 Welcome back to Semafor Gulf, where the Syrian tragedy added drama to the Doha Forum this weekend. Syrian rebels stunned the world over the past 10 days, erupting from their small northeastern enclave, blitzing through the country, reclaiming their towns and cities, and forcing a dictator — who together with his father brutalized the country for 54 years — out of power. I grew up in Aleppo, and left immediately after high school because I could. In 2012, I was living in New York, covering private equity, but aborted my career to document my people’s revolution. It was, and remains, a revolution: A complete reversal of the old order, a fight for freedom against tyranny that most people, even those in repressive states, can’t imagine. Just look at the survivors emerging from dungeons across Syria — some just meters away from the trendy bars and cute shops that tourists cite when lamenting the country’s pre-war splendor. I stopped covering the war in 2014, not disillusioned by Syrians but by a world that has forsaken them. In April 2013, I was the only journalist on the scene of a chemical weapons attack in Aleppo, months before the larger one near Damascus exposed that no number of dead Syrian civilians would trigger the “Responsibility to Protect.” As Fred Hof, the former US Special Envoy to Syria would say, the world allowed “Never Again” to become “Well, maybe just this once.” As rebels converged on Damascus on Saturday, the final negotiations among nations with stakes in Syria unfolded at the Doha Forum — held in opulent rooms of the Sheraton Hotel, renovated by Syrian construction contractors exiled by the war. With Assad clinging to power, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, was more scowl and jowls than when I covered him a decade ago. Back then, he saved the Obama administration from enforcing its redline by compelling Assad to relinquish his chemical weapons — which he still hasn’t, and which he continued to use. Israel bombed chemical-weapons facilities shortly after he fled. Now, with Moscow bogged down in Ukraine, Lavrov was seeing the decades-long Assad project crumbling. During a forum interview, he bristled at Syria-related questions, preferring to lecture about Russia’s righteous invasion of Ukraine. “You wish to drown me in Syria,” he told the interviewer. On Sunday, it was over. Turkey, Russia, and Iran expanded their contact group to include Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq, negotiating late into Saturday night, calling for a political solution. It’s still not clear what guarantees were made, what bits of Syrian sovereignty were traded to achieve the bloodless capture of Damascus. Hakan Fidan, Turkey’s foreign minister, strutted with the confidence of the victor. He blamed Assad for refusing to engage, to heed Ankara’s warning of his fate. The former intelligence chief has been deeply involved in Syria’s rebellion since the beginning, and knew better than anyone the capabilities of the rebel groups, and the strategy hatched by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s Ahmed al-Shara (better known as Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani), a former Al Qaeda commander who broke ties with the global network. In Doha, dozens of Syrians who have been lobbying for years to protect civilians and advocate for regime change were in a state of awe, relief, grief, and tremendous joy. They shared hugs, tears, and lingering questions about what’s next.  Non-Syrians asked if I was worried — a strange question given the context. The world tolerated this regime’s rule, ignored thousands languishing in dungeons, and allowed Syrians abroad to bear the financial burden of supporting those trapped inside with minimal dignity in their impoverished lives. I’ve been worried since March 25, 2011, and terrified my entire life. Will the weeks, months, or years ahead bring utopia? No. Will tyranny return? Perhaps. Could it be more brutal than what we’ve endured? Unimaginable. |
