Rob Geist Pinfold
Before sunrise on 8 December 2024, Bashar al-Assad boarded a plane and left the country he had ruled with an iron fist for so long. Curiously, he opted for the longer flight to Moscow rather than the much shorter hop to neighbour and long-term ally Iran.
For many, Assad’s destination was inconsequential. What mattered was that the hated autocrat, who had killed at least 600,000 of his own people, was gone. But concerned pundits tempered the enthusiasm, invoking recent instances where an Arab dictator had fallen to illustrate that Syria’s future was far from bright: looting, instability and violence could be expected to follow. Optimists claimed that this time was different. Syria is not Iraq, nor is it Libya. Syria is Syria. And in Syria, it was not a foreign occupier that made regime change possible. Quite the opposite: this was the product of the Syrian people’s own blood, sweat and tears. They had finally not just removed a home-grown dictator but also freed themselves from Russian and Iranian domination.
Both the optimists and the pessimists are right. This was the Syrian people’s triumph. Likewise, Syria has seen some looting, but nothing like the widespread anarchy after the fall of Saddam Hussein. But pessimists are right to focus on ‘the day after’. Once the celebrations end, Syrians will have to decide what kind of country they want and who should lead it. Yet Syria is not a coherent, unified state. It is made up of multiple armed groups with different goals and foreign backers. Thus, the country’s future – and which external powers will control a significant stake in a post-Assad Syria – will not be a decision that the Syrian people will make alone.
The Former Status Quo
Syria under Assad was neither free nor sovereign. Assad’s rule was brutal, yet his regime did not enjoy the monopoly over power within Syria’s borders that is a necessary component of statehood. Before Assad’s fall, the country was de facto partitioned: the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) held eastern Syria, the Islamist Hayut Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ruled the northern Idlib province, and the Syrian National Army (SNA) was sandwiched between SDF and HTS-controlled territory. Even in areas Assad nominally controlled, such as the southern Daraa province, in practice it was local militias from the Southern Front (SF), whose loyalty flipped between the rebels and the regime, who really called the shots.
No comments:
Post a Comment