Syrians gathered across the country this week to celebrate one year since former president Bashar Al-Assad was ousted by the rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) on 8 December 2024.
Interim Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa had called on Syrians to take to the streets on 4 December to mark the end of the Al-Assad regime. Bashar Al-Assad ascended to power in June 2010 as a successor to his father, Hafez Al-Assad, who had ruled since 1970.
The beginning of the Bashar Al-Assad regime was surrounded by high hopes that the new president of Syria, who came to power after a rushed constitutional amendment, would move away from his father’s ruthless legacy.
However, the aspirations of the “Damascus Spring” were short-lived and Al-Assad junior proved to be similar to Al-Assad senior.
On 15 March 2011, the Syrian people decided to break the silence and to demonstrate in support of democracy as part of the Arab Spring that brought about the ouster of several Arab authoritarian rulers.
However, unlike those who stepped down as a result, Al-Assad acted to turn the demonstrations into a civil war. This saw unprecedented atrocities and the entry of foreign fighters from radical Islamist backgrounds with financial support from regional and international players.
A weakened Al-Assad called on regional and international allies to come to the rescue. Russia, Iran, and Hizbullah in Lebanon moved fast to help Al-Assad regain control over large stretches of Syrian territory that were lost to opposition forces.
However, even as late as earlier in 2024 it seemed that he had survived the revolution. His regime was being re-integrated into the Arab League after the pan-Arab organisation had suspended Syria in autumn 2011 following the brutal reaction of the regime to the peaceful calls for democracy.
But in early December 2024, HTS, an associate of Al-Qaeda, made a surprise military leap forward before taking over Damascus on 8 December. Al-Assad and his family and some of his top aides fled the country, mostly to Russia.
A year later, prominent Egyptian diplomat and Syria expert Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, who served as deputy to the UN envoy to Syria during the earlier years of the conflict, said he was still unable to decide what exactly happened on 8 December last year.
“Only history will tell” he said in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly to mark the anniversary of the ouster of Al-Assad.
According to Ramzy, while Syria continues to celebrate the end of Al-Assad six-decade rule they face a multitude of problems that have emerged over the past year.
However, there are still reasons to be concerned about for the future of the country, he added.
Today, he said, Syria is in transition. “It is the kind of transition that we were trying to avoid as we had [hoped] for a transition in which all Syrians will be active participants,” he said. “However, this did not happen as the Al-Assad regime just collapsed on 8 December last year,” he added.
Having visited Syria repeatedly during recent years, Ramzy said that irrespective of the circumstances leading to the “sudden but not totally unexpected” fall of the regime in Damascus, “today there is relief that a regime that caused so much harm to the Syrian people [for so many years] is no longer there.”
He said that the Syrians are not just happy to see a sad past come to an end, but they are also hoping for a better future. “They want a Syria for all Syrians irrespective of faith, sect, or ethnicity,” he said. “They want a stable and prosperous country that lives in peace with all its neighbours.”
For this to happen, Ramzy stressed, there is a role for the international community to play, especially as, so far, the transition has been difficult.
According to statements from several UN and other international bodies, the past year in Syria has seen summary executions, ethnic-based abductions, and other forms of violence. Some of the acts of violence have also been committed by the foreign fighters that had earlier entered the country and with whom Al-Sharaa himself had previously collaborated.
ONE YEAR ON: On the eve of the first anniversary of the ouster of Al-Assad, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria is investigating all human rights violations since March 2011 in the country.
While the commission has acknowledged the steps taken by the Syrian government to handle such problems, it has also noted that violent acts during the past year have caused renewed displacement and polarisation in a way that prompts worry over the future.
“The situation in Syria today is highly precarious,” Ramzy agreed, due in part to the exclusion of many Syrians from participating in shaping the present and planning the future of Syria. Even if the Syrian government has been aiming to be more inclusive, he added, there is a lot more to be done.
“But for that to happen, the international community needs to convince President Al-Sharaa to be more transparent” about the process of transition, he said.
In statements made this week during his participation in the Doha Forum, Syria’s interim president said that “the Syrian Revolution is a revolution of all segments of the Syrian people” and added that under the former regime Christians had suffered and Alawites had paid a heavy price for the practices of the regime.
