Syria After Assad: Stability or Strife?
By Muhammad Abbas Azhar
The collapse of a dictator tends to produce short-lived excitement—a period when oppressed masses assume to dream of freedom. But as happened after Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, collapse of dictatorial regimes seems to plunge nations into chaos rather than freedom. Syria, still grappling with the wreckage of Bashar al-Assad’s fallen regime, is on precisely the same brink. But why do these regimes fall into chaos after the fall of the autocrats?
At their essence, dictatorships such as Assad’s are sustained by draining institutions of power, stoking sectarianism, and ruling through fear. The dictator and his cronies rule, and there are no institutions to carry on ruling when they leave. Assad’s Alawite-controlled security state in Syria defied the Sunni majority, and mismanaged cash and war-battered buildings and roads. Foreign powers—from Russia to regional rivals—seize these opportunities, turning post-dictator transitions into fields for their competitions. Societies robbed of public space in the years in between lack institutions to sift through rival visions, perpetuating revenge and retaliatory cycles.
Structural Defects of Authoritarian Regimes
Harsh regimes in Syria, Libya, and Iraq shared a deadly flaw: They stayed in power by destroying the organizations needed for a working state. By pulling power to the center, making splits worse, and wearing down good government, these dictatorships left societies poorly prepared to move toward stability once the strongman was gone.
Dictators such as Assad, Gaddafi, and Saddam Hussein joined the state with their rule, gathering power within a small circle of loyal followers. In Syria, the Assad family took all power through an Alawite-controlled security system. Groups like the military, courts, and office workers served the regime rather than the nation, leaving no neutral bodies to handle government after Assad’s removal. Similarly, Gaddafi’s Libya governed through random personal orders and tribal favors, without working government bodies. When he fell in 2011, the space was filled by fighting armed groups. In Iraq, Saddam’s Sunni Arab favor network fell apart after the U.S. attack, dissolving the bare bones of the state. These regimes, made to serve one man, could not outlive him.
Sectarian and Tribal Partisanship
Dictators employed identity as a tool of oppression, sowing seeds of division that persisted even after they had left power. Assad’s 12% Alawite minority dominated security and government employment in Syria, displacing the Sunni Arab majority. After Assad, religious grievances almost triggered waves of retaliation, as they did after 2003 Shia-Sunni riots in Iraq. Gaddafi in Libya manipulated tribalism, dividing eastern Cyrenaica against western Tripolitania. His fall let loose regional warlords and exported Iraq’s post-Saddam de-Baathification laws, displacing Sunnis from employment, fertile soil for ISIS. These regimes sowed seeds of division that flourished in violence after the death of the dictator.
Erosion of Independent Institutions
Dictators, step by step, dismantled groups that could oppose them. In Syria, the courts were seized, community groups smashed, and the military divided into loyal armed bands. Post-Assad, groups such as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have occupied the government vacuum. Libya and Iraq, also deprived of non-political office workers or professional armies, had power fall to armed groups. In Libya, militias and foreign fighters dismembered the state, and in Iraq, the absence of a unified military permitted religious armed groups and ISIS to become powerful. Without neutral groups, post-dictatorship societies fragment into rival territories.
Economic Mismanagement and Repression as Government
Authoritarian regimes put dealing in favors above getting things done, destabilizing budgets and teetering toward collapse. Assad’s sanctions- and war-exhausted economy dropped 90% of Syria into poverty. Assad’s patronage money scheme made pals fat but kept bridges, roads, and public institutions hungry. Sanctions and destroyed buildings get in the way of healing after Assad. Libya and Iraq, buying loyalty with oil money, did the same. Locations such as Libya’s oil fields were turned into battlefields, and Iraq’s oil-based economy was ruined by war and looting. Favor economies collapse when the favor-granter is dead, and the result is instability.
This regime governs by intimidation, not consent. Secret policies, arbitrary detentions, and state terror silence oppositions, destroying societies of trust or possibilities for reconciliations. Alawites and other minorities in Syria cling to armed militias, fearing retaliation from the Sunni majority. Tribes mobilize against rivals in Libya, and Iraq. Saddam’s decades in power created entrenched suspicions between communities. The culture of terrors persists beyond dictators, perpetuating cycles of revenge.
Foreign Actors Extend Turmoil
Assad was supported by Russia and Iran in Syria, while opposition forces were supported by Turkey, and Kurdish rebels by America. All have varying objectives and are a foreign intervention, so the states are divided among the powers. In Libya, NATO’s 2011 bombings toppled Gaddafi but neglected stabilizations, allowing warlords and foreign fighters like the Wagner Group to fill voids. In Iraq, U.S. dismantles Saddam’s regime but fails to rebuild institutions, empowering religious militias, and Iran-backed factions. These activities deepen divisions and turn political transitions into a zero-sum game.
