The Dictatorship
How much should Americans fear the man who just toppled Bashar al-Assad
For 83 years, Dec. 7 has been remembered as a day of infamy. After this weekend, that day will have a new legacy — a day of freedom, as one of the most brutal and repressive regimes in modern history disappeared.
The liberation of Syria from the clutches of President Bashar al-Assadafter his family ruled the country for 50 years, is an unqualified good. How did it happen so quickly and so unexpectedly? And what comes next? I reached out to the New Yorker’s Anand Gopalwho has reported extensively from Syria over the past several yearsto help make sense of the extraordinary events of the past two weeks.
According to Gopal, three external factors loomed large. Under Assad, Syria’s biggest regional benefactor was Iran, but since the Oct. 7 attacks, it has withstood Israeli military strikes and watched its Palestinian ally, Hamas, also weakened by Israel.
Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, had also been an important provider of military resources and fighting men for Assad — but the Islamic group has been severely diminished after weeks of Israeli attacks in Lebanon.
Finally, and perhaps most decisively, with Russia bogged down in Ukraine, Assad could no longer rely on Moscow’s direct military engagement in fighting the rebels, particularly Russia’s close air support that had become crucial for Syria’s army.
Perhaps the most striking thing about HTS, under Jolani’s leadership, is the group’s outreach to the international community.
However, perhaps the most critical factor was internal: the slow-motion decay of the Assad regime. Massive corruption, economic stagnation and the utter dysfunction of the government hollowed out the country and tested the loyalty of the military rank and file. When the rebels finally mobilized from their area of control and captured Aleppo, the country’s second largest city, on Nov. 29, the low morale of Syria’s army, combined with the lack of Russian air support, doomed Assad’s regime. Rather than fight for the country’s leader, government forces abandoned their posts — and, in some cases, also their uniforms and equipment.
Ironically, all this was happening at the same time there’d been a steady and slow move toward regional normalization. Just weeks ago, Assad attended a meeting of the Arab League in Saudi Arabia, a year after his Arab opponents had given back Syria’s seat in the organization.
Now he’s in Moscow, likely forever.
What comes next? Since the outbreak of civil war in 2011 — and even after Assad largely put down the rebel uprising — Syria has devolved into sectarian conflict.
Even before Assad’s fall, a host of rebel factions controlled much of the state’s territory, including the Syrian National Army, which is basically a Turkish proxy; the Syrian Democratic Forces, an American proxy consisting of Kurdish and Arab elements that controls around 30% of Syria’s territory; and now Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group responsible for the final nail in the coffin of the Assad regime. How these groups interact and cooperate (or don’t) will be crucial to Syria’s future.
Much has been made of the fact that HTS grew out of Al Qaeda’s Syria offshoot and that the United States has designated its leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, a terrorist. But Jolani has gone out of his way to disown Al Qaeda, purge HTS of more extremist elements and publicly moderate his views.
Gopal, the New Yorker’s reporter, believes the ideological shift is “genuine,” and Jolani appears to be “very pragmatically minded.” Indeed, Jolani seems to be saying all the right things in the run-up to Assad’s fall and after the president’s flight to Moscow.
He’s beseeched his supporters to avoid reprisals against Assad loyalists and has consistently preached a message of unity, dignity, and justice. He’s even extended an olive branch to Syria’s Christian, Kurdish and Alawite minorities. The latter is most notable because, through the Assads, it was the Alawites that ruled Syria with an iron fist for the past five decades.
Jolani has played things well so far, but the real work begins now.
Gopal, who has watched HTS’s growth over the past several years, is less surprised by the group’s political and diplomatic success than its military capacity, which seemed to catch much of the world off guard as well. “They’ve thought about the politics of this in ways that are impressive,” he said. Indeed, after HTS’s takeover of Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, in late November, the group immediately moved to establish security, protect civilians and provide basic services to the city’s residents. According to Middle East analyst Aaron Zelin, this is consistent with HTS’s rule in the parts of Syria they controlled before the events of the last few weeks. These governing efforts and outreach to civilians contrasts with the Islamic State, which seemed more interested in ideological purity than institution building.
