After decades of bloody and brutal dictatorship, the Assad regime in Syria has been toppled in a matter of days. There has been an outpouring of celebration across the country as thousands take to the streets.
After opposition forces, largely led by the Turkish-backed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), launched a new offensive ten days ago from Idlib they quickly took Aleppo and advanced to Homs. The regime’s army crumbled and abandoned their positions, refusing to defend the regime. Remnants of the old order stripped their uniforms and queued to defect.
While HTS and allied militias seized the north, rebel forces from Daraa and Suwayda took up arms again and stormed Damascus from the south, under the loose banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA).
Assad brutally crushed a popular revolution that began in 2011, turning it into a devastating civil war that never ended. Since then Syria has been the stage for a proxy war between imperialist powers including Turkey, Iran and Russia. Almost 75 per cent of the population rely on humanitarian aid, over 90 per cent live below poverty levels, and over five million have been forced to flee the country.
The opposition seized on the weakness of the outside powers, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, that had supported Assad during the Syrian civil war.
Russia has its hands full with its war in Ukraine, while Hezbollah has suffered a costly war with Israel. Iran is focused on trying to avoid a major war of its own against Israel and the US.
The Assad regime was part of Iran’s so called “Axis of Resistance” against Israel. The fact that it supported Assad’s brutal civil war enormously discredited this resistance, and revealed the limits of their anti-imperialism. There is no reason to mourn the fall of a blood-thirsty dictator who inflicted so much death and destruction on his own people.
The fall of Assad’s regime opens yet another fault-line in an already hugely destabilised region.
Israel has been quick to take advantage of Assad’s fall by seizing total control of a buffer zone along the occupied Golan Heights, and launching further bombing raids on Syrian military and Hezbollah targets.
Syria’s future
Constructing a government to replace Assad will be a huge challenge for HTS and the broader opposition.
HTS is an Islamist organisation whose roots were in Al-Qaeda and has a history of authoritarianism against political opponents. But their administration of Idlib has placed them under pressure from resistance movements and the wider population.
HTS has been forced to introduce judiciary reforms and adopt an at least rhetorical commitment to toleration of Syria’s wide range of religious and ethnic groups. Some estimate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham have a current force of around 30,000 troops. It is unlikely they can smoothly ensure control of the entire country with such numbers.
The fall of Assad has created space for the democratic forces that characterised the revolutionary movement of 2011.
As Syrian socialist Ghayath Naisse said, “We oppose HTS, but even so it opens the doors for social and political struggle—and this is the most important aspect,” he said.
“HTS are not the only masters of the destiny of Syria today. People can mobilise in this period now. The fall of the Assad regime has opened the horizons for Syrian people to struggle again and push back against the reproduction of another authoritarian regime.”
The Syrian National Council, a coalition of opposition forces, has suggested an 18-month transitional plan that largely leaves the institutions of Assad’s regime intact. HTS has similarly called on people to preserve the institutions of the “free Syrian state”. The struggle for genuine democracy demands the removal of all the regime loyalists who helped carry out Assad’s butchery.
Already a groundswell of grassroots resistance has blossomed across the region. In some towns, the regime was ousted by spontaneous resistance inspired by the regimes retreat as HTS advanced.. Most significantly, the Druze of Suwayda, who alongside rebels from Daraa, seized Damascus.
The imperialist powers who have struggled over Syria since 2011 are not about to abandon their efforts. Israel, Turkey, the US and Russia will all continue to seek influence in the new Syria.
Turkey exerts control over some rebel groups in the north of Syria and has already offered to help “guarantee security” to the transitional government.
It has long been concerned to exert control over the Kurdish groups on its border who control large areas of northern Syria. Turkish-sponsored rebel groups have already clashed with Kurdish forces on the outskirts of Aleppo, displacing over 150,000.
The fall of Assad is the latest rupture in the region-wide upheaval that Israel’s genocide in Gaza has caused. It has also shown the weakness of the “Axis of Resistance”.
The end of his bloody dictatorship signals a new phase of upheaval and volatility in the region—but it is the struggles of the mass of the Syrian people for their basic needs and genuine democratic control that are the hope for the future.
By Maeve Larkins