Local powers seize power vacuums to cement influence. Turkey advances on Syrian northern fronts to push Kurdish separatists back, and Iran advances Shia militias into Iraq to counter Sunni rivals. Russia, after losing Syrian bases with Assad’s fall, advances into Libya by supporting warlord Khalifa Haftar and undermining UN peace efforts. These are symptomatic expressions of more profound trends: local rivalries escalated into great power proxy battlegrounds, hence instabilities.
Massacre Sparks Outrage
Decades of divide-and-rule authoritarianism fractures societies along ethnic and religious lines. Post-dictatorships, these divides erupt into outbreaks of violence. Sunni Arab majorities, once suppressed by Assad, now confronts HTS, an al-Qaeda-linked group. While HTS enforces orders, its rules terrorize minorities like Alawites and Christians, forcing them to flee their homes. Kurds in north, backed by U.S., seek autonomy, clashing with Turkey-backed rebels. These conflicts reflect a Syria shattered by sectarian policies. Total chaos.
The massacre of more than 1,000 Alawite civilians has sparked universal indignation, which led to global bodies and human rights groups universal condemnation.
The United Nations vehemently denounced the atrocity as a flagrant abuse of human rights and also urged an investigation. The perpetrators have witnessed gruesome testimonies of families attacked and murdered and homes razed in sustained raids. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has documented at least 1,111 deaths; however, experts estimated that the number must be higher. The victims have described the attacks as attempts to drive out Alawite communities in Tartus, Hama, and Latakia on sectarian grounds.
When tensions were escalating, the United States implored international courts to step in stating further violence would occur if they failed to do so. UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk described the killings as potential war crimes and once more urged the violent perpetrators to be punished. The European Union implored the attackers to be severely punished and asked that attacks against civilians not go unpunished.
Syria’s transitional government declined to comment on reports that regime militiamen and government soldiers loyal to the government have employed brutality. Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa urged restraint and vowed an investigation; his refusal to admit the government militiamen’s role has tainted the impartiality of this inquiry. His spokesman, Yasser Farhan, stated that no one would be exempt from the law, but not everyone is sure the law would be enforced without public trials.
At the same time, Alawite survivors are flowing out of their towns, a number of them fleeing to Russia’s Khmeimim Air Base in Latakia. The killings also widened sectarian divides and drove Syria’s tenuous provisional government further into crisis. As international pressure mounts, people inside and out of Syria hope that perpetrators are brought to justice or this horror will be the next on Syria’s roster of unpunished war crimes.
Syria’s Crossroads: Three Possible Futures
Syria, based on the past examples of Iraq and Libya, now has three possible futures. It’s hard to see a positive result for the Syrian people. Years of conflict and violence likely lay ahead.
Libya 2.0: Militia rule and fragmentation
Weak states empower militias. In Syria, Kurdish insurgents and HTS vying for control, in Libya, warlords and foreign fighters, in Iraq, religious militias and ISIS take advantage of the government gaps. They offer protection for loyalties, erode state controls, and perpetuate cycles of violence. When the government is weak, militias fill the power vacuums, they recruit locals by promising security, but fuel instabilities instead. This led to more chaos and less authority for the states, creating an unending loop of conflicts and fragmentation.
Syria’s government, in the grip of HTS, is unable to command its armed forces, and as Libya devolved into warlordism, Syria could follow this treacherous path as well. Turkey and Russia support rival factions and Kurdish autonomy eats away at central authority. Syria will be a patchwork of zones, each of them faithful to foreign sponsors with no single security force.
Iraq’s Odyssey: Sectarian Violence and the Return of ISIS
Sunni grievances and HTS’s Islamist agenda might fuel religious strife. Roughed up as it is, ISIS continues to smolder in Syria’s deserts, exploiting security weaknesses. Inaction to address Sunni displacement—e.g., after Saddam—can revive extremism. ISIS could step in to fill the void, provoking the type of international intervention that led President Trump to destroy the caliphate in his first term.
A Worse Case Scenario: Total Breakdown and Regional Spillover
Economic collapse, large-scale population displacement, and untrammeled foreign interference can balkanize Syria into ungoverned spaces, destabilizing other bordering states such as Lebanon and Jordan. Disintegration of the Syrian state would speed up refugee crises, solidify cross-border jihadists, and bring more foreign interference.
Lessons for Syria
To escape the destinies of Iraq and Libya, Syria needs to prioritize inclusive politics, demilitarization, and international cooperation above all else. Minority integrations and ex-regime professional personnel would cross religious divides, and demilitarization of the militias and professional reorganization of the security forces would reaffirm state controls. The international community needs to dismantle draconian sanctions, provide reconstruction aid, and bring proxy interventions to an end.
But time is of the essence. If the structural vulnerabilities—centralizing power, religious orthodoxies, and broken institutions—are not corrected, Syria will be worse than Libya and Iraq in ruins. The world must be taught these lessons, for the collapse of yet another state will not only ruin the Syrians but destabilize an already unstable region. Toppling a tyrant is not an end but a beginning—one that calls for wisdom, prudence, and desires for justice, not revenge.