Perhaps the most striking thing about HTS, under Jolani’s leadership, is the group’s outreach to the international community. “They are very serious about wanting rapprochement with the West and refashioning themselves as a national movement, not a transnational jihadist movement,” Gopal said.
He noted that, usually, the prime audience for a rebel group is their domestic constituencies, but “HTS is different,” he said, adding, “They are attuned to the international community — and see it as a very important audience.” HTS has been in direct contact with Iran’s government and agreed to requests from Tehran to protect the country’s embassy and Shiite religious shrines. In addition, HTS has avoided antagonizing Russiaeven going so far as to leave the country’s naval bases in Syria untouched. Jolani seems to recognize that he cannot afford to alienate the various external groups who have been meddling in Syria’s affairs during its bloody civil war — even those who have caused so much needless death and destruction.
Whether Jolani and HTS stay on a moderate course remains to be seen. The potential for further sectarian conflict or score-settling is high. Moreover, there is always the possibility that Jolani is talking a good game but will change his stripes once HTS achieves power. Even in an ideal world, consolidating their rule, forming a stable, representative government, and ensuring harmony among Syria’s grab bag of militias and external actors are herculean tasks. Jolani has played things well so far, but the real work begins now.
The U.S. and the rest of the international community should offer its support to HTS and the new government taking root in Damascus while also holding the group’s feet to the fire when it comes to distancing from jihadists and upholding human rights. But patience is also required: Under Assad’s rule — and particularly since the 2011 civil war began — Syria has experienced untold suffering. Large swathes of the country lie in ruins, and millions of refugees have fled their homes. The economy is in tatters, and the Syrian people are impoverished and hungry. The trauma of those imprisoned and tortured by Assad’s henchmen — or have seen firsthand the destruction wrought by his soldiers — is profound.
But after decades of darkness, the Syrian people are finally experiencing the first rays of freedom. The scenes on the streets of Damascus — and the elation of political prisoners freed from Assad’s hellish prisons — are wonderfully joyous. It is a moment for celebration and a reminder that the desire for freedom and recognition is unquenchable. Syria’s neighbors, along with the international community, must do everything they can to help the country stay on the right path.
Michael A. Cohen is a columnist for BLN and a senior fellow and co-director of the Afghanistan Assumptions Project at the Center for Strategic Studies at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. He writes the political newsletter Truth and Consequences. He has been a columnist at The Boston Globe, The Guardian and Foreign Policy, and he is the author of three books, the most recent being “Clear and Present Safety: The World Has Never Been Better and Why That Matters to Americans.”
President Donald Trump is giving fragile U.S.-Iran diplomacy “some space” before deciding whether to resume strikes, United Nations Ambassador Mike Waltz said Sunday.
Hours later, however, Trump posted images to social media depicting the U.S. attacking Iran.
Waltz also dismissed concerns over the United States’ diminished munitions stockpiles, even as he conceded that “a lot” of weapons have been depleted, which he said was because of the Russia-Ukraine war and fighting with the Houthis.
“I want to be crystal clear: The U.S. military — and I’ve verified this every which way — has everything that it needs to conduct this campaign as effectively as it needs to be,” Waltz told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Waltz’s comments came on the second consecutive day of paused fighting between the United Sates and Iran amid reports of a dwindled U.S. stockpile of Patriot antimissile interceptors, among other munitions.
The New York Times reported Sunday that the depletion of interceptor stockpiles is among the reasons why the administration is wary of resuming major combat operations in a war launched without congressional authorization and which has grown exceedingly unpopular.
But Waltz underscored that the pause in fighting is to allow for an opportunity for peace — not because of an insufficient weapons supply, and warned that those leaking information to the press about the U.S. not having sufficient weaponry “deserve to be in jail.”
“What the president is doing right now, as we’ve seen all along, is giving some talks some space. Talks are ongoing,” Waltz told NBC. “They’re happening at every level, from the more technical aspect of it all the way to the highest levels, of course, within both the Iranian government and the U.S. government.”
He reiterated in an appearance on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that Trump “is giving diplomacy a chance.”
