Collapse of the Assad Regime: From Corruption to Crumbling in Less Than Two Weeks
In the end, the Assad regime proved so hollow, corrupt, and decayed that it crumbled in less than two weeks.
Everyone I’ve spoken to has expressed astonishment at how quickly the regime turned to dust.
In the spring of 2011, during the Arab uprisings, Syria seemed different. Syrians sought to capture some of the revolutionary energy that had toppled the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt, and was now threatening the long-standing strongmen of Libya and Yemen.
By 2011, the regime established by Hafez al-Assad and passed to his son Bashar upon his death in 2000 was already deeply corrupt and decaying.
But the system Hafez built still retained much of the brutal, ruthless force that he believed was essential to control Syria. Assad senior had seized power in a country prone to coups, and he handed it to his son without significant opposition.
In 2011, Bashar al-Assad tried to follow his father’s playbook.
It seems unimaginable now, but at that time, he still held more legitimacy among some of Syria’s population than the old dictators who were toppled by the crowds chanting the slogan of that year: “The people want the fall of the regime.”
Bashar al-Assad had been a vocal supporter of the Palestinians and Hezbollah during its successful fight against Israel in the 2006 Lebanon war. He was younger than the soon-to-be-deposed Arab leaders, and since his father’s death, he had been promising reforms. Some Syrians still wanted to believe him in 2011, hoping that the demonstrations would provide the push he needed to implement the change he had promised, until he ordered his forces to open fire on peaceful demonstrators in the streets.
A British ambassador in Syria once told me that the best way to understand the Assad regime was to watch Mafia films like The Godfather. The loyal could be rewarded. But anyone who went against the head of the family or his closest associates would be eliminated. In Syria’s case, this could mean execution, a firing squad, or endless imprisonment in an underground cell.
Now, we’re seeing those who survived, emaciated and pale, blinking into the light, filmed on the mobile phones of rebel fighters who have freed thousands of them from years behind bars.
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