The Turkish Role in Assad’s Downfall: By supporting the rebels who overthrew the Syrian leader has Ankara bitten off more than it can chew?

By Philip Balboni |

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – After tenaciously holding on to power for more than a decade of war, the government of Bashar al-Assad crumbled in two weeks of limited fighting. Overwhelmed by a surprise blitzkrieg assault, the Syrian army seemed to melt away in the face of a surprisingly well-armed and well-organized coalition of disparate “rebel” forces that rapidly conquered Aleppo, Hama, and finally Damascus, sending Assad and his family into exile in Moscow.

Assad’s sudden downfall has drastically shifted the facts on the ground in the Middle East. It has compromised the interests of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah (Syria’s primary protectors over the past decade), while bolstering the positions of the three states that stand most to gain from Assad’s fall: the United States, Israel, and Turkey, whose leaders were quick to celebrate —and take some credit for—Assad’s fall.

The United States, which has sought regime change in Syria since the first Obama administration (if not far longer), has clear reasons to cheer the removal of an ally of Moscow and Tehran—as does Ukraine, which reportedly provided modest support to anti-Assad forces. Israel, for its part, has long sought the overthrow of Assad, and has been accused of partnering with various opposition forces over the years. Having finally achieved their objective, Israel wasted no time initiating a massive bombing campaign to destroy Syrian army equipment, while grabbing more territory in Syria’s southwestern Golan region, an unprecedented seizure of territory that has been reported as “indefinite.” With Syria having been an important conduit for weapons, cash, and materiel for Hezbollah, Israel has also won a tactical victory against the political party and military force with which it had signed an (almost immediately violated) ceasefire deal just prior to Assad’s overthrow.

Although the interests of the United States and Israel in Assad’s ouster are apparent, the role of Turkey is more complex, and arguably more consequential. All evidence points to Turkey having played an integral role in the operation that overthrew Assad’s government, with the Turks likely providing training and material support to at least two of the main rebel forces: The Syrian National Army (SNA) and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Sunni Islamist group  that had previously been aligned with al-Qaeda. That the assault on Assad’s government began out of Idlib province, which has been under Turkish protection since the start of the Astana Process in 2017, has given further credence to claims of significant Turkish involvement, with accusations proliferating online that many of the rebel forces crossed into Syria from the Turkish border.

In the initial days of the assault, Turkish officials initially denied, and then downplayed, their country’s involvement. Nevertheless, speculation immediately flooded both traditional and social media that this was a Turkish-backed regime change operation—speculation that became difficult to discount after the fall of Aleppo, as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly called for the rebels to march on to Damascus and topple Assad. Though the full truth of Ankara’s involvement may never be known, the belief that Turkey— with American and Israeli support—was substantially involved appears to be widespread in the Middle East and beyond.

Longstanding Relationship

Under Erdogan, Turkey has had a complicated relationship with Assad’s Syria, training anti-Assad forces early in the civil war and later sending its military into Syria for multiple campaigns against Kurdish, Islamic State, and Syrian government forces. Having repeatedly called for Assad’s ouster in the 2010s, however, Erdogan had recently appeared to take a more conciliatory tone with Damascus, calling for new negotiations with Assad (though these overtures were allegedly rebuffed) and expressing “hope” for improved ties as recently as three weeks ago.

Apart from Erdogan’s public statements, there were other reasons to doubt that Turkey would actively push for regime change in Syria. Among these, a primary factor was the aforementioned Astana Process, which had set up a series of “de-escalation zones” in Syria, each of which would be under the protection of the Process’ three signatories: Iran, Russia, and Turkey. Under the terms of the agreement, there was to be “no military solution to the Syrian conflict” and Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity were to be respected. Although numerous problems arose after 2017, Russia, Iran, and Turkey had remained committed to the terms of Astana. Indeed, mere weeks before the start of the assault, at a scheduled meeting for Astana Process states in Kazakhstan, Turkey reaffirmed its commitment to Syrian “sovereignty” and “territorial integrity.”