But even after Waltz publicly touted giving peace a chance, Trump posted several AI-generated images on Truth Social Sunday afternoon depicting the U.S. striking Kharg Island. In one imageTrump is standing on the deck of an Iranian oil tanker with an American flag in hand.
Trump met with top aides on Friday to weigh escalating military action against Iran, according to a senior White House official. On Saturday, the president told a French journalist that he is “absolutely” considering resuming full-scale war with Iran if the U.S. doesn’t “get 100% of what we want.”
Waltz declined to give a timeline for when the war would end.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that if Iran plays any role in attacking Israel, it would be making a “terrible mistake” and that the response would be “very forceful.”
“If Iran attacks Israel – either directly or through proxies, either with ballistic missiles or UAV [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles]’s or killer drones — it will make a terrible mistake,” he said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”“Because our response, Israel’s response, will be very, very forceful.”
Netanyahu, who launched the war with Iran jointly with Trump on Feb. 28, is set to meet with his U.S. counterpart at the White House on Tuesday, the same day he’s scheduled to attend the funeral of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Jake Traylor and Emily Hung contributed to this report.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
BERLIN (AP) — The suspect in the deadly Berlin Pride attackthat left one person dead and 29 injured was shot and killed by police during a confrontation on Sunday in a suburb of the city, authorities said.
Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, was killed following a search that lasted nearly 24 hours after the attack in downtown Berlin. Prosecutors said he had previously sought to join the militant Islamic State group.
Ballout was suspected of driving a van into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride festival Saturday night before apparently stabbing others with a machete in what authorities believe was an Islamic extremist terror attack.
“Everything we see here points to us dealing with an Islamic terror attack,” Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said.
Dobrindt put the total number of wounded at 29. The attack occurred a few hundred meters (yards) from a party near the Brandenburg Gate that was supposed to close out the city’s Pride festival.
Ballout was born in Germany, the minister said. His mother was naturalized in 2002, three years before he was born.
Ashley Jump, a 26-year-old U.K. resident, had traveled to Berlin for Saturday’s Pride parade but had left the celebrations before the attack. They returned Sunday to leave flowers at a memorial near the crime scene in support of the LGBTQ+ community.
“They’ll never erase us, we’ll never be gone,” they said. “As long as humanity has existed, we’ve existed. And as long as humanity exists, we will exist. We will not be removed.”
Suspect convicted of ties to Islamic extremism
Ballout traveled to Lebanon in 2025 with the goal of going to Syria to join the Islamic State group, Berlin prosecutors said Sunday.
There, he made contact with several people who were presumed members of the militant group — or at least he believed them to be, prosecutors said. He was arrested in Lebanon last year and sentenced by a military court to three months’ imprisonment for offenses including incitement to religious and sectarian conflict.
He returned to Germany after completing his sentence, where he was arrested at the Berlin airport.
In May, a juvenile court in Berlin convicted Ballout of preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state, as well as publishing Islamic State propaganda on his Instagram account and other charges, prosecutors said.
The court handed down a suspended sentence of 1 year and 10 months in youth custody, which Berlin prosecutors have appealed.
The court said it took Ballout’s months of pre-trial detention in Germany and Lebanon into account. It also said it considered that Ballout had confessed to the crimes, appeared to distance himself from the militant group and no actual threat had ever materialized.
He was released from detention pending the appeal.
Berlin’s Pride festival is one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ celebrations
According to police, a white van drove into the Tiergarten park around 10 p.m. and hit several people before colliding with a tree. The closing party at the Pride festivalknown as Christopher Street Daywas ongoing at the time next to the Brandenburg Gate, a short distance away. The party followed a parade with some 80 trucks that had made its way through downtown Berlin earlier in the day.
The attack did not occur at the festival, along its route or at the closing party. Rather, the violence took place a few hundred meters (yards) away on a track in the Tiergarten park. The van drove into a crowd that was likely a mix of festivalgoers and other locals or visitors.
Police said a woman was killed.
On Sunday afternoon, hundreds of mourners gathered at a memorial at the iconic gate. They hugged each other and laid down flowers, candles, rainbow flags and homemade signs, including a cardboard one that said: “the only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
Hundreds of thousands had come to Berlin to celebrate on Saturday, though it’s unclear how many were still at the festival by late evening. It’s one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ+celebrations.
