What does the fall of the bloody Assad regime mean? Interview with a Syrian socialist

International

Syrian socialist Ghayath Naisse told Arthur Townend that the fall of Bashar al-Assad opened possibilities for a return to fighting from below.

Syria’s bloody dictator Bashar al-Assad fled the capital Damascus on Sunday (Photo: Wikimedia/Creative Commons)

After decades of bloody and repressive dictatorship in Syria, the Assad regime has fallen. Bashar al-Assad, who has ruled the country since his father’s death in 2000, fled the capital, Damascus, on Sunday morning.

Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), an armed Islamist group, launched a lightning offensive against the Assad regime ten days ago. After attacking the northern city of Aleppo, the HTS advanced south toward Damascus.

It reignited the long civil war, in which Assad drowned in blood through a popular revolution in 2011 and Rival imperial powers intervene in the country..

Syrian socialist Ghayath Naisse told Socialist Worker that Assad’s fall “is a great moment in Syrian history.” “There are many opportunities and many dangers,” he explained. “It has been a great joy to see this event after all this time and all this struggle.

“There is joy because we no longer have this Assad regime, that authoritarian and bloody dictatorship. But, along with this joy, we have some fears because the agent of change is not who we want him to be. “There is a lot of fear about HTS and what it is.”

The “agent of change” – the HTS group led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani – overthrew Assad with Turkish backing. It did not fall through massive popular mobilizations.

The Turkish regime of Recep Erdogan backed the HTS offensive to weaken the Assad regime and gain more regional influence. This was both for economic interests and so that Erdogan could further attack the Kurds in Syria and Türkiye who are demanding their rights.

But HTS was able to overthrow the Assad regime with shocking force, exposing the hollowness of Assad’s government. Ghayath said it is essential to understand the context and why the Assad regime fell so quickly.

He said: “First of all, everyone in Syria is very tired, including the regime, after years of civil war. The situation is very degraded: the economy worsens every year and the regime cannot offer the minimum necessities to the people. So Assad had no real social base in Syria.”

“Second, the main powers that support Assad – Russia and Iran – are weakened.” He explained that “because Russia is occupied in Ukraine, it cannot help Assad as it did” in 2015, when it intervened to rescue the regime.

“Iran is not doing very well either,” he added. “The war in Gaza and Lebanon has greatly weakened Iranian influence in the region. So today we see regional powers letting the Assad regime fall because they cannot help.”

The civil war saw rival imperialist and regional powers intervene in Syria, including the United States, Russia, Iran and Türkiye.

Ghayath, who previously described Syria as a crucible of imperialist rivalries, argued that tensions between different powers would rise. “The fall of the regime has many consequences at a geopolitical level,” he explained.

“Israel, Türkiye, the United States and Russia will want a transition program that includes them.

“This is not what the people of Syria need, and many will oppose what HTS will do and the agreements it will make.”

Some argue that HTS continues the legacy of the Syrian Revolution of 2011. Anger over years of poverty and dictatorship led to mass protests, and in March 2011, huge forces fought against state repression.

But in response, Assad launched a brutal, sectarian civil war in an attempt to drown the revolution in blood. Their war was designed to make mass struggle impossible. Rival imperial powers used it as pretext to intervene.

Ghayath said that HTS is not continuing the people’s revolution. “HTS does not have a social base in Syria,” he explained. “It recruits among the most desperate people, but it is not a popular organization.”

But Ghayath argued that the overthrow of Assad meant there was a chance for ordinary Syrians to organize struggles from below. “We oppose the HTS, but it still opens the doors to social and political struggle, and this is the most important aspect,” he said.

“Today, the HTS are not the sole masters of Syria’s destiny. People can mobilize in this period now. The fall of the Assad regime has opened horizons for the Syrian people to fight again and reject the reproduction of another authoritarian regime.”

It is the possibility of such struggles from below “for democratic objectives and to achieve the political and social needs of the people” that offers hope in Syria.