Celebrations in Damascus as Assad’s rule collapses

Bashar al Assad is gone! December 7, 2024 will go down in history as one of the world’s most brutal dictators ever fled the country. Sadnaya prison, that scene of untold horrors which surpassed the Bastille had its doors opened and the remaining prisoners released. Syrians celebrated in the streets of Damascus. This after a 13 year battle! It shows that the Arab Spring is not dead.

The U.S. media is making much of one – and only one – of the rebel groups that led the overthrow of Assad – Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS. The U.S. government has labeled them a “terrorist” group, but their main strategy was engaging in a military struggle. (More about them below.) More to the point, according to some reports, the revolutionary forces that first entered Damascus were those of the Druze from the south of Syria, not HTS. (The Druze are an ethnic group whose main area in Syria is in the south, bordering near Israel.) What other groups are involved we do not know.

As for HTS itself: As is known, they are a split-off from al Qaeda. Apparently they split away in a bid to “Syrianize” their organization. In other words, it seems it was a move to put HTS in closer touch with the Syrian people. Wikipedia reports: “Ines Barnard and Charlie Winter have described HTS as the ‘most complex and sophisticated Islamist group’ in Syria, which integrates mobilisation of popular support and military operations through its strategic communication networks.” In other words, rather than trying to bluntly impose Islamic law totally from above as the Islamic State did, the HTS leadership has tried to win some popular support.

Protests against HTS in Idlib in May of this year

Nevertheless, as with any theocratic force, HTS has been repressive. As recently as May of this year, there were popular protests against HTS’s imprisonment and murder of civilians in Syria’s Idlib province. (Idlib is in northwest Syria, and Assad’s forces have been held at bay there partly because of Turkiye.) And, in fact, according to a report which we summarized here, even just a few days ago the entry of HTS into Aleppo was greeted with caution by many in that city.

So, there are questions as to what comes next. Will HTS have to rule in coalition or will it be able to establish its own rule in Syria and, if so, how will it rule? The outpouring of joy at the fall of Assad will not just melt away like water into the sand. Syrians have not fought so long and sacrificed so much just to passively allow a new dictatorship. The May protests against HTS in Idlib prove that. It is hard to imagine that Syrians will simply accept a new repression from HTS or anybody else without a struggle. Also, who knows what other forces exist in addition to the Druze in the South?

There is also the role of the Kurdish-based Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who have been in power in northeast Syria for years. A split-off (or maybe not even that) of the Turkish-based PKK, the SDF has had an informal (or maybe formal) peace deal with Assad. They have also been credibly accused of repression against Arabs in the regions in which they rule. On the other hand, the Kurds complain of longstanding hostility of many Syrian Arabs against the Kurdish people. So how those relations work out will be important.

Some have compared a future rule of HTS to the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan, but Syria is not Afghanistan. It is much more urban, and that counts for a lot. We simply do not know how or even if HTS will rule.

The downfall of Assad is a defeat for just about every imperialist and sub-imperialist force, first of all Russia and Iran which staked a lot on Assad. (According to reports, Assad is in Russia now.) As for the US, it must be remembered that under Trump the US actually supported Assad. They did so by giving arms to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) under the condition that the FSA only attack the Islamic groups and not Assad’s forces. The US’s base of support was the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The US also made sure that the SDF only attacked the Islamicists. So the fall of Assad is a defeat for U.S. imperialism.

Assad’s downfall should be a boost for Ukraine, since it will weaken Russian imperialism.

How about the Iran revolution? Will the downfall of the region’s number one ally of the Iranian regime – Assad – give renewed energy to the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement?

Some have said that Israel will benefit because its nemesis to the north, Hezbollah, will lose a home base in Syria as well as a supply route from Iran through Syria and into Lebanon. But it’s not that simple. Israel has absconded with Syria’s Golan Heights, with the unofficial agreement of Assad for many decades. The Golan Heights is the southernmost part of the Druze area of Syria, and the Druze are now newly energized.

And then there is the pro-Putin, pro-Assad and pro-Khameini (in fact, pro-anybody who conflicts with US imperialism) “left” in the United States and Europe. These forces include much of the movement in support of Palestine. They are now dumbstruck. Silent. Will they now continue to follow along behind the line of the US government that the opposition to Assad are simply a bunch of Islamicist terrorists and nothing more? In any case, the overthrow of Assad is a giant blow to them and their betrayal of international working class solidarity.

The rise of the Arab Spring (2011) was an inspiration to the world working class. Its setback, especially in Syria, starting around 2014 had the opposite effect. In 2016, Trump rode Islamophobia into the White House. In January, he will be back (barring a health crisis). Will this renewed uprising in Syria spark a further revolution and a renewed movement of the world working class? Will such a movement greet Trump when he comes into office?

See also: the theory of permanent, or uninterrupted, revolution and Syria.

Celebrations in Damascus as Assad’s rule collapses