Thomas Graham is a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The stunning fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has upended Russia’s policy in the Middle East. Less than a decade ago, Russia decisively intervened in the Syrian civil war, allying with Iran and Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah to save Assad from rebel forces advancing on Damascus and other critical urban centers and helping him regain control of two-thirds of the country. Russian President Vladimir Putin burnished his reputation in a region that respects power and loyalty. Putin’s embrace of Assad, a long-standing ally, stood in stark contrast to the U.S. abandonment of its close partner, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, during the Arab Spring.
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Now, Putin faces a potential strategic debacle with far-reaching consequences for not only Russia but himself personally. Success abroad is critical to any Russian ruler’s legitimacy. Certainly, Putin’s reassertion of Russia’s prerogatives on the world stage in the past quarter century has undergirded his elite and popular support. This is one reason why, despite the heavy losses in men and materiel, he continues to insist that Russia will achieve all the goals he laid out when he launched the military assault on Ukraine in February 2022. His approach to the strategic challenges in the Middle East will be no different: he will continue to insist on a robust Russian presence in the region.
Waxing and Waning Mideast Profile
In recent years, Putin’s actions in the Middle East have enhanced his footprint there. His rescue of Assad in 2015 came with other steps designed to raise Russia’s profile in a region that it had largely abandoned at the end of the Cold War. Putin seized on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s anger at the West’s lukewarm support during a 2016 coup attempt to rebuild relations with Turkey. In 2016, he cooperated with the Saudis to launch the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries Plus (OPEC+) to regulate global oil markets. In 2018, he moved even closer to Iran after the Donald Trump administration backed out of the multilateral nuclear deal with Tehran and launched its maximum pressure campaign. He continued to bolster ties with Israel. Russians boasted that no problem in the Middle East could be resolved without them.
Moscow’s reputation in the Middle East paradoxically began to wane after the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. To be sure, Putin played on the United States’ steady support for Israel’s brutal operation in the Gaza Strip to win support in the Global South. Russia’s steadfast support for Hamas as civilian casualties soared played well in the non-Western world, as did its backing of UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions condemning Israel and backing cease-fires that the United States voted against. But more importantly, the unfolding conflict in the region underscored how little a role Russia could actually play. No one turned to Moscow for a resolution of the conflict; all eyes turned to Washington. China even stepped in with a more adroit diplomatic role than Russia, engineering a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Now, the stunning setback of Assad’s fall from power has occurred.
Russia’s immediate concern will be salvaging its strategic military bases in Syria, the naval facility at Tartus, and the Khmeimim air base. They are critical to its ability to project power in the Middle East, they anchor Russia in the Eastern Mediterranean, and they serve as the logistics hub to support Russian operations in North Africa, including its military contractors in Libya and the Sahel. Many observers, including Russian military bloggers close to the Russian Ministry of Defense, argue that Russia will have no choice but to abandon those bases after Assad’s ouster and the victory of Islamic forces it has spent the greater part of the last decade trying to annihilate.
Russia’s Regional Options
The situation, however, remains quite fluid. The anti-Assad forces consist of many competing factions operating in various parts of the country. A long period of instability lies ahead, and Moscow is not without cards to play.
More on:
As it became clear that the rebels were likely to quickly rout Assad’s forces, Moscow changed its rhetoric dramatically. Instead of railing against terrorist forces, it began to call for dialogue among all forces as part of a political process to end the fighting. Despite its rhetorical support for Assad, Russia never really provided much military backing against the rebels—perhaps understanding the fatal weakness of Assad’s demoralized forces hollowed out by corruption. Although it claimed otherwise, Moscow appears to have played a central role in persuading Assad to step down and flee the country. Tellingly, it was the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs—not an official Syria source—that announced Assad’s decision, and the Syrian president flew to Moscow for political asylum. At the least, the Kremlin will attempt to take credit for facilitating the rebels’ conquest of Damascus with minimal bloodshed.
At the same time, the current Syrian government, absent Assad, has offered to work with the rebels to prepare a smooth transition to a new ruling coalition. Whether the rebels will take up that offer remains to be seen, but if they do, many of the holdovers from the old regime will likely have ties to Moscow—another lever the Kremlin can pull to salvage its military bases.
The Turkey Factor
Finally, Turkey remains a major backer of the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces that seized Damascus and appear to be the dominant rebel faction at the moment. Ankara could use its leverage to persuade HTS to let the Russians stay for its own reasons. It could see an advantage in a continuing Russian military presence as a counterbalance to Israeli influence and the U.S. presence, should President-Elect Donald Trump back away from his pledge to withdraw the small U.S. contingent in eastern Syria.
Erdoğan might also hope that working with Moscow will reinforce his position against the Kurds in eastern Syria, who continue to enjoy U.S. backing. In any event, the fate of Russia’s military bases was almost certainly a topic of conversation when the Turks, Iranians, and Russians met on the margins of an international conference in Doha, Qatar, in recent days to discuss the situation in Syria.
In the current period of great uncertainty, it would be premature to draw any far-reaching conclusions about Russia’s presence in Syria and the broader Middle East. One thing is certain: Putin is not going to simply abandon Russia’s military bases in Syria and calmly accept a major strategic setback—that would not only erode Russia’s reputation as a great power but also diminish his own domestic political standing.
This work represents the views and opinions solely of the author. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher, and takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.
What Assad’s Fall Means for Russia in the Middle East
The flight of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to exile in Russia poses a major strategic challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but the Kremlin’s influence in Syria and the region should not be downplayed yet.
