Are the old regime and its remnants the main threat to Syria? Or is the main threat today that HTS and the regional and international forces supporting it are seeking to impose a new authoritarianism? And what are the chances of a mass democratic movement from below to push things in a different direction? In the first of a two-part article, which first appeared on the website Syria Untold, Syrian-Swiss socialist Joseph Daher explains what is at stake.
The fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime is part of the continuity of the revolutionary processes that began in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011. The overthrow of the Assad family regime, in power since 1970, is the accumulation of struggles waged since the popular uprising in March 2011. The military offensive led by armed opposition groups started in November 2024 marked its final blow a few weeks later in December.
Many questions are being raised around Syria’s future, and particularly on what are the main threats to the establishment of a democratic society. Some liberal and democratic commentators, intellectuals, activists have focused on the “feloul” or remnants of the ancient regime, particularly the security and military sectors, as the main threat today for the country. On social networks, mentions of an Egyptian scenario is often mentioned, regarding the Sisi led coup against the President Morsi, member of the Muslim Brotherhoods in July 2013.
On the other side, there are some sectors of commentators and democrats that are relatively uncritical — or not significantly critical — on the current HTS led administration. They generally give the Salafist group credentials for its management of the transitional phase.
What was the nature of the Assad regime?
First, it is important to analyse the nature of the regime which has fallen. The Assad family had established a despotic and patrimonial regime in Syria. This despotic and patrimonial regime was an absolute autocratic and hereditary power, which functioned through ownership of the state by a small group of individuals connected by family, tribal, sectarian and clientelist connections symbolized by the Presidential Palace led by Bashar al-Assad and its family.
The armed forces were dominated by a praetorian guard (a force whose allegiance goes to the rulers, not to the state) represented by the Fourth Brigade headed by Maher al-Assad, as is the case for economic means and the levers of administration. The Syrian regime developed a type of crony capitalism dominated by a small group of businessmen completely dependent on the Presidential Palace (Bashar al-Assad, Asma al-Assad and Maher Al-Assad), who exploited their dominant position guaranteed by this latter to amass considerable fortunes. The rentier nature of the economy strengthened the patrimonial nature of the state as well.
In other words, the centres of power (political, military and economy) within the Syrian regime were concentrated in one family and its clique, the Assad, similar to Libya under Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein in Iraq or the Gulf Monarchies. This drove the regime to use all the violence at its disposition to protect its rule.
The establishment of the modern patrimonial state started under the leadership of Hafez al-Assad following his arrival to power in 1970. He patiently built a state in which he could secure power through various means such as sectarianism, regionalism, tribalism and clientelism, which were managed on informal networks of power and patronage. This came alongside harsh repression against any form of dissent.
These tools allowed the regime to integrate, boost or undermine groups belonging to different ethnicities and religious sects. This was translated at the local level by the collaboration of various actors submitted to the regime, including state or Ba’ath officials, intelligence officers, and prominent members of local society (clerics, tribal members, businessmen, etc..), who managed specific localities. Hafez al-Assad also opened the way for the beginning of economic liberalization, in opposition to previous radical policies of the 1960s.
Bashar al-Assad’s arrival to power in 2000 considerably strengthened the patrimonial nature of the state with a particular increasing in the weight of crony capitalists. The accelerated neoliberal policies of the regime led to an increasing shift in the social base of the regime, constituted from its origins of peasants, government employees and some sections of the bourgeoisie, to a regime coalition with at its heart the crony capitalists – the rent seeking alliance of political brokers (led by Assad mother’s family, Makhlouf) and the regime-supporting bourgeoisie and higher middle classes.
This shift was paralleled by disempowerment of the traditional corporatist organizations of workers and peasants and their patronage networks and the co-optation in their place of business groups and higher middle classes. However, this did not balance or compensate for its former support base. More generally, the increased patrimonial nature of the state and the weakening of the Ba’ath party apparatus and corporatist organizations rendered cliental, tribal and sectarian connections all the more important and was therefore reflected in society.
Following the uprising in 2011, the regime’s repression and policies were largely based on its main base of support, old and new: crony capitalists, security services, and high religious institutions linked to the state. At the same time, it made use of its patronage networks through sectarian, clientelist and tribal links to mobilize on a popular level. Through the war, the deepening Alawi sectarian and clientelist aspect of the regime prevented major desertions, while patronage connections served as essential elements, binding the interests of disparate social groups to the regime.
