The Assad Regime Falls In Syria.

Bashar Al-Assad Was A Brutal Dictator, but what will come next?

For those who follow geopolitics, unless you have been living under a rock the Assad regime in Syria has fallen to rebels from the HTS (Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham) group formerly Al Nusera. In this article, I will break down why the Assad regime fell, ask if HTS will actually be any better, and discuss the possibility of U.S. and Israeli involvement.

The Failures Of the Syrian Government.

While I know an American and Israeli plot to overthrow the Syrian government certainly played a role in the overthrow of Assad, it is also worth going over his own failures that led to his downfall. In this section, I will review those.

Journalist and Middle East expert As'ad AbuKhalil broke down the failures of the Syrian regime that led it to lose a lot of support from the population in an article for Consortium News.

For some context on the Assad regime given by Abu Khalil, Bashar’s father Hafiz Al-Assad was an influential figure in the Syrian government since 1963 when he was an influential military official in it. Eventually in 1970, when Hafiz and Salah Jadid (another influential figure in the Syrian military establishment) fought over whether to arm Palestinian resistance groups (Hafiz was opposed while Jadid was in favor), Hafiz Assad took power over the Syrian government in a coup. Eventually, in 2000, Bashar al-Assad took over from his father and became the leader of Syria.

Some of the reasons both Hafiz and Bashar lost the support of many Syrians according to Asad AbuKhalil are the following:

Neoliberal Economics: According to AbuKhalil “the regime lost support in rural areas, especially after the neo-liberal policies adopted by the regime to appease Western powers.” , “The Bashshar regime wanted to replicate the open-door policy of neighboring economies which widened the gap between rich and poor.”

Corruption: AbuKhalil wrote that “Corruption grew and widened among the ruling elite and it only got worse in recent years with the proliferation of the illegal drugs trade and prostitution”.

Refusal To Make Concessions: AbuKhalil reported that since winning the war Bashar Assad refused to make any concessions even to his moderate, non-jihadist opposition saying

Once Bashshar consolidated his rule over part of Syria in 2016 he refused to offer concessions to the moderate opposition”, “He was intoxicated with his victory against the rebels as if victory was achieved by his own army. He did not want to share power and considered compromises as a betrayal of the legacy of his father.

Refusal to Address His People: Abu Khalil reported that Bashar Al-Assad, unlike his father, refused to address his people, including when he took power in 2000 and before he fled to Russia last week. As Abukhalil said:

He (Bashar Assad) never bothered to address his own people, not even before fleeing the country to safety in Moscow. His arrogance showed throughout the years of the Syrian war. He never was interested in reaching out to people, even when he assumed power right after his father’s death.

Human Rights: As Abu Khalil pointed out both Assad regimes were notorious for their human rights abuses. As he said:

Both regimes would hunt down dissidents outside of the country to kill them. Many opponents of the Syrian regime were murdered in Lebanon. Ba`thist secret intelligence apparatuses were known for devising new and perverted methods of torture techniques. And torture was applied across the board, regardless of the charge and the age of the prisoner.

Abu Khalil also pointed out that “Syrian prisons were notorious for their inhumane conditions and for the widespread use of torture.” Many political prisoners are now being released from the “Saydnaya” prison which was notorious for its brutal torture techniques which the human rights group Amnesty International called a “human slaughterhouse”.

No Tolerance For Dissent: Finally, the Assad regime has an almost zero tolerance policy for virtually any dissident or criticism of it. As Abu Khalil wrote

The room for expression was extremely limited under the Bath. Any questioning or mild criticisms of the rule would result in severe punishment regardless of the age of the offender. The right of political expression was reserved to those who wished to praise the regime in flowery language.

Aside from all the points raised in As'ad Abu Khalil’s article above, a major reason for his downfall is the fact that he was paying his conscripted army next to nothing to fight to keep him in power. According to the former British diplomat Alastair Crooke, Syrian government soldiers were making 7 dollars a month and Generals 40 dollars a month while HTS rebel members were making 2000 dollars per month.

