The Assad dynasty is gone. The brutal struggle for mastery in Syria and the broader Middle East goes on.
Last night, President Biden took credit for Assad’s fall in a White House statement that recalled President Bush’s ill-fated “mission accomplished” speech about Iraq. Biden was serving as vice president when President Obama first announced regime change in Syria as U.S. government policy in August 2011, as the so-called “Arab Spring” uprisings were being projected in the western media as the harbingers of a new peaceful, prosperous, and democratic era.
Thirteen years later, Syria, once a tranquil place of refuge for over a million displaced people escaping conflict in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, has been transformed into one of the world’s worst man-made catastrophe zones, producing millions of impoverished refugees, many of whom have found sanctuary in Europe.
For the past thirteen years, the United States and its allies – the European Union, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates – waged a hybrid war to undermine or overthrow the government of Syria, with the goal of gaining an advantage over Russia and Iran.
In this struggle, the U.S. and its allies both subjected the people of Syria to a devastating sanctions regime, and backed a wide array of armed rebel groups, including jihadist groups such as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Throughout the war, HTS and other jihadists have regularly attacked Christians, Alawites, Druzes, and other religious minority groups in Syria.
The Syrian conflict was woefully prolonged by this strategy, and hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died as a result.
This strategy has now culminated in the collapse of the Syrian regime and the lightning-quick advance of HTS and its allies through western Syria’s main cities over the past eleven days.
No tears should be shed for the ousted Assad-led dictatorship. While it allowed more social freedom than in any other Arab country with a Sunni majority, it ruthlessly suppressed those suspected of political dissent. We can only rejoice that thousands of prisoners will now be reunited with their families after years, even decades, in Assad’s dungeons. We must not forget the grisly reality of those who perished there.
But while the Assad dynasty is no more, a new authority led by Muslim supremacists is being established in Damascus. Its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, is recognized by the United States as a terrorist, and for good reason. His loyal jihadists have killed, raped, tortured, looted and desecrated with religious zeal. Al-Jolani has called his conquest of Damascus “a victory for the entire Islamic nation” – a development that was welcomed by the Taliban in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Moreover, Syria remains dangerously divided, full of armed militias and surrounded by competing external powers, each with their own proxy armed forces.
Having used jihadists as a tool of choice for undermining the Assad regime, the U.S. and their allies now bear a special responsibility for the human rights situation in Syria in the aftermath of the jihadist victory.
For its part, CSI recommits itself to solidarity with the Christians of Syria and with all the people of Syria. We will continue to advocate for their protection, and to support humanitarian aid and development projects in Syria for as long as we are able.
John Eibner
International President
Christian Solidarity International
