It's (hopefully) morning in Syria

Good riddance to the Assad dictatorship, even if what comes next won't necessarily be any better.

He still had a better weekend than Chicago Bears fans though.

When South Korea’s President tried to impose martial law a few months ago, I lamented that democracy around the world seemed to be in retreat and that a new age of authoritarianism was upon us, and-

Wait, that happened last week?!? Are we sure about that? It already feels like thirty news cycles ago.

This is our life now.

Anyway, President Yoon’s state of emergency fizzled out, in no small part because members of his own party refused to go along with it (showing how right-of-center South Korean politicians are very different from American Republicans) though they scuttled an attempt to have him impeached (showing how maybe they aren’t much different after all).

And now one of the Middle East’s longest-serving tyrants, whose family has been kneeling on their country’s for over half a century, is on the run as rebels storm his presidential palace:

Syrian rebels seized the capital Damascus unopposed on Sunday after a lightning advance that sent President Bashar al-Assad fleeing to Russia after a 13-year civil war and six decades of his family's autocratic rule.

In one of the biggest turning points for the Middle East in generations, the fall of Assad's government wiped out a bastion from which Iran and Russia exercised influence across the Arab world. Moscow gave asylum to Assad and his family, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's ambassador to international organizations in Vienna, said on his Telegram channel.

His sudden overthrow, at the hands of a revolt partly backed by Turkey and with roots in jihadist Sunni Islam, limits Iran's ability to spread weapons to its allies and could cost Russia its Mediterranean naval base. It could allow millions of refugees scattered for more than a decade in camps across Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan to finally return home.

For Syrians, it brought a sudden unexpected end to a war in deep freeze for years, with hundreds of thousands dead, cities pounded to dust and an economy hollowed by global sanctions.

There was speculation that Assad, if he escaped Syria with his head still attached to his body, would end up in Tehran, Qatar, or the Middle Eastern Studies department at Columbia University.¹