2025-03-15
54 分钟The Economist For all the world's troubling news in recent years,
one event in December shot through with promise still stands out.
The fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
Suddenly a country that had been led to near ruin by a vicious dictator was rid of him.
And I do mean suddenly.
A rebel advance took town after town in just days.
And then he was gone, absconded.
to Russia, people couldn't believe it.
We never thought there would be a day where we would live without him being present.
And I think now that it's a new reality.
The new reality came with new questions,
like how this country and its patchwork of political and ideological stances would gather itself together,
like whether Ahmed Alshara, the rebel leader who appointed himself president,
would do as he promised.
leaving behind his jihadist past and guiding the country without prejudice to sect or ethnicity.
For all the relief Syrians felt, those questions still temper all that hope.
Earlier this month there was an uprising by the Alawites,
the sect of Mr. Assad that under him had enjoyed relative peace and prosperity.
What followed was brutal retaliation.
Hundreds of Alawites were hunted down and killed.