Column — After Assad's Overthrow, Will Syria's Suffering End, or Begin Anew?

By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan The Syrian government has been overthrown and dictator Bashar al-Assad has fled to Moscow. Assad, and before him, his father Hafez al-Assad, ruled Syria with extreme brutality for over 50 years. “Syrians have been subjected to a horrifying catalogue of human rights violations that caused untold human suffering on a vast scale,” said Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard in a statement following the government’s collapse at the hands of several rebel factions. “This historic opportunity must be now seized and decades of grave human rights violations redressed.” The people of Syria have taken to the streets, tearing down every visible remnant of Assad’s rule and opening up the regime’s countless prisons, freeing thousands from hellish confinement. The armed group that led the final offensive, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was only a decade ago an al-Qaeda affiliate, and is still considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., the EU, the UK and Turkey. HTS’ leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who now goes by his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa, claims he is focused on rebuilding Syria inclusively. The question is, will the US, and major regional neighbors like Turkey and Israel allow Syrians to build the independent state they deserve? “The general atmosphere is an atmosphere of relief, of joy, of celebration, but also there is this background of apprehension, of uncertainty,” Marwa Al-Sabouni, Syrian architect and writer said on the Democracy Now! news hour, speaking from Homs just days after it was liberated by HTS’ lightning assault. “There are a number of dangers around us, mainly by foreign powers, looking at the map of Syria, proposing division, also planning the future of Syria, mostly by the vacuum and the absence of Syrians from the political scene due to the oppression.” Joseph Daher, Swiss-Syrian activist and scholar, also speaking on Democracy Now!, said, “For the first time in decades, Syrians have a hope for the future to build a more equal, democratic social society. Obviously, there is fear, but fear was existing for the past five decades…there will be a need to rebuild [a] democratic movement, new popular organization, trade unions, feminist organization, and to rebuild, basically, struggle from below, to build the possibility of an alternative political structure.” While the Syrian people react on the streets to their fragile new freedom, Israel has engaged in a fierce assault on Syria, with close to 500 strikes destroying what it says are military targets across the country, as well as sending troops deeper into territory it has occupied for decades, in the Golan Heights and on the slopes of Mount Hermon. “One should not ignore the fateful damage which this ugly pillage could entail in the long run,” Haaretz columnist and editorial board member Gideon Levy wrote on Thursday. “The damage to Israel resulting from seizing this territory is certain to come. These territorial swipes will be the pretext for another war…They end up as a sore that never heals.” Joseph Daher points to Turkey in the north of Syria, attacking the Kurdish population there, and Israel, as imminent threats to a new, free Syria. “Israel has no interest to see a democratization process in Syria, just as in the larger Middle East, because it knows it will bring more solidarity with the Palestinian cause,” Daher said, adding that the military strikes serve two purposes: “To make the future Syrian state weaker, and also send a political message to the future people that will be empowered [in] Syria, that any kind of hostile and belligerent position to Israel will be attacked.” In addition to Syrian factional rivalries and aggression from Israel, and Turkey, Russia has two major military bases in Syria which it hopes to maintain, and the United States also has troops deployed there. The US has occupied Syrian territory since at least 2016, ostensibly training and supplying various forces to combat the Islamic State but also to exert control over Syria’s oil fields. In a December 6th report to Congress, mandated by the 1973 War Powers Resolution, President Biden wrote, “a small presence of United States Armed Forces remains in strategically significant locations in Syria to conduct operations, in partnership with local, vetted ground forces.” Like Israel, the US also bombed sites following Assad’s fall. The Pentagon’s Central Command, or CENTCOM, said in a press release it had “conducted dozens of precision airstrikes targeting known ISIS camps and operatives in central Syria, Dec. 8,” adding its usual claim, “there are no indications of civilian casualties.” The Syrian people are emerging from a half-century of repression and authoritarianism and close to 15 years of civil war that killed at least 500,000 and displaced as many as 14 million people. As Syrians rebuild their society, they will need global solidarity and grassroots support, to ensure that their new state does not fail.