After more than a year of relentless conflict in the Middle East, the stunning capitulation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime will go down in the region’s history as one of its greatest shocks.
In just 12 days, rebels marched from the north and then the south to the heart of Damascus, capturing the capital and ending the Assads’ more than 50-year dynastical rule over the nation. In less than two weeks, they achieved what tens of thousands of armed opposition forces had failed to do in 13 horrendous years of civil war.
Moscow and Tehran, Assad’s main backers, were unable, or unwilling to stem the tide, both caught up in their own conflicts — Russia in Ukraine, Iran and its proxies in their 14-month conflict with Israel.
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