Rana B. Khoury is a professor of political science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who studies comparative and international politics, with a focus on the Middle East. Khoury, also an affiliate of the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the Illinois Global Institute, spoke with News Bureau business and law editor Phil Ciciora about what the future holds for Syria after more than a decade of civil war and more than five decades under rule by the Assad dynasty.
Were you surprised by how quickly the regime of former President Bashar Assad crumbled?
Yes, but I think everyone was surprised. I would even guess that the rebels were themselves a bit surprised at the speed with which the Assad regime fell. I think we can feel grateful that this happened with very little bloodshed after a war that took the lives of upwards of half a million Syrians. For this to transpire in an eight-day period after this long, drawn-out, brutal war — it was almost the best-case scenario.
There’s a crucial geopolitical context here when we think about why the Assad regime was so much weaker than any of us thought. Since the Oct. 7 attack, Israel has been waging war on the very groups that the Assad regime was allied with — Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran. Russia, another Assad ally, has been bogged down in its invasion of Ukraine.
Also, since 2019, there’s been a severe financial crisis in Syria, including broad and sweeping U.S. sanctions. The conflict in Syria had essentially been frozen since 2020, with localized ceasefires that were agreed on with Russia, Iran and Turkey. There was very little movement in those battle lines since then.
So to have this conflict suddenly heat up was somewhat surprising. In retrospect, though, it’s easy to see why, geopolitically speaking, this was an opportune moment for the rebels and why the Assad regime was particularly weak.
With the invasion of Ukraine, did Russia take its eye off the ball in Syria?
I think so. Russia has been deploying such large numbers to Ukraine, to the point that it is taking help from North Korea for troop reinforcements, that its attention was most likely diverted and its resources strained, even though it has had longstanding ties to Syria and the Assad regime since the Cold War.
There was also some tension between Russian president Vladimir Putin and Assad in recent years. Assad was very stubborn, and he didn’t concede on even the smallest of things. There have been times in recent years when Assad could’ve been a little more compliant than he was.
As more past atrocities come to light, will this cement Assad’s status as one of the more brutal dictators of the modern era?
Yes. Bashar Assad and his father before him were already known as being very brutal, and scholars and activists have been documenting and trying to raise awareness around the detainments, torture and disappearance of Syrian activists and citizens for decades. In my research, I was able to interview many who passed through those detention facilities. They were the people who got out. Many people weren’t so lucky.
There will be more that comes out showing just how brutal and dark Syrian governance was, and I think it will be that much more grim and disturbing. History will not be kind to the Assad regime.
It will also be a big task for the new governing authorities and the international community to deal with these very dark cases in ways that can give Syrians some sense of justice. And if that’s not addressed, I think we can easily see personal vengeance escalate into conflict in ways that would be detrimental to a peaceful transition.
What does the future look like for Syria?
If I’m thinking about this like a political scientist, I’ll say that there are reasons to be optimistic but also reasons not to get overly excited.
One of the predictors of the reoccurrence of civil war is if there’s been civil war in the past. Also, rural insurgencies, as opposed to nonviolent movements, are more likely to lead to authoritarian regimes down the line. Poor economic development and a region full of authoritarians — these are also factors poorly related to democratic outcomes.
If you accept those agreed upon findings, that gives us good reason to be cautious when it comes to Syria’s future. There’s also a lot of international intervention, a lot of instability and international aggression, frankly. I would love to live in a world where Syrians get to determine Syria’s future. I’m afraid we don’t live in that world.
There is also a lot of democratic backsliding happening around the world, including in Western countries that would normally contribute to democracy promotion processes.
Yet another reason to be pessimistic is that Syria has some big tensions along ethnic, regional and sectarian lines. It’s unclear, for example, how these new governing authorities will work with the Kurdish-led forces that control most of northeast Syria. I think some of these unresolved issues among these various rebel groups and governing authorities leave a lot of questions.
If I had a ledger and I was comparing reasons to be pessimistic versus reasons to be optimistic, I think the pessimistic side would be far longer. But I want to give credence to the optimistic side, where I nevertheless find myself. One reason to be optimistic is all of the civil organizations that have emerged and worked to better the lives of people in their communities and on behalf of their causes through the most brutal of wars. They are already bringing these experiences to the transition processes. Syrians are perseverant and have a strong will for a better future.
Will we end up with some form of democracy in Syria? I don’t know. Could we end up with a country that treats its citizens with dignity? That alone would be great progress.