In just 10 days, faster than Russia, Iran and Hezbollah could come to the rescue, the 53-year-old Syrian Arab Republic collapsed. Most of the ammunition appears to have been fired into the air in celebration as Aleppo, Hama, Homs and finally the capital Damascus fell.

It seems that, that during the wave of the "Arab Spring" when the discontent of the Sunni population escalated in the fall of 2011 with a mass uprising, well encouraged and financed by the United States and the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, the state of Assad practically managed to stand on its own and defended itself almost four years until Russian intervention came to the rescue.

Corruption brought down Assad's system like a house of cards

Hence the disbelief now that the system there has collapsed like a house of cards. Many people familiar with the internal situation in Syria say that the Assad clan and its entourage were so steeped in corruption that even Christians and Alawites hated them, so that even they had no motivation to fight for the system they personified.

Regardless of the general attitude and extremely simplified interpretation, it is close to the truth. This can be said to be confirmed by the scenes of the demolition of the monument of General Hafez al-Assad in Latakia and Tartus, regions where the Alawite, Christian and Shiite populations make up more than three quarters of the population.

Syria faces difficult times in which the corruption, hatred and brutality of the Assad regime will be quickly forgotten and the majority, regardless of religion and ethnicity, will likely want a return to the old ways.

Second birth of the Islamic State?

The tragedies of Libya and Iraq after the NATO interventions are likely to be a milder version of what awaits Syria. The insurgency that began 13 years ago spawned several bloody extremist Sunni groups.

Then there is the Syrian National Army, created by the amalgamation of pro-Turkish militias that, thanks to Ankara's support, have become a respectable military force. Some Russian sources claim that there is already a regular Turkish army in Aleppo and that the lira is a means of payment.

The Kurds live in the western part of the country, on the left bank of the Euphrates River in parts of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zora provinces, sworn enemies of Turkey and radical Islamists. In the city of Manbij, on the border of Raqqa and Aleppo, fierce fighting is ongoing between the pro-Turkish SNA and US-backed Kurdish militias.

The Syrian Arab Republic was built as a deeply militarized society. The Assad family regime also relied on a powerful armed force for regional conditions. Now, in all likelihood, an arsenal more powerful and dangerous than ever could fall into the hands of extremist groups. Assad's army had about 150 combat aircraft of Russian and Soviet production (Migovi 21/23/25/29 and Sukhoi Su-22/24), then 61 training aircraft L-39 of Czech production, about 100 helicopters of Soviet and French production.

The military machinery also has serious air defense assets, including about 100 S-300, BUK-M2 and Pantsir S1 systems. These systems, which were likely abandoned by the crew, were targeted by Israeli aircraft on the day of the fall of the Assad regime. Due to their ease of use, important prey for extremists could be thousands of Arrow and Needle anti-aircraft missiles.

What was the reason for the downfall of the Syrian army?

Considering the powerful arsenal at the disposal of the Syrian Arab Army, it would be really wrong to say that Assad has been "abandoned by his allies" Iran and Russia. The reason for its downfall is the unwillingness of even those who bore the brunt of the recent civil war to fight for the regime. It was the same with Ashraf Ghani's pro-American regime in Afghanistan.

However, unlike the Russians in Syria, US and NATO forces ended a two-decade occupation of Afghanistan months before the fall of the regime there.  The Russians are still in Syria and so far there is no information that their units have clashed with extremists at checkpoints. It seems that the Russians are trying to group all their forces in the Latakia zone, which is home to the Khmeimim air base and the port of Tartus, which has existed since the time of the USSR.

What Russia lost with the fall of Assad in Syria

The end of Bashar al-Assad's regime is a severe geostrategic loss for Russia. However, now the damage is less than if it happened ten years ago, when Germany was Russia's main foreign trade partner. Syria and Assad were important to Russia at the time to prevent the passage of the gas pipeline from Qatar to Europe. Since after the war with Ukraine, the "Nord Stream" was blown up and economic sanctions were imposed, the prospects for restoring former ties with the West have become unlikely, and the pipeline from Qatar no longer poses a fatal threat to Russia's geostrategic interests.

Especially since it will take years to stabilize the situation and reconcile the bloody extremist factions, and it is not realistic that the pipeline from Qatar will start before the end of the next decade. On the other hand, the loss of the Khmeimim airbase and the port of Tartus today would be an incomparably greater defeat than a decade ago, as Russia has intensified its presence in a number of African countries in recent years.

There is currently no alternative for the two large facilities. Libya's Tobruk, which is under the control of Russian ally Marshal Khalifa Haftar, could eventually become an alternative to Tartus, but Libya is far away for an air base.  Il-76 transport planes with cargo could hardly fly there.

At the beginning of this year, it was said that the Russians were negotiating with the Sudanese government for the construction of a naval base in Port Sudan, but considering that there is a civil war in that country with an extremely uncertain outcome, that idea is far from being realized for the time being.

If Russia can be accused of something in Syria, it may be that they did not correctly assess the internal situation and did not foresee an exit option themselves, reports Serbian Politika. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was "too early to talk about the survival of Russian bases in Syria" and that it would depend on who "seizes power" there.

We will see if the Russians have an exit option in the coming weeks. One of those options would be the self-rule of the Alawite, Shia and Christian majorities in Latakia and Tartus, which would not be challenged by the Russian military presence. However, it is ruled out that President Bashar al-Assad and members of his family, who fled to Moscow, would have any role in that self-governance. The demolition of his father's monument shows what members of those ethnic and religious groups his regime favors over the majority Sunnis think of him.