Jamie Dettmer
After a lightning rebel advance overran Damascus and forced Syrian strongman Bashar Assad to flee, the world is trying to understand the latest dramatic rupture in the Middle East and its consequences.
Here are the potential winners and losers from Assad’s downfall.
Winners
Syria (maybe)
The Syrian people have endured a 13-year, multi-layered civil war and nearly half a century of brutal rule by the Assad family, which has used censorship, state terror, mass deportations, chemical warfare and massacres to maintain power. The war has claimed the lives of between 470,000 and 600,000 people, making it the 21st century’s second-deadliest conflict after the Second Congo War.
More than 13 million Syrians have been forcibly displaced by the conflict — 6.2 million of them fleeing overseas. The war shaped the circumstances for the rise of the especially barbaric jihadist group Islamic State.
Whether ordinary Syrians are winners depends on what happens next in the country and if Syria can avoid more violence and develop along peaceful lines. Some fear there will be a power vacuum and that the country’s various political factions and religious groups will clash.
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