Big questions confronting Biden, Trump after Assad's collapse in Syria

The sudden collapse of the Syrian government under Bashar Assad is forcing the Biden administration and the incoming Trump team to confront intensifying questions about the possibility of greater conflicts across the Middle East.

President-elect Donald Trump said Sunday that Assad had fled his country, which his family had ruled for decades, because close ally Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, was not interested in protecting him any longer.

Those comments on Trump's social media platform came a day after he used another post to decry the possibility of the US intervening militarily in Syria to aid the rebels, declaring, THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT." The Biden administration had no intention of intervening, according to President Joe Biden's national security adviser. 

Biden was meeting with his national security team at the White House on Sunday. He was expected to make public comments later in the day.

The US has about 900 troops in Syria, including forces working with Kurdish allies in the opposition-held northeast to prevent any resurgence of the Islamic State group.

Assad's fall adds to an already tense situation throughout much of region on many fronts, including Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza and its fragile cease-fire with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Trump, who takes office January 20, 2025, made a connection between the upheaval in Syria and Russia's war in Ukraine, noting that Assad's allies in Moscow, as well as in Iran, the main sponsor of Hamas and Hezbollah, are in a weakened state right now.

The Syrian opposition that brought down Assad is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. The Biden administration has designated the group as a terrorist organisation and says it has links to al-Qaida, although Hayat Tahrir al-Sham says it has since broken ties with al-Qaida.

Vice President-elect JD Vance, a veteran of the US-led war in Iraq, wrote on own social media Sunday to express scepticism about the insurgents. 

Many of the rebels' are a literal offshoot of ISIS. One can hope they've moderated. Time will tell, he said, using another acronym for the group.

Trump has suggested that Assad's ouster can advance the prospects for an end to fighting in Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia in February 2022.

Trump wrote that Putin's government lost all interest in Syria because of Ukraine and the Republican called for an immediate cease-fire, a day after meeting in Paris with the French and Ukrainian leaders.

Daniel B. Shapiro, a deputy assistant secretary of defence for the Middle East, said the American military presence will continue in eastern Syria but was solely to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS and has nothing to do with other aspects of this conflict.

We call on all parties in Syria to protect civilians, particularly those from Syria's minority communities to respect international military norms and to work to achieve a resolution to include the political settlement, Shapiro said.

Multiple actors in this conflict have a terrible track record to include Assad's horrific crimes, Russia's indiscriminate aerial bomb bombardment, Iranian-back militia involvement and the atrocities of ISIS," he added.

Shapiro, however, was careful not to directly say Assad had been deposed by the insurgents.

If confirmed, no one should shed any tears over the Assad regime, he said.

As they pushed toward the Syrian capital of Damascus, the opposition freed political detainees from government prisons. The family of missing US journalist Austin Tice renewed calls to find him.

To everyone in Syria that hears this, please remind people that we're waiting for Austin, Tice's mother, Debra, said in comments that hostage advocacy groups spread on social media. "We know that when he comes out, he's going to be fairly dazed & he's going to need lots of care & direction. Direct him to his family please!  Tice disappeared in 2012 outside Damascus, amid intensification of what became a civil war stretching more than a decade.