Syria is Free of Bashar al-Asad
In the early hours of yesterday morning, 8 December 2024, Bashar al-Asad gave up his rule of Syria in the face of a ten-day insurgent offensive that had reached Damascus. It seemed for a time Asad had been killed as he fled, but it has since been announced he arrived in Moscow. In either event, it brings to a close nearly fourteen years of war and bloodshed, and opens a new chapter, not only for Syria but the whole Middle East.
SYRIAN REVOLUTION 1.0
The “Arab spring” arrived in Syria in March 2011. After the fall of autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt, and the eruption of an armed rebellion against Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya, a group of children in Deraa, in southern Syria, painted anti-regime graffiti on their schoolhouse: “It’s your turn next, Doctor” (Asad was trained as an ophthalmologist in London). The response was an objectively shocking, yet in Asad’s Syria entirely routine, act of official brutality. What would normally have been accepted as the way of things proved, in the “Arab spring” context, to be the spark for a protest movement that remained largely peaceful for six months.
Syria had been ruled since 1963 by the totalitarian Ba’th Party and since 1970 by the Asad family. The Muslim Brotherhood-led revolt that began in 1976—supported by Saddam Husayn’s rival Ba’thist regime in Iraq—was cornered in Hama in February 1982. For a month, the besieged city was indiscriminately shelled: a third of the Old City was demolished and at least 10,000 people were killed. The hopes for a Syria without the House of Asad were apparently buried under the rubble.
As the understanding that Syria was governed by “Hama rules” bedded down, many Syrians would blame the Brotherhood for bringing about the catastrophe: the Asad regime was as it was, a fact of nature so it seemed; what had the Brotherhood been thinking in dragging the people of Hama into a fight it could not win? This mindset was still widespread in the spring of 2011. Older Syrians told their children not to be deceived into believing Asad was like the other regional rulers, and to stay away from the protests: “he’ll kill all of you and he won’t leave”.
Asad did, indeed, use lethal violence on a horrifying scale against unarmed civilian demonstrators from the first moments, and was assisted in doing so by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), particularly the Lebanon-based IRGC branch, Hizballah. Within months, the protests that had initially called for reform became revolutionary, taking up the chant used in other Arab States: al-shab yurid isqat al-nizam (the people want the downfall of the regime). By the end of 2011, peaceful resistance has become untenable and the logic of the situation took over: the unreformable Asad regime was the primary threat to Syrians; to get anywhere, it would have to go.
Defected officers and armed civilians, gathered under the banner of the “Free Syrian Army” (FSA), began to capture territory. The Asad regime had already been using live fire on the protesters, alongside mass “disappearances”, systematic rape, and widescale torture. All these tactics were used as the regime’s army tried to retake rebel areas, and soon artillery, helicopter gunships, fighter jets, and Scud missiles—designed for interstate warfare—were raining down on Syrian cities. Yet Asad could not stem the tide: by the summer of 2012, a betting man would have put the chips on the rebellion.
It was at this point Iran mobilised its international Shi’a jihad, bringing Islamic Revolution loyalists from as far away as Afghanistan and the Ivory Coast to fight a war Asad’s battered regime was incapable of sustaining. Control of nominal regime units passed to the IRGC, specifically its expeditionary Quds Force led by Qassem Sulaymani, and Asad himself was reduced to a glorified Mayor of Damascus, directly controlling a couple of Praetorian units in the capital. The Iranians were unable to handle things alone, and in late 2015 Russia’s covert role became an overt air campaign.
From the outset, Asad played a cynical game of strengthening the jihadists—easy enough to do since he had been collaborating with the Islamic State movement for a decade to disrupt post-Saddam Iraq. The purpose was two-fold. First, to weaken the insurgency by dividing it, which succeeded: by early 2014, the rebellion was fighting against both the pro-Asad coalition and the Islamic State (IS). Second, to discredit the rebellion by tainting it with extremism, fostering the impression Syria was a binary choice between Asad and a takeover by globalist terrorists, a narrative President Barack Obama would affect to believe as he revoked his August 2011 demand that Asad “step aside”, an unconsidered statement issued not as a policy directive for regime-change, but to position himself on “the right side of History”, as he liked to say, at a time when Asad’s fall was seemingly inevitable.
Still, Obama’s statement—and the success of the NATO intervention in Libya days later in dislodging Colonel Qaddafi from power—initially induced a certain cautiousness in Asad’s escalation of repressive tactics and attendant atrocities. Likewise, the “red line” drawn against chemical weapons in August 2012. But it soon became clear Obama had a messaging policy, not a strategy, for Syria. Obama was bluffing and Asad called it. After testing U.S. resolve on chemical weapons of mass destruction (CWMD), and finding Obama accepted their use as the new normal, Asad launched a massive sarin nerve agent attack in the eastern Damascus suburbs of Ghouta in August 2013, killing hundreds in one day.
