The fall of the Assad regime has profoundly reshaped regional dynamics, signaling a shift in the balance of power among the three key states that have played a significant role in the Syrian conflict, namely Iran, Turkey, and Israel.
For several decades, Iran has invested heavily in expanding its regional influence, particularly after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the “Arab Spring” in the 2010s. Iran has sought to promote deterrence by building a network of militias and engaging in strategic direct interventions against forces challenging the Assad regime, with Iranian-backed militias gradually taking control of large parts of Syria. However, Israel’s military campaign against Iran and its allied militias in Syria, especially following the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, has dealt a serious blow to Iran’s regional Shiite Resistance Axis, especially as Damascus is now dominated by forces with a hardline Sunni Islamic identity.
Assad’s Syria had served as a critical conduit for Iranian support for Hezbollah, and its loss significantly weakens Iran’s ability to project power into the wider Levant (the land region of the Eastern Mediterranean). This setback has been exacerbated by Israeli operations that have severely degraded Hezbollah and Hamas. While Iran remains a key regional player, Assad’s fall marked a period of containment rather than expansion, particularly as Iran came under a devastating Israeli and US military campaign in mid-to-late June.
Turkey was among the first outside powers to support the final push by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (i.e. al-Qaeda terrorists) against Assad in late 2024 that led to his downfall. With Assad gone, Turkey has surpassed Iran as the dominant outside power in Syria. It maintains a military presence in the northern regions and is now reportedly planning to expand that presence through a defense agreement with Damascus that would allow Ankara to station Turkish forces in central Syria, such as the strategic T-4 airbase in Homs province. A Syria aligned with Turkish interests offers Ankara both strategic and economic advantages. Turkish companies, particularly in the construction and energy sectors, stand to benefit greatly from Syria’s reconstruction, which is estimated to require investments of between $250 billion and $400 billion.
Turkey’s growing influence is causing concern among Arab states, Iran and Israel. Tehran has been particularly angered by Ankara’s support for the opposition to overthrow Assad. One of the obstacles, but not the biggest, to Turkey’s ambitions are the Kurds of the PYD organization (a sister party of the PKK) who control significant territory in northeastern Syria, but this obstacle after the apparent normalization of PKK-Ankara relations is likely to soften the PYD’s conflictual relations with Ankara. The biggest obstacle to Turkey’s ambitions in Syria is not the Kurds, but Israel. Ankara is increasingly concerned about the expansion of Israel’s territorial base in southern Syria. There also appear to be concerns in Ankara about the Syrian Kurds’ alignment with Israel amid the changing and unpredictable post-October 7 landscape, given recent Israeli diplomatic expressions of support for them.
Assad’s fall removed a key link in the Iranian-led axis, giving Israel a temporary strategic advantage. However, an Israeli government report in January concluded that “the threat from Syria could evolve into something even more dangerous than the Iranian threat,” noting Turkey’s expanding role. The report warned that Israel could be on a collision course with Turkey, given Ankara’s sponsorship of former Syrian terrorists now in power in Damascus. Israel has exploited the post-Assad chaos to deepen its footprint in southern Syria, to move beyond the Golan Heights, and to present itself as the protector of minority Syrian communities, especially the Druze, and to a lesser extent the Kurds and Alawites. These moves serve to build its strategic depth in case Syria’s fragile stability degenerates into civil conflict between ethnic, religious groups and they seek external support.
Unlike Iran, Turkey is not isolated. It is integrated into NATO, has the Alliance’s second-largest army, and is a powerful member of the global economic system, all while pursuing an increasingly assertive doctrine of “strategic autonomy” through interventions in the South Caucasus, the Middle East, and the Eastern Mediterranean. For Israel, Turkey’s rise as a regional power poses a much more complex challenge than Iran.
In conclusion, Israel and Iran see the expansion of Turkey’s regional influence as a strategic threat. Since neither side has yet wanted to directly confront this influence, their most viable option is to counterbalance Ankara’s role through third parties. This opens the door to a partial, apparently uncoordinated, alignment of Israeli and Iranian interests, particularly with the support of groups opposed to Turkish influence, such as the Kurds, Druze, and Alawites.
Israel is clear in its support for the Druze. The Druze, who live in the Golan Heights and southern Syria, maintain widespread distrust of the Damascus jihadists and want to promote their secession from present-day Syria. The continued threat from the Islamic State against them could further push the Druze and other minority communities to seek external protection, given their uncertainty about the long-term ability of the terrorist al-Julani government to contain the threats against them.
For both Israel and Iran, the PYD Kurds are a natural partner in checking Turkish influence. With an estimated 100,000 experienced fighters, the Syrian Kurds present a formidable challenge to the Turkish-backed forces. So far, Israeli support has remained largely limited to rhetoric or diplomatic support. In the event of renewed fighting between the PYD and Turkey and its allies in Syria, Israel could launch targeted strikes against Turkish-aligned militias. However, the geographical distance and the general wariness of the Syrian Kurds towards Israel create challenges to forging a strong, practical relationship.
Iran enjoys greater operational flexibility with regard to the Syrian Kurds. The core of the Kurdish militia, the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and its political wing, the PYD, have maintained a pragmatic relationship with Iran since the 1990s. In Iraq, the Sinjar Protection Units, aligned with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, are ideologically close to the PKK and the PYD. Syria’s Hasakah province is controlled by Kurdish forces, while the Sinjar Protection Units control the Iraqi side of the border, giving Iran a direct corridor through which it could channel support to the Syrian Kurds in the event of a war between them and Turkey.
In any case, if the current fragile peace collapses, Israel and Iran may seek to empower Syrian minority groups as a counterweight to Turkish and Syrian jihadist influence. Iran’s long-standing ties to the Alawite community and the March uprising in the Alawite-majority coastal areas suggest that new fronts may be opening. Reports indicate that hundreds of former Assad officers have relocated to Iraq, offering Iran a potential channel for reaching out to disaffected Alawite and Shiite groups.
So far, al-Julani’s government (renamed al-Sharaa to forget his past as a terrorist) remains overstretched and unable to manage these converging threats. Moreover, with greater Turkish support for Damascus (or even direct involvement), a renewed Alawite or Kurdish insurgency would risk dragging Ankara into a broader conflict with Israel, Iran, and Iraqi Shiite groups. At the same time, the Druze rebellion against Damascus is creating separatist tendencies in Syria’s ethnic and religious diversity, which risks renewed instability as external powers may seek to capitalize on these tensions and drag them into broader geopolitical struggles, 99 years after the Sykes-Picot Agreement.
