Will Syria Get Freedom or Sharia After Toppling its Savage Dictator?
There is reason to hope for a better future since the country engineered its own regime change
When a coalition of rebel forces captured Damascus and overthrew Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime on Dec. 8, Assad, who had been in power for nearly a quarter century and whose family had ruled Syria since 1970, had already covertly fled to Moscow the night before, where he was granted asylum by the Russian government. For Syrians, it was a cause for celebration, given that since the start of the Civil War in 2011, Assad perpetrated many barbaric acts—including using chemical attacks—against his own people.
But after his departure, the world has gotten a better sense of the exceptional savagery that characterized his reign: Images coming out of the military-run Sednaya prison and other dungeons of the regime where Assad sent critics, dissidents, and political opponents depict torture and murder at an industrial scale. Multiple mass graves sites—at least one of them reportedly containing over 100,000 bodies—demonstrate that in a world boasting no shortage of authoritarian regimes, Assad outperformed many others in sheer scale of savagery. “We really haven't seen anything quite like this since the Nazis,” said former U.S. war crimes ambassador at large Stephen Rapp.
It is no surprise, then, that in 2024 Syria ranked in the bottom quintile among nearly 200 countries in the U.N.’s Human Development Index, which tracks individual access to a “long and healthy life, access to knowledge, and a decent standard of living.” It also ranked dead last out of 165 countries in the Cato Institute’s Human Freedom Index, which tracks “personal, civil, and economic freedom.” As Daniel Shapiro, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, remarked: “No one should shed any tears over the end of the Assad regime.”
Still, it is always possible for a nation, even one as beleaguered as Syria, to sink ever further into the abyss. Just what can we expect from a post-Assad Syria? One chief unknown among many is whether Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the leader of the Islamist rebel outfit Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that toppled Assad and took over the country, is capable of governing well. In light of that, is there any reason to hope for a freer Syria now?
Before offering an answer, it would be helpful to consider how Syria and the Middle East ended up in this terrible state of affairs to begin with.
Ottoman Origins
Throughout the late Medieval period and into the early modern era, the Middle East was not viewed as being any less free than other parts of the world, including Europe—or Christendom, as it was then called. Instead, the Middle East, ruled by the Ottoman Empire, a multi-ethnic and multi-religious mosaic, seemed freer than Christendom. That is why French Renaissance philosopher Jean Bodin, who pleaded for religious tolerance, praised “the great emperour of the Turkes,” who “permitteth every man to live according to his conscience.” It is also why Jewish communities persecuted in Spain or Eastern Europe fled to Ottoman lands, where they found religious freedom and economic opportunity.
However, as the modern era progressed, political and economic liberalization produced astounding corresponding gains in individual liberty, first transforming Europe, fueling what economic historian Deirdre McCloskey calls the Great Enrichment, and subsequently influencing other civilizations. In the 19th century, the late Ottoman Empire tried to catch up to this remarkable liberal progress by way of its much-forgotten but still fascinating Tanzimat (Reform) era. Despite these efforts, the empire collapsed in the early 20th century, mainly due to competing nationalisms.
The Middle East and Modernity
What happened after was one of the greatest—and most tragic—missed opportunities in the region’s history: the post-Ottoman Middle East was exposed to two waves of modernity, neither of which were liberal or ultimately beneficial. The first wave was European colonialism, which left many scars in the region and provoked illiberal reactions. The second wave was Arab socialism, which “liberated” many countries in the area from colonial rule but only to establish single-party dictatorships, often inspired by, and allied with, the Soviet Union. One of them—in fact, the worst of them—was the Ba’ath Party regime in Syria that just collapsed.
In other words, in the great grab bag of sociopolitical configurations that modernity has made available, the Middle East has never tried the political and economic model that has made the modern West (and some Eastern nations such as Japan and South Korea) free and prosperous: market-friendly liberal democracy. Instead, it has tried terrible models within the panoply of modern options—e.g., Soviet-style dictatorships that proved both highly corrupt and extremely fierce. No further proof is needed that the legacy of these decisions has been disastrous than the fact that traditionalist orders in the region—monarchies such as Jordan and Morocco—have proven less oppressive than a “republic” like Syria under Ba’athist rule. It is no surprise, then, that the main challenges to modern Arab dictatorships have come from Islamist movements, which profess to revive traditional religious values, including some archaic ones, while proving eager to co-opt the secular dictatorships they fight against.
