Tom Nagorski
As we look back at the major national and global security events of 2024, it’s tempting to overuse certain words: stunning; staggering; seismic; paradigm shift. You get the idea. Maybe, in the case of this particular year and our particular focus, those words aren’t really exaggerations. It has been a mind-bending 12 months.
Nowhere has the impact been more profound than in the Middle East, where assumptions have fallen like dominoes, with implications that will last a long time and reach well beyond the region.
So we start there, in this compilation of stories and events that changed the world in 2024. There were many to choose from.
No one saw it coming; the fall of Assad
It was the story that caught the world off guard, the one that even the most prescient forecasters hadn’t seen coming: a lightning-fast rebellion that ended the brutal reign of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
The nature of the revolt was also a surprise. First, there was the speed with which a coalition of rebel groups captured city after city, culminating in a takeover of the capital, Damascus, and Assad’s rushed departure. In 11 days, Syria’s 13-year-long civil war and 53 years of Ba’ath Party and Assad family rule had come to an end.
No comments:
Post a Comment