On Saturday, the rebel factions that have been fighting against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad for over a decade took Damascus. Assad fled the country with instructions to those he left behind to facilitate a peaceful transfer of power to the conquerors.

Who is Assad?

Bashar al-Assad was a younger brother and not supposed to take over. However, his older brother died in a car accident, leaving him as the unlikely successor to his father’s bloody regime. Bashar took the reins from his father, Hafez al-Assad, in 2000. Some observers hoped the younger Assad would be a more moderate and less brutal dictator. All his people knew of him was that he was a doctor who specialized in ophthalmology. Sadly, hopes were dashed fairly quickly. According to The Free Press, “During his rule, Assad presided over the slaughter of nearly 3 percent of the country’s population — his own forces have killed, by some estimates, more than 600,000 civilians during the country’s civil war, which has displaced more than 13 million people since 2011.”

The Syrian civil war began during President Barack Obama’s tenure. As Western leaders vacillated over whether or not to get involved, Obama declared that Assad using chemical weapons on his own people would be crossing a “red line,” at which point the U.S. would intervene. Assad did use chemical weapons on his own people, and Obama did not intervene.

Instead, Obama invited the Russians to oversee the ending of the Syrian civil war. Naturally, President Vladimir Putin propped up Assad, and the Russians supplied weapons and money to the regime in exchange for a naval and air base in Syria.

Assad also made up part of the unholy alliance of Iranian aggression in the region. Syria was one of the many tentacles Iran used to threaten rival countries such as Israel and Saudi Arabia. Assad happily allowed the Iranian ayatollahs to ship weapons to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah, in return, sent fighters to help keep Assad in power.

Though Russia and Iran continued to fund the Assad regime, the civil war continued, ultimately culminating in the quick collapse of the dictatorship this past weekend.

Assad fled to Russia with his family and received political asylum in Moscow.

Who is the rebel leader who took over?

Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, leader of the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is the product of both al-Qaida and ISIS.

Al-Qaida has taken away women’s right to speak. Women are not even allowed to be heard outside their homes. Al-Qaida has also forbidden women from getting an education beyond the sixth grade. Additionally, women cannot become midwives and are barred from seeing male doctors. Where are the feminists screaming about these women’s reproductive health?

Al-Jolani has a $10 million bounty on his head from the U.S. government for his terrorist activities. That being said, he has declared that he is not interested in pursuing sectarianism that has led to oppressive theocratic regimes like Iran. Ostensibly, he is also not interested in kicking the U.S.-Israel hornet’s nest (at least not while a pro-Israel president is in power).

Who lost the most in this coup?

Iran and Russia are the biggest losers of this regime change. Assad being cast out of power is a direct result of Iran kicking the Israeli hornet’s nest. In response, Israel systematically took out Hamas and crippled Hezbollah, making Iran look weak and incompetent.

Russia’s not being able to protect an ally like Assad exposes how strapped it is with its own self-made problems (i.e., the war in Ukraine). It also presents a cautionary tale to other smaller countries about how Russia will treat them. This is not a good look for Russia and China’s coalition of anti-Americanism.

This same assessment was iterated by incoming National Security Advisor Michael Waltz: “We should not miss an opportunity to say, but for Israel’s leadership, Bebe Netanyahu’s strong actions that took out Hezbollah has put Iran on its back foot, has put them in a weakened position, coupled with Russia being bogged down in Ukraine. No one was there to come to the help of Assad like they had been in the past.”

Who were the winners?

The surprising answer is probably Turkey. The rebels were spurred on by Turkish interests, and Turkey is using the unrest to expand its territory and influence in the region. Turkey also hates the Syrian Kurds, so installing a leader like Abu Mohammad al-Jolani is much more in its own interests.

What does this mean for the people of Syria?

There is a very good chance that Syria will continue to be pulled apart by civil war. And even though al-Jolani has declared the opposite, the country is likely headed for another repressive Islamic regime.

As brutish and evil as Assad was to his people, he didn’t persecute religious minorities. In particular, Syrian Christians are facing uncertainty and great danger.

What implications does all this have for U.S. foreign policy?

Frankly, this coup has very little immediate impact on American foreign policy. It wasn’t a direct result of any maneuverings by President Joe Biden. If anything, it undermines Team Biden’s position of appeasement toward Iran. Syria isn’t an ally, and it probably will continue in that vein for the foreseeable future. The U.S. should not intervene. President-elect Donald Trump expressed much the same thing on social media.

Opposition fighters in Syria, in an unprecedented move, have totally taken over numerous cities, in a highly coordinated offensive, and are now on the outskirts of Damascus, obviously preparing to make a very big move toward taking out Assad. Russia, because they are so tied up…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2024