Fifty-four years after the military coup perpetrated by Hafez al-Assad, 24 years after his son Bashar succeeded him and 13 years after the beginning of the Syrian revolution, the fall of the Damascus regime is a historic event, both for Syria and for the region as a whole.

In 10 days, the Assadian system, once perceived as unshakable, imploded. A series of military setbacks inflicted by opposition forces in northern and central Syria triggered a wave of popular uprisings in the South and on the outskirts of Damascus. The fear suddenly changed sides. This reversal, both psychologically and on the ground, destabilized entire units of regime soldiers, often made up of poorly trained and ill-equipped conscripts, opening the way for armed opponents to penetrate the very heart of the capital.

The withdrawal of pro-Iranian Shiite militias and Lebanese Hezbollah from the Syrian fronts at the end of 2023, triggered by the war with Israel, combined with the reorientation of Russian military capabilities toward the war in Ukraine since 2022, deprived the Syrian regime of strategic military support. At the same time, Turkey's firm and growing support for the opposition in the North, both logistically and in terms of intelligence, considerably strengthened their positions.

While these external dynamics played an important role in the regime's collapse, they explain the situation only partly. Three internal factors complete the picture: the systemic corruption that has plagued the Syrian state apparatus, resulting in the squandering of its resources; the resilience and determination of the opposition forces, made up mainly of young internally displaced people dreaming of liberating their home towns and villages; and, finally, the weakness of the regime's social base, unable to provide significant support in the face of a majority of Syrians who seized this opportunity to hasten the end of an oppressive system.

Dismantling symbols

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