Syria Insight: Assad keeps his head down amid Gaza, Lebanon wars

If silence is as telling as words then the responses from Arab leaders to Hassan Nasrallah’s death reveal much about the multipolarity of the MENA region and the late Hezbollah leader's place within it.

Three camps became apparent in the days following his demise. First 'the mourners' - including Hezbollah's ideological brethren in Iraq and Yemen - who eulogised Nasrallah's enigmatic life and martyrdom. 

Then 'the mute' - resolutely anti-Hezbollah states such as the UAE and Bahrain - who avoided publicly condemning this figurehead of the so-called Axis of Resistance but refused to commemorate a staunch opponent of perceived Sunni Gulf hegemony.

Finally, there were 'the pragmatists' - notably Jordan, Egypt, and surprisingly Saudi Arabia - where there was no love lost for Nasrallah but who still recognised the dangerous new path Lebanon had been thrust down, likely to have grave reverberations for the future.

Such fissures were perhaps most pronounced in divided Syria, with opposition Idlib erupting into a festival of nocturnal joy, due to Hezbollah’s role in expelling many of the province's inhabitants from homes elsewhere in Syria - while in Damascus the atmosphere was more sombre with flags lowered to half-mast, music muffled, and three days of mourning shrouding the city.

Whether this was out of genuine respect for a formidable adversary of Israel or fears of the regime's ever-present intelligence services is impossible to discern, but equally perplexing was the absence of words from Bashar Al-Assad himself, who more than anyone owed a debt of gratitude to the fallen Lebanese commander.

From Friday evening until Sunday Assad remained silent. 

Behind closed doors across Syria, tongues likely wagged about this unexplainable delay in condolences, after all, Hezbollah blood fell thick on this land to keep the president in his palace, which could have been perceived either as a petulant snub by Assad of his war-time allies or that he was stupefied into silence, fearing who might be next on Israel’s hit list. 

This reflects a broader paradoxical assumption: Assad’s illusion of power hinges on both his reliance on the Iranian militias that surround him and being a meek and compliant neighbour to Israel.

What happens if one component in this equation is removed? In this case, the former, with some analysts predicting the demise of the Axis of Resistance as Israel reaps the lives of their seemingly imperishable leadership, including Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh, Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah (and his successor), and Iranian Quds Force deputy Abbas Nilforoushan.

Bente Scheller, author of 'The Wisdom of Syria’s Waiting Game' and head of the Middle East Division at the Heinrich Boell Foundation, believes possible long-standing tensions within the Axis of Resistance, dating back to the Syria war, are probably not helped by Assad's reticence during this crisis moment for the Iran-led alliance.

"Hezbollah was, absolutely, essential for Assad’s political survival, they were the best-organised militia that came in to help him with the ground offensive against the rebels during the Syria war," Scheller told The New Arab. 

"From their side, I think Hezbollah were a little annoyed by the Syrian army because their fighters would go into battle and capture rebel towns, then Syrian soldiers would enter, loot and misbehave. For Assad, he would never have made it with his own troops - without Hezbollah he could not have achieved what he did."

This appears apparent in the country’s southwestern Quneitra province, where Israeli forces have reportedly encroached deeper into Syrian territory over the past week under the guise of the Sufa 53 road project.

The Assad regime has neither confronted the invasion party nor acknowledged any losses to Israel, instead diverting Syrian troops to the frontlines in Idlib province around 400km to the north, ready for a new offensive against the rebels.

Assad’s current opportunism and past reluctance to take back Syrian refugees from Lebanon, a key domestic issue for Hezbollah, will be a difficult pill for the party's supporters to swallow, as its fighters stand alone against an Israeli invasion force in southern Lebanon without a single shot being fired by the Syrian army in support.

"Hezbollah has done their duty for Assad and now he is safe enough to say 'they were useful then but we don’t need to reward them now'," Scheller added.

"In the past two weeks, Assad has clearly not raised his voice for Hezbollah or done anything to protect them, so I think they will be reconsidering what they did for him and why there has been absolutely no response whatsoever from Damascus."

