Will things get better in Syria?

[IvanV]

We have seen plenty of cases of late where the downfall of an unpleasant bastard regime only made things worse. The next bastard was just as bad. Mnangagwa is no improvement on Mugabe. Or what followed was failed state without centralised control. The most recent example to overthrow a bastard and fall into terrible internal conflict was Sudan, which continues as the largest civil war currently being fought. That is, until the astonishing, completely unexpected, and fortunately very rapid, overthrow of Bashar al Assad in Syria.

With all sorts of factions controlling various corners of the country, such a large proportion of the population already displaced, the economy hugely damaged, and massive damage to physical structures in some places, it is hard to see things getting much worse in Syria. But at least death tolls, violence, bombings, etc have fallen a long way since the hottest part of the civil war in 2011-13. Lives were being lived again in many places without daily threats, enabling some measure of economic recovery and normalisation of life.

I now rather worry that the people who have overthrown Assad will prove just as unpleasant as any other bastard when they start ruling, if they start ruling. And those people will have difficulty asserting control, certainly over the full area that Assad controlled. So plenty of other nasty people will now see an opening and try to take advantage by initiating another nasty and prolonged fight for control, in various areas, or even in the areas just "liberated" from Assad. And the violence will increase again.

But I have little idea what will actually happen, as I had little idea that this would happen. Anyone else willing to put out any predictions?

A separate question, perhaps it should be a separate thread, but what happened? Was it because the Russians run out of ability or desire to support him? Nagorno Karabakh fell to Azerbaijan because the Russians stopped their practical support to the Armenians. It was generally said that was more because the Armenians were not kowtowing sufficiently to Putin, rather than because the Russians were overstretched and became unable to. I've not heard of any reason why the Russians didn't want to support Assad any more. But maybe the Russians are now overstretched now and couldn't give the practical support Assad needed to maintain his rule in that part of Syria he has recently ruled. Or did Syria no longer have the strategic status that caused the Russians to support him in the first place? Or maybe they abandoned him deliberately, because what they most want is conflict to inconvenience their western enemies? Or is it nothing to do with the Russians?

[Martin Y]

The BBC's view was that Assad's support from Russia wasn't the problem. It was his support from Iran and its proxies, because the Israelis have inflicted so much damage on them, it encouraged HTS to break the ceasefire and grab whatever they could, and that turned into a rout.

[Chris Preston]

I think there are several issues contributing. Probably foremost among them has been the Israeli destruction of the Hezbollah leadership. This has been a major blow for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and seems to have also demoralised the Syrian army. The fact that Iran is operating largely through proxy militias in the region over which it does not have full control. For example, the Iranian supported Iraqi Shia militias stopped supporting the Assad regime, possibly because Iran is focussed on rebuilding Hezbollah and Hamas. In addition, the speed of the overthrow caught Russia by surprised and it was unable to adequately react, because it is overstretched.

[discovolante]

On a slightly smaller scale, I'm a bit concerned about the suspension of decisions of asylum claims in the UK and other countries. Obviously it's a rapidly changing situation but I'm not sure how we can expect to know how safe Syria is for some time yet. The Home Office has been working to clear its backlog of claims, although that said this has led to a pretty horrible homelessness crisis: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3932. On the other hand it seems like pausing decisions will lead to a further backlog, lots of people in limbo, potentially separated from their families, and unable to work, and potentially more cost to the state.

[TopBadger]

On a slightly smaller scale, I'm a bit concerned about the suspension of decisions of asylum claims in the UK and other countries. Obviously it's a rapidly changing situation but I'm not sure how we can expect to know how safe Syria is for some time yet. The Home Office has been working to clear its backlog of claims, although that said this has led to a pretty horrible homelessness crisis: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3932. On the other hand it seems like pausing decisions will lead to a further backlog, lots of people in limbo, potentially separated from their families, and unable to work, and potentially more cost to the state.

Presumably there are enough "non-Syrian" asylum claims to be getting on with and so the backlog won't grow.

I don't know enough (well, anything really) about Asylum claims, one might think there would be a "temporary approval" status in cases such as this... grant asylum now so people can work, study, live etc, but have it reviewed in 2-3 years time with the option to rescind if Syria is stable, or make permanent if not.

[dyqik]

On a slightly smaller scale, I'm a bit concerned about the suspension of decisions of asylum claims in the UK and other countries. Obviously it's a rapidly changing situation but I'm not sure how we can expect to know how safe Syria is for some time yet. The Home Office has been working to clear its backlog of claims, although that said this has led to a pretty horrible homelessness crisis: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3932. On the other hand it seems like pausing decisions will lead to a further backlog, lots of people in limbo, potentially separated from their families, and unable to work, and potentially more cost to the state.

Presumably there are enough "non-Syrian" asylum claims to be getting on with and so the backlog won't grow.

I don't know enough (well, anything really) about Asylum claims, one might think there would be a "temporary approval" status in cases such as this... grant asylum now so people can work, study, live etc, but have it reviewed in 2-3 years time with the option to rescind if Syria is stable, or make permanent if not.

The US has Temporarily Protected Status for this.