In what seemed like an endless war, B. Al-Assad was deposed from the presidency of Syria on the 8th of December by the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, led by Abu Mohammed. Immediately after the tyrant’s fall, the world was flooded with optimism, as many leaders viewed this as a triumph of good over evil and a way to overcome years of suffering at the hands of Assad.

French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the development by stating, “The barbaric regime has fallen. At last.”

The German Chancellor was even more emphatic in his rebuke of Assad and welcomed the power shift, calling the overthrow “good news.” For his part, Joe Biden remarked, “The fall of the regime is a fundamental act of justice. It’s a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria to build a better future for their proud country.”

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres, while thankful that Assad was gone, expressed a desire for the people of Syria to determine their own destiny. He further stated, “After 14 years of brutal war and the fall of the dictatorial regime, today the people of Syria can seize a historic opportunity to build a stable and peaceful future.”

Civil society leaders also commented on Assad’s fall. Human Rights Watch’s Middle East Director, Lama Fakih, called it an unprecedented opportunity to chart a new future based on justice, accountability, and respect for human rights. Meanwhile, Matthias Boehning, the Secretary General of the International Society for Human Rights, expressed jubilation, stating that the world now has one dictator less. However, he also underscored the precarious situation in Syria, which remains vulnerable to extremists.

While leaders have expressed relief that Assad is gone, they remain concerned about what might follow in a country that has been devastated by over a decade of war and decades of misrule by the Assad dynasty. Following the 2011 uprising, which Assad brutally suppressed, numerous rebel groups opposed to the regime emerged, many of which were supported by foreign powers. Reports indicate that there are over 100 militant groups, demonstrating how fragmented Syria has been for a long time.

Although most of these rebel groups shared a common goal of deposing the Assad government, they are motivated by varying and often conflicting interests and ideologies. For example, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by the United States, control parts of northern and eastern Syria and have been fighting against the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA). Turkey considers the SDF a terrorist group that threatens its national security due to the proximity of their territory to the Turkish-Syrian border. In response, Turkey has continupusly equipped the SNA to combat the SDF.

The SNA operates in northern Syria and was originally motivated to topple the Assad regime and combat Islamic extremists; they have consequently clashed with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the group that led the offensive to capture Damascus. Another potentially consequential group that may re-emerge is the Islamic State (IS) militants, who were defeated in 2019 in Iraq and Syria by coalitions of forces. With possible tensions between leading groups, there is a risk for IS to reorganize, further plunging Syria into chaos. The Islamic State jihadists emerged in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein and were affiliated with Al-Qaeda. Numerous other rebel groups operate across the country, each having fundamental differences with the major factions that captured Syria’s major cities. These differences pose a significant challenge to establishing a stable, consolidated government and could hinder the stability of Syria and the broader region.

Although Abu Mohammed, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has expressed a willingness to collaborate with other rebel groups to form a unified government and is open to the prospect of a democratic system, it remains uncertain whether these glaring differences can be resolved to silence the guns in Syria. As history has shown in Libya, Iraq, Sudan, and other countries previously under despotic rule, tyrants do not fall alone; they often take their nations down with them. The destruction wrought during their regimes becomes even more apparent after their removal. Syrians, who have endured years of oppression and misrule, deserve a stable state now more than ever. While Syrians have the responsibility to shape their own destiny, the global community has an obligation to ensure that the fall of Assad does not lead to a failed state, as has happened in other nations after the demise of despots.

Alex Martin Musiime