It has been an extraordinary week in the news – a dramatic shifting of global alliances and a stunning movement of tectonic plates in the geopolitics of the Middle East which caused the sudden cratering of a despotic regime in Syria after a half century of brutality and cruelty over its people.
Russia and Iran, which both supported the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad as a client state, are structurally weakened after Assad was toppled and the streets of Damascus erupted in flashes of joy and sparks of hope amid the smoke from the ruins of a country in disarray. The United States along with Syria’s neighbors, Turkey and Israel, were widely considered to be bound more closely together by all that is unfolding at a rapid and chaotic pace. It is truly history in the making, and I want to dive in on what it might mean for the region and the world.
We are in many ways on a hinge of history which in too many places is swinging in the direction of autocracy fueled by misinformation and disinformation and in some places like Syria it can also suddenly swing the other way toward freedom from tyranny and oppression.
Bashar, who last weekend fled to Russia, and, before him, his father Hafez al Assad ruled through a half century of brutality, fear and corruption. Russia had long propped up the Assad dynasty for decades as Bashar bombed and gassed his own people and locked up any who dared to voice dissent in a labyrinth of dark prisons. This was all in exchange for Russia to exert regional power and to secure crucial shipping access to the Mediterranean.
Iran, also a backer of Assad, was knocked on the backfoot by the stunning developments in the region as its Shiite crescent of power through proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Shia dominated government in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen all was suddenly waning. Iran’s long-running support of Hamas in Gaza is expected to falter as the pipeline of military and economic support would now be made more difficult without the reliable base of neighboring Syria.
The United States and Israel along with the majority Sunni countries of Turkey and Saudi Arabia are likely to see their geopolitical power strengthened by these developments. President Joe Biden says the U.S. government believes missing American journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared 12 years ago near the Syrian capital, is alive and Washington is committed to bringing him home.
The news that Tice may be alive is an extraordinary turn in a long and tragic story of how the Syrian regime and the Islamist opposition have both taken hostage, tortured and killed journalists, including James Foley who was murdered by ISIS in 2014. Tice was believed to be held by the Syrian regime and the opposition has offered to help locate him amid the chaos of the prisons being emptied amid the collapsing government.
To see Tice freed after all these years would be a hopeful and poignant moment, but it would occur amid the chaos of a fractured and unpredictable opposition that includes disparate elements led by a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist movement under Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS.) This opposition coalition includes strands defectors from the military as well as fighters from Druze, Kurdish and Christian as well as disaffected Alawite backgrounds. There are elements that are religious and others that are secular. They are all loosely tied together in an anti-regime coalition that could easily fray and then snap into chaos and plunge back into civil war.
But these threads of opposition can also be tied together in a hope for democracy. And, at least for this brief moment in time, it is worth noting that history swung in the right direction – away from the tyranny of a dictatorship and in the direction toward a new, democratic future perhaps, or at self determination for the Syria people. Now Syria and the world just have to be sure that door does not swing back again to hit us on the backside on the way out.
———————————————————
We have big news of our own to share this week. The GroundTruth Project is pleased to announce a major multi-year gift from our loyal supporter, the Knight Foundation. This investment – $20 million over seven years – will allow us to further expand our Report for America service program. This not only provides career-making opportunities for the next generation of journalists but helps transform local newsrooms in the direction of financial sustainability and shape the future of trusted, local news which we believe is the foundation of a functioning democracy.
We’re proud to see the vision of The GroundTruth Project flourishing, a movement to rebuild local journalism from the ground up globally and locally through both our flagship Report for America program and its sister program Report for the World. It’s good news for sure, but we will need to keep up on our efforts to increase our community of followers and sponsors and now is the right time to consider giving to GroundTruth so we can build upon the generosity of this grant.
Never has it been more urgent to support journalism in America and around the world.
The post After 50 years of dictatorship, Syria can hope for democracy appeared first on The GroundTruth Project.
from The GroundTruth Project https://ift.tt/IfYwRqQ
https://ift.tt/RloYki0
No comments:
Post a Comment