Syria Made Really Simple

This week's events in Syria, the overthrow of Bashar Assad, are a picture-perfect illustration of what I have been writing here recently about the modern political era revolving around the French Revolution, and repetitions of it.

The modern political era began with the French Revolution of 1789. It was a popular uprising in which the king and queen, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, were overthrown and guillotined. But the revolution was messy and bloody and ultimately ended in the rule of Napoleon, who became the prototype of the modern dictator, although he did not start the revolution. Napoleon was actually a general, who went on to conquer much of Europe and thus spread the ideals of the revolution.

There have been two major, and numerous minor, reenactments of the French Revolution. What I mean by this is not how important each revolution was but whether it changed the basic direction of the French Revolution. There have been two changes of direction, with the two major reenactments. 

Since the original French Revolution there had been widespread industrialization. This brought about a very wealthy upper class of people, and the millions of exploited and underpaid laborers who worked for them. This brought about the first major change in direction, with what we could call the Second Revolution. This was the October Revolution, of 1917, which was the beginning of world Communism.

The original French Revolution was hostile to the Catholic Church. The Second Revolution, based on the theories of Karl Marx, was even more hostile to religion. But the second major reenactment, what we could call the Third Revolution, was the Iranian Revolution of 1979. This turned the world back toward religion, and not only Islam. 

But all three revolutions overthrew a monarchy and all three had a "storming" as their signature event. The signature event of the original French Revolution was the Storming of the Bastille, of the October Revolution it was the Storming of the Winter Palace, and of the Iranian Revolution it was the Storming of the U.S. Embassy. 

The following chart shows what happened recently in Syria, why Bashar Assad was overthrown. 

Point 1 is the original French Revolution. Point 2 is the October Revolution of 1917, the beginning of world Communism. Point 3 is the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Point 4 is the overthrow of the Egyptian Pasha Monarchy in 1952 by military officers, led by Gamal Nasser. The green arrows show how all of these revolutions affected Syria, culminating in recent events.

The original French Revolution, Point 1, affected Syria because it was a French colony, which would especially expose it to the ideals of the Revolution, and modern Syria was put together by France.

The October, or Communist, Revolution, Point 2, especially affected Syria because Bashar Assad's father and predecessor, Hafez, was a close ally of the Soviet Union. 

The Iranian Revolution, Point 3, especially affected Syria because both Bashar Assad and his father were allies of Iran. During the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, Hafez Assad made clear his support for Iran, against his neighboring fellow Arabs in Iraq. The Alawite sect that is followed by the Assad family was originally a branch of the same Shia Islam that is the state religion of Iran. 

The overthrow of the Egyptian Pasha Dynasty, in 1952, especially affected Syria because this is what really brought the French Revolution to the Middle East, although I don't consider it as a major reenactment of the French Revolution because it didn't change the basic direction of the Revolution. Also, before the Assad family ruled Syria, it was united with post-revolutionary Egypt in what was called the United Arab Republic, although that ultimately didn't last.

So the French Revolution, which is what began the modern political era, was converging on Syria from all directions. That could have either helped or hurt Bashar Assad, depending on which side of the Revolution he ended up on. 

The way I see it, Bashar Assad made one simple mistake. That mistake was that he was always pictured wearing a suit.

The all-important French Revolution overthrew and guillotined the king and queen, and ultimately resulted in the emergence of Napoleon, a conqueror in a military uniform, who was the prototype of the modern dictator. Syria had briefly been a monarchy, over a hundred years ago, but the monarchy had been dismantled by the French, and hadn't been overthrown in an internal revolution. 

Wearing a suit, instead of a military uniform like Napoleon, defined Bashar Assad as a king, effectively a continuation of the brief monarchy that had once ruled, and the French Revolution had been all about overthrowing the king. 

If we compare Syria with Egypt, Libya and, Iraq, we see that each had a reenactment of the French Revolution in which a leader in a military uniform, in the mode of Napoleon, was indeed overthrown. Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president who had originally been chief of the Air Force, was overthrown in the Arab Spring. Moammar Gaddafi, a colonel who had overthrown the king in Libya, was himself overthrown in 2011. Saddam Hussein, usually in a military uniform and having come to power, like Napoleon, as a result of the overthrowing and execution of the king, was himself overthrown in Iraq. The first king of Iraq was the same king who had once, separately, ruled Syria.

But what makes the examples of Libya and Iraq different from Syria is that Moammar Gaddafi was overthrown with the help of outside forces, and Saddam Hussein was overthrown entirely by outside forces. Hosni Mubarak, from the military, was overthrown as president of Egypt but a non-military president, Mohamed Morsi, lasted only a year before a military president, Abdel El-Sisi, was reinstated. 

In Syria there was also the involvement of outside forces, Russia and Iran, but they were on the side of Bashar Assad instead of against him. Still he got overthrown because he put himself on the wrong side of the French Revolution, in the king position, by wearing a suit instead of a military uniform, even though he had a military rank.

The signature event of the French Revolution was the Storming of the Bastille. Bastille Day is celebrated on July 14. This was the regime's well-known prison where the revolutionaries released prisoners and seized weapons. This was reenacted at the Storming of Sednaya Prison, in Damascus, which became the focal point of this Syrian Revolution.

These events in Syria reflect the Iranian Revolution in that there is a Khomeini-like figure. Mohammad Al-Jolani even looks like a young Ayatollah Khomeini, complete with a matching beard.

One thing that is really interesting about the repetition of history is that there were a father and son in both Iran's Pahlavi Dynasty and Syria's Assad Dynasty, and the two lasted for nearly exactly the same amount of time. The Pahlavi Dynasty was from 1925 to 1979, and the Assad Dynasty was from 1971 to 2024. 

Much of the world seems surprised that an Islamic movement has overthrown a secular government, just as they were when the Taliban came back to power in Afghanistan. But remember that we are now in the era of the Third Revolution. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 changed the direction of the series that began with the French Revolution. It used to be that a revolution almost always involved Communism but now the trend is back toward religion. 

My conclusion is that the great mistake of Bashar Assad was not that he sent aircraft to bomb his own cities. Other dictators have gotten away with things like that. It was that he was always pictured wearing a suit, and that put him on the wrong side of the revolution.