The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, which collapsed over the weekend under a rebel offensive that had begun just days earlier, achieved a place of infamy that has long been taken for granted in Western foreign policy discussions. This was partly because of the brutal way in which Assad’s forces suppressed Arab Spring protests in 2011, launching a civil war that has continued to this day. Assad was widely viewed as a tyrannical ruler the world would be better off without.

In American foreign policy discourse, Assad was someone whose bloody hands no one should be caught shaking. Opponents of Donald Trump’s nomination of Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence use this as a talking point since the latter met with Assad on a “fact-finding” trip to Syria seven years ago.

Assad’s regime also has been viewed as part of an Iran-centered “Axis of Resistance.” This axis is, in turn, widely perceived—in Manichean, Cold War-like terms—as the root of evil in the Middle East, opposition to which should be, according to this interpretation, the top priority of anyone’s policy toward the Middle East. This view is the basis for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly celebrating Assad’s fall in terms that no doubt will be echoed in Washington in the days ahead. 

But as the forces of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) sweep into Damascus, the situation in Syria evokes the adage about being careful what one wishes for. The Assad regime—led first by Hafez Assad and then by his son Bashar—had been in power since Hafez led a coup in 1970. Disrupting what had been in place for more than half a century is bound to have destabilizing ripples, and not all ripples will be for the good.

One of the principal causes of concern is the nature of HTS. It is a radical jihadist organization that had been an affiliate of Al Qaeda and is still on the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. It has endeavored to present a more pragmatic and moderate face in recent times, especially in how it has ruled Idlib province, which has functioned as its stronghold in northwest Syria for the past few years. There is no reason to conclude, however, that this posturing indicates a genuine change in the group’s nature rather than a strategy to win support and temper opposition while it is still seeking to control all of Syria.

A possible parallel is the Afghan Taliban. They also made moderate noises when still seeking international recognition and support but have reverted to form since achieving power throughout Afghanistan, including their medieval policies regarding the treatment of women. Closer to home, it is not unknown for American politicians to sound moderate and inclusive while seeking votes during a campaign but to turn to more extreme policies after winning an election.

A regime controlled by HTS will be just as authoritarian as the Assads. This change of regime does not alter any balance of democratic and autocratic forces in the Middle East. What it does is to put a jihadist regime in control of an established state with recognized boundaries and a seat at the United Nations—something that even Islamic State (ISIS) with its “Caliphate” did not achieve.

Despite some efforts to reassure Christians in Syria, the new regime is not likely to become a haven of religious tolerance. Assad headed a regime that favored its Alawite minority but was fundamentally secular and not driven by a religious mission. The same will not be true of the Salafists who control HTS.

Syria’s religious and ethnic divisions will continue to foster domestic instability. HTS rebels driving into Damascus leave Syria a long way from anyone having effective control over the entire country. The resentments and conflicts of interest that have underlain more than a decade of civil war have not been resolved. The civil war will continue.

Amid this increasingly unstable environment, the United States will be forced to make decisions, especially regarding the status of the 900 troops it maintains in northeastern Syria, that it has put off making. Even as the HTS fighters began pushing out of Idlib, the combat between two belligerents that are both undesirable to the United States seemed far enough away in the western part of the country that policy inertia prevailed.

The situation does not point to any one favorable course of action for the United States. A spread of instability to areas where U.S. troops are stationed may evoke thoughts about how those troops should have been withdrawn some time ago. The possibility of new instability in Syria reviving ISIS—and combatting ISIS is the official rationale for keeping a U.S. troop presence in Syria—may argue in the opposite direction. It should be remembered that the explosive growth of ISIS ten years ago owed much to its exploitation of an earlier phase of civil warfare in Syria. That still leaves the question of how much a small contingent of U.S. troops in Syria could accomplish in containing a revived ISIS.

The role of Turkey will be another complication for U.S. policymakers. Ankara and Washington have never arrived at a common view of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, which the United States considers a useful ally and Turkey regards as associated with a Turkish terrorist group—and which has reacted to the recent events by seizing additional territory along the border with Iraq. Turkey has supported the rebel offensive against Damascus, and it probably considers itself now to have increased leverage regarding any issues concerning the Syrian Kurds.

Violence within Syria can spill over Syria’s borders, including possibly into Israel. In the-devil-we-know fashion, the Assad regime kept its front line with Israel remarkably stable and quiet during most of the regime’s tenure, which began three years after Israel captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 war. That the Israeli government realizes it now faces a different and potentially more hazardous situation, notwithstanding Netanyahu’s celebratory and self-congratulatory rhetoric, is reflected in its seizure of a previously demilitarized buffer zone along the Golan frontier.

The Assad regime was also remarkably passive to Israel’s sustained campaign of aerial attacks against Iranian-related targets within Syria. It is hard to imagine this form of Israeli aggressiveness receiving a muted response from a jihadist regime in Damascus. It is equally hard to imagine such a regime turning a blind eye to Israel’s actions in Gaza and Lebanon as well. Israel may have taken the first steps down a more violent Israel-Syria path by bombing targets in and around Damascus on the very weekend the HTS forces were entering the capital, with the reported Israeli motive being to prevent the Assad regime’s weapons from falling in the hands of the rebels.

A new Syrian regime’s relations with Gulf Arabs also promise to be rocky. Efforts by the Gulf Arabs to improve relations with the Assad regime and wean it away from reliance on Iran have now been thrown out the window. For the Saudis and especially the Emiratis, an Islamist regime in their region is anathema because of the basis for legitimacy it offers as an alternative to monarchical rule. The UAE demonstrated the lengths it would go to oppose such a regime with its military intervention in Libya.

The change of regime in Syria is not as much of a blow to the “Axis of Resistance” and to Iran as it is already touted as being. The land bridge for supplies across Syria to Lebanese Hezbollah keeps getting mentioned, and there will be some added logistical challenges for Iran and Hezbollah. However, the land bridge is only one element of Iran’s regional alliances. As a supposed member of the axis, Syria under Assad had been more of a drain than an asset. In the Iranian-Syrian alliance—originally forged because of mutual opposition to the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, which no longer exists—aid was going from Iran to Syria rather than in the other direction. 

More fundamentally, the Manichean idea of an Iranian-led axis as the paramount source of the Middle East’s troubles needs to be discarded. It never was an accurate diagnosis of the region’s violence and instability. Now, as the world is about to witness a new batch of troubles associated with the advent of a regime in Syria that has nothing to do with Iran or its axis, the inaccuracy of that conception should become increasingly apparent.

Paul R. Pillar retired in 2005 from a twenty-eight-year career in the U.S. intelligence community, in which his last position was as the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia. Earlier, he served in a variety of analytical and managerial positions, including as chief of analytic units at the CIA, covering portions of the Near East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. His most recent book is Beyond the Water’s Edge: How Partisanship Corrupts U.S. Foreign Policy. He is also a contributing editor for this publication.

Image: Mohammed Bash / Shutterstock.com.