The True Nature of HTS.

Now that I have reviewed the many issues of the Syrian government that led to its downfall, it is worth noting the reality of Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group that overthrew it.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani who, according to the New York Times, “went to neighboring Iraq in 2003 to join Al Qaeda”.

After spending time in an American prison in Iraq “He later emerged in Syria around the start of the civil war and formed the Nusra Front, a Qaeda affiliate, which eventually evolved into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham”.

In 2017, the American embassy in Syria labeled him as a “terrorist” and claimed he “has carried out multiple terrorist attacks throughout Syria, often targeting civilians”. The U.S. also offered 10 million dollars to anyone who knew information about his whereabouts.

Human Rights Watch has said that Al Nusera and HTS were responsible for “Indiscriminate Shootings, and Hostage Taking” while under al-Jolani’s rule.

In March of this year, protests erupted against him in Syria’s Idlib province which he controlled for his “arrests and enforced disappearances of thousands” of people who dissented against his rule. The German outlet DW reported that the protests were over “the death of a prisoner in jail, apparently through torture at the hands of security forces of the Islamist militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham”.

In 2017 the New York Times correspondent Robert F. Worth warned that if rebel groups such as HTS took over Syria the “result would almost certainly have been sectarian mass murder.”

Disturbingly it looks like his warning may be beginning to bear out. Abu Mohammad al-Jolani has done his best to disavow his sectarian past and is now labeling himself as a “diversity-friendly jihadist” claiming to oppose any sectarian abuse or killing of Syria’s minorities.

However, the reality on the ground is starting to look different. A video showed that two men were executed by Rebels in Syria who called them Nusayri, a racial slur for Alawite, the minority sect that Bashar Al-Assad was a part of.

Another video posted to social media showed rebel groups marching through the Syrian capital Damascus carrying the black flag of Al-Qaeda. Another video posted to social media showed rebels firing guns and waving an Al-Qaeda in what the Syrian-born journalist Richard Medhurst identified as “a Christian neighborhood in Damascus”.

There have also been videos of public executions done by Rebels, one of a man who was accused of being a supporter of Assad, and multiple others of former members of the Syrian government’s army.

An unidentified dead man was dragged through the street while tied to a car in Idlib, Syria a day ago.

There have also been reports of increasing sectarianism in Syria. The Syrian journalist Mirella Abu-Shanab said she was asked, for the first time in her life, if she was “Alawite, Christian, Druze or Shia" by rebels in Damascus.

The Christian advocacy group “Christian Emergency Alliance” warned earlier today that “churches in Syria were instructed not to hold Christmas celebrations, parades, or even display Saint Nicholas.”

A Syrian Christian told journalist Hadi Nasrallah that:

A Jihadi told my mom to wear a hijab today. Also told my friends not to walk together if they are not married. They also informed our church to keep all Christmas celebrations lowkey and not to make anything publicly.

Another Syrian told him “They (rebels) aimed a gun at my friends and cousins today in Damascus asking them why they aren’t they covered”

The Beirut-based reporter Rania Khalek reported a similar thing from her contacts in Syria. A Syrian in the Christian and Alawite majority area of Latakia told her that they have seen :

heavily armed men, including some foreigners speaking languages they've never heard before, have been parading through and patrolling the streets.

The resident told her that

These men are behaving like religious extremists. They are shouting at unveiled women and demanding they wear a hijab. They are asking with hostility any men and women who walk together if they are married or not. There is no more alcohol, shops that have alcohol have been vandalized, burned and closed.

One Syrian social media user named Bint Halab took to X to say:

It's not just Syrian Christians who feel unsafe. All of my relatives are hiding indoors & holding their breaths. It is objectively terrifying to see foreigners with rifles & machine guns running around through the streets & moving into the empty homes next door.

U.S. Israeli Regime Change

The biggest Elephant in the Room on Syria is the fact that Both Israel and the United States have wanted regime change there for years and at the very least, laid the groundwork for what is currently unfolding.

