What’s Next for Syria After the Collapse of Assad’s Government?

The collapse of the government of President Bashar al-Assad has sparked jubilation inside Syria and beyond, but it has also plunged the country into deep uncertainty.

Fundamental questions about the nation’s government, security and economy remain to be answered. Some analysts say that predicting what comes next is made more challenging because the government’s sudden demise took many people who have watched the region for years by surprise.

“It is hard to bring process and a smooth transition to a fast-moving situation,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, a research institute in London. “The speed and uncertainty poses many risks for what comes next pertaining to accountability and good governance to protect the interests of the Syrian people.”

Mr. al-Assad ruled Syria for nearly a quarter of a century, presiding over the suppression of an uprising by civilians and a rebellion that began in 2011. In the ensuing war, more than half a million Syrians died, including 200,000 civilians, according to human rights groups. Millions of people fled the country.

“This is a moment to celebrate and, looking at the joy of Syrians today, that is understandable,” said Lahib Higel, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group research institute. “But there is also the worry about what is going to happen tomorrow.”

Perhaps the most immediate question is how quickly the rebel groups are able to secure the capital and prevent a chaotic power vacuum and what their plans are now that they have met their goal of deposing Mr. al-Assad, analysts said. It was also unclear how far and how fast the rebel coalition could extend its control over the whole country, a factor critical to regaining stability, or whether they would even remain united after ousting the Syrian leader.

It’s also not clear how a new government would balance the competing interests of other forces that hold territory in Syria and whether it could manage a transition process — or even whether it could succeed in paying for civil services, a basic but necessary task for any functioning state.

Ms. Higel said the situation in Syria could be compared to Iraq in 2003 after U.S. forces ended the long rule of the dictator Saddam Hussein. Initial optimism about the prospects of a peaceful democratic transition quickly soured, not least because looting swept the capital, Baghdad, and growing instability and violence eventually led to a brutal sectarian civil war.

However, the Islamist rebels ousted Mr. al-Assad from inside the country, which could bolster their popular legitimacy, she said.

Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group once linked to Al Qaeda that has controlled most of Idlib Province in northwestern Syria, has run a government guided by a conservative and at times hard-line Sunni Islamist ideology. But, Ms. Higel noted that he showed tolerance of the country’s religious and ethnic minorities in areas where his group gained control.

“All of these indications are positive, but will they hold?” she said. She noted that Syria today is much more impoverished than Iraq in 2003 and so societal and economic pressures are even greater.

In order to grasp potential next steps for Syria, it is crucial to consider Iran’s longstanding support of the Assad regime and how its role as evolved, said Lina Khatib, an associate fellow at Chatham House.

Mr. al-Assad has been a close Iranian ally, but the government in Tehran in recent days abandoned him and gave up Syria, its main foothold in the Arab world. Iran has been weakened after a year of conflict, including via the Iran-backed militia, Hezbollah, in Lebanon, that began with the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, its proxy force in Gaza.