Biden seems to take credit for Assad's downfall amid fears of Islamic State revival

JERUSALEM — The rapid-fire collapse of the Syrian dictatorship of Bashar Assad has engulfed the Biden administration in a new wave of criticism about its efforts to claim a win for the end of one of the most brutal regimes in the Middle East.

Questions abound about whether Biden’s foreign policy team had a significant blind spot in Syria, where roughly 900 U.S. troops and American military contractors operate in the northeastern part of the war-ravaged country.

Speaking from the White House on Sunday, President Biden seemed to claim a much-needed victory for his administration's foreign policy, "Our approach has shifted the balance of power in the Middle East."

"This is a direct result of the blows that Ukraine, Israel have delivered upon their own self-defense with unflagging support of the United States," he said.

John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America's Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy and who served as Vice President Dick Cheney's national security adviser, told Fox News Digital, "President Biden’s efforts to take credit for the fatal weakening of Iran and Hezbollah is, frankly speaking, unseemly."

SYRIAN DICTATOR BASHAR ASSAD FLEES INTO EXILE AS ISLAMIST REBELS CONQUER COUNTRY 

TOPSHOT - A picture taken at the entrance of the Kweyris military airfield in the eastern part of Aleppo province on December 3, 2024 shows a portrait of  Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and a national flag in the garbage dumpster following the take over of the area by rebel groups. A war monitor on December 1 said Ankara-backed groups seized control of the towns of Safireh and Khanasser southeast of Aleppo from government forces, and also took the Kweyris military airport. (Photo by RAMI AL SAYED/AFP via Getty Images)

"The harsh reality is that if Israel had succumbed to the Biden administration’s pressures and followed its advice over the past 14 months of war, Iran and Hezbollah would have been far stronger and Israel far weaker than they are today," said Hannah, who also served in the Clinton administration.

"There’s no doubt that President Biden deserves a lot of credit for his unflagging support of Israel’s ability to defend itself against the multifront war that Iran and its proxies launched on Oct. 7, 2023," he continued. "But what he refused to do was provide that same unflagging support of Israel’s ability to actually win that war by inflicting a comprehensive defeat on its enemies, particularly Iran and Hezbollah, precisely the element that was required to make last week’s historic events in Syria possible."

President Biden delivers remarks on the latest developments in Syria at the White House on Dec. 8, 2024. (Pete Marovich/Getty Images)

"The collapse of the Syrian regime is a direct result of the severe blows we inflicted on Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters at a press conference on Monday. "I would like to clarify: challenges are still expected in the campaign, and our hand is outstretched."

He also expressed appreciation to President-elect Donald Trump for recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights in 2019.

"The Golan will forever be an inseparable part of Israel," he said, per Israeli news agency TPS-IL.

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 25: U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office at the White House on July 25, 2024 in Washington, DC. Netanyahu's visit occurs as the Israel-Hamas war reaches nearly ten months. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

FALL OF SYRIA'S BASHAR ASSAD IS STRATEGIC BLOW TO IRAN AND RUSSIA, EXPERTS SAY

Fox News Digital has reported that since Hamas terrorists from Gaza slaughtered nearly 1,200 people, including more than 40 Americans, on Oct. 7, 2023, in southern Israel, the Biden administration sought to curtail Israel's efforts to root out Hamas, as well as Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, and not launch counterstrikes against Iran's regime.

Rebels in northwest Syria seized military vehicles belonging to the regime along the route toward Kweris Airport on Dec. 2, 2024. (Rami Alsayed/NurPhoto via APRami Alsayed/NurPhoto via AP)

After Biden's speech, a senior administration official seemed to echo the president's bravado, "I think U.S. policy is a direct contributor to this for the reasons I laid out, and the president laid out, is significant, is important, has completely changed the equation in the Middle East, and you saw that play out here over the last week."

Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert and senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, offered a different take, saying, "Respectfully, it’s a bit odd to have an administration, which pulled punches against the Assad regime in Syria as well as its patron, the Islamic Republic of Iran, try to take credit for the fall of the Assad regime."

Syrian President Bashar Assad, left, and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP/File)

"Less, not more, has defined Biden’s risk-averse approach to the region," he continued. "Over the past year, the administration has watched Israel box in the Iran-backed threat network in the region, and in so doing break taboos that have long hindered Washington’s regional policy."

Obama-Biden failures

Democrat politicians like former Secretary of State John Kerry and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi courted Assad before his use of chemical weapons on his population after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Former National Security Council spokesperson Gordon Johndroe said about Pelosi’s 2007 visit with Assad, "On the contrary, these visits have convinced the Assad regime that its actions in support of terrorists have no consequences."

Deeply misjudging Middle East dictators and radical Islamist movements has plagued the Biden and Obama administrations, according to experts. 

Afghans climb atop a plane at Kabul's airport on Aug. 16, 2021, to escape the country before the Taliban return to seize power after the U.S. military withdrawal. (Getty Images)

The Biden-Harris administration faced congressional criticism for the reportedly premature and botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 that resulted in the radical Islamist Taliban movement absorbing the country and U.S. weapons.

TRUMP URGES US TO STAY OUT OF SYRIAN CIVIL WAR, BLAMING OBAMA FOR FAILURE AS ISLAMISTS CLOSE IN ON CAPITAL

Islamic State threats

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote on X, "As to U.S. interests in Syria, there are over 50,000 ISIS prisoners primarily being held by the Kurdish forces who helped President Trump destroy the caliphate. These ISIS fighters planned and executed plots against the American homeland and our allies. A breakout and reestablishment of ISIS is a major threat to the U.S. and our friends. Obama and Biden got this wrong big time, requiring President Trump to clean up their mess."

On Sunday it was announced that U.S. Central Command launched dozens of key strikes against ISIS in a move said to stop the terror group from taking advantage of the fluid situation in Syria.

Displaced Kurds leave a refugee camp in the north of Aleppo, Syria, Dec. 4, 2024. (Ugur Yildirim/DIA Images/Abaca/Sipa USA via AP Images)

The Syrian Kurds have faced slashing attacks from Turkey and pro-Turkey Syrian Sunni jihadi organizations, including the Islamic State, over the years.

Sinam Sherkany Mohamad, the representative of the Syrian Democratic Council mission in the United States, told Fox News Digital, "Defeating Assad was the goal of all Syrians, to build a pluralistic democratic system that guarantees the rights of all ethnic and religious components and diversity in Syria."
 

An Islamic State terrorist (History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

"ISIS is still present in the Syrian desert and has sleeper cells in northern and eastern Syria in addition to the prisons of ISIS fighters and the Al-Holl camp, all of which threaten our people, while warning the current situation could whet ISIS's appetite to become active again," Mohamad said.

Incoming freshman Rep. Abraham Hamadeh, R-Ariz., told Fox News Digital, "We cannot ignore the impact of President Biden’s weak leadership, which has eroded deterrence and encouraged our allies to hedge their bets. President Trump understood that arming the Kurds and working with them to dismantle ISIS was a critical success. The reward for standing with America should never be betrayal or abandonment."

Hamadeh, whose parents are Syrian immigrants, added, "We must ensure Syrian Kurdish civilians are not caught in the crossfire and that they are integral to any peace process."

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Max Abrahms, a leading expert on counterterrorism and a tenured professor of political science at Northeastern University, told Fox News Digital, "It is also expected that ISIS will manifest as a non-trivial issue in the new Syria. It is on this issue where the Kurds and America have the most strategic overlap, as both regard ISIS as a serious threat. The more ISIS presents as a problem, the stronger the logic of maintaining American forces to work with the Syrian Democratic Forces."

The U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces has been a key player in stopping the spread of ISIS in Syria.