Starting with the United States, they have wanted regime change in Syria since the Iraq war. The U.S. General Wesley Clark said the Pentagon told him after 9/11 that the U.S. wanted regime change in Syria.

In 2005 when she interviewed Bashar Al-Assad, CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour said to him

The rhetoric of regime change is directed towards you from the United States. They are actively looking for a new Syrian leader, the’re granting VISAS and visits to Syrian opposition politicians, are talking about isolating you diplomatically and perhaps a coup or your regime crumbling.

In 2012 when the civil war in Syria was in its second year Hillary Clinton’s advisor, Jake Sullivan sent her an email that said “Al Qaeda is on our side in Syria”. That same year the CIA set up a “ratline” to funnel Gaddafi’s weapons stockpile-which was now free after the U.S. and NATO disposed of him the year earlier- to rebels in Syria.

By 2013 the CIA set up “Timber Sycamore”, a CIA regime change program in Syria that attempted to overthrow Bashar Al Assad by spending $1 billion per year or “$1 of every $15 in the CIA’s overall budget” on arming Syrian Rebels. According to the Washington Post, “the agency has spent roughly $100,000 per year for every anti-Assad rebel who has gone through the program.”

One U.S. official said that “the CIA-backed fighters may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies over the past four years.”

The Think Tank “Century Foundation” said that the program “functioned as battlefield auxiliaries and weapons farms for larger Islamist and jihadist factions, including Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate.”

After the program ended in 2017, the U.S. decided to occupy one-third of Syria and place brutal sanctions on the country in order to attempt regime change. The defense department’s Dana Stroul admitted that “one-third of Syrian territory is owned via the U.S. military”. She bragged that “one-third of Syria is the resource-rich economic powerhouse of Syria” and that the reason for the occupation was “leverage for affecting the overall process for the broader Syrian conflict”. She bragged that this -along with the “economic sanctions” which blocked “reconstruction aid”- kept Syria in “rubble”.

As for Israel, they were similarly supportive of regime change in Syria. As journalist Jonothan Cook reported, “It (Israel) supplied weapons, and dropped thousands of bombs on Syrian infrastructure to keep Assad under pressure”. Cook also pointed out that Ehud Barak the Israeli defense minister in 2012 admitted Israel supported regime change in Syria because

The toppling down of Assad will be a major blow to the radical axis, a major blow to Iran… and it will weaken dramatically both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza.”

For their parts, both Benjamin Netenyahu and Joe Biden have bragged that they are the reasons Assad fell in Syria. Netenyahu bragged that “This collapse is a direct result of our forceful action against Hezbollah and Iran, Assad’s main supporters”. While Joe Biden bragged that his weakening of “Hezbollah, Russia, and Iran” through backing Israel and the Ukraine proxy war is what led to the fall of Assad.

Israel has used this opportunity to bomb Syria’s military infrastructure such as its “airfields, anti-aircraft batteries, missiles, drones, fighter jets, tanks, and weapon production sites” along with “weapons depots, military structures, launchers, and firing positions”.

This was for two main reasons. The first is so that Israel could further expand its “Greater Israel” project and take further territory past the occupied Syrian Golan heights, which it has since the fall of Assad.

The second is so that Syria will never be able to defend itself against Israeli expansion or do anything to fight back against its current genocide in Gaza. With the current events many have forgotten that Israel is still committing mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza where the UN has said 70 percent of the casualties are women and children and where an Amnesty International investigation found that “Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip”.

By using this opportunity to weaken Syria’s military, Israel has made sure another neighboring state will never be able to do anything to stop its ongoing genocide.

Syria Is Not Black and White

Syria is one of the most divisive and complicated issues of recent years. There is no doubt that Assad was a corrupt and brutal dictator but there is also no doubt that HTS and rebels have some extremely concerning sectarian and jihadist ideologies. There is also no doubt that the U.S and Israel have wanted regime change in Syria for their own cynical geopolitical reasons and are using the fall of Assad for their own imperialist ambitions.