Turkey’s apparent violation of its Astana Process obligations, with no prior warning, has almost certainly enraged both Moscow and Tehran, both of which have spent much of the past decade protecting their interests there and fighting to keep Assad in power. Given both countries’ central role in the BRICS economic union, furthermore, Erdogan’s actions in Syria may have jeopardized Turkey’s bid for BRICS membership.

Perceptions of Turkish involvement may pose serious problems for Erdoğan’s domestic standing, too. Most Turks are deeply opposed to Israel’s actions in Gaza, which many view as a genocide. Should Erdogan be perceived domestically as having aided the aims of Israel and America, the sincerity of his increasingly bellicose rhetoric towards Israel will be further questioned, with many Turks highly critical of Ankara’s reluctance to take more forceful action against Tel Aviv.

Given the risks to his own domestic standing and to Turkey’s historically close relations with Russia in particular, what could have motivated Erdogan to push for regime change in Syria, going against both his own public statements and his government’s official policy?

Explaining Turkish Moves

Turkey hosts more than three million Syrian refugees, which has created significant, and sometimes violent, socioeconomic tensions between refugees and native Turks. With a turbulent and highly inflationary Turkish economy, that is suffering from years of ballooning prices and insufficient government support, these tensions have coalesced into a substantial problem for Erdogan’s government, pushing it to seek ways of repatriating Syrians to their home country. With Assad gone, Erdogan almost certainly hopes to have more control over Syrian affairs, allowing him to send Syrians out of Turkey.

A second likely reason for heightened Turkish involvement in Syria concerns the Kurds. The largest ethnic minority group in Turkey, Kurds have had an infamously difficult relationship with the Turkish state since its founding in 1923. Since then, there has been a sizable minority of Turkish Kurds—most notably the members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)—who have sought not only greater rights and recognition but a nation-state of their own. In the eyes of the Turkish state, the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Syria, presiding over a large swath of territory along the Turkish border, constitute an existential threat to Turkish sovereignty.

The Kurdish issue is made more salient by the coming inauguration of Donald Trump. Just last week, the president-elect strongly stated that the United States should not get involved in events on the ground in the Syria, giving further credence to past reports that Trump intends to pull U.S. forces out of Syria, which Trump had previously stated were there primarily to extract Syrian oil. Should Trump make good on his promises, it would leave the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces unprotected by the presence of American boots on the ground.

The possibility that Trump will indeed remove U.S. troops may have been pivotal to Ankara’s calculations. Indeed, just a few weeks before the assault on Aleppo, Turkish media reported top officials in Erdogan’s government predicting a Trump-led withdrawal, suggesting that this could open up new opportunities for driving out Kurdish forces near the Turkish-Syrian border. Driving out Kurdish forces poses risks for Turkey’s relations with the United States and the broader West, where Kurdish militias have been positively represented throughout the Syrian war. But Erdogan may be expecting that, under Trump, the United States will not get in his way.

Erdogan may also see an opportunity to expand Turkey’s borders, which many in his base see as having been unfairly drawn after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Perhaps Ankara will attempt to make its foothold in northern Syria permanent and expand that area by taking over areas currently held by the Kurds. Yet Turkey’s presence in the north, along with its close relations with HTS and SNA, provides Erdogan with leverage in future negotiations with various regional players—including Russia, which is surely scrambling to negotiate the future of its military bases in Syria.

Whatever the motivations, Turkey will now be expected to take a central role in whatever government emerges out of the current chaos. Success in repatriating Syrians from Turkey back to Syria will be a critical test for Erdogan’s approval at home, as will be how he navigates the expanded Israeli occupation of Syrian territory. Abroad, Erdogan’s ability to maintain relations with Moscow and Iran will likewise be critical for the future of Turkey’s application to both BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Yet with a frustrated population at home, a multitude of nation states and non-state actors jostling for power in and around Syria, and a potentially difficult-to-control political force in charge of Syria, Erdogan may have this time bitten off more than he can chew.