December 10, 2024 12:13 pm (EST)
- Expert Brief
- CFR scholars provide expert analysis and commentary on international issues.
Thomas Graham is a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The stunning fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has upended Russia’s policy in the Middle East. Less than a decade ago, Russia decisively intervened in the Syrian civil war, allying with Iran and Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah to save Assad from rebel forces advancing on Damascus and other critical urban centers and helping him regain control of two-thirds of the country. Russian President Vladimir Putin burnished his reputation in a region that respects power and loyalty. Putin’s embrace of Assad, a long-standing ally, stood in stark contrast to the U.S. abandonment of its close partner, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, during the Arab Spring.
More on:
Now, Putin faces a potential strategic debacle with far-reaching consequences for not only Russia but himself personally. Success abroad is critical to any Russian ruler’s legitimacy. Certainly, Putin’s reassertion of Russia’s prerogatives on the world stage in the past quarter century has undergirded his elite and popular support. This is one reason why, despite the heavy losses in men and materiel, he continues to insist that Russia will achieve all the goals he laid out when he launched the military assault on Ukraine in February 2022. His approach to the strategic challenges in the Middle East will be no different: he will continue to insist on a robust Russian presence in the region.
Waxing and Waning Mideast Profile
In recent years, Putin’s actions in the Middle East have enhanced his footprint there. His rescue of Assad in 2015 came with other steps designed to raise Russia’s profile in a region that it had largely abandoned at the end of the Cold War. Putin seized on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s anger at the West’s lukewarm support during a 2016 coup attempt to rebuild relations with Turkey. In 2016, he cooperated with the Saudis to launch the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries Plus (OPEC+) to regulate global oil markets. In 2018, he moved even closer to Iran after the Donald Trump administration backed out of the multilateral nuclear deal with Tehran and launched its maximum pressure campaign. He continued to bolster ties with Israel. Russians boasted that no problem in the Middle East could be resolved without them.
Moscow’s reputation in the Middle East paradoxically began to wane after the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. To be sure, Putin played on the United States’ steady support for Israel’s brutal operation in the Gaza Strip to win support in the Global South. Russia’s steadfast support for Hamas as civilian casualties soared played well in the non-Western world, as did its backing of UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions condemning Israel and backing cease-fires that the United States voted against. But more importantly, the unfolding conflict in the region underscored how little a role Russia could actually play. No one turned to Moscow for a resolution of the conflict; all eyes turned to Washington. China even stepped in with a more adroit diplomatic role than Russia, engineering a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Now, the stunning setback of Assad’s fall from power has occurred.
Russia’s immediate concern will be salvaging its strategic military bases in Syria, the naval facility at Tartus, and the Khmeimim air base. They are critical to its ability to project power in the Middle East, they anchor Russia in the Eastern Mediterranean, and they serve as the logistics hub to support Russian operations in North Africa, including its military contractors in Libya and the Sahel. Many observers, including Russian military bloggers close to the Russian Ministry of Defense, argue that Russia will have no choice but to abandon those bases after Assad’s ouster and the victory of Islamic forces it has spent the greater part of the last decade trying to annihilate.
Russia’s Regional Options
The situation, however, remains quite fluid. The anti-Assad forces consist of many competing factions operating in various parts of the country. A long period of instability lies ahead, and Moscow is not without cards to play.
More on:
As it became clear that the rebels were likely to quickly rout Assad’s forces, Moscow changed its rhetoric dramatically. Instead of railing against terrorist forces, it began to call for dialogue among all forces as part of a political process to end the fighting. Despite its rhetorical support for Assad, Russia never really provided much military backing against the rebels—perhaps understanding the fatal weakness of Assad’s demoralized forces hollowed out by corruption. Although it claimed otherwise, Moscow appears to have played a central role in persuading Assad to step down and flee the country. Tellingly, it was the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs—not an official Syria source—that announced Assad’s decision, and the Syrian president flew to Moscow for political asylum. At the least, the Kremlin will attempt to take credit for facilitating the rebels’ conquest of Damascus with minimal bloodshed.
At the same time, the current Syrian government, absent Assad, has offered to work with the rebels to prepare a smooth transition to a new ruling coalition. Whether the rebels will take up that offer remains to be seen, but if they do, many of the holdovers from the old regime will likely have ties to Moscow—another lever the Kremlin can pull to salvage its military bases.
The Turkey Factor
Finally, Turkey remains a major backer of the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces that seized Damascus and appear to be the dominant rebel faction at the moment. Ankara could use its leverage to persuade HTS to let the Russians stay for its own reasons. It could see an advantage in a continuing Russian military presence as a counterbalance to Israeli influence and the U.S. presence, should President-Elect Donald Trump back away from his pledge to withdraw the small U.S. contingent in eastern Syria.
Erdoğan might also hope that working with Moscow will reinforce his position against the Kurds in eastern Syria, who continue to enjoy U.S. backing. In any event, the fate of Russia’s military bases was almost certainly a topic of conversation when the Turks, Iranians, and Russians met on the margins of an international conference in Doha, Qatar, in recent days to discuss the situation in Syria.
In the current period of great uncertainty, it would be premature to draw any far-reaching conclusions about Russia’s presence in Syria and the broader Middle East. One thing is certain: Putin is not going to simply abandon Russia’s military bases in Syria and calmly accept a major strategic setback—that would not only erode Russia’s reputation as a great power but also diminish his own domestic political standing.
This work represents the views and opinions solely of the author. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher, and takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.