Al-Sharaa stressed that “Syria is a state of law” and that it will always be governed by the rule of law. “We are working to hold accountable all those who commit violations in Syria,” he added.
According to Ramzy, Al-Sharaa has “talked the talk, and now it is time for him to walk the walk.” However, he added that the path ahead is not easy, “problems accumulated over the past six decades.”
“It is going to be a complicated process; his core constituency appears to be resistant to change and there are armed groups that Al-Sharaa might not be able to control completely,” Ramzy said. “This is why he needs the international community to support him to ensure that the transition is transparent and truly inclusive of all Syrians,” he added.
Ramzy said that it is important for anyone who wants to address the situation in Syria to understand that “what is happening in the country today is the result of a series of wrong steps that have been taken since [the early months of the Syrian Revolution] in 2011.”
He cautioned against assuming that the ouster of Al-Assad should be perceived as “the culmination of the Syrian Revolution” because it is not clear yet whether the current government can fulfil the dreams of the Syrian Revolution. “It is still a process in the making,” he said.
Ramzy said that a fair assessment of the situation in Syria today would require the recognition that during the years between the beginning of the Syrian Revolution and the ouster of Al-Assad “everybody made mistakes.”
This, he said, applied to the Al-Assad government, the opposition, and both the regional and the international players who were involved in the conflict in Syria in one way or another. “It was the Syrian people who had to bear the burden of the mistakes committed by all these parties,” he added.
However, it was “mostly” Al-Assad who bears the primary responsibility having missed a number of opportunities to spare his country from prolonged conflict. Al-Assad, he explained, was given several opportunities to reach a political settlement that would ensure an orderly transition.
“He had patriotic Syrians around him who advised him to consider these opportunities, but he did not respond in a manner that was appropriate to the interests of Syria or of the Syrian people,” Ramzy stated.
“When I consider that the US administration, as late as the fall of 2024, had assigned a very senior American official to try to reach a settlement with Al-Assad and that he declined to seriously engage, I cannot help but wonder why he did that,” Ramzy said.
Judging by accounts he himself heard from Syrian sources and by footage that was released this week of Al-Assad mocking all attempts to end his rule, Ramzy said that “clearly Bashar was divorced from reality.”
On Sunday, the Saudi-owned news channel Al-Hadath aired footage of the ousted Syrian president driving with close media adviser Louna Shebl while showing no respect for the agonies of hundreds of thousands of Syrians whose houses had been destroyed.
As the car he was driving unescorted by his security guards was about to leave Ghouta on the outskirts of Damascus, Bashar Al-Assad said “to hell with Ghouta.”
While the leaked footage carried no date, judging by the presence of Syrian soldiers, one of whom pushed his head into the car to kiss the ousted president’s hand, it is most likely that it was after the regime regained Ghouta from the rebels with the help of Russian forces in April 2018.
In June 2018, UN investigators said forces loyal to Syria’s government had committed what amounted to crimes against humanity, including deliberately starving civilians, during the five-year siege of Eastern Ghouta.
“Only history will tell what was really happening and what he was really thinking,” Ramzy said. He discarded suggestions that the warmth demonstrated towards Bashar Al-Assad from some Arab capitals had encouraged him to shrug off political settlement offers.
In December 2018, the UAE reopened its embassy in Damascus in what was perceived as a gesture of support for the regime of Bashar Al-Assad.
However, Ramzy said that he did not see a contradiction between the messages that were being conveyed to Bashar Al-Assad to consider taking steps towards a political settlement and the openness that some Arab capitals were demonstrating towards him that eventually led to his participation in the Arab Summit hosted by Riyadh in May 2023, where he was warmly welcomed by powerful Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman.
“It might have been an attempt to encourage him to pursue a political settlement by telling him that now is the time for you to bite the bullet,” Ramzy said.
Irrespective of the discrepancies among positions in the Arab world about Bashar Al-Assad, “nobody wanted to see Syria collapse,” as this would have damaged regional stability. Arab capitals may have misinterpreted Al-Assad reactions to their entreaties, Ramzy explained. Judging by his own encounters with the ousted Syrian president, Ramzy said that it was not unusual for Bashar Al-Assad to come across as listening to advice when in fact he was just acting.
