As Syrian rebels advanced on Damascus in a surprise lightning offensive from the north, the Rojava Kurds seized territory from the Bashar Assad regime in the west, and the Druze took up arms in their own region in the south. After years of the lines in the conflict being frozen and the genocidal Assad dictatorship being “normalized,” on Dec. 8 the unthinkable happened and the dictator fled. Suddenly the 13-year aim of the Syrian Revolution has been realized—the fall of the regime. But the lead rebel faction, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has an ugly past, its partner the Syrian National Army (SNA) is in the political orbit of Turkish aspiring dictator Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the threat of Arab-Kurdish ethnic war in northern Syria looms closer. Amid a conflict now dominated by armed actors, can the unarmed civil resistance that began the revolution 13 years ago re-assert itself, and revive the secular-democratic spirit of 2011? In Episode 254 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes a hard look.
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Photo of Aleppo Citadel in rebel hands via social media, e.g. Twtter
