The fall of a longtime dictator or dynasty typically opens a window of joy, hope and the possibility of healing. Boisterous crowds pour into the streets. Statues and symbols of the old regime are destroyed. Jails are emptied of political prisoners. Mass graves are uncovered. The search begins for the millions of dollars missing from the central bank.

All too soon, the jubilation turns to despair. Celebration gives way to retribution. Old regime figures are targeted. A security vacuum enables spiraling violence. A sense of chaos sets in. And before long, people begin to yearn for the good old days of the strongman; yes, he was repressive, but at least the streets were safe!

It’s a pattern I’ve seen over and over during my decades as a correspondent for The Post, starting in 1986 in Haiti, where I cut my teeth as a foreign reporter covering the fall of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. The memories returned last month as I watched images of joyous Syrians in the streets of Damascus, Aleppo and other cities, celebrating the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Thank goodness Assad is gone, I thought. Now will Syrians seize this opportunity to build a new, inclusive politics and society? Or will their country, like Haiti and so many others, descend into violence and chaos until a new strongman takes control?

The scenes in Haiti 39 years ago were remarkably similar to what’s been happening in Damascus. First came the news that, after weeks of unrest, Duvalier had flown to France aboard a U.S. Air Force C-141 under the cover of darkness. His departing entourage included more than 20 family members and three bodyguards. Some $33 million was reported missing from Haiti’s central bank.

When Assad fled on a plane to Russia, as rebels advanced on the capital, his wife and children were already waiting for him in Moscow. The Syrian dictator never informed his top military commanders, senior civilian officials or even members of his extended family of his plan. He is said to have airlifted $250 million in cash to Russia in the years before his downfall.

As news spread of the Haitian dynasty’s collapse, jubilant crowds thronged the streets in front of his presidential palace, long considered off-limits to the public. A statue of Vodou physician Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, holding the hand of Baby Doc as a little boy, was reduced to shards. Likewise, in Damascus and across Syria, crowds cheered as statues of Assad’s father, the brutal Hafez al-Assad, were toppled and dragged through the streets.

In Haiti, it didn’t take long for the violence to overshadow the celebrations. Crowds hunted down members of the Duvalier family’s notorious private militia, the Tontons Macoutes. Buildings were looted. Fires were set. So far, this hasn’t happened in Syria.

Haiti since the fall of Duvalier has been the very definition of a failed state. A new military-dominated transitional council was named, and elections were held in 1988. But the following decades saw a bewildering series of coups, elections, counter-coups, assassinations and a U.S. military intervention. Today, Haiti is a violent mess, racked by gangs who hold sway over 80 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince. A Kenyan-led international police force is outmanned, outgunned and unable to rein in the violence.

The same pattern has appeared elsewhere. In Asia, the 1986 overthrow of the 20-year kleptocratic dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos restored democratic elections, but also ushered in a long period of political violence, coup attempts, corruption and economic stagnation. By 2016, Filipinos opted for a return to strongman rule — albeit a democratically elected one — by choosing Rodrigo Duterte as president. His heavy-handed war against suspected drug dealers left some 20,000 people dead. In 2022, the term-limited Duterte was replaced by Marcos’s son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who ran on a campaign of nostalgia for his father’s time.

In Indonesia in 1998, the overthrow of the dictatorship of President Suharto led to a chaotic period of communal violence and rising secessionist tension. Democracy took root, but Indonesia is now sliding back toward illiberal strongman rule. Voters in February elected as president Prabowo Subianto, Suharto’s former son-in-law and an ex-army general who served as commander of the feared special forces unit responsible for kidnappings, disappearances and other human rights abuses under Suharto’s “New Order” regime.

When I landed in Kenya in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Africa initially seemed to be set for a democratic awakening. Longtime dictators were toppled in Somalia, Ethiopia and Chad, and Zaire’s kleptocratic President Mobutu Sese Seko was barely clinging to power, unable to set foot in Kinshasa, the capital. But rather than bring democracy, the dictators’ fall brought more violence, anarchy and autocratic rule. Somalia, Ethiopia, Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, are now ranked among the world’s most fragile states.

Can Syria avoid this fate?

My experience and the historical record leave me pessimistic. But the Middle East needs a success story, and I’d love to be proved wrong.

© Washington Post