Even though it is undeniable that the Syrian revolution currently unfolding is historically significant—it has, after all, put an end to the last big fortress of Arab socialism—this historic turn comes with a major risk: the distinctly modern tyranny of the Assad regime could be replaced with a tyrannical variant of an anti-modern kind, a Taliban-like fundamentalist regime, which would prove a nightmare for Syria’s Kurds, Christians, Shiites, Alawites, Druze, and secular citizens. It also has the potential of opening a new chapter in the nation’s 13-year-long civil war, this time between the new central government in Damascus and the Kurdish forces in the northeast, which all sides should try their hardest to avoid.
A Freer Syria?
There are, however, reasons to be cautiously optimistic that a freer Syria could be on the horizon.
First, it matters that this revolution has not occurred due to direct Western military intervention—as we saw in Iraq in 2003, when another brutal Ba’ath regime was toppled. That led to many unintended and unfortunate consequences that might well be avoided in Syria primarily because its dissidents took their country’s destiny into their own hands. Certainly, U.S. policy toward Syria for much of the past decade helped create the conditions that ultimately enabled Assad’s downfall, as the Biden administration has been quick to point out—but ultimately this revolution is attributable to the success of Syrian rebel forces, and millions of ordinary Syrians who bravely rose up against the regime some 13 years ago and paid a huge price.
Also, despite its extremist roots, the HTS has been giving messages of “inclusiveness and a rejection of violence or revenge.” Its previous governance in the Idlib region, while far from democratic, hasn’t been as awful as was feared, leading even some of its critics to concede that the group has “been pragmatic and shown flexibility” in governing. Al-Golani, the group’s charismatic leader, now the most powerful man in Syria, has been cultivating a transformation over the years from “jihadist leader to rebel statesman,” according to a BBC profile. He is even on the record questioning the wisdom of policing religion, making the very argument used by Islamic liberals: Taliban-style religious coercion only leads to “hypocrisy,” and the Prophet Muhammad did not order it anyway. It can’t be anything but a positive that he’s been getting slammed by hardline Islamists—such as the prominent jihadi ideologue Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi—for having “abandoned jihadism altogether, becoming a garden-variety Islamist who aims not to apply the sharia.”
What’s more, it appears as if the newly forming government “will adopt a free-market model and integrate the country into the global economy,” according to the head of the Damascus Chambers of Commerce. That would represent a historic reversal of the state-dominated economy that ruled Syria for half a century and underpinned its political tyranny. In Damascus, as rebel forces have cleared away the vestiges of Assad’s rule, people have expressed elation at being able to freely exchange goods again (it got so bad under Assad that uttering the word “dollar” during an economic transaction, or trying to sell “Western” goods such as Kinder chocolate eggs, could get one imprisoned for a lengthy sentence). At least one resident told The New York Times that, in this post-Assad moment, “We feel like seeing the country anew; we feel like tourists. ... It feels like it’s ours again.”
It is also good news that Turkey is set to play a big role in shaping what the new Syria will look like. There is much to criticize about President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s tenure in Turkey—in the past decade, Turkey has become increasingly illiberal, losing much in freedom of speech, rule of law, and other European standards to which it once aspired. Still, if the new Syrian regime governs like Turkey, it will represent a huge step forward from where it has been for decades. Turkey, after all, is a NATO member and a multi-party democracy with secular laws and institutions, where mosques co-exist with nightclubs, beach resorts, and world-class companies. A Turkey-like path would be a major improvement for Syria.
Among those who give optimism a chance is Joshua Lantes, a prominent Syria expert who has long been cautious about extremists among revolutionary forces. “If the world embraces this new government and tries to guide it in a gentle way without sanctions,” he says, “the likelihood of a getting a better, kinder government is much expanded.”
It is an expansion that we should all hope for.
© The UnPopulist, 2025
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I am happy to see Assad’s regime toppled but anxious about what may happen in Syria and the region. Thank you for the somewhat optimistic take.
Learned something new w this read!