No matter what angle you look at it from, there is no denying that the Assad regime in Syria is a complete and utter failure. No regime has committed the abundance of horrific crimes against its own people that the Assad regime has, and still been granted rapprochement opportunities as it has been granted. No regime has wasted so many opportunities for salvation for Syria as it has done. No regime has consistently and repeatedly disappointed its supporters as it has done. No regime has had its criminality exposed as this regime’s criminality has been exposed. And sadly, no regime’s accountability has also been delayed as its accountability has been. Its failure has been proven – and by its own hand par excellence – as it alone is responsible for turning Syria into a “failed state”. Surely the time must have come to rid the world of this epidemic.
“America and its ally Israel turned a blind eye to the interference of Hezbollah and Iran, and later Russia, which facilitated the survival of the Assad regime”
Even America, which was historically keen on protecting the regime for its services, was portrayed by its propaganda to have been behind the “global conspiracy” against it. In fact, the US did not ask the regime to do anything more than “change its behavior.” The Obama administration, for example, was the one that controlled the global reaction to the Assad regime’s chemical crime; and it sufficed itself with confiscating the regime’s chemical arsenal and keeping the perpetrator free. America and its ally Israel turned a blind eye to the interference of Hezbollah and Iran, and later Russia, which facilitated the survival of the Assad regime. Later they implicitly encouraged the Arab League’s attempts to bring him back into its ranks and normalize relations with it.
In the face of all of this, and in order to continue its false bickering and narrative of hostility towards America, the regime continued on its brutal path of death and destruction with arrogance, schizophrenia, and stubbornness. Instead of benefiting from all of the opportunities it was given, it pretentiously chose to close the door on itself and on Syria. The Assad regime disappointed the hopes of everyone who believed it capable of doing better by keeping itself as a tool that had long been useful for those with devious intentions, by taking hostages and freeing them, using terrorists, and destabilizing the security of the region.
“the Arab League reversed its previous rightful decision to boycott the Assad regime, seeking to contain it and recycle it, thus betraying, abandoning, and wounding millions of bereaved, displaced, and detained Syrians whose lives have been needlessly ruined”
Disappointing Russia took another format despite its being the primary party responsible for its remaining in power. Russia protected it politically by holding the UN Security Council hostage to its “vetoes,” and militarily by destroying Syria as well as killing and displacing its people. The mouthpieces of the Assad regime undermined its interventions on its behalf by claiming that Putin was taking advantage of the opportunity to expand towards the warm waters of the Mediterranean and to return to the international political arena. The regime also rejected all of Putin’s efforts to recycle it when he tried bringing it back into the Arab League as well as when Russia exerted an effort to normalize relations between Syria and Turkey. However, Assad, in cooperation with Iranian actions and plans for alienation, closed all doors, depriving the Russians of any political reap as compensation for their criminal actions in Syria.
As for its role in this sordid drama, the Arab League reversed its previous rightful decision to boycott the Assad regime, seeking to contain it and recycle it, thus betraying, abandoning, and wounding millions of bereaved, displaced, and detained Syrians whose lives have been needlessly ruined. Instead of supporting the victims of the regime, those Arabs manufactured all sorts of pretexts to bring Assad back into their ranks; but he slammed the door in their face, because of his detachment from reality, his arrogance, and his stupidity.
The main beneficiaries of the failure of the Assad regime, and the betrayal with which it faced all those who tried to save it, are the mullahs of Tehran whose ultimate goal is an existential threat to the region. They realized that the more they distance the regime from its saviors, the more obedient of a tool it is going to be. As much as Assad pretends to be in charge, the Iranians have successfully furthered their own agenda by intimidating and terrorizing him by way of their control of his personal security.
But the final nail in the regime’s coffin was its failure to manage what remained of Syria when it mortgaged Syria’s wealth and resources to protect its seat of power. Along with its entourage, the regime became dependent on the production and distribution of Captagon as an economic crutch for its survival. Thus was his greatest disappointment and miserable failure towards what he considered to be his tribe of loyalists from various sects. A minute percentage of people live aristocratically while the majority have been living in poverty, humiliation, fear, and loss of hope.
“The voice coming from Sweida is just another translation of the root of the Syrian confrontation with the Assad junta, and the protesters’ stand is nothing but a continuation and extension of the cry of the Syrians in 2011”
Add to that the wounds of grief for the souls of those who lost their lives as a price for Assad’s throne. He failed to achieve what he falsely considered to be his “homogeneous society” and his promise that what remained of Syria would be better for all of those who stood with him when his war against the people was over. Those who remain in Syria are now bitterly disappointed as they have come to realize that they had been taken hostage, and an entrenched hostility was deliberately created between them and their deeply harmed fellow citizens. The sectarian rift that the regime has systematically worked on for a long time, has deepened.
The regime’s inner circle and other minorities which it claimed to protect, have realized how fake its narrative has been. These minorities are now demanding its departure. The voice coming from Sweida is just another translation of the root of the Syrian confrontation with the Assad junta, and the protesters’ stand is nothing but a continuation and extension of the cry of the Syrians in 2011. These minorities are defeating the Assad regime morally and politically and those who have been watching and supporting them from outside of Syria have had their hope renewed, but have also been waiting with some trepidation to see what Assad’s response will be.
In the past few days, Assad ordered Baath Party officials in Sweida to take back the party’s branch headquarters from which they had been evicted after the protests began. No deaths have occurred yet but three protesters were wounded when security forces for the headquarters fired upon them. In spite of the possibility of more violence to come, the people of Sweida continue undaunted with their demands for the fall of the regime and its Ba’ath Party as they have come to realize that it is their only hope for a decent life in Syria.