Ghouta briefly appeared to have embarrassed Obama so much he would have to respond. Instead, Obama forged a “deal” with Russia that ostensibly removed Syria’s CWMD and not coincidentally created an incentive to keep Asad in power as a partner in disarmament. The security guarantee Obama extended to Asad was reinforced months later by the “interim” nuclear deal with Iran, which implicitly ceded Syria to Iran, putting anti-Asad actions off-limits.
The effect inside Syria was to strengthen the Salafi-jihadists, whose sectarian narrative that the West would never help Sunnis, and was even in league with Shi’a Iran to repress them, appeared vindicated. IS’s ranks swelled and in June 2014 it declared its “caliphate”. Meanwhile, the rebellion and opposition populations, forced to deal with the fact Obama’s “support” was illusory—an amulet to ward off political criticism when asked about the Syrian hecatomb and no more—became more receptive to Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, which had gone the furthest in strategically reorientating itself away from elitist vanguardism to a “populist” model that focused on meeting local needs.
When Obama did finally intervene in Syria in late 2014—against the Islamic State and working directly with the IRGC—the Salafi-jihadists could not have asked for more. The removal of the threat of external intervention against Asad—he had been reassured U.S. strikes in Syria would not target his forces—enabled an unrestrained brutality. It was in this period that Sednaya and the prison system generally became an industrial slaughterhouse. Such cruelty played into the “Hama rules” paradigm: populations blamed the rebels for the carnage inflicted upon them. The most extreme forces in the insurgency prospered in this environment—they offered revenge and fought without concern for their own lives—and, with the U.S. taking care of IS, the Asad/Iran system and Russia could focus on the nationalist rebels, tilting to balance within the insurgency even more in Al-Nusra’s favour.
The rise of the jihadists, especially IS, the failure of U.S. training efforts for the rebels that were not designed to work, and Russia’s presence, any challenge to which could be portrayed as risking “World War Three”: Obama had constructed so many alibis for inaction in Syria he barely needed to mention Iraq any more, which had earlier been his “one-word answer to any and all criticism”. The Western refusal to get involved in Syria did not insulate the West from the effects of Syria’s war, though. The refugees and terrorists generated by the pro-Asad coalition’s war reshaped politics in Europe and America in ways that endured even after the back of the rebellion was broken in Aleppo in November-December 2016.
SYRIAN REVOLUTION 2.0
The fall of Aleppo appeared to be the end of the story, and with the last of IS’s caliphate being swept away in March 2019, Syria moved decisively off the front pages. The war had not actually ended, however. The pro-Asad coalition took advantage of a “de-escalation” agreement with Turkey to eliminate the remaining insurgent pockets, conquering some and securing the surrender of others, repurposing “reconciled” rebels as local administrators. The only insurgent pocket that held out was Idlib in the north, where Al-Nusra—rebranded as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and publicly severed from Al-Qaeda—had taken control.
It was the HTS-led insurgents that initiated the offensive on 27 November that culminated in Asad’s downfall, and “reconciled” rebels from Deraa, taking the first chance they had to re-enter the war against Asad, are part of the coalition that took Damascus. This startling turn of events is all the more remarkable because HTS only intended to alter the terms in the western Aleppo countryside. The rot of the Asad regime turned out to be deeper than anyone knew, even HTS: they probed waiting for steel to stop them and there was none.
The sense of liberation for Syrians—in Syria and those driven out of their country by the fallen regime—is not to be downplayed or dismissed. The nightmare of the Asad regime cannot be overstated, and that was before it devolved into an agglomeration of sectarian killer brigades underwritten by Iran’s Shi’a jihadists. It is unfortunate that the word “dictatorship” is applied to all non-democratic governments; it has a levelling effect that conceals distinctions and makes a totalitarian system like Asad’s seem less exceptional than it really was. A system where there is not merely the constant fear that a conversation, even in your own house, might result in a call from the “visitors of dawn” (zuwwar al-fajr), but the demand that you actively participate in official, often fantastical, lies. And the knowledge that displaying insufficient enthusiasm will expose you, and your family, to the predations of sadists and criminals, who are the only people with a modicum of freedom to pursue their desires.
By now many will have seen the interview with veteran oppositionist Michel Kilo about meeting a child born in one of Asad’s prisons who was unclear on the concept of a bird. The horror is that such things were so unexceptional under Asad family rule. Glimpses of this are visible in the clips circulating showing the broken souls found in Asad’s prisons, those tortured to death before the regime fell, the instruments for torment and disposal, and the attempts that continue to this hour to find people capable of unlocking the rest of the GULAG archipelago. There should be no lamenting that this is at an end, and no forgiveness for the people responsible—nor for those who made excuses for them from the safety of free countries. If this next regime sets in place a more humane prison system that will be an enormous improvement for Syria, and that remains true even if Asad’s cruelties end up being used to excuse and relativise new acts of repression.