Israel has used this window of opportunity to remind Assad of its omnipotence and his impotence, with a sharp rise in airstrikes on Iran-linked entities across Syria, the Syrian Network for Human Rights monitor has confirmed, increasingly in urban areas with mounting civilian casualties.

This ultimately underlines the regime’s inability to protect its own citizens from external attack, despite the vast sums spent on the military over the decade.

The decision of the regime to prioritise the military during the 'guns or butter' considerations of 2011 onwards likely contributed heavily to Syria's continued economic malaise, yet Syrian air defences appear unable or under orders not to engage Israeli aircraft entering Syria, while the army is in no position to challenge Israeli advances in the occupied Golan Heights.

One unprecedented Israeli airstrike in Mezzeh, Damascus, on 8 October, happened just a short distance from the presidential palace, killing seven civilians including four children. As if to add insult to injury it appears the rockets were fired from Israeli-occupied Syrian land in the Golan.

This massacre and Israel’s assaults on Gaza and Lebanon triggered a small pro-regime rally in Damascus in solidarity with Hezbollah with calls for strikes on Tel Aviv. This is a request that Assad, of course, is unlikely to oblige - after all, unlike the rebels, Israel has an air force, GPS coordinates, and laser-guided missiles.

Despite enduring repeated Israeli blows in recent weeks, Hezbollah remains a somewhat effective fighting force, as Sunday’s drone strike on an Israeli military base demonstrated. 

The Syrian regime, on the other hand, appears as vulnerable as ever, with Assad likely aware that any open defiance to Israeli belligerence will result in his own demise, said Karam Shaar, director of Karam Shaar Advisory Limited and a Syria researcher.

"He has to tow a very difficult line, balancing his relationship with the Iranians - which means giving them access to Syrian land and facilitating weapon shipments to Hezbollah - and knowing full well that an attack by Israel could come at any moment, if he helps the Iranians in any major way," Shaar told The New Arab.

"I genuinely think Bashar Al-Assad wakes up every morning touching his neck to check it's still attached to his shoulders, he is fully aware that these are incredibly difficult times for his regime."

While Assad has managed to successfully triangulate between Russia, Iran, and regional powers over the past decade, a failure to live up to promises to Arab states - such as ending the captagon trade or creating the conditions for the safe return of refugees - and strict US sanctions leave him untrusted and isolated.

Yet despite the huge sacrifices and assistance Iran has made to keep Assad in power, he has worked hard to ensure the Syrian regime is not a pawn of Tehran, and as recent events have shown, he will likely maintain this distance from his allies.

"The Iranians have strong leverage over Assad, but it is not a master-slave relationship, he does have some wiggle room," said Shaar. 

What could have more profound implications for Assad’s future is the US election, said Shaar. A Harris administration will likely be a continuation of Washington’s current Syria policy, based on the effectively defunct UN Resolution 2254, while the return of Donald Trump to the White House in January could see him join Benjamin Netanyahu in attempting to strangle Iran into submission.

"A Trump administration would be much more forceful than Biden's, however, I think it also means much more uncertainty due to his erratic behaviour," said Shaar.

"So if you ask me, under which administration things would get completely out of control and spill out into a regional conflict, I would have to say Trump’s."

This grim irony will not be lost on Syrians - after enduring 13 years of unhinged violence by the Assad regime and its allies with complete impunity, 'Syria' has become a textbook for how regional parties can deal with their opponents.

Starvation sieges, double tap strikes, the targeting of hospitals, and the mass torture of civilians were widespread across Syria from 2011 to today, and now appear to be an essential part of Israeli tactics in Gaza and Lebanon, too.

Israel faces little impulsion from the world to limit its actions and when it does, uses the same pretences as Assad - it's the ‘terrorists’ embedded within the civilian population who are to blame, so everywhere in Gaza is fair game.

Paul McLoughlin is a senior news editor at The New Arab. 

Follow him on Twitter: @PaullMcLoughlin