Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime crumbled on Sunday morning after the armed Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham pushed into Damascus, the capital. Syria’s prime minister promised to facilitate a transition of power. As people celebrated on the streets, a rebel leader on Syria’s public broadcaster said people were “fed up with 50 years of Assad rule,” and the Foreign Ministry issued a statement heralding a “new page” for the country. Assad’s whereabouts were unknown. The Foreign Ministry of Russia, a major backer of Syria’s government during the civil war, said Assad stepped down as president and left the country after negotiations with rebels, a claim that could not be independently verified. Western leaders hailed Assad’s fall with caution and called for regional stability.
Assad flees as Syria rebels capture Damascus
The long rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is over, after rebels swept into the capital Damascus. The fighters declared the city “liberated” in a statement carried on state television as Syrians celebrated the fall of Assad’s regime in the streets.
Iraq has urged “non-interference in Syria’s internal affairs” and said it wouldn’t accept foreign meddling in the country.
Baghdad “reaffirms the necessity of respecting the free will of all Syrians and emphasizes that Syria’s security, territorial integrity, and its independence are of utmost importance — not only for Iraq but also for the stability and security of the entire region,” government spokesperson Bassem Al-Awadi said Sunday.
The Iraqi government supports efforts to initiate an “inclusive dialogue encompassing all factions and orientations in the Syrian arena, in accordance with the interests of the Syrian people,” he continued, including the establishment of a constitution that safeguards the rights of Syrians and “supports Syria’s rich cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity.”
But if outside sources try to meddle in Syrian affairs, this will “only deepen the conflict and divisions in Syria,” Al-Awadi warned.
The Sudden Collapse of Bashar al-Assad
The fall of the Russian- and Iranian-backed regime in Syria offers the possibility of change.
As Hemingway once wrote of bankruptcy, the collapse of autocratic regimes tends to happen gradually and then suddenly—slowly, and then all at once. This is not just a literary metaphor. A tyrant’s followers remain loyal to him only as long as he can offer them protection from their compatriots’ wrath. In Syria, doubts about President Bashar al-Assad surely grew slowly, after his Russian backers began to transfer men and equipment to Ukraine, starting in 2022. The more recent Israeli attack on Hezbollah’s leadership hampered Iran, Assad’s other ally, from helping him as well.
Then, after a well-organized, highly motivated set of armed opponents took the city of Aleppo on November 29, many of the regime’s defenders abruptly stopped fighting. Assad vanished. The scenes that followed today in Damascus—the toppling of statues, the taking selfies of the dictator’s palace—are the same ones that will unfold in Caracas, Tehran, or Moscow on the day the soldiers of those regimes lose their faith in the leadership, and the public loses their fear of those soldiers too.
The similarities among these places are real, because Russia, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and, until now, Syria all belong to an informal network of autocracies. Russian troops and mercenaries have spent the past decade fighting in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Africa. Russian political and information operations actively seek to undermine, dominate, or overthrow democratic governments in Moldova, Georgia, and most recently Romania. Starting in 2015, Russian troops propped up Assad in partnership with Iran and Iran’s proxy Hezbollah. In Ukraine, Russia’s war is made possible by drones from Iran, soldiers and ammunition from North Korea, and covert help from China. Russia, Iran, Cuba, and China collaborate to keep in power a regime in Venezuela that has catastrophically failed its people too.
