Syria has been a work in progress, a nation to be rebuilt, since the downfall of its autocratic president, Bashar al-Assad, a month ago.

It is far too early to ascertain in what political direction Syria is heading, but if the past is any guide, Syrians should not expect their country to become a Jeffersonian democracy.

For most of its nearly 80 years as an independent nation, following Ottoman and French colonial domination, Syria was ruled from the barrel of a gun by a succession of army officers who owed their positions to coups.

Assad, an ophthalmologist who inherited the presidency following the death of his father, Hafez, in 2000, broke that mould. But in every other respect, he was cut from the same cloth.

A secular nationalist whose legitimacy was rooted in his control of the Baathist Party and the armed forces, Assad started off as a reformer, but gradually he reverted to form in the years leading up to the nation-wide uprising in 2011 and the outbreak of the civil war.

In suppressing the rebellion with the indispensable assistance of Iran, Russia and Hezbollah, Assad was absolutely ruthless, just as his father had been in crushing a Muslim Brotherhood revolt in Hama in 1982.

In keeping with his father’s legacy, Assad’s dictatorial regime radiated strength, intimidation and fear, yet it rested on a foundation of sand, as events would prove. On December 7, he was swiftly overthrown by a coalition of Syrian rebels from northwestern Idlib province spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist outfit led by Ahmed al-Shara.

For years, he was a member of the Islamic State organization in Iraq. But in 2013, he switched his loyalty to Al-Qaeda, which he left in 2016.

HTS emerged in 2017 after a coalition of armed groups established a jihadist faction known as Jabhat al-Nusra and led by Shara. He cracked down on extremist groups such as Hurras al-Din, an Al-Qaeda affiliate, and suppressed the Syrian branch of Islamic State in Idlib.

From that point onward, he portrayed himself as a moderate Islamist along the lines of one of his supporters, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

Shara and his team face a mountain of challenges and problems as they get down to the business of governing and rebuilding a........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)