Bashar al-Assad has been the president of Syria since 2000, following the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who had ruled the country for nearly 30 years.
For more than ten years, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria appeared to ride out the brutal tide of a civil war with powerful allies like Russia and Iran at its side.
The country seemed set to continue under the steady grip of its 59-year-old president despite all the chaos surrounding it. Again, as was said throughout Hafez al-Assad’s rule, though with less sincerity, so, too, was “our leader forever.”.
When the Arab Spring started to overthrow regimes across the region in 2011, many thought the end of the Assad dynasty was near. Protests in Syria turned into a civil war within a few months of protesting against Assad’s government.
Assad’s regime survived due to Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah intervention. The Syrian government maintained key territories over time while the opponents were divided.
The situation has swung around in the last few days. Only this past week, opposition forces, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – the former al-Qaeda affiliate – mounted an offensive that swept through northern Syria, taking huge areas of land, including parts of the city of Aleppo.
