The Fall of #Assad and What Comes Next in #Syria

This has been one of those weeks when decades happened. 

Now that Assad is gone, what's in store for Syria, its people and the region? 

Below find a couple of articles on the subject. 

The first from Bari Weiss' The Free Press; the second from Bloomberg's Marc Champion. 

The Fall of Assad and What Comes Next in Syria 

The dictator's overthrow is "a pivotal event in the history of the modern Middle East." But could what follows be worse? I asked foreign correspondent Dexter Filkins.

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By Adam Rubenstein

December 8, 2024

This has been one of those weeks when decades happened.

In the space of about a week, Syrian rebels took over much of the north, and then moved south, taking over Homs and, last night, Damascus. Bashar al-Assad, the brutal dictator who ruled the country for the past 24 years, fled the country, and is thought to be in Russia. The rebel factions, led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (an ex–al-Qaeda affiliate), celebrated the fall of Assad and released political dissidents from prison.

Many people are celebrating, understandably, the fall of a truly evil dictator. During his rule, Assad presided over the slaughter of nearly 3 percent of the country's population—his own forces have killed, by some estimates, more than 600,000 civilians during the country's civil war, which has displaced more than 13 million people since 2011. He and his regime have waged war against his own people, disappearing dissenters and persecuting religious minorities. And yet, is his departure all good news? Could those about to take power be worse? What are we to make of the rebel factions, who were formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda? And what are the implications of Russia and Iran's retreat from Syria?

These are just some of the questions raised by the sudden collapse of the Assad regime. There's no one better to answer them than The New Yorker's Dexter Filkins. Filkins has reported from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and pretty much everywhere else on the map. He is the author of The Forever War.

Read the full interview here: 

The Fall of Assad and What Comes Next in Syria thefp.com ______________

The second from Marc Champion from Bloomberg:

Assad's Flight Demands More Engagement in Syria, Not Less 

To say we have no idea how events in Syria will turn out after President Bashar al-Assad's flight to Moscow is an understatement. Even so, it's worth celebrating the near miracle that this brutal 13-year-old conflict has even a chance of ending without a bloodbath of vengeance.

As we wait for Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), who've taken over in the capital Damascus, and the armed Sunni, Alawite, Druze and Kurdish factions that hold other parts of the country to show their true colors and intentions, it's worth pointing out a few of the more extraordinary aspects of Assad's recent end.

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To the extent that outside powers may have orchestrated Assad's departure, or the clear understanding between the government he left behind and HTS that there should be a peaceful transition, those powers would appear to be Turkey, Russia and Iran.

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As I've said in a previous column,  Syria's civil war reignited primarily because Russia's embroilment in Ukraine and Israel's drubbing of Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon created an opening for the country's mainly Sunni rebels and their Turkish sponsor. It also demonstrated the shape of a new post-American disorder. If that can lead, as it did this weekend in Syria, to peaceful transitions of power there will be little to lament. But count me a skeptic."

See the whole article here:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-12-08/regime-change-in-syria-assad-s-flight-demands-more-engagement-not-less

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