Assad’s Government in Syria Has Fallen

This is my father’s Syrian ID card from 1955, noting that he was born in Pineville, Kentucky and working for the US Embassy in Damascus.

The day after my folks got married in Augusta, Kansas, they flew to Syria, which was my father’s first post. Other posts followed: Iran, Lebanon, Zimbabwe, Mali, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. My folks were brave. Dad would have been 96 on December 1st.

A little general background on Syria:

Syria had been under French control in the early 20th Century, but became independent in 1946, following World War II.  Political chaos followed, with 20 different cabinets and four separate constitutions between 1946 and 1956.

In November of 1956, as a direct result of the Suez Crisis, in which the British, French, and Israelis invaded Egypt in response to Egyptian President Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez Canal, Syria signed a pact with the Soviet Union, catapulting the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, founded in 1947, to the forefront of Syrian politics, where it has remained since.

In 1963 a Ba’th-led military coup established a one-party state. Syria has been a totalitarian Ba’athist party state since then, with the Ba'ath party controlling almost every aspect of daily life.  

In 1970, Ba’ath Minister of Defense Hafez al-Assad seized power in a bloodless military coup.  He and his son, Bashar al-Assad, have ruled Syria with an iron fist ever since.

Since 2011, a Syrian Civil War began has raged as a proxy battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for political and military influence in the region.  

The Syrian Civil war has killed over 500, 000 people, and forcibly displaced 14 million people, of which about 7 million are externally displaced outside of Syria’s borders, creating the largest refugee crisis in the world.

The Assad government has not fallen to democratic forces, but to fighters allied with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, once an off-shoot of Al-Qaeda, but now claiming to be an independent Sunni-led (read Saudi Arabian supported) organization.

We shall see what is next, but most Syrians are ecstatic — at least for the moment.