Former U.S. Ambassador Chas Freeman presented his assessment of what just happened in Syria with the rapid fall of the Assad government, on Dec. 8 in a late interview by Pascal Lottaz for his Japan-based blog Neutrality Studies. Freeman, a respected diplomat whose career included service as Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said at several points that it’s too early to draw the full implications of the collapse of the government and know what the future Syria will look like, but there are profound geopolitical implications which are knowable.
1. The big winner is Israel and Netanyahu. Israel pounded Hamas; decapitated Hezbollah and decimated its ranks; and with Assad gone, has removed the bridge Iran used for logistical support for Hezbollah. The Israeli objective now is to “fragment Syria … through divide-and-rule.” This means that Iran now faces Israel directly, as there is no longer a “forward-deployed deterrent” force protecting Iran. This may start up the discussion in Iran about reviving their nuclear weapons program, though he said he’s seen no evidence of this yet.
2. There were “many foreign hands in this,” but the full picture is still “a little bit murky.” He said Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was not a band of guerrilla rebels, but a “well-trained, well-led army … with a full panoply of new weapons,” including tanks. He implied that that was due to backing from Türkiye, though he also mentioned the CIA—which he said had been involved in regime change efforts in Syria since 1947—and possibly the French.
