On Sunday morning the world was taken by surprise to be woken up to the news that the five centuries long Assad family rule in Syria came to a sudden and swift end. The former president Bashar al-Assad, it was announced, had fled the country to an undisclosed location leaving the country in a state of political vacuum with the streets filled with both joy at the fall of the regime as well as a sense of trepidation of what lies ahead.
Syria has been in a state of civil war ever since 2011 when the Assad regime decided to quell massive protests with brutal repression tactics and while the regime managed to hold on to power over vast swathes of the country, the civil war meant nearly 500,000 have either been killed or gone missing while millions more were displaced in neighbouring countries with many millions of them making their way into Europe and was a big contributor of the 2015 Europe migrant crisis.
The immediate reaction among the people of Syria, according to English language reportage has been one of joy and relief that the regime, which came to power in 1971 through a military coup led by Bashar al Assad’s father and maintained power through authoritarian military rule involving torture of prisoners, forced disappearances as well as, since the civil war broke out, airstrikes, chemical weapons and other attacks on rival camps.
The question now moves to what lies ahead, not just for the people of Syria, but also for the region and the world at large. The world is rife with examples of states especially in the Middle East that have emerged worse for wear after the toppling of a regime. A recent example is that of Libya where the then ruler Gaddafi was deposed with the help of NATO jets from France and the US but today lies in a state of anarchy and ruin, stripped of its riches and without a ruling government with authority over the country.
The immediate fear is that Syria will go down the same path and will get caught up in years and possibly decades of continuing conflict with all the major powers and ethnic groups grappling for control over the country. As on date, several countries including Turkey, Iran, Russia, other Arab states like Qatar, the UAE, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq are keeping a watch as well as the USA and its allies are circling in the hope of ensuring they get to determine which way the country is going to go forward.
In an ideal world, the parties would come together and decide what’s best for the future of the country as a whole. But we don’t live in an ideal world and lost in the conversation will be the opinion of the people of Syria, who can afford to celebrate for now, in the hope of a better tomorrow.
The immediate question is who will now take the reins in Syria. With the previously unheard rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, leading the offensive against the Syrian army and the Assad regime, the world will keenly watch the next steps it takes whilst simultaneously scouring the pages of history to scrutinise its past ties with Al Qaeda and its role in regional conflicts.
It is imperative that Syria is allowed to chart its own future via a peaceful transition of power between the extant administration and what is to come and not fall prey to the selfish interests of those from outside. Above all, the people of Syria need to be given a time of peace, to allow them to celebrate the end of one regime without having to worry about what’s next.
