Reed Mideke
Uh. I think the analogy to 1989 is somewhat applicable to what happened internally (a repressive regime that seemed inevitable right up until a bunch of people decided the system was toast and they weren't interested in killing/dying to defend it), but this? "…just as 1989 marked the end of communism in Europe, Assad’s flight to Moscow signals the demise of the ideology of anti-Western, anti-Israel resistance in the Middle East" - Nah, that ain't it.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/12/09/hezbollah-syria-iran-lebanon-assad/
"The Financial Times has uncovered records showing that Assad’s regime, while desperately short of foreign currency, flew banknotes weighing nearly two tonnes in $100 bills and €500 notes into Moscow’s Vnukovo airport to be deposited at sanctioned Russian banks between 2018 and 2019" (probably paywalled if you don't get a magic referral from the hellsite)
https://www.ft.com/content/84ef8bdd-d070-431d-90f6-332937911096
So UK has not lifted the terrorist designation on HTS, but "paused its decisions on Syrian asylum claims to the UK as the government has not determined whether Syria, under the new rebel-led authorities, is a safe country which people could be sent to" 🤨
I dunno man, if you say the de-facto rulers of a country are terrorists who it's illegal to support or do business with, that might undermine the whole "it's totes safe to go back" thing?
"A Syrian source familiar with the discussions told Reuters that the new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, had requested that Moscow hand over former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad" and "[rebuild trust with] concrete measures such as compensation, reconstruction and recovery"
The Syrians also "stressed that restoring relations must address past mistakes, respect the will of the Syrian people and serve their interests"
Maybe it's only an opening bid, but looks like if the Russians want to keep those bases it's gonna cost them
Per OPCW "The Syrian caretaker authorities extended all possible support and cooperation at short notice"
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/chemical-weapons-inspectors-granted-access-assad-era-sites-syria-say-sources-2025-03-28/
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/31/nx-s1-5343375/syria-damascus-bars
Found by Reuters at the abandoned Iranian embassy in Syria "The ambitious program, outlined in a 33-page official Iranian study, makes several references to “The Marshall Plan” … Ultimately, Iran’s hopes to emulate the Marshall Plan and build an economic empire encompassing Syria went more the way of America’s debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan"
From leading a major al Qaeda affiliate to pitching Trump Tower Damascus
also, 6 months on from overthrowing Assad "Washington is yet to formulate and articulate a coherent Syria policy" so no wonder Sharaa is looking for something shiny to dangle in front of Trump
Looks like Trump Tower Damascus is go!
More seriously, this is actually good. While I'd argue for something more structured than the blanket removal this appears to be (like, we'll keep sanctions suspended as long as you meet X, Y, Z standards for governance, minority rights etc), it's certainly better than just leaving them all in place.
https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-says-will-remove-us-sanctions-syria-2025-05-13/
Syria is also formally integrating ~3,500 mostly Uyghur and central Asian foreign fighters into the armed forces, with at least informal US agreement. Probably one of the less bad options
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/syrian-forces-massacred-1500-alawites-chain-command-led-damascus-2025-06-30/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/09/syria-new-investigation-reveals-evidence-government-and-affiliated-forces-extrajudicially-executed-dozens-of-druze-people-in-suwayda/
*record scratch* *freeze frame*
NYT article on where Assad regime officials escaped to (mostly Russia for the ones they managed to track down, unsurprisingly)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/world/middleeast/assad-regime-syria-exodus.html?unlocked_article_code=1.uE8.b0P2.QGOQOPkXTB6G&smid=url-share
"The United States is preparing to establish a military presence at an airbase in Damascus to help enable a security pact that Washington is brokering between Syria and Israel, six sources familiar with the matter told Reuters" 🤨
https://www.icij.org/investigations/damascus-dossier/assad-intelligence-security-united-nations-aid/
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/assads-exiled-spy-chief-billionaire-cousin-plot-syrian-uprisings-russia-2025-12-05/
https://www.thetimes.com/article/a224fe6f-9456-4a6a-8888-52d07b4d9b11?shareToken=7e085e50bbd15ecd55956dcc9a4ecf17
"Better than Assad" is an extremely low bar: "detainees and families described inhumane conditions they or their relatives endured when locked up – overcrowding, scarce food, outbreaks of skin disease from a lack of soap. Both security detainees and people accused of common crimes said abuse and neglect were rife … Forty people who were either former detainees or family members of detainees also described abuse and sometimes torture"
NYT on the Assad regime's attempts to cover up their industrial scale murder and torture, of which the mass grave relocation reported earlier by Reuters was just a part. While they may have muddied the evidence for some individual cases, attempting a bureaucracy-wide cover up inevitably produced its own paper trail and seems like powerful evidence that the regime was fully aware of and complicit in the atrocities
https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/how-the-assad-regime-disappeared-thousands-of-children/
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/17/g-s1-113270/uyghurs-china-syria-war-fighters-rebels-bashar-al-assad
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/remnants-assads-chemical-weapons-program-recovered-syrian-official-says-2026-05-26/
"According to the OPCW’s monthly update report, the findings include dozens of chemical munitions previously undeclared to the Organisation, including the same type of aerial bombs that were used in chemical attacks in Ltamenah in March 2017 and Khan Shaykhun in April 2017. Rockets were also found, of the same type as those that were used in the Ghouta chemical weapons attack in August 2013"
