The rapid downfall of the Assad dynasty in Syria has caught the Gulf Arab monarchies by surprise, much as everyone else. Understandably, their initial reaction was somewhat guarded and holding to general principles. All of the Gulf Arab states issued brief statements supporting the preservation of Syria’s government institutions and stability and unity of its people.

If the rebel campaign had been stopped with the reclaiming of Aleppo by the rebels, things might have been different. Several Gulf states – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Oman – had answered Bashar al-Assad’s call for solidarity, by issuing statements of support for Syria in its fight against “terrorism and extremism.” They may have maintained their political support that began with the UAE’s reestablishment of ties with the Syrian Arab Republic in 2018 and hosting Assad in Abu Dhabi in March 2022.

The fall of Damascus and ultimately Assad’s rule is something else entirely. The Gulf states, like states bordering Syria, are unlikely to escape the consequences of these seismic changes in the heart of the diverse Arab east. There are concerns about the potential for renewed civil strife or terrorism in Syria and the possibility of it spreading to neighboring states Iraq and Jordan. There are already calls for greater Gulf engagement to balance Turkey’s advances and moderate the emerging Syrian leadership. The foreign ministers of Qatar, the UAE, and Bahrain joined Saudi Arabia and the other states of the Arab Ministerial Contact Committee on Syria in Aqaba, where they issued a statement pledging more robust aid and support for the transitioning Syrian government while emphasizing the need for a comprehensive and inclusive national dialogue.

Gulf leaders will be weighing the tradeoffs from the diminishing of Iran’s geopolitical position and strengthening of Turkey’s hand in the region. But there is another calculation that has largely gone unstated: What does it mean that a long-standing Arab leader has been overthrown by a popular – and at least ostensibly Islamist – rebellion?

This forces a more fundamental reevaluation and a casting of collective eyes back toward the recent revolutionary past that Gulf states had thought had been resolved. The presence of the leader of the Sunni Islamist paramilitary group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, delivering a victory speech in the Umayyad Mosque and images of urban crowds celebrating to rehabilitated Arab Spring chants split perceptions as though looking through a prism.

Gulf States Reflect Different Optics on Syria

The popular uprisings that coursed through Arab majority countries beginning in December 2010 affected states and individuals in the Gulf differently and in ways that shifted opinion over time. But Syria proved decisive. It sharply divided publics along sectarian lines and drew in the participation of other countries as well as private initiatives funding and logistically supporting the rebellion. Conversely, Shia activists in the Gulf often supported the Assad government and Hezbollah’s intervention. Radicalism increased, especially in Gulf countries with significant Shia and Sunni Islamist movements.

Many of these activities implicated Gulf citizens directly. A prominent Qatari humanitarian was sanctioned by the United States Treasury Department for funding al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria. In Kuwait, there were extensive private campaigns collecting hundreds of millions of dollars to fund competing rebel brigades and charities. Dozens of Saudi opposition clerics issued a public call for a broad Islamic jihad against the government in Syria. A Bahraini, Turki al-Binali, became the leading ideologue with the Islamic State group supporting its caliphate in Syria. In Both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, there were ISIS suicide attacks on Shia mosques.

Ultimately, the loss of unity both among Syrian fighters and Gulf populations weakened Gulf public support for the Arab Spring coalition; the terrible human toll dissolved the belief in the Arab uprisings’ civic ideals and political potential.

The political policies and interventions of the Gulf states during that era shape the distinctions in Gulf opinion detectable beyond today’s formal statements of unity and support. Qatar, which coordinated material and logistical support for the Islamist rebels with Turkey during the Syrian civil war, never cut off its ties with the Islamist opposition. Its early, measured support for the new HTS-led government has nonetheless gone well beyond perfunctory statements of unity. Qatar convened the key meeting in Doha with global and regional powers that negotiated Russia’s and Iran’s withdrawal of support for the faltering Assad regime. Qatar has already initiated a humanitarian air bridge to bring aid to the population. Its close ties with Turkey, the biggest player in postwar Syria, further suggests that its continuing involvement and support for the fledgling government will be substantial.

At the opposite pole, the UAE has seen its leading position with the Assad-led Syrian government overturned by the shocking success of former jihadists for which it does not hide its concern. While its official statements have been measured, its concern was clear in the calculated public comments of the diplomatic advisor to the president, Anwar Gargash: “The nature of the new forces, the affiliation with the (Muslim) Brotherhood, the affiliation with Al-Qaeda, I think these are all indicators that are quite worrying.” He continued, “We have to be optimistic on the one hand and help Syrians … but at the same time we can’t ignore the region has seen episodes like this before, so we need to be on guard.” The skepticism of HTS’ identity as reformed jihadists, abandonment of extremism, and ability to unite Syria is clear.

