The Dictatorship

How much should Americans fear the man who just toppled Bashar al-Assad

Published

1 year ago

December 10, 2024

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

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.”

The Dictatorship

Justice Jackson keeps calling out what she sees as needless Supreme Court interventions

Published

1 day ago

April 20, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Justice Jackson keeps calling out what she sees as needless Supreme Court interventions

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson continues to speak out when she believes her colleagues are misusing their power. The latest example came Monday, when the Biden appointee dissented from a Supreme Court ruling in favor of law enforcement in a Fourth Amendment case.

In District of Columbia v. R.W.the high court majority disagreed with a ruling from D.C.’s appeals court that said a police officer violated the amendment by stopping a person without reasonable suspicion. In an unsigned through the court opinion, the justices said the D.C. court failed to properly consider the “totality of the circumstances.” The justices summarily reversed the lower court.

Jackson, however, saw the maneuver by her colleagues as heavy-handed.

In her dissent, she wrote that if the court’s intervention “reflects disapproval” of the D.C. court’s “assessment of which particular facts to weigh and to what extent, I cannot fathom why that kind of factbound determination warranted correction by this Court.” She deemed the move “not a worthy accomplishment for the unusual step of summary reversal.”

A notation at the end of the majority’s opinion said that Justice Sonia Sotomayor would have denied D.C.’s petition for high court review, but she didn’t join Jackson’s dissent or write her own to elaborate.

Jackson’s dissent follows a lecture she gave last week at Yale Law School in which she criticized what she saw as her colleagues’ disrespect of lower courts’ work.

Monday’s ruling appeared among several high court actions on a 25-page order lista routine document containing the latest action on pending appeals. The list is mostly unexplained denials of petitions for review, but sometimes it contains opinions and justices writing separately to explain themselves.

In another case on the list, Sotomayor, Jackson and the court’s third Democratic-appointed justice, Elena Kagan, all noted their dissent from the majority’s unexplained summary reversal in favor of law enforcement in a qualified immunity case.

It takes four justices to grant review of a petition. That simple math underscores the lack of power wielded by the three Democratic appointees, especially on the most contentious issues.

On that note, one of the new cases the court took up on Monday involves its latest foray into religion in public life, which the religious side has been winning at the court. The new case is an appeal from Catholic preschools in Colorado that want public funding while still admitting, as they wrote in their petition“only families who support Catholic beliefs, including on sex and gender.” The case will be heard in the next court term that starts in October.

Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro,” a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.

The Dictatorship

The White House’s personal, financial and diplomatic lines keep blurring

Published

1 day ago

April 20, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The White House’s personal, financial and diplomatic lines keep blurring

About a month ago, when Donald Trump spoke at a conference for Saudi Arabia’s sovereign investment fund, it was hard not to notice the complexities of the circumstances. On the one hand, Riyadh has helped steer the White House’s policy in Iran. On the other hand, the president’s son-in-law, having already received billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia, recently turned to the Middle Eastern country for more money for his private investment firm.

All the while, Saudi officials remain focused on private dealings with Trump’s family business, as the Republican extended his public support to the sovereign investment fund, ignored Pentagon concerns about selling F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia and designated Saudi Arabia a “major non-NATO ally” as part of a new security agreement.

The trouble is, it’s not just the Saudis.

The New York Times reported on wealthy interests in Syria with ambitions plans for the nation’s future who needed the U.S. to drop the economic sanctions that crippled the country during Bashar al-Assad’s reign. One Syrian-born businessman, Mohamad Al-Khayyat, secured a meeting with Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, who recommended that plans for a luxury golf course carry the Trump Organization brand as a way of getting the American president’s attention.

The Times’ report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, added that the businessman was way ahead of the congressman. He’d already planned to propose a Trump-branded resort. The same businessman’s brothers, who enjoy the backing of Thomas Barrack, the American president’s special envoy to Syria, were also negotiating a real estate partnership with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.

The Times summarized the broader context nicely:

Such a mixing of personal and diplomatic affairs has long been the norm in Middle Eastern nations, where a small set of players have historically run, and profited from, their dominant role in society. But it has become the way Washington operates in Mr. Trump’s second term, too.

Business discussions involving the president’s family … are consistently blurred with important policy decisions or consequential nation-to-nation negotiations.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but developments like these aren’t supposed to happen in the U.S. If a foreign country wants a change in federal economic sanctions, it’s supposed to go through proper diplomatic and economic channels as part of a formal process to prevent corruption and potential conflicts of interests.

In 2026, that model has been torn down — and replaced with what the Times described as “a warped system of executive patronage,” which is awfully tough to defend.

The article added:

Mohamad Al-Khayyat returned to Washington late last year toting a special stone celebrating the proposed golf course, carved with the Trump family emblem. He presented it to Mr. Wilson in his Capitol Hill office to deliver to the White House. Mr. Al-Khayyat then joined meetings with other lawmakers to push the sanctions repeal.

Weeks later, legislation for a permanent repeal won approval in Congress and was signed into law by Mr. Trump in late December.

This was no doubt noticed by officials and monied interests elsewhere, sending a clear signal about how to interact with the U.S. government (at least until January 2029).

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

The Dictatorship

Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 4.20.26: Obama makes one last pitch ahead of Virginia race

Published

1 day ago

April 20, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 4.20.26: Obama makes one last pitch ahead of Virginia race

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.

* This week’s biggest election is in Virginia, where voters will decide whether to advance a Democratic redistricting effort. Ahead of Tuesday’s balloting, Barack Obama filmed one last pitch to the electorate in the commonwealth.

* With former Rep. Eric Swalwell out of California’s gubernatorial race, billionaire Tom Steyer is spending heavily to claim the front-runner slot. The Associated Press reported“Data compiled by advertising tracker AdImpact show Steyer has spent or booked over $115 million in ads for broadcast TV, cable and radio — nearly 30 times the amount of his nearest Democratic rival.”

* On a related note, the California Teachers Association, which had backed Swalwell, threw its support behind Steyer’s bid last week.

* When Donald Trump held an event in Nevada last week, many watched to see whether Joe Lombardo, the state’s Republican governor who is facing a tough re-election fight in the fall, appeared at the gathering. He did notthough Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony spoke at the event.

* In Pennsylvania, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman isn’t up for re-election until 2028, but Punchbowl News asked every other Democratic member of the state’s congressional delegation whether the incumbent senator should run for a second term as a Democrat. Not one said he should.

* Jack Daly, a political operative who pleaded guilty in 2023 to defrauding thousands of conservative political donors, has lost some Republican clients of late, but the National Republican Senatorial Committee has continued to use the services of Daly’s firm.

* And in Tennessee, Republican Rep. Andy Ogles appears to be running for re-election, though his fundraising is badly lacking: As of the end of March, the far-right incumbent only had around $85,000 cash on handwhich lags his GOP primary opponent, former Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher, who has around $150,000 in his campaign account.