As jubilant Syrians celebrated the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad this week, dire warnings spread across Arab social media: that this joyous moment could lead to a bleak future.
The end of the Assad dynasty came at the hands of an armed Islamist group with former links to Al Qaeda, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, deepening anxiety even among Arabs well aware of the Assad regime's bloodstained record.
“The people who are optimistic about Syria’s future, haven’t they been with us for the past 14 years?” Ezzedine Fishir, an Egyptian political science professor at Dartmouth University in the United States, wrote on Facebook.
Another Egyptian user wrote on social media: “Isn’t what happened in Iraq and then the Arab uprisings (2011) enough to be terrifying about what is coming?”
In 2011, a wave of popular uprisings swept across the Arab world, toppling dictators in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia and igniting hopes for democratic government and economic prosperity – hopes that were later dashed by new authoritarian regimes or civil wars. The Syrian uprising began at the same time, but its government did not fall until 13 years later.
Zeina Erhaim, a Syrian journalist who moved to London in 2017, said that the warnings she received from Tunisian and Egyptian friends were “simplistic and did not take the Syrian context into account.” It is as if they are saying: These poor people are happy, but they do not know what awaits them.
“I'm a little optimistic,” she added. “We Syrians are more aware of our failures than we are of others. “I hope we can learn not only from the lessons of others, but also from our own experiences.”
For Syrians, this is a moment of intense hope, even if it is tinged with fear. Many Syrians feel the same sense of elation that others in the region felt when they were rid of their oppressors in 2011.
When Hosni Mubarak, the autocrat who ruled Egypt for 30 years, stepped down in 2011 after 18 days of peaceful protests, ecstatic crowds poured into Cairo's Tahrir Square, chanting: “Raise your head high, you are Egyptian.”
The Muslim Brotherhood then won the parliamentary elections, and in 2012, Mohamed Morsi, one of the group's leaders, was elected president by a narrow majority. His short rule alienated many, including pro-revolutionary groups. Secular parties, elites from the Mubarak era and a group of Egyptians alarmed by the rise of Islamists revolted against his rule.
This gave Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, then defense minister and current president, an opportunity to oust Morsi in a 2013 coup that received broad popular support. Since then, Egypt's democratic experiment has been curtailed, demonstrations have been banned and there is little room for dissent.
Hisham Qasim, an Egyptian publisher and critic of Sisi’s regime, said the transition failed because Islamists “were trying to exploit the situation, and the economy was not taken seriously.”
“The army was standing on the sidelines and was not really ready to give up power, but the failure was largely due to the poor performance of the political forces in the country,” he said.
After its uprising, Tunisia's nascent democracy survived for a decade, but collapsed when Kais Saied, the democratically elected populist president, shut down parliament in 2021, rewrote the constitution to concentrate power in his hands and began imprisoning critics.
The authoritarian shift was welcomed by Tunisians who were tired of chaotic politics, low living standards and ineffective government. In October, Saied won the last presidential election with 90 percent of the vote after the most credible of the two candidates allowed to run against him was imprisoned.
Olfa Lamloum, a professor of political science in Tunisia, said that the lesson learned from Tunisia is that “democratic freedoms cannot continue without the basics of a decent life.”
“The protests in the last 10 years by the unemployed and others have been about social and economic rights,” she said. “People should see that their lives are changing for the better.”
After the uprising in Libya that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the country was divided under two rival governments. They fought a civil war in 2019, in which Russia and regional powers armed and supported various sides.
Since then, rival ruling elites have settled into a dysfunctional coexistence, financing themselves by draining Libyan oil revenues.
Analysts said that the Syrian path is unlikely to follow the steps followed by the countries of the so-called “Arab Spring.” Its disintegration under different armed rebel groups, coupled with a mosaic of minorities, means the challenges will be different.
The collapse of the Assad regime also followed a 13-year civil war in which half a million people were killed, most of them at the hands of the regime, and millions became refugees.
Assad's ferocious suppression of peaceful demonstrations in 2011 turned the Syrian revolution into an armed uprising in which Islamist factions eventually became the most powerful groups. Assad called on foreign allies: first Iran and Iranian-backed militants including Hezbollah, then Russia, whose air forces bombed rebel-controlled areas.
After the fall of Assad, ISIS still has active cells in parts of Syria; US-backed Kurds have created an autonomous region in the northeast; Türkiye, which controls pockets of northern Syria, supports other rebels to keep Kurdish militants under control. Ankara considers the Syrian Kurdish militants an extension of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, which has been fighting the Turkish state for four decades.
Abu Muhammad al-Julani, the leader of the Sunni Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, has sought to recast himself as a moderate Islamist who would not trample on the rights of Syrian minorities, including Christians and Alawites who formed the bedrock of the Assad regime. The Assad family itself was Alawite, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
But he did not promise democracy and did not define a vision for the future, while the United States classified him and his group as terrorists.
Yassin Haj Saleh, a Syrian writer and political dissident who spent 16 years in prison, wrote on Facebook that “the new Syria” cannot be a country “ruled by an Islamist Sunni lion…” . . Where people remain followers without political rights and public freedoms, including freedom of religious belief.”
There are also fears that Al-Julani will fail to unify the country, leaving rebel groups fighting over the spoils of Assad's devastated state, reigniting conflict and attracting foreign intervention.
Paul Salem, vice president of the Middle East Institute in Washington, said that although Syria's future is likely to be “bumpy,” this is a positive sign that the Syrian state has not dissolved, unlike the Libyan state after the fall of Gaddafi.
“Also note that opposition forces protect all government offices and all public institutions. He said they were not attacking any of them.
Salem said Syria's neighbors, including Türkiye, “have no interest in having a failed state” on their doorstep. He added that while the presence of US-backed Kurdish militants and the autonomous Kurdish enclave could become a problem, it could be managed through “good diplomacy between Washington and Ankara.”
“Certainly removing a tyrant, while welcome and celebrated, is very different from actually moving on to something better,” Salem said.
But in the Syrian case (because of) the extreme evil of the Assad regime, you cannot blame the Syrians. He had to go.”
