[News] Bashar Al-Assad gone

[beorhthelm]

Maybe the Turkish influence will be a moderating force? Or at least a more benign one than Iran and Russia

seems to be so far. one report today said the rebels contacted the Prime Minister to say to stay in place along with government officials to keep everything running. another earlier in the week said Syrian police had sided with the rebels in towns they captured. this is not the same as we saw in previous arab country coups with almost immediate collapse of everything. looks a bit more moderate, controlled and even planned.

 

[Brovion]

Similar to Hussein in Iraq.

But is it best to go from one person/family/regime killing and torturing lots of people to dozens of sects/families/factions/foreign governments killing and torturing each other?

Sadly, this seems like a frying-pan-into-the-fire scenario whilst Assad lords it up in Moscow instead of taking the bullet he deserves.

I think sadly you are right. Assad's gone, and barring his fellow members of the Evil Dictators and Despicable Regimes club everyone else thinks this is positive news .... but who or what will replace him? This isn't the 50s or 60s anymore when revolutionaires were almost always Communist/Socialist who wanted equality and wanted to establish democratic peoples' republics, this lot appear to be more in the mould of the Taliban.

As usual I'm going to hope for the best that Syria will become a decent, democratic state - but if it is going to be run by a group of misogynists from the 12th century I fear the worst.

 

[Jackthelad]

History repeats itself. We will see loads of propaganda of “moderate rebels” we had this all before. We will even see some kind of voting to look like democracy. Iraq, Afghanistan are the blueprint and the truth slowly trickles out and then chaos. I guess the best we can hope for is 5 years relative stability but I doubt it would be stable for the people who live there,even if the west portrays it as such.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

History repeats itself. We will see loads of propaganda of “moderate rebels” we had this all before. We will even see some kind of voting to look like democracy. Iraq, Afghanistan are the blueprint and the truth slowly trickles out and then chaos. I guess the best we can hope for is 5 years relative stability but I doubt it would be stable for the people who live there,even if the west portrays it as such.

Or maybe they'll fully embrace their Arab Spring after the last uprising was so viciously quashed by Assad

 

[rippleman]

What, and leave a power vacuum for ISIS or another al-Qaeda group to reassert itself? For Syria to be ground zero for another proxy war between Russia and the US?

The most likely (interim) replacement for Al-Assad is Abu Mohammed al-Julani, the ex-Al-Qaeda terrorist, now head of the HTS, (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) and a designated terrorist organisation by the US.

Not good for Israel.
Not good for the US or UK.
Not good for the already desperate refugee situation in the Middle East.
Not good for Europe as another major upheaval in Syria could mean another mass movement of Syrian refugees towards Europe.

But VERY good for the thousands imprisoned without trial and tortured (including women and children) who have now been released.

Tears of joy and sadness as ‘disappeared’ Syrians emerge from Assad’s prisons

Men, women and children, many jailed for speaking out against regime, reunite with their families

www.theguardian.com

 

[Pavilionaire]

And it’s started - as I feared - the power grabbers (which includes in a ‘benign’ sense, Israel and the US) moving into the vacuum left by Al-Assad to stop a resurgence of ISIS.

US carrying out mass attacks on Islamic State in Syria.

U.S. launches mass airstrikes against targets in Syria

Multiple U.S. Air Force assets, including B-52 bombers, F-15 fighter jets, and A-10 attack aircraft, hit 75 Islamic State targets in Syria in a massive round of strikes.

ukdefencejournal.org.uk

I think a picture is building that the US were behind the collapse of Assad’s regime by backing the rebels as they did in the civil war - there is no way this has all happened out of the blue in the past 48 hours

The West are mindful Assad used chemical weapons on his people so do not want these sorts of weapons, as well as military ordnance and missiles, falling into the hands of terrorists to be used against Israel.

This hasn't all happened in 48 hours. It's got big news coverage today and over the weekend but this has been building for several weeks. The fact that Russia is distracted on the Ukrainian front is very significant.

