The Road to Damascus: How Assad Was Overthrown

One of the most dramatic global political changes in the last month was the military collapse of the Syrian government and President Bashar al-Assad's Ba'athist government. Starting on November 27, a coordinated attack by opposition groups launched a blitzkrieg against the positions of the government's Syrian Arab Army in Aleppo, then Homs, and Hama as other rebels advanced in the south. Within two days, rebel forces entered Aleppo, and three days after that, Hama. In the meantime, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) took the city of Deir ez-Zor, as government forces rapidly withdrew to Damascus. By December 8, the Syrian government was overthrown with the Syrian Transitional Government taking power throughout most of the country with the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES, backed by the SDF), as Assad's family escaped and was granted asylum in Russia. Opportunistically, Israel has extended its military presence from the occupied Golan Heights into the Quneitra Governorate.

For many observers, the collapse of the Syrian government was quite a surprise. The war had been running for almost fourteen years. Following violent crackdowns on protests associated with the Arab Spring, outright rebellion against the government when a group of officers defected and declared the establishment of the Free Syrian Army. Opposition groups fragmented and were often in conflict with each other with the rise of Sunni militias led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), jihadist groups such as the Al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda's Syrian branch, and Islamic State (an even more extremist split from al-Qaeda). Kurdish groups, following principles of democratic confederalism and libertarian socialism, led the formation of the Syrian Democratic Forces as the Free Syrian Army fragmented. Except for the SDF, which eventually managed to come into cease-fire agreements with the Assad government, whilst other rebels were eventually pushed into the Idlib governate, with Russia conducting significant airstrikes and ground operations supporting the government and the United States doing the same against the Islamic state. For the past four years, stalemate situations existed, albeit not after the deaths of over half a million civilians, overwhelmingly due to government military operations.

The reality on the ground was that the Assad government didn't have much committed popular support. Whatever progressive elements Baathism may have once had in its early days were quickly lost as it became a vehicle for the authoritarian dictatorships of the Al-Assad family and Saddam Hussein emerged dominant in the Syrian and Iraqi Ba'ath parties. The Syrian regime relied very heavily on foreign powers; Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah. With Russia increasingly committed to their conflict in Ukraine and Hezbollah in their most serious military conflict with Israel for years, Assad's capacity to rely on these powers diminished. Turkey, Russia, and the United States, each for the own reasons, had been pressuring Assad to follow UN Resolution 2254 (2015), since the first round of the Astana Talks in January 2017, but it was clear that the regime would not comply. Within the country itself, Assad's Alawite heritage in a largely Sunni population was always going to be an issue (as it was with his father's control of the country) and as much as Syria is a multiethnic and multireligious country, the Assad government typically operated with a policy of patronage and nepotism between the different groups, rather than secular principles and universal civil rights.

The future of Syria depends on resolving divisions both internationally and within. The years of civil war have resulted in different foreign powers having their own interests in the new circumstances. As evident, Russia has almost certainly been in communication with rebel groups, as their main priority was ensuring the security of their Mediterranean fleet at the Tartus naval base and its airbase at Latakia, which are nevertheless in doubt. From Turkey's perspective, they simultaneously wish to hold the land in the north that they've taken and continue their support of their Syrian National Army (SNA) against the Kurdish-backed SDF whilst also wishing to return the three million Syrian refugees in Turkey. Turkey was a substantial backer of the HTS-led blitzkrieg. As for the United States, initially through Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF–OIR), they backed the SDF against ISIL and, when the latter collapsed, gained access to the substantial oil resources now under AANES control. Their position is now uncertain - which does not bode well for the SDF or AANES. Turkey is also highly critical of Israel's recent violence in Gaza and Lebanon and, of course, with Syria itself. Iran is a major loser in the new geopolitical environment with a reduced ability to supply Hezbollah and pressure Israel.

For their own part HTS, even as a conservative Islamicist organisation, is under the pragmatic leadership of Abu Mohammad al-Julani. It has sought to placate critics that minorities will be accepted and protected in a new Syria and has sundered previous ties to more extreme organisations. Based on previous actions, there are grounded reasons to consider that these are genuine. When HTS effectively controlled Idlib, they did not impose harsh Islamicist laws, such as discouraging access to education for women and girls or enforcing the use of hijabs or niqabs. Schools largely used edited versions of Syrian government textbooks (removing hagiographic sections on Baathism or the Assad family) and texts provided by UNICEF. The HTS has also made guarantees to protect the religious freedoms of Christians and Alawites and has announced an amnesty of former regime soldiers (most of whom were conscripts in any case), except for those who committed war crimes. Whether or not the new government, with its HTS leadership, continues these policies remains to be seen, but it is pivotal to determining whether Syria becomes a secular, democratic, and multi-ethnic state or whether it breaks down into sectarian violence and extremism.

For our own part, the Isocracy Network has always stood on the side of the Syrian people and their wishes, based on universal principles, rather than machinations of global politics, the foolishness of "camps", or sectarian religious or ethnic supremacism. The evidence for this is overwhelming; there are dozens of articles on our website from several authors, including those who were writing from within Syria, or those who had become refugees, covering topics such as the changing military situation, the refugee and humanitarian crisis. Our members also helped refugees in practical and direct tasks, and taught English through Rojava University. Our sense of solidarity with the wishes of the Syrian people will not cease with the overthrow of Assad. But for now, there is a sense that "the impossible revolution" (to use the title of Yassin al-Haj Saleh's book from 2017 on the aspirations of Syria), has finally succeeded.