CNN
—

“Our leader forever” was a slogan often seen in Syria during the time of President Hafez al-Assad, the father of the current Syrian president.

The prospect that the dour, stern Syrian leader would live forever was a source of dark humor for many of my Syrian friends when I lived and worked in Aleppo in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Hafez al-Assad died in June 2000. After all, he was not immortal.

However, his regime lives on under the leadership of his son Bashar al-Assad.

There were moments when the survival of the Bashar regime seemed doubtful. As the so-called Arab Spring swept the region in 2011, toppling autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and mass protests erupting in Yemen, Bahrain and Syria, some began writing epitaphs for the Assad dynasty.

But Syria’s allies – Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Russia – came to the rescue. In recent years, the fight in Syria has appeared frozen between a corrupt, brutal regime in Damascus and a divided, often extreme opposition.

Once shunned by his fellow Arab autocrats, Bashar al-Assad gradually regained the dubious respectability that Arab regimes accord one another.

Was the nightmare of the Syrian civil war over? Had Bashar al-Assad won? This was certainly the assumption of many, even though large parts of Syria were controlled by a US-backed Kurdish militia and Turkish-backed Sunni factions; that Hezbollah, Iran and Russia have propped up the regime; that the US controlled areas in eastern Syria; that Israel carried out airstrikes whenever and wherever it saw fit; and that ISIS, although defeated, still managed to launch hit-and-run attacks.

That the government in Damascus still exists after all this seemed an achievement in itself.

Still, it was an illusion of regime victory that suddenly shattered this week after the opposition led by the once al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra – renamed Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham – launched an offensive in Idlib province They managed to storm into the center of Aleppo in just 72 hours.

On Saturday evening, Syrian social media accounts reported the collapse of government forces in the northern part of the country and the rebel advance on the central city of Hama. There, in early 1982, Bashar’s father had his army and secret services slaughter thousands of his opponents, ending an uprising led by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Why did the dam burst within a few days?

The obvious explanation is that Syria’s key allies – Russia, Iran and Hezbollah – are all under pressure and inattentive.

Hezbollah – which played a key role in strengthening the regime during the darkest days of the civil war – withdrew most of its troops home after October 7, 2023 to fight Israel, which subsequently killed most of the group’s senior leaders .

Russia also played a key role in propping up the government in Damascus after it sent troops and warplanes to Syria in September 2015. But now Moscow’s top priority is the war in Ukraine. Finally, Iran’s advisers and bases in Syria have been frequently attacked by Israel over the past year.

Additionally, there is the fundamental reality of longevity. The Assad dynasty has been in power for 53 years, since 1971. While her mere survival is an achievement, she has little else to show for it.

Even before the civil war broke out in 2011, endemic corruption and mismanagement were already weighing on the economy. Since then, life for the average Syrian has only gotten worse. The war left hundreds of thousands dead, while millions more were either internally displaced or forced into exile.

Since 1971, the Assad dynasty has repeatedly weathered internal and external challenges and survived the fight a day later. But nothing, neither regime nor leader, lasts forever. Everything comes to an end at some point.