Fall of Syria's Assad might provoke fear in other dictators, says expert

Diario As

8/12/2024

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00:00It also showed in the past days that this was a Syrian-led chain of events.

00:07No foreign power liberated the Syrians here.

00:09It was the Syrians themselves.

00:11And it's in Syrians' hands to determine how their future looks like, also how tolerant

00:16their future looks like when it comes to societal issues.

00:20And the process in Geneva of the UN is also called in the UN resolution a Syrian-led process.

00:26The Syrian-led component had fallen by the wayside in the past years.

00:30It was all a bargaining of different regional powers.

00:35Now the Syrians have got it back in their hands, and the way they will deal with it

00:41and the responsibility they will show to shape their own future will be, might be an example

00:47even for other Arab countries.

00:49And I'm sure that some dictators in the region might look to Syria also fearfully.

00:55The Assad regime was internally rotten, mafia-like corrupt, and there was very little real loyalty.

01:07So this whole system was kept together by fear.

01:10And it was a predatory arrangement of different gangs and groups, ideologically rotten, economically

01:19bad.

01:21And then Assad, he was gone for days, you know.

01:23So he was not the leader, if you compare it to Zelensky, who stayed out, who was holding

01:29out and people were looking up to him.

01:32No, not at all.

01:33So that was the internal weakness of Assad's regime.

01:37And it showed also, like in the years before, that he could only survive, he was only able

01:42to survive by the help of Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia in the end.

01:47And then we have, of course, Russia.

01:49And the news were also kind of very surprising in the past days, that Russia is taking out

01:56its ships from its military base in Tartus.

02:00Also personnel, high-ranking personnel, Iran has taken out, brought to security, a kind

02:05of safety, their leaders of the Revolutionary Guard.

02:09So everybody was not investing into Assad anymore.

02:13And that's, that's the new thing that has never happened in the years before.

02:17And of course, Hezbollah, and that's the third reason, was very weakened and had withdrawn

02:23from several positions also around Aleppo because of its war with Israel, following

02:29the 7th of October aggression against Israel and Israel's kind of warfare in Lebanon.

02:36So all this is kind of connected.

02:39And this led to a sudden weakening of Assad.

02:43It is, of course, a huge success for Gholani to have managed this transition so far in

02:51a, in a quite peaceful manner.

02:54If you compare it to hundreds of thousands of deaths that Assad caused with his slaughtering

03:02and suppressing the initially peaceful upheaval in 2012, bombing hospitals, torturing people

03:12massively, I think this is a quite different story.

03:17And hopefully this will remain a relatively pragmatic and peaceful story so far.

03:23So now we will probably see negotiations.

03:26Now, I think it's crucial now to understand Syria is a society that is maybe two thirds

03:32or a bit more Sunni and the rest are minorities.

03:37And here we have a mosaic of different groups that traditionally for centuries have lived

03:43together peacefully.

03:45This revolution 13 years ago became militarized through the violence of the Assad regime against

03:53initially peaceful citizens who went to the street and calling for freedom.

03:59And therefore it's now crucial that HDS, which has an Islamist background, is transforming

04:05itself with deeds and not only with words, and we have seen some deeds in the past days,

04:10into a force that can integrate also the other minorities.

04:16I think this parallel to the Taliban is a mismatch because we have seen years ago, it

04:22was still called a Nusra Front, which is now HDS, has left Al-Qaeda on the one hand.

04:30And not only this, HDS has been a year-long enemy of the Islamic State.

04:37They have fought against the Islamic State in Syria and they have expelled them from Idlib.

04:43In Idlib, I'm not saying that HDS is a liberal democratic force at all, but in Idlib, when

04:49you compare it to Afghanistan, women can work, women are part of societal life.

04:56It is far from what's going on in Afghanistan.

04:59And now, of course, HDS has left this little pocket of Idlib and is about to govern and

05:05has to kind of balance powers within Syria.

05:08Well, we have seen actually that many Arab states were also worried.

05:15They are also worried if there is an Islamist Sunni force in Syria.

05:20Israel has been kind of on the waiting, on the fence, saying actually we are not allied

05:28with either one.

05:30They, however, can see that Iran has been significantly weakened.

05:39I think that the weakening of Iran and Hezbollah and now Syria in other hands is a major shift

05:48where one could find some common ground between Arab states, including Syria, a regional solution

05:56to the problems.

05:58But that also needs, of course, a government in Israel that plays along also with human

06:03rights, etc.

06:05But there is a new chance to reorder the Middle East now in a regional solution and not only

06:10focus on different countries.

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