 

[astralavi]

AI Christopher Hitchens take

 

[Zeberdi]

But VERY good for the thousands imprisoned without trial and tortured (including women and children) who have now been released.

Tears of joy and sadness as ‘disappeared’ Syrians emerge from Assad’s prisons

Men, women and children, many jailed for speaking out against regime, reunite with their families

www.theguardian.com

-My first post said it was good news that Assad has gone so there’s no need to push back here, it is what might come after that some people don’t seem to understand that could be worse. Hatred and division amongst the many different factions in Syria remain deep and the rebels that have toppled Assad have their own terrible record of terrorism and human rights abuses and those thousands you talk about still face a real risk of abuse by the new rebel leaders.

If the sunni interim Government can unite the Country then it will indeed be good news but if not, dangerous power vacuums will open. I hope after the US and Israel have finish bombing IS sites in Syria, it won”t radicalise the sunni population even further and turn Syria toward being a radicalised Islamic regime. If it succeeds to become a democratic and inclusive Country then it will be a ‘triumph of hope over experience’.

 

[knocky1]

What, and leave a power vacuum for ISIS or another al-Qaeda group to reassert itself? For Syria to be ground zero for another proxy war between Russia and the US?

The most likely (interim) replacement for Al-Assad is Abu Mohammed al-Julani, the ex-Al-Qaeda terrorist, now head of the HTS, (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) and a designated terrorist organisation by the US.

Not good for Israel.
Not good for the US or UK.
Not good for the already desperate refugee situation in the Middle East.
Not good for Europe as another major upheaval in Syria could mean another mass movement of Syrian refugees towards Europe.

It will matter to Israel

You seem to be missing some vital background knowledge -

All Islamic extremist terrorist groups in the Middle East share a fundamental jihadist ideology -

They differ on cultural and sectarian grounds but they all have an existentialist, fundamentalist approach to Israel. It doesn’t matter whether they are Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Houtis, Palestine Jihadists or ISIS etc

Yemen is a good example of extremist groups exploiting a civil war:

AQAP, ISIS-Yemen, and Iran-backed terrorist groups such as Hizballah and the IRGC-QF continue to exploit the political and security vacuum created by the ongoing conflict between the Republic of Yemen government under the leadership of President Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi and Houthi militants, as well as the ongoing south-south conflict between the Republic of Yemen government and the Southern Transitional Council (STC) - exactly the same pandora scenario will happen in Syria in the political vacuum left by al-Assad.

Iran is a State Sponsor of Terrorism throughout the ME not just Hezbollah:

Supporting Hizballah, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and various terrorist and militant groups in Iraq, Syria, Bahrain, and elsewhere throughout the Middle East. Iran uses the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) to provide support to terrorist organizations, provide cover for associated covert operations, and create instability in the region. Iran has acknowledged the involvement of the IRGC-QF in the Iraq and Syria conflicts, and the IRGC-QF is Iran’s primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorist activity abroad.

Antisemitism is a core part of fundamental Islamic ideology and Iran backs a plethora of terrorist groups with that ideology not just Hizbollah.

Iran also backs Russia and China who both have influence and stakes in Syria - Russia was already involved in bombing rebels to prop up the Assad regime - US and Russia will be heavily involved in what happens next.

 

[knocky1]

Read your posts again and tell me the relevance chameleon. Let others state their opinions.

 

[abc]

I think the world will be thankful that Israel have taken out weapon silos etc now rather than waiting to see whether Syria becomes another terrorist run state and we all try and react when it’s too late.

 

[wellquickwoody]

Destroying chemical weapon stockpiles and any nuclear ‘equipment‘ makes perfect sense. Taking the chance to destroy the navy is just sheer opportunistic aggression, along with issuing threats about who Syria should be friends with.

Yep, normal Israeli behaviour resumed.

 

[Man of Harveys]

This is quite astonishing, apologies if it’s been posted before. Whatever happens there next, you do also get moments like this.