Yesterday, we woke up to a world without Bashar al-Assad, with rebels and jihadists celebrating in Damascus, a once cosmopolitan metropolis. The ophthalmologist who became president at 34, succeeding his father after his death in 2000, with his characteristic lisp and British-accented endings from his studies in London, has fled and is now in Moscow, a place more welcoming to him. It will likely be a long time before we see him again in interviews on Western media, as he did frequently over the years.
He spoke to major news networks to accuse the West and defend Russia while also denying evidence that in August 2013, his regime used the nerve agent sarin outside Damascus, in Ghouta. 1,500 dead, including 500 children, with death conditions too horrific to describe.
For this and the other chemical attacks that followed, for the largest refugee crisis of our time and the tragedies it caused, for the imprisonments, torture, and deaths of the opposition, and the overall destruction of his homeland, I don’t know if he will ever be held accountable. As countries move in like vultures to seize parts of Syria for its strategic location and energy reserves (oil fields and natural gas), he will watch from a distance.
On the ground, this mix of rebels and jihadists, with elements of ISIS and al-Qaeda, as we detailed in a recent explainer, has prevailed, as they have had a significant role in the region over the years. However, can we say who the real winners are today? Geopolitics isn’t like a match between Aris and PAOK at “Kleanthis Vikelidis” (everyone has their own references). It takes time and a broader perspective on the maps to identify the actual winners and losers. Nonetheless, I will try to organize the data as it stands.
Geopolitics isn’t like an Aris-PAOK match at “Kleanthis Vikelidis.” It requires time and a broader view of the maps to identify the actual winners and losers.
Vladimir Putin, though considered one of the losers, is likely already planning his revanche on another front—in the negotiations over Ukraine (more in yesterday’s explainer). For Iran – and where Iran is, think Hezbollah and Hamas – which was an ally of Assad, the developments in Syria are a significant defeat, as it loses the route for transferring weapons against Israel just a few months after the elimination of the Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.
Can Turkey be pleased? Of course, it has been fighting Assad and, in any case, plays a crucial role with significant regional ambitions. But can it celebrate? No, because we need to see how the forces within the country will align—practically, how much territory will be controlled by the Kurds, who are also key players in the region and supported by the U.S., and whom Erdogan wants to remove from the region and from the face of the earth. In other words, to be clear, if instead of seeing them out of the game, he sees them as key players, he won’t be too happy.
Until it becomes clear what the next day holds for the country, Syrians continue to move from one nightmare to another. Thirteen years after a civil war that began due to Assad’s crackdown on the Arab Spring and the heavy involvement of all the proxy forces, the people there are once again facing chaos, new displacements, renewed suffering, a constant and worsening humanitarian crisis, and the fear that jihadist forces will attempt to create an “Afghanistan”—an inhumanly oppressive regime—on the Mediterranean.
No, God, once again, you did not show Syria any mercy.