“We are simply stunned by what happened,” said Andre Lehmann, a top official with the main national LGBTQ+ association, LSVD+. “This suspected attack hits the heart of the queer community.”
Amsterdam says it will celebrate freedom in the wake of Berlin attack
Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed that law enforcement would find the suspect.
“I would like to say this to Christopher Street Day participants here in Berlin but also across Germany: Don’t let yourselves, let us not let ourselves, be intimidated,” he said. “These acts have only one purpose: They aim to divide our society. They want to take away from us the most important thing we have: Namely our openness and our freedom.”
Dobrindt said he expected security measures at other major events in Germany, including Pride events elsewhere, to be reviewed and if necessary significantly strengthened.
Berlin has seen Islamic extremist attacks before. In December, 2016, a rejected asylum seeker from Tunisia plowed a hijacked truck into a Christmas marketkilling 13 people and injuring dozens. He was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
In February last year, a Spanish tourist was stabbed and seriously wounded at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial, an attack that saw a Syrian man convicted in March and sentencedto 13 years.
This week, Amsterdam will be hosting World Pride alongside its own annual Pride celebrations. Mayor Femke Halsema said authorities and organizers “are closely monitoring the security situation” after the Berlin attack but aim to prevent any extra measures getting in the way of celebrating freedom and love.
Katy Perry lambasted the Trump administration over the weekend for using her song “Firework” in one of its social media videos about U.S airstrikes on Iran.
The pop star said she was “deeply appalled and angry” over the use of her song in a White House TikTok video featuring bombs exploding set to Perry’s 2010 hit — specifically featuring her lyrics “boom, boom, boom.” A caption on the video, which has more than 6 million views, reads: “Iran has been warned.”
“I did not approve this, I was not asked, and I absolutely do not condone it. I wrote this song to be an anthem of hope, healing, and inner strength for people going through their darkest personal moments,” Perry wrote in an X post on Saturday. “To see a message of self-worth and upliftment weaponized to soundtrack destruction and violence is a complete violation of everything my song stands for. My music is for bringing people together, not celebrating warfare.”
White House aide Kaelan Dorr responded to Perry, saying“This you?” He posted Perry’s own military-themed music video of her song “Part of Me,” in which she’s dressed in combat uniform.
Perry, who is in a romantic relationship with former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, is among many other prominent artists who have rebuked the Trump administration for using their music in videos on official accounts.
Kesha publicly admonished President Donald Trump’s administration in March after the official White House TikTok account used her song “Blow” in another video about military action. “Stop using my music, perverts,” she said on X.
The Filipino American pop star Olivia Rodrigo expressed outrage at the Trump administration after it used her song “All-American Bitch” last fall in a video threatening deportations. She responded to the Department of Homeland Security at the time, saying, “Don’t ever use my songs to promote your racist, hateful propaganda.”
While the video is still visible, Rodrigo’s music has been removed.
And last December, Sabrina Carpenter condemned the administration for using her song “Juno” in a video about immigration arrests, which she called “evil and disgusting.”
“Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda,” the singer wrote at the time.
Ariana Grandealso posted on her Instagram story last September criticizing the administration over its immigration policyanti-LGBTQ+ messaging and alleged censorship. In response, White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai told her, “Save your tears,” a reference to one of her songs. Last month, after the White House used her song “Bye” in an anti-immigration video on TikTok, she commented“Please do not ever use my music in relation to this barbaric, inhumane, heinous nonsense.”
Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Taylor Swift. The White House poked fun at the mega star earlier this month when shemarried Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce at Madison Square Garden. Its official X account posted photo-shopped images of the venue’s billboards blaring, “TRUMP IS YOUR PRESIDENT.” After she endorsed his opponent, Kamala Harris, in the 2024 election, Trump wrote, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”
Last year, Trump went after Bruce Springsteenfor insulting the president at a concert in Manchester, England, where the Boss called the administration “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous.” Trump called the Grammy-award winning artist “highly overrated,” writing in part, “Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy.”
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
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