2024-12-16
8 分钟The Economist Hi there, this is Jason Palmer,
co-host of The Intelligence, our daily news and current affairs show.
This is Editor's Picks,
where we take an unmissable article from the latest edition of The Economist and get someone with better diction than mine to read it aloud.
Have a listen.
After 53 years in power,
the House of Assad left behind nothing but ruin, corruption, and misery.
As rebels advanced into Damascus on December 8th, the regime's army melted into the air.
It had run out of reasons to fight for Bashar al-Assad.
Later, Syrians impoverished by his rule gawped at his abandoned palaces.
Broken people emerged blinking from his prisons.
Some could no longer remember their own names.
Now that Mr. Assad has fled to Moscow, the question is where will liberation lead?
In a part of the world plagued by ethnic violence and religious strife,
many fear the worst.
The Arab Spring in 2010 to 2012 taught that countries which topple their dictators often end up being fought over or dominated by men who are no less despotic.
That is all the more reason to wish and work for something better in Syria.
There is no denying that many forces are conspiring to drag the country into further bloodshed.
Syria is a mosaic of peoples and faiths carved out of the Ottoman Empire.
They have never lived side by side in a stable democracy.