When the Arab Spring swept the Middle East in 2011, Bashar al-Assad took extreme measures to hold onto power, but his brutal dictatorship has come to a sudden end. Global Insight assesses the major implications for the region.

Having seen two long-time dictators overthrown in Tunisia, and Egypt’s popular revolts, a group of teenagers in the Syrian city of Daraa graffitied a warning to their own ruler: ‘Your turn [to fall] has come, Doctor’. The statement addressed the country’s ruler Bashar al-Assad – a trained ophthalmologist – but it didn’t come to pass for nearly 14 years. In December, the Assad family’s brutal rule, which had lasted 53 years, finally toppled.

Assad fled to Russia after a swift and sudden attack by a coalition of rebels who swept through several Syrian cities, including the capital Damascus, in only 11 days. His departure concluded Syria's torturous struggle for freedom and many now believe it could revive the wave of peaceful anti-government protests that started in 2011, sweeping the region in what became known as the Arab Spring.

In the years following the Arab Spring, Assad launched the region's most vicious military crackdown, scaring millions of Syrians into fleeing the country and killing over 500,000, with many tortured, arrested and held in inhumane conditions. While the Arab Spring protests continued in several countries, ousting entrenched leaders in Libya and Yemen, the ruthless Assad response did much to prevent regime change elsewhere in the region. 

Many strongmen in the Middle East took their cue from Assad's cruel tactics. To survive, they employed even more repressive methods against their own people. Assad's abrupt overthrow sent shockwaves across Arab countries, where the very same conditions that led to the Arab Spring now prevail: corruption; poor economic and social conditions; and repression.

Regional reaction

Egypt, the region's most populous nation, reacted nervously after it became clear that the rebels were led by an Islamist faction, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who made it a hallmark policy to fight Islamists, held a rare meeting with the country's media. In a bid to dispel any similarities with Assad, a clearly tense Sisi said that there was no blood on his hands and he had not taken people’s property illegally. Since then, government-backed media has warned the public against the Syria scenario in Egypt, suggesting the country will fall into the hands of radicals and terrorists.

Meanwhile, the Arab Ministerial Contact Committee on Syria – made up of Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Secretary General of the Arab League – expressed concern that the changes in Syria might lead to a rise of radical factions. Ironically, the authoritarian governments, who themselves have rarely held fair elections, issued a statement beseeching Syria's new rulers to pave the way for ‘free and fair elections’.

The rich Arab Gulf countries, who control vast and influential institutions and investments across the region, have been cautious. Qatar, for example, said it was ready to reopen its embassy and support the new government once it's formed. 

Ahmed al-Sharaa – Syria's 42-year-old de facto leader, who headed the military offensive – says he will correct Assad's foreign policy. Nevertheless, Israel surprised the region by targeting the country's military facilities and expanding its occupation of the Golan Heights, which it first took in the 1967 Arab–Israeli war. 

Türkiye, Syria's northern neighbour, welcomed the changes. Despite denials from Syrian rebels, it's widely believed that their advance was backed by Ankara. Turkish diplomats, including the foreign minister and head of intelligence, were the first foreign officials to arrive in Damascus, and they were seen in a car driven by al-Sharaa himself. Türkiye is likely to use its leverage with the new regime in Damascus to eliminate or limit the threat from Syrian Kurdish rebels, backed by the US. 

Assad's fall, however, dealt major blows to Iran and Russia. For years, Iran has invested in the country's regime and Shiite minority to bolster its regional standing. Russia has been a key ally of Assad, and its bases and forces were perhaps the most decisive factor keeping Assad in power.

Thirst for justice

The new rulers and, perhaps more importantly, the Syrians whose sacrifices and tenacity ended one of the region's most fearful regimes, are already grappling with the immediate challenge of achieving justice for those abused by the former regime. Many Syrians tell Arab media they will not have any form of meaningful closure without this.

Heart-rending scenes of conditions in Assad's dungeons dominated the local news cycle after the rebels entered Damascus. In a Syrian cafe in a Cairo neighbourhood, where Syrian refugees congregate every evening, the talk was neither about Israel or Türkiye but the need to arrest former members of the Assad regime, particularly torturers and rapists.

Millions of Syrian refugees hope to return to the country, but many say their homes have been flattened and towns shattered during the prolonged conflict. International organisations say that more than half of the country’s pre-conflict population of 22 million were displaced – six million internationally and five million internally.

The country faces a dire economic situation. UNICEF says 90 per cent of Syrians now live in poverty. The country was reclassified from a middle-income nation to low-income in 2018. Under Assad, corruption was commonplace, and the economy was sucked dry by the ruling Alawite minority who formed the backbone of the country's infamous military and security apparatus. The country has also been under international sanctions. 

The new rulers have been overwhelmed by requests from Syrian families to help locate those who had been forcibly disappeared, a task made more distressing by the daily uncovering of new mass graves and the possibility of more secret prisons. 

Syria's Civil Defence officials say that at least 100,000 people have been forcibly disappeared since 2011. They say that, since the Assad regime fell, they have uncovered five mass graves. 

Traumatised families from different parts of the country, often separated during Assad's bloody crackdown, still flock to the notorious Sednaya prison complex searching for bits of evidence that may point to the fate of their loved ones. Arab media outlets showed emotional Syrians from the northern city of Idlib to the southern city of Daraa saying that despite their elation and the raucous jubilation in the streets, they are still scarred and are far from healing. 

Western governments will be scrutinising the new regime closely. Meanwhile, Syrians have made their priorities clear: justice and better life conditions. Without achieving these two goals, Syrians are likely to view their long-running revolution as unfinished business.
 

Emad Mekay is a freelance journalist and can be contacted at emad.mekay@int-bar.org.

Reuters.