Saudi Arabia’s stance is more ambivalent. Unlike the UAE, it did not respond to Assad’s appeal to voice support as his position faltered before the rebel advance. While it had also reestablished ties with the Assad government, it had done so more reluctantly, taking such action in 2023, more than four years after the Emiratis and Bahrainis. Its caution may have to do with the kingdom’s vulnerability; Saudi Arabia has more at stake in Syria’s future. Its support for opposition factions during the civil war, coordinated with the United States and Jordan, was controversial; the Saudi intelligence chief, Bandar bin Sultan, lost his role in political life largely due to its failings. The popularity of the Saudi support for the Syrian uprising was clear in the surreptitious financial support for the rebellion from wealthy Saudi elites, Saudi youth seeking to join the jihad, and the multiple public fundraisers the state held, in part to keep on top of public sentiment. It is difficult to say where the Saudi public stands now, but it is notable that the country’s public reporting expressed a degree of enthusiasm over Assad’s defeat at the hand of the revolutionaries, and important analysts have expressed the importance of Saudi and Gulf support for the new government. The leadership seems to be offering cautious support, seeing the opportunity to further weaken Iranian influence and solidify its own standing with the Saudi public and leadership within the broader Arab Islamic community.

All Eyes on Ahmed Al-Sharaa and the Transitional Government

Of course, all depends upon the course of the Syrian transition and its interim government, which are very much at risk. The probability of the loss of the early unity and stated temperance is very high based on the society’s historic divisions and the utter violence of the civil war and Assad’s rule. The reigniting of conflict after several years of frozen conflict threatens an instability that may course through the diverse ethnic and religious communities shared with neighboring Iraq as well as across Lebanon’s permeable borders and politics.

While these threats should encourage countries to support the transitional government, its possible success, even if remote at this point, also bears risks for the Arab monarchies.

What if Syria were to overcome the competing interventions of global and regional powers to project a truly national project and overcome, with a workable unity, the fragmentation that dogged and ultimately destroyed the popular uprising? What if all of this were achieved and preserved by popular action from below? Even a relative success of a Sunni-led, but moderated, state would resonate across Syria’s permeable borders.

Thus far, the transitional government headed by HTS leader Jolani, who has tellingly dropped his nom de guerre for his real name, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, has been acutely aware of the overwhelming challenges Syria faces internally as well as the concerns it elicits in its neighbors and regional powers. Its early actions have been grounded in the lessons of the Syrian uprising’s failures. The fragmentation of the opposition that helped undermine the popular uprising has – years later – been replaced with a surprising unity. The extremism that matched the brutality of the Assad regime yet frightened the public and drove away potential allies has been replaced with a promise of moderation and inclusiveness. And instead of foreign military interventions, which both divided and drove the Syrian fighters to greater extremes, the HTS government is sending requests for political and economic support and reassuring neighbors that it harbors no expansionist ambitions.

The pitch-perfect messaging and early intent of the Sharaa-led government can be seen in his first interview with the Saudi outlet Asharq Al-Awsat. Sharaa began by reassuring all Gulf countries that this is no longer a revolutionary moment: “The Syrian revolution ended with the fall of the regime, and we will not allow it to be exported to any other place … Syria will not be a platform to attack or raise concerns for any Arab or Gulf state no matter who it is.” His appeal then expanded to an implicit request for investment and economic support, couched in flattery: “We support and look forward to the advanced developmental state that the Gulf countries have achieved. We aspire to it for our country, Syria. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has put in place very bold plans and has a developmental vision that we also aspire to. There is no doubt that there are many common objectives in our goals, and we can coordinate, whether in economic or development cooperation or otherwise.” In this and other public statements he likewise highlights the setbacks his movement has inflicted to the Iranian project in the region and implicitly contrasts his approach with that of the Iranians and their supporters who have stirred up the public through emotional appeals for Palestine or referencing distant events from Islamic history.

An Effort to Calm the Gulf – and Speak of a Common Vision for the Future

There is little question that Sharaa’s calculations are correct. The transitional Syrian government faces enormous challenges in stabilizing and developing the Syrian state. It will not be able to overcome these challenges without substantial political and financial support and, importantly, by avoiding competitive interventions that divide Syria internally.

The civic message of the Arab uprisings inspired many Gulf citizens, while its threat to Gulf leaders and ultimately stability drained its popular base. The return of the Syrian rebels almost a decade later brings a hint of both that promise and danger. But political arrangements and attitudes in Gulf states have changed substantially. Sharaa appears to understand that the revolutionary moment has passed and that his interests lie in wedding the Syrian state project to the state-led developmental projects of the Gulf in the current era. Unifying the Syrian public and aligning the competing sentiments of Gulf countries will be critical to his success.