“It seems he did not see the fall of his regime coming,” Ramzy said.
SURPRISE COLLAPSE: He added that anyone observing what was happening in Syria must have expected to see the fall of the Al-Assad regime.
Ramzy himself was not surprised by what happened on 8 December 2024. “Like others, I was certainly surprised by the rapidity of it, but I was not surprised that the regime in itself collapsed,” he said.
“There are a lot of different theories about what really happened,” Ramzy said. However, he added that it is important to remember that the fall of Bashar Al-Assad came after Israel had managed to weaken his main supporters, Iran and Hizbullah.
“Whatever happened, luckily there was not much bloodshed,” he said. Today, he added, work is urgently needed to make sure that the ongoing transition in the country does not take a path of bloodshed.
It is in the interest of the international community to work with the interim president of Syria and to help the country to move forward. Ramzy said that it is in the best interests of Syria for the capitals concerned not to look too far into the militant past of Al-Sharaa.
“Let us not forget that there were others who were terrorists and who became prime ministers and then received the Nobel Prize,” he stated.
Ramzy said that a key question today is how Al-Sharaa will be able to manage his past core constituency, which holds some very radical views. He argued that “it is not impossible for him to do it if he has the right kind of support,” especially since many in Syria are concerned about the choices of some of those around Al-Sharaa, “not only when it comes to human rights but also with regards to the management of the economy.”
“The Syrians want to move on and to rebuild their country,” he said. “The Arab countries in particular have a special responsibility.”
“Already we have seen some important regional capitals open up to the interim president of Syria, especially Turkey but also Saudi Arabia and Qatar,” Ramzy said. He added that the best bet for everyone today is to give Al-Sharaa the benefit of the doubt because the alternative might be the fall of Syria into chaos, which would be harmful to the interests of the entire region.
Ramzy acknowledged the concerns of some Arab states over their nationals who have been fighting alongside radical groups in Syria during the Bashar Al-Assad regime. However, he insisted that this is not strictly an Arab concern and that it should not inhibit engagement with the interim government in Syria.
“Turkey and Russia and a number of other countries have also a similar problem, and they have been considering their options to have it resolved,” he said. He argued that the paramount goal should be ensuring regional security, and the stability of Syria is crucial in this regard.
The Middle East has been subjected to three competing visions for regional security, proposed by Iran, Turkey, and Israel, Ramzy said. Today, he added, it is clear that the Iranian scheme has clearly failed and the Turkish scheme had become more realistic by emphasising cooperation with Arab countries.
It is the Israeli attempt at regional hegemony that has not changed. Israel’s actions in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria are designed to create an expanded Lebensraum to ensure its domination of the Levant.
It is therefore time for the Arab countries to formulate their own vision for regional security, Ramzy said. Countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other influential Arab states should take the lead.
“I was very encouraged by the resolution adopted at the last Arab foreign ministers meeting [in September] on Arab regional security which proposed the principles upon which such a system needs to be based,” he said.
Egypt in particular, he said, has a special interest in this regard. History shows that Egypt was vulnerable when it was inward looking and powerful when it was active beyond its physical borders.
“I don’t think that today Syria is standing at the doors of democracy or that this will be firmly the case at the end of the transitional period,” Ramzy said.
In late January this year, Al-Sharaa was declared interim president. In mid-February, he established the preparatory committee for the National Dialogue Conference, which included representatives of the former “salvation government” in Idlib and two members of Syrian civil society.
Many criticised the committee for being insufficiently representative and for falling to reflect the aspirations of all Syrians. Early in March, a committee was formed to draft an interim constitution, but by 13 March Al-Sharaa had already signed a constitutional declaration for a five-year transitional period. This was also subject to criticism for being too aligned with Islamist views.
According to Ramzy, Syria’s “vibrant civil society” wants to actively participate in the transitional process. The international community has a role to play in this regard. This is the best course to ensure a truly “comprehensive and all-encompassing national dialogue that would open the doors to an orderly and transparent transition, a major component of which is transitional justice. This is the best means to avoid falling [into the trap] of retribution.”
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