Syria's Bashar Assad: Accidental leader and tyrant

A reign that stretched over decades and a dynasty that endured even longer appears to be over in Syria, after leader Bashar Assad fled and was granted asylum in Russia, together with his family.

Until he was overthrown by rebel forces on December 8, Assad was considered a man with strong allies. Were it not for Russia, Iran and Iran-financed militias like Lebanon's Hezbollah, there's no doubt Assad would have been swept away by his country's revolution years ago. Those allies appear finally to have deserted him.

Sparked by a peaceful revolution in 2011, the Syrian civil war pushed Assad's regime to the brink of insolvency by 2015. The government was barely able to pay its own military, and Assad controlled only around 10% of his own country at the time.

But, back then, when the Syrian government asked long-term ally Russia for assistance, Moscow said yes.

Russian jets rained bombs down on Syria, defining those they were targeting as "terrorists" and not revolutionaries.

Trademark brutality

Certainly, there are terrorists in Syria today, including extremist groups such as the "Islamic State" (IS). Yet this group owes its existence — at least partially — to the Assad regime itself. In late 2011, perhaps in order to discredit the revolution, Assad ordered the release of countless Sunni Muslim extremists from his own jails.

The extremists ended up joining the revolutionaries to further their own cause. Eventually, Islamist extremists, with even better funding and support from Gulf states, made up the majority of those fighting the Syrian government.

And so, what was supposed to weaken a revolution ended up creating a monster. Yet the move was no huge surprise — since the beginning of that revolution against his government, the Syrian dictator had proven himself ruthless in his attempts to hang on to power.

One of the most infamous examples of this ruthlessness was a poison gas attack in Eastern Ghouta in 2013. Rockets with the nerve gas sarin struck opposition-controlled areas around Damascus, killing hundreds. It was the deadliest chemical weapon attack since the war between Iran and Iraq, and it would not be the last.

Nor did Assad hesitate to send barrel bombs down on Syrian schools and hospitals. Due to the brutality of his government, it's estimated hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives over the course of the conflict. Tens of thousands were tortured and murdered in government prisons.

Early optimism

But Assad's time in power began very differently. Although in July 2000 he literally inherited the country's leadership from his father, dictator Hafez Assad, who ruled for 30 years, many expected the UK-educated eye doctor to be more liberal than his predecessor.

The younger Assad, born in 1965, had only been in office for six months when the so-called Damascus Spring took place, a period that saw the flowering of Syrian opposition media and more liberal voices.

Back then, he was more popular with Syrians of all sectarian stripes. And in those heady days, it seemed the son wanted to give back to his country what the father had taken away: political freedoms, respect for human rights and, above all, a media allowed to be more open and more critical, even toward its own government.

The new leader declared that for Syria to be successful, the country needed to become more modern.

Many of the country's educated citizens took him at his word. However, for the ruling elite, those freedoms went too far.

The optimism of the Damascus Spring lasted for only a year. In August 2001, the first arrests began of those who had expressed opposition, including members of the Syrian parliament.

Doctor turned politician

Before becoming his country's president, Assad had apparently never been particularly interested in politics. He studied medicine in Damascus and then in London, before becoming an ophthalmologist.

In fact, he was never actually supposed to take his father's place. That job had been reserved for an older brother, Basil — but Basil died in a car crash in 1994.

When the family's patriarch died in June 2000, the Syrian constitution had to be specially amended so that Bashar Assad, at 35 still officially too young to take the post at the time, could be made president.

This suited many of the insiders in Syria's senior military and political circles. As David W. Lesch explains in his biography of Bashar Assad, they saw the younger son as the best option to maintain their political, financial and societal positions.

A land in tatters

As Arab Spring protests began in neighboring countries like Egypt and Tunisia in 2011, Assad held out the prospect of reform to avoid similar unrest in his own country.

However in March that same year, after several children were arrested and tortured by regime forces in the city of Daraa for anti-government graffiti, locals increasingly joined in protests against long-standing dictatorships that were sweeping the region.

Assad played down the demonstrations that followed, describing them as a media campaign against him. A short time later, the Syrian military was given permission to use weapons against the peaceful demonstrators. Although many in the first demonstrations had insisted on a peaceful uprising, that position changed after Assad's military and secret police began to attack them and their families.

Over the months to come, peaceful protesters began to fight back, gradually transforming into insurgents, irreconcilable enemies of Assad's government, who would settle for nothing less than his ouster.

But despite more than a decade of civil war, including the destruction and countless lives lost, Assad had been able to continue to rule Syria.

The price for Assad, and Syria, was high. Millions of Syrians have been displaced within and outside of their own country. Fealty to Russia and Iran means the two countries had significant economic and military footprints in Syria.

However, he had recently succeeded in gradually returning his country to the international political stage, at least in the Middle East, with Syria readmitted to the Arab League in May 2023.

But everything changed again in December 2024. The future for both Syria and Assad is uncertain but Assad's legacy is clear: a country destroyed, a population devastated, a record of heinous crimes against humanity and an international order disrupted, both geopolitically and morally.

Kersten Knipp

Kersten Knipp is an editor with an interest in political and cultural development in the Middle East and North Africa and the politics and culture of the Romance-language nations of Europe.

Disclaimer: This article first appeared on DW, and is published by special syndication arrangement