Assad Is Out, Rebels Are In: What’s Next for Syria and the Middle East | WSJ

by Panzer
- [Narrator] The fall of Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad just over a week.
(man yelling in foreign language)
It's the end of a 54 year long regime in Syria,
but it's just the beginning of a re-shifting of power,
not just in Syria, but in the whole region.
- Right now, most Syrians are in a state of euphoria
that there is an end to this brutal repression,
corruption, exploitation,
but what lies ahead is certainly very uncertain
for many Syrians.
- [Narrator] Here's how Syria got to this point
and what might happen next
with a group the US designates
as a terrorist organization now in charge.
(group chanting)
The civil war against Assad began
during the Arab spring in 2011,
where countries throughout the Middle East saw uprisings
and revolutions against authoritarian regimes.
Syria was no exception.
- The Assad regime's immediate response was brute force,
even torturing children that had written graffiti on a wall.
And this kind of deep humiliation
really angered the entire population.
And you saw protests just spontaneously
rise up throughout the country.
And the regime unfortunately doubled down on
that brute force.
And so, eventually, you saw many
of those protestors form their own armed groups
to defend their communities.
- [Narrator] Rebels even captured
the largest city at the time, Aleppo.
It took four years,
but Assad eventually recaptured it using chemical weapons
against his own people, and largely because of the backing
and direct military support of Iran and Russia.
- Syria has actually historic ties to Russia,