Up In Smoke: The End of Bashar al-Assad's Reign in Syria

It's been quite a week for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

One week ago, Assad was sitting pretty in the capital of Damascus with no reason to believe that his 25-year rule as the authoritarian dictator of his home country would ever be challenged. His rule had survived the Arab Spring uprisings 13 years ago and what was left of any semblance of opposition had been holed up in the country's northwest corner and had essentially gone dormant over the past decade. With a new ally elected in Donald Trump and a critical asset within his administration with Tulsi Gabbard, Assad was guaranteed to continue heading his authoritarian regime for the next four years with little to no repercussions for the inevitable human rights abuses he would commit. Having been part of the Assad ruling family for 54 years, Bashar saw no reason why he and his offspring couldn't continue to rule for another half-century or more. As an ally of both Iran and Russia, Assad felt that his place in the region was more than secure.

Then, last Monday all that changed. 

With a surprise regrouping and attack by an organized group of rebels known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the city of Aleppo fell, marking the first significant offensive in the Syrian Civil War in over a decade. While Assad was able to remain in power through regional support from Russia and Iran, both of these allies saw their attention directed elsewhere in previous weeks. Russia has been bogged down with its invasion of Ukraine and Iran recently had to divert its attention to supporting its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon after Israel launched a series of attacks on the terrorist group in the region. With both eyes of Sauron looking away from Syria, HTS seized the moment and quickly took over the country's second-largest city, providing a base of operation to gather additional forces and move south toward the country's capital of Damascus. With additional forces amassing in the south, HTS made remarkable time and quickly swept through what ended up being minimal defenses from the Syrian Army on their way to the capital in just over 5 days. Along the way, the rebels stopped in Homs, freeing nearly 3,500 political prisoners, many of whom had been unjustly imprisoned for a decade or more due to their opposition to the Assad regime. It wasn't a matter of if but when Damascus would fall. 

Early Sunday morning, we got our answer. HTS rolled into the capital and Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow, abandoning his 25-year rule, giving the Syrian people freedom from a repressive authoritarian dictatorship for the first time since 1971. This is also a key blow to Russia, which was forced to evacuate its bases in western Syria and abandon its ships at the port of Tartus, a location that Russia had used to both launch ships against Ukraine and also serve as a buffer between NATO countries. With no immediate access to the Mediterranean Sea, Russia has lost a key element that allowed for early success in its war against Ukraine, a nation without a standing navy. Russia also loses a key ally in the region, making Iran the sole supporter of the current Putin regime. At a time when Russia is desperately recruiting North Korean soldiers to continue its invasion of Ukraine, losing Syria as a base of operations is a significant blow.

Of course, Donald Trump understands none of this. His post on Truth Social claimed that the fall of Assad was no big deal and that this is something that America should not get involved with. Never mind the fact that the United States has over 900 active military personnel in the country, something that Trump doesn't know about, doesn't care about, or both. The fall of Syria is not only a blow to Trump but to his DNI nominee as well. Tulsi Gabbard has been a longstanding Assad apologist, an issue that would have arisen during her confirmation hearings. As it turns out, John Bolton of all people recently gave an interview stating that Syria may have "interesting files" on Gabbard, a not-to-subtle allegation that she may have been compromised after her 2017 visit to the country where she personally met with Assad and came back to the United States in full denial of the chemical attacks he had recently launched against his own people. It has long been suspected that one of the key reasons Gabbard sought the nomination was to have inside access to information to share with dictators like Putin and Assad. Removing Assad from this equation is a critical step in thwarting her candidacy for the DNI position. 

In the interim, this is a moment of celebration for the Syrian people. We shouldn't diminish their struggle. Nearly half the population has been displaced since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, making it the world's largest displacement crisis. Roughly six hundred thousand people have died over the past 13 years fighting this oppressive regime. Over 136,000 have been wrongfully imprisoned. In 2015, the world bore witness to the tragic death of a four-year-old Syrian boy who was one of twelve people to drown while attempting to seek refuge in Greece. Two years later there were over 100 people who were permanently scarred as a result of inhumane chemical attacks unleashed by Bashar al-Assad on his own people. The Syrian diaspora has been unprecedented but now for the first time in over half a century, there is a real opportunity for the Syrian people to return to a country no longer ruled by an authoritarian dictator.

Whether that happens is not a given. While HTS has expressed a willingness to honor the religious pluralism of the country, they have a checkered history of repressing the Christian minority in Idlib province where they were holed up for the better part of a decade. Syria also has a Kurdish minority population that lives in an autonomous enclave on the Syria/Turkey border. With Turkey coming out in support of HTS and even providing military assistance, there is a growing concern that HTS will give Turkey the green light to launch an offensive against the Kurds, to finally quell the Kurdish independence movement that they feel has been a thorn in their side. The question becomes if a divided Syria can unite for the greater good or if Islamist secretariat factions end up at war with each other, the unfortunate result we witnessed after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in 2011. At this point, all we can do is wait and see.

We truly don't know what Syria's future holds. But we can't deny we are witnessing history. Nobody had "Bashar al-Assad Falls Within a Week" on her or his December bingo card. Vladimir Putin certainly didn't. Neither did Iran or their Hezbollah allies. Donald Trump likely heard about Syria for the first time this past week. Tulsi Gabbard hasn't been this depressed since Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. This was a shocker that will upend the geopolitics of the region for decades to come. Thankfully, for all of us, this is happening under Joe Biden's administration where we know there won't be a social media post immediately jeopardizing the situation by injecting a complete lack of diplomacy into the situation. For the moment, the adults are still in the room while Putin and Assad suffer severe setbacks in their ongoing war against democracy. 

For that, we can all be thankful.