HTS leader Ahmad al-Shara (Abu Muhammad al-Jolani) has been on quite the journey: once sent by Asad to join the Islamic State movement’s jihad against constitutional government in Iraq, he rose to become an IS emir, defected to Al-Qaeda, and once he had professedly gone his own way he achieved what those globe-spanning jihadist organisations could not and has become de facto ruler of Syria. Questioned about this, Al-Shara said such “phases” were behind him—that they were the follies of youth—and he had, now he was older and wiser, come to see that “reality” required building institutions that accommodated all of Syria’s sects and stabilised the country, a global benefit he insisted.1
Al-Shara was not wrong to say that Syria under the Asad/Iran system was a “source of trouble … for everyone”. For the West, the strategic gains of Asad’s fall are undeniable. Iran’s shocking pogrom in Israel on 7 October 2023 must rank as one of the most disastrous decisions ever taken in a region replete with them. Israel has fought to uproot the Islamic Revolution base in Gaza and mauled its outpost in Lebanon simultaneously. It was this debilitation of the IRGC Network, especially the Hizballah node, that set the stage for Asad’s demise, an outcome that weakens the IRGC Network yet further, removing its keystone. Even in the narrower anti-IS terms, the U.S. has already reaped the rewards of no longer being hostage to the incompetence of Asad’s and Russia’s air forces, and the games they play trying to manipulate the jihadists. But, of course, this is not a recommendation of HTS per se.
The biggest immediate question about how the West deals with post-Asad Syria is whether the terrorism designations of Al-Shara and HTS will be revoked. There is good reason not to act precipitately.
During the insurgent offensive that finished Asad, HTS messaging said all the right things. Notably, outreach statements were sent separately to each of Syria’s minorities, including the Alawis, the esoteric sect from which Asad comes and which dominated the old regime. After the fall of Damascus, the “transition” has been remarkably smooth; there was even a ceremony where Asad’s prime minister handed over power. HTS has made a concerted effort to avoid total State collapse, keeping the institutions together and maintaining order. There are no signs of looting or lynching.
This is all rather optimistic, but we are two days in, and the Taliban said a lot of the same things—right before it installed its pitiless regime in Afghanistan and sheltered Al-Qaeda’s emir in its capital.2
A key test will be what HTS does with the single-nationality jihadist groups under its umbrella, many of which were prominent in the final anti-Asad offensive and all of which have open transnational designs.3 HTS’s claim that it should be accepted as a governing authority because it is playing within the rules of the international system by posing no threat to countries outside Syria cannot be accepted until there is clarity on this matter.
After the brief colonial interval in the Middle East between the two world wars, the Arab world set out under a misapprehension that “independence” and “freedom” were synonymous. In truth, more often they were mutually exclusive. After the foreign imperialists were gone, the gentle monarchies they left behind were soon snuffed out. The European political imports that stuck—nationalism, socialism, and the one-party State—gave rise to a series of radical republics espousing pan-Arabism, and the concepts fused most aggressively in Ba’thism, an imprint of Nazi influence.4 With Asad’s fall, that era is definitively over in the region.5 This time around, let us hope the mistake of believing liberty has been achieved merely by throwing off a hated former system is not repeated. Syria is now free of Asad. Whether Syria is or will be free, time will tell.
NOTES
Whether Al-Shara, a designated terrorist, should have been allowed to say this on CNN is another matter. The Western media has gotten into a bad habit of giving terrorist organisations in Syria a megaphone.
A direct parallel between Afghanistan and Syria is the degree to which the insurgent takeover in both cases was at least as much an armed negotiation as it was a conquest.
The largest of these jihadist groups are probably the Chinese Uyghur Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), the Russian Caucasian Liwa al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar (LAM), and the Uzbek Katibat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (KTJ). A lot of the other groups are composed of people from the Russian-speaking world—either the Muslim republics in the North Caucasus or Central Asia—notably the Taliban/Al-Qaeda-loyal Imam Bukhari Jamaat, another Uzbek group, and the Chechen-led Ajnad al-Kavkaz.
The most prominent exception is Xhemati Alban, as its name suggests a primarily Albanian faction, which has an influence out of all proportion to its small size because its leader is so close to Al-Shara and its troops are among the best-trained. Xhemati Alban plays a kind of “train the trainers” role for HTS, and is not only integrally involved in planning military operations, but helps lead them, functioning as an elite tactical unit, particularly with snipers.
It is not a coincidence, as the comrades used to say, that wanted Nazi war criminals like Alois Brunner made their home in Asad’s Syria, nor that the crimes against humanity the Asad regime carried out so often bring to mind Nazi atrocities.
It might be said that Saddam Husayn instituted an Islamist regime long before the end—no later than 1995—and the House of Asad emptied the Party of influence, relying on the Alawi brigade commanders; to that extent, Ba’thism “proper” was dead long ago. But the structure of Ba’thism persisted in the region until this past Sunday.
Good summary and conclusion: cautious optimism.