The Gulf States in a New Syria

The rapid collapse of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 brought an unexpected end to nearly 14 years of conflict in Syria. Over seven weeks after Assad fled Damascus for exile in Russia, the situation on the ground remains fragile, even as the outlines of a political transition have emerged. While multiple fault lines and potential flashpoints could yet derail the process of moving beyond a half-century of Assad family rule, members of the transitional Syrian government have engaged actively with foreign counterparts. A key element of the international outreach has taken place with, and been led by, the Gulf Arab states, amid signs of lessons learned from flaws in the regional approaches to Syria after the uprising in 2011. Changes to the geopolitical landscape in the region provide further grounds for cautious optimism moving forward.  

When towns and cities across Syria erupted in demonstrations against Assad in March 2011, they did so against the backdrop of the Arab Spring uprisings, which, at that early stage, seemed as if they might sweep across swaths of the Middle East and North Africa. In such a febrile and fast-moving context, there was little consensus over the pace or direction of political change, whether domestically within states that experienced a change of regime or among regional states that remained largely unaffected by the unrest. Internal and external dynamics came together to weaken and fragment the movements that had mobilized so quickly in 2011 and contributed to a decade-long polarization of regional geopolitics. Rifts developed between Qatar, which pursued an activist approach to the uprisings, and Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, which did not. There were also tensions between various Gulf states and Iran as well as Turkey.   

While Egypt became the most visible manifestation of the divergence of Gulf approaches, with first Qatar (in 2012) and then Saudi Arabia and the UAE (in 2013) backing opposing sides in the post-Hosni Mubarak maelstrom, similar trends were apparent in Syria in and after 2011. Different rebel groups received support from Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the critical opening years of the uprising, while flows of financial and logistical aid from the Gulf, especially from or routed through Kuwait, added further complexity. Although there was some coordination between Saudi and Qatari officials after 2013, other external interests, from Turkey and Iran and, after 2015, Russia, became entrenched in a precarious new status quo in Syria. The recapture of Aleppo by regime forces at the end of 2016 appeared to seal the end of the uprising, by which time global attention had shifted onto the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq. 

Officials in Gulf states, with the exception of Qatar, gradually reengaged with the Assad regime after 2018, when the UAE and Bahrain reopened their embassies in Damascus. Oman became the first Gulf state to send an ambassador back to Syria, in 2020. In 2023, Assad visited Oman and the UAE and marked his return to the regional fold when he participated in an Arab League summit in Riyadh. A variety of reasons lay behind individual decisions to engage with Assad’s Syria, including perceptions that the uprising had ended, that Assad was the lesser evil compared with Islamic State and other militant groups, and concerns over the smuggling of Captagon from Syria to illicit markets across the Middle East.  

The offensive launched by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Aleppo November 27, 2024 caught many off guard as did the speed and scale of regime collapse. Opposition forces entered Damascus just 11 days later. By chance, the Gulf was host to two major gatherings of regional and international officials – the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain and Doha Forum in Qatar on December 7-8. At the latter, in particular, foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey, and Iran met on the sidelines to discuss the unfolding events in Syria. Subsequent responses to post-Assad Syria have been far less confrontational than they were to the initial outbreak of conflict in 2011 and are consistent with two broader developments in regional geopolitics, namely the solidification of Gulf states’ ties and the thawing of relations with Iran and Turkey since 2021. 

Relations among the six Gulf Cooperation Council states have improved significantly since a “reconciliation” summit at Al-Ula in Saudi Arabia in January 2021 put an end to nearly a decade of rancor. Political and economic ties between Saudi Arabia and Qatar rebounded especially quickly, and this has been evident in their cooperation, rather than competition, in contacts with the interim leadership in Syria under Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of HTS, who was named transitional president January 29. Qatar’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Mohammed Al-Khulaifi, was the first senior official from the Gulf to travel to post-Assad Damascus in December 2024, and Syria’s new foreign minister, Asaad al-Shaibani, made Saudi Arabia his first foreign visit January 2 and went on to Qatar and the UAE. On January 11, Saudi Arabia hosted and chaired an Arab Ministerial Meeting on Syria, which included all six GCC foreign ministers as well as counterparts and senior officials from key regional states, including Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon, and Western partners, including the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union.  

Closer alignment between Saudi and Turkish officials also augurs well for prospects of collaboration in Syria going forward. This is also part of a general regional rapprochement that gathered pace after 2020 and included the UAE and also Iran, largely taking the sting out of what had been fiercely confrontational approaches to regional flashpoints while not resolving them altogether. Myriad factors accounted for the move toward diplomacy and pragmatic coexistence, including a sense that the post-Arab Spring stalemate had run its course and a desire to refocus on economic growth after the upheaval of the coronavirus pandemic. The China-backed Saudi-Iranian agreement to restore diplomatic relations in March 2023 notably survived its first major regional challenge in Gaza and may be put to the test again in Syria in the weeks or months ahead. 

Given how Syria after 2011 became a cockpit for external intervention in domestic affairs, the early signs this time appear more promising, in part because Moscow and Tehran are distracted and weakened by the grinding war in Ukraine, and setbacks have been inflicted by Israel on Iran and its “axis of resistance.” To be sure, it is the Syrian people and their leaders, within and beyond the transitional government, who will determine the next phase of political transition, but decisions on issues such as the easing or lifting of sanctions and the provision of development aid for reconstruction after years of war will be facilitated considerably if the international community can speak and act with one voice. Here, the Gulf states can make themselves count, by dint of their ability to convene and lead in regional affairs and the likelihood that the second administration of President Donald J. Trump will work closely with GCC partners across the board. 

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