On Sunday morning, as emaciated detainees streamed out of Syrian regime prisons and jubilant Damascenes flocked to the presidential palace to rummage by deserted designer baggage, Bashar al-Assad was nowhere to be discovered.
The one signal of the dynastic president, whose household had dominated Syria for half a century, was his omnipresent portrait. Besides now, as an alternative of being of their ordinary place on partitions and above desks, Assad's photographs had been being trampled beneath the toes of individuals the dictator had tried for years to bomb, fuel and destroy. torture them into submission.
It was a shocking fall. Damascus with out the Assad household, which imposed its minority rule with an iron fist, is nearly unimaginable for a lot of Syrians.
For Haid Haid, a Syrian columnist and marketing consultant at Chatham Home, the regime's lasting legacy can be outlined by its try and “destroy folks's minds and stop them from imagining that they might stay in a greater place.”
Bordered by Iraq, Jordan, The occupying Zionist entity, Lebanon and Turkey, Syria enjoys pure assets, a wealthy historical historical past and a strategic place on the Mediterranean.
The Assad regime, which has dominated Syria since 1970, “had on a regular basis and instruments to make Syria a mannequin like Singapore, if it wished to,” mentioned Bassam Barbandi, a former Syrian diplomat who defection to the opposition. “However they didn’t. They tried to crush the folks. . . to outlive. »
In the end, Bashar, his brother Maher, and his spouse Asma – a former London-based JP Morgan banker as soon as hailed by Vogue as “a rose within the desert” – used their energy ruthlessly to finance the regime because the economic system was collapsing into the rubble of the Syrian civil battle. battle. Analysts mentioned the household managed smuggling and even benefited from the rising commerce in Captagona bootleg stimulant produced primarily in Syria.
It has turn into “like a mafia working a state,” mentioned Malik al-Abdeh, a London-based Syria analyst. The outcome, for a lot of strange folks, was that Syria was so “intently related to your personal torture or your personal executioner…”. . . that you’re nearly starting to hate your nation.”
The unique architect of this darkish regime was the son of a poor household in Syria's coastal area and a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Hafez al-Assad, an air drive pilot who rose throughout the secular, Arab nationalist Syrian Baath Get together, which took management of Syria in 1963, turned protection minister and finally seized energy in a coup d'état.
A minority chief in a majority Sunni nation, Hafez concentrated energy with loyal members of his sect and strengthened his energy with brutal intelligence businesses that monitored Syrians' each transfer. It additionally pitted businesses towards one another, reinforcing the sense of paranoia and concern. He was “a chilly and calculated political and safety agent,” mentioned Charles Lister, a senior fellow on the Center East Institute.
The dictator tolerated no dissent. In 1982, he suppressed an Islamist rebellion within the metropolis of Hama with a bloody bloodbath of tens of 1000’s of individuals.
“There has lengthy been a thesis that this can be a minority regime with out well-liked assist,” Abdeh mentioned. “Subsequently, they need to resort to violence to keep up energy, and it’s all only a home of playing cards. »
Patriarch Assad has additionally sought to undertaking his energy within the area. Beneath Hafez, the Syrian military intervened in Lebanon's civil battle, occupying elements of the nation for years, and have become broadly feared for its cruelty as Lebanese residents disappeared into Syrian prisons.
Bashar, Hafez's second son, born in 1965, grew up within the shadow of his charismatic older brother Bassel, inheritor obvious to Hafez's throne. Bashar in the meantime certified as a health care provider and traveled to London to coach as an ophthalmologist.
However Hafez's plans for his succession had been dashed when Bassel crashed his Mercedes and died aged 31 in 1994. Bashar was recalled to Damascus and groomed for the presidency himself. Six years later, Hafez died.
Totally different powers competed to seduce Bashar, then solely 34 years outdated. France, Syria's former colonizer, even awarded him its highest civilian distinction, the Legion of Honor, after he got here to energy in 2001. Western international locations initially believed that “a extra Western society, L The approaching to energy of a liberalized and doubtlessly “cosmopolitan” chief. . . was going to be a superb growth,” Lister mentioned.
However Bashar grew nearer to Hassan Nasrallah, the chief of the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and in the end to the so-called Iranian “resistance axis” of anti-US forces.
This alliance with Hezbollah destabilized Lebanon as weapons flowed throughout the border. Many within the area noticed Syria's hand behind the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, despite the fact that a U.N.-backed court docket didn’t indict any Syrians.
Domestically, Bashar sought to steer Syria away from the socialist financial mannequin adopted by his father towards a supposedly free market economic system, additionally elevating hopes for a so-called Damascus Spring with larger particular person freedoms.
However the promise of reform shortly proved futile. Syrian economists say he as an alternative launched kleptocracy: though some companies had been capable of flip a revenue, members of the family, like his cousin Rami Makhlouf, dominated the economic system.
Whereas the much less privileged inhabitants of the countryside and suburbs felt left behind, Bashar counted on the assist of service provider households and Syrian city minorities.
However Bashar was by no means on snug floor, mentioned Lina Khatib, a analysis affiliate at Chatham Home. His “fixed paranoia made him mistrust these round him,” she says. “His reign was marked by a breakdown of belief, even inside his personal regime. »
Then, in 2011, a wave of protests throughout the Arab world triggered simmering socio-economic tensions in Syria, fueled by grievances over corruption and Assad's autocratic rule. Protesters took to the streets, calling for the autumn of the regime.
Bachar was confronted with a alternative. Slightly than shifting towards reform and reconciliation, he selected to crush the revolt. Based on UN estimates, greater than 300,000 civilians had been killed within the first decade of battle, with lethal chemical assaults changing into probably the most grisly mark.
He “lived with the ghost of his father,” Barbandi mentioned. “He wished to be stronger or harder towards the Syrians than his father in Hama. »
Bashar was not the one Assad to play a task in crushing the rebellion. Maher, his youthful brother, led the notoriously brutal Fourth Division of the Syrian military, whereas specialists say he managed smuggling, together with weapons and oil – sources of illicit income that helped finance the battle effort.
Bashar averted defeat with the assistance of his backers, Hezbollah, Iran and Russia, and declared his intention to reconquer “each inch” of Syria. However even because the preventing slowed and the entrance strains stabilized in 2019, Syria's economic system collapsed.
It was “a defining second,” mentioned Karam Shaar, a Syrian political economic system skilled primarily based in New Zealand. Confronted together with his financial difficulties compounded by the worldwide pandemic, the monetary disaster in neighboring Lebanon and worldwide sanctions, Assad started to shake business peopleAnd even his own cousin Makhlouf.
Bashar's spouse Asma was additionally take control of the loot. It consolidated its management over the humanitarian support sector, an enormous – and scarce – supply of personal cash in Syria, whereas its allies rose to positions of financial energy.
With public wages eroded by inflation and after years of bloody battle, Assad's military has turn into “a shadow of its former self”, Shaar mentioned. Even that of Assad coastal heart of the Alawites was demoralized.
A presidency that held absolute energy over the lives of its folks has turn into depending on worldwide assist. However when a lightning advance of well-armed and well-organized rebels took benefit of Tehran and Moscow's issues, Assad's supporters appeared unable to counter the opposition surge.
As fighters tore up Bashar's images and dragged away Hafez statues with vehicles, Assad's home of playing cards lastly collapsed.
The Assad dynasty will probably be remembered for its full disregard for the lives of Syrians. However Haid, the columnist, mentioned Syrians had been overcoming their empire of concern: “We now have seen how folks have managed to beat this and create the longer term they need for themselves. »
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