The Fall Of The Assad Dictatorship And Syria’s Uncertain Future

By Mel Gurtov\PeaceVoice They’re celebrating in the streets in Damascus. In a collapse as stunning and swift as that of the Soviet Union, the 24 years of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship has come to an end.  The Regime’s End Within the past year, Assad’s regime seemed to have recovered some legitimacy. The Arab League reinstated Syria’s membership last year, and Saudi Arabia in May announced the appointment of its first ambassador since severing ties with Damascus twelve years ago.& All the signs pointed to the Syrian army’s full control of nearly all of the country. The rebellion seems to have escaped the notice of numerous governments, but now they will have to pay attention to what it might mean for Middle East politics and strategic alignments. The rebellion against the regime originated in Syria’s civil war that began in 2011. That challenge to his rule, a chapter in the Arab Spring that also convulsed Tunisia and Egypt, led Assad to turn his regime into a police state, with tens of thousands of people jailed and many of them tortured. But the regime never fully secured the northwest of the country. In a matter of weeks, the rebel offensive captured the country’s...