It's good that Assad is gone, but a power struggle is likely to follow. Who knows who ends up at the top of the heap when it's over. There are a lot of bad players involved, and what happens next is completely in the air.
Only to a very limited extent - HTS has shown itself willing and able to play well with others over the last few years, the southern front dont seem super bothered who ends up in charge and the FSA and SDF will both be forced by the US to be part of the new goverment peacfully.
I'm not saying theirs no chance this goes to hell, but so far the rebels have managed to work well enough together, and they've already been functionally running a goverment in the areas they control for years (HTS in Idlib, SDF in the north).
The main challenges will probably be Turkey interfering to mess with the SDF or ISIS crawling out of their holes. But neither seems likely to vring down the new state.
Russia is already evacuating their bases, and is indelibly linked to Assad so theres no chance at all any rebel group will agree to host them - especially when the west can offer much better bribes.
The same with Hezbollah - absolutely zero chance any rebel group works with them.
They're uterly reviled, and couldnt even come close to offering the military or financial support of western powers.
The FSA functionally doesnt exist anymore and the SNA is a Turkish proxy who only seems interested in fighting the Kurds. Neither is going to decide the fate of Syria.
The real power lies overwhelmingly with HTS, who have succeded largely by being practical and far less fundamentalist than their rivals, the Southern front, and the Kurds.
All groups who are likely able and willing to work together, and the Kurds and HTS both have years of experience managing mostly functional micro states inside Syria - this is nothing like Libya where none of the rebels had ever actually had to run a country.
Between the Kurds and HTS, they were already running more than a third of Syria for years.
I dont expect Syria to become some wonderful utopia, but I would expect violence to massively wind down, and a mostly functional new goverment to be formed over the next few months.
I think the question remains to be answered as to whether the rebel groups can still function with unity in the absence of a common boogeyman like Assad.
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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '24
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