Amid all of this, Syria has received very little attention, despite its central role in Iran’s regional agenda as its main state ally in the Arab world. For decades, Iran’s revolutionary drive to expel the US and Israel from the Middle East ran through Damascus. And yet, despite being at the heart of the so-called “Axis of Resistance,” Bashar al-Assad has clearly sought to keep the Syrian state out of the maelstrom. This has not been an act of benevolence, as some might suggest, but rather an act of self-preservation. After more than 13 years of civil conflict, Assad’s regime is arguably weaker and more vulnerable than ever before — with a broken economy, a destroyed infrastructure, a divided nation, a security apparatus ruled by organized crime, and no light at the end of the tunnel.

These realities, paired with the crippling losses imposed on the likes of Hezbollah, have generated optimism in some policymaking circles that Israel’s military achievements are “history-defining,” creating openings to positively transform the region and reverse Iran’s expansive influence. Internally, the US Defense Department assesses that Hamas and Hezbollah have suffered existential damage from which they may never recover. Now the Biden administration is reportedly “hopeful” that Assad will soon permanently block Iran’s ability to support Hezbollah in Lebanon and is postured to reward Damascus for doing so. At best, such calculations should be described as optimistic; at worst, fanciful.

Assad — down but not out

Meanwhile, Syria’s Republican Guard and Military Intelligence Directorate are, for the first time ever, directly supporting a sustained Iranian proxy attack campaign targeting US troops on Syrian soil, focused around the MSS Conoco base in Deir ez Zour — not an encouraging sign, nor an indication of Syria’s well-meaning attitude.

From an American perspective, the US has won many tactical victories against asymmetric adversaries before, but without a resolution of the root causes and drivers unique to Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, the multi-generational campaign of attrition being pursued by Iran and its proxies will continue. The devastation wrought upon Gaza and the lack of a comprehensive and durable alternative for Lebanon that decisively tackles Hezbollah’s considerable socio-political sway promises to leave behind conditions in which those groups are almost certain to prosper once again. Neither the US nor Israel has an encouraging track record when it comes to developing and sustaining the kind of long-term, strategic solutions needed to seal tactical achievements won on the battlefield.

Nowhere is this vacuum of strategic thinking more clear than in Syria, which will soon enter its 14th year of debilitating crisis. Syria is often described as a “frozen conflict,” and while lines of territorial control may indeed be unchanging, the multiple conflicts across the country are anything but frozen. The past months have seen hostilities escalate on every front, involving domestic Syrian actors as well as external stakeholders — Russia, Turkey, the US, Jordan, and Israel. As hostilities surge, Syria’s humanitarian crisis continues to spiral, with needs now greater than ever before and donations to the United Nations-led aid effort at an all-time low, approximately 27% funded.

Under the surface, Syria’s long-thriving war economy has been completely subsumed by organized crime, fueled by the regime’s industrial-scale drug trafficking enterprise. While at least $10 billion in Syrian-made Captagon and crystal meth flows abroad each year, a domestic drug epidemic has taken root, wildly exacerbating unemployment, crime, and violence. At the beating heart of this narco-state venture is Syria’s elite Fourth Division and its strategic partners, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hezbollah. With drugs, particularly Captagon, forming the glue that holds the regime and its many partners together, there is no realistic prospect for that cycle being broken, and as long as that remains the case, the ties that bind Syria with Iran and Hezbollah will survive.

Syria remains a haven for Hezbollah

While hostilities in Lebanon persist, Hezbollah’s presence in Syria is largely unchanged. In addition to permanent deployments in at least 12 Syrian military bases in Daraa, Suwayda, Damascus, Rif Dimashq, Homs, Hama, Latakia, Tartus and Deir ez Zour, Hezbollah maintains strongholds around al-Zabadani, the Qalamoun Mountains, al-Qusayr, Sayyida Zeinab, Aleppo City, and Nubl and Zahra. Alongside the IRGC, Hezbollah maintains a permanent specialist attachment within the Assad regime’s military research and development front, the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) — particularly Institute 1000 and Branch 410 (both in Jamraya), and Institute 4000 (in Masyaf). Hezbollah also retains a covert military and intelligence presence in western Daraa and in Quneitra, along the Golan front. Weeks of intensive Israeli airstrikes on official and unofficial crossings between Lebanon and western Syria are aimed at stemming weapons flows into Lebanon, but they are not a sustainable or permanent solution. Several targets have been hit consecutively, after repairs led to their re-opening.

Therefore, while Israel has undoubtedly imposed considerable tactical costs upon Hezbollah in recent months, the prospect of its removal from the Lebanese scene appears unrealistic. Next door in Syria, Hezbollah’s roots run deep and whatever fence-sitting Assad’s regime may be demonstrating today vis-à-vis Iran, it is shallow and temporary. The intractability of Syria’s long-running crisis and the complete absence of any meaningful effort to resolve its underlying root causes and drivers means the conditions that favor a long-term Hezbollah presence and strategic influence look set to remain. Beyond calculations being made in response to the post-Oct. 7 regional crisis, large swathes of the international community appear to be beholden to a status quo approach to Syria’s crisis. Israel, on the other hand, may in fact be considering a major escalation in Syria, having launched an intensive spate of at least 16 strikes in 48 hours. Every metric shows that the status quo is simply unsustainable, with the “frozen” conflict itself fraying at the seams. That will make Syria even more of a fertile playground for Hezbollah in the future.

Charles Lister is a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism programs at the Middle East Institute.

Photo by LOUAI BESHARA/AFP via Getty Images