The regime’s popular base demonstrated the nature of the state and the way the power elite related to the rest of society, or more precisely in this case its popular base, through a mix of modern and archaic forms of social relations, and not through a constructed and large civil society. The regime had to rely mostly on coercive powers, which included repressive actions and installing fear, but not only. The regime could also indeed count on the passivity or at least non-active opposition of large sections of urban government employees and more generally middle class strata in the two main cities of Damascus and Aleppo, although their suburbs were often hotbeds of revolt. This was part of the passive hegemony imposed by the regime.
Moreover, this situation demonstrated that the regime’s popular base was not limited to sectors and groups issued from the Alawi and/or religious minority populations, although they were predominant, but included personalities and groups from various sects and ethnicities pledging their support to the regime. More generally, large sections of regime’s popular base mobilized through sectarian, tribal and clientelist connections were increasingly acting as agents of regime repression.
This resilience came at a cost, in addition to increasing significantly its dependence on foreign states and actors. The regime’s existing characteristics and tendencies were amplified. A small group of crony capitalists considerably expanded their power as large sectors of Syria’s bourgeoisie had left the country massively withdrawing its political and financial support to the regime. This situation compelled the regime to adopt more and more predatory behaviour in its extraction of increasing needed revenues on the remaining business class in the country.
At the same time, the clientelist, sectarian, and tribal features of the regime were reinforced. The regime’s sectarian Alawite identity was strengthened, especially in key institutions such as the army and to a lesser extent in state administrations. But at the same time, among the Alawite population, frustrations have been growing in these past few years because of the continuous impoverishment of the society and exactions of regime’s militias against them as well.
More generally, this is why seeing the regime as solely Alawite, notwithstanding the alawitization of some institutions, especially its armed repressive apparatus, does not grasp its dynamics of power and ruling system. Furthermore, the regime does not serve the political and socio-economic interests of the Alawite population as a whole, quite on the contrary. The rising death toll in the army and other militias was made up of many Alawis; insecurity and growing economic hardships have actually created tensions and fuelled animosities against regime officials among Alawite populations.
Seeing the regime as solely Alawite, notwithstanding the alawitization of some institutions, especially its armed repressive apparatus, does not grasp its dynamics of power and ruling system.
The fall of the regime proved its structural weakness, militarily, economically, and politically. It collapsed like a house of cards. This is hardly surprising because it seemed clear that the soldiers were not going to fight for the Assad regime, given their poor wages and conditions. They preferred to flee or just not fight rather than defend a regime for which they have very little sympathy, especially because a lot of them had been forcefully conscripted.
The regime’s dependence on its foreign allies had become crucial for its survival, demonstrating its weakness. Russia, Assad’s key international sponsor, has diverted its forces and resources to its imperialist war against Ukraine. As a result, its involvement in Syria has been significantly more limited than in similar military operations in previous years. Its other two key allies, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran, have been dramatically weakened by Israel since October 7, 2023. Tel Aviv has carried out assassinations of Hezbollah’s leadership, including Hassan Nasrallah, decimated its cadre with the pager attacks, and bombed its forces in Lebanon. Hezbollah is definitely facing its greatest challenge since its foundation. Israel has also launched waves of strikes against Iran, exposing its vulnerabilities. It has also increased bombing of Iranian and Hezbollah positions in Syria in the past few months.
With its main backers preoccupied and weakened, Assad’s dictatorship was in a vulnerable position. Because of all its structural weaknesses, lack of support from the population it rules, unreliability of its own troops, and without international and regional support, it proved unable to withstand the rebel forces advances and in city after city and its rule over them has collapsed like a house of cards.
In this context, we can say that the Presidential Palace is dead politically. Assad’s family has left the country, the fourth brigade led by Maher al-Assad does not exist anymore as an organized military unit and what was left of its key networks of power, whether crony-capitalists, religious, tribal, etc. have become irrelevant and reduced to a small number of individuals with no power. Meanwhile, some tribal chiefs, religious leaders and economic chambers have just changed their loyalty to the new ruling authorities, symbolized by their adoption of the new Syrian flag.
Return of the old regime?
In this perspective, is the model of the Egyptian coup d’état a potential in Syria? Is the Assad regime and its remnants the main threat for Syria? I believe this is a problematic analysis. They are two main, interconnected, reasons: the difference of the regime’s nature and a threat can’t be reduced to individuals but structures of powers.
Contrary to Syria, the initial fall of the dictator Hosni Mubarak did not mean the end of the Egyptian regime. In the case of Egypt, the political system was closer to a form of neo-patrimonialism. Nepotism and cronyism were present in the Egyptian regime through the Mubarak family and are still present today with the current regime headed by Sisi. In other words, an institutionalized authoritarian, republican system with a greater or lesser degree of state autonomy from the rulers, who were liable to be replaced.
Indeed, in the Egyptian state, the armed forces constitute the central institution of political rule and power. No family owns the state to the point of making of it whatever its members wish, such as in the case of the Syrian regime under the Assad family. The Egyptian state is instead dominated collegially by the military high command. This explains why the military ended up getting rid of Mubarak and his entourage in order to safeguard the regime in 2011. Gamal Mubarak and his cronies were kicked out of the ruling coalition and the networks of the former ruling party, the National Democratic Party, and the power of the Interior Ministry were weakened in relation to the Armed Forces.
Similarly, even with the arrival to power of the Muslim Brotherhood with the election of Morsi at the presidency in 2012 did not mean the end of the Egyptian regime led by the military high command. Moreover, Morsi and the Brotherhood initially attempted to form a direct alliance with the army from the first days of the uprising in 2011, knowing very well its political weight and its repressive role over decades.
From the first days of the revolution, the Brotherhood acted as a bulwark against criticism and protest of the military until after the overthrow of Morsi in July 2013. Before then, they denounced those protesting against the army as counterrevolutionaries and spreading sedition. The December 2012 constitution promoted by the Muslim Brotherhoods continued to shield the military’s budget from parliamentary control and guarantee the power of the armed forces. Morsi and the Brotherhood opposed and even repressed the popular and working-class mobilizations in Egypt and defended the army. Indeed, Morsi appointed Sisi as head of the army knowing full well that he had jailed and tortured protesters.
Despite the Brotherhood’s efforts at collaboration with the army, it overthrew Morsi and repressed massively the Muslim Brotherhood’s movement and all forms of opposition, including leftists and democrats. In the end, the army and the Brotherhood represented different wings of the capitalist class, with different regional backers, who could not find an accommodation. The far more powerful army decided in the end to assert its direct dictatorial rule, to the detriment of all in Egypt. Sisi has created the most repressive regime Egypt has seen in decades, a dictatorial neoliberal regime that implemented most brutally the full range of IMF’s austerity recommendations, leading to massive impoverishment and huge inflation.
In this context, at no point in time and until today, the centre of power in Egypt has been ousted, quite the opposite. In the case of Syria as explained above, the structures of powers connected to the Presidential Palace are no more and therefore comparisons with the Egyptian scenario are not useful.
This said, individuals of the former regime, particularly from the militias, security services and Fourth Brigade, can represent a threat to the stability of Syria. They have an interest to nurture sectarianism, particularly in the coastal areas, where they are largely based since the fall of the Assad regime, and to a lesser extent in Homs. This was reflected in the attacks against HTS forces near the coastal town of Tartous, killing 14 and wounding 10, on 25 December. In response, HTS forces launched raids “pursuing the remnants of Assad’s militias”. Similarly, Iran has an interest as well to create instability through sectarian tensions by using individuals connected to its networks in the country.
Some of the remnants of the former regime were also indeed mobilized in the latest mobilisations in Homs and coastal areas following a video circulating on social networks showing an Alawite shrine in Aleppo being vandalized, which occurred a few weeks before its publication. However, these demonstrations should not be seen only as operated from outside by Iran or by remnants of the old regime, there are fears among sections of the Alawite population of the new ruling actor, HTS, and calls for revenge after the fall of the Assad regime.
This is why attention must be paid to the increase in incidents, so far isolated or at least not systemic, of a sectarian nature since the fall of the regime, and especially the executions and assassinations in dynamics of revenge. This has been the case against individuals who were involved in crimes with the former regime, in which often both political and sectarian reasons for revenge are mixed, particularly against the Alawites. The crimes of the Assad regime have torn Syrian society apart, leaving behind a legacy of atrocities and widespread suffering. In this context, it is necessary to put in place a coordinated action to respond to the immediate needs of the victims and to establish mechanisms for a comprehensive and long-term transitional justice framework. Addressing the legacy of the systemic brutality of the Assad regime is essential to create a sustainable and peaceful path. Transitional justice can play a crucial role against acts of revenge and the increase in sectarian tensions.
In addition to a process encouraging transitional justice and punishing all individuals involved in war crimes, whether from the ancient regime or other opposition armed groups, only a new political cycle allowing the large participation from below of the popular classes to decide and tackle various democratic and social issues can restore stability on a longer term.
