Syrian officials and military officers told The Atlantic that the key factor behind the collapse of the regime in Damascus in December 2024 was the ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad himself.
The figures, who frequented the presidential palace in Damascus in recent years, told journalist Robert Worth that Assad was a detached ruler, obsessed with sex and video games, who could apparently have saved his regime at any point over the last five years if not for his stubbornness and arrogance. They argued that it was not only geopolitical developments that led to the regime's fall, since none of the countries in the region wanted it to collapse, and some even offered him lifelines. Had he taken them, he would likely still be sitting in his palace.
One turning point came during the war that erupted in October 2023. With the elimination of Hezbollah terrorist organization Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, the pro-Iranian axis suffered a severe blow and weakened significantly. In addition, another Assad ally, Russia, was increasingly preoccupied with the war in Ukraine.
Despite this, according to The Atlantic, Assad spent a significant portion of his time playing "Candy Crush" and other video games on his phone. He pushed aside senior figures from the era of his father, Hafez al-Assad, and relied on "a small circle of young figures with questionable credibility."
One of them was communications adviser Luna al-Shibl, who was killed in 2024. The magazine also reported that al-Shibl was in fact Assad's mistress, and that she also procured other women for him to have sex with, including the wives of senior Syrian officers. The information was based on former palace insiders and a former Israeli official. Al-Shibl, who previously worked for the Qatari network Al Jazeera, was suspected by senior Iranian officials of being a "spy."
In that context, it was reported that the person who ordered al-Shibl's assassination in the summer of 2024 was none other than Assad himself, according to a former Israeli official and two sources with ties to the regime. Al-Shibl was suspected of becoming a Russian agent and providing Moscow with information about Iranian activity in Syria.
Beyond that, the Assad family continued to maintain a lavish lifestyle thanks to enormous profits from the Captagon drug trade, even as the regime's army officers lived in poverty.
According to Syrians, Assad did not understand that his temporary victory in 2017 was not enough to fully stabilize the regime. On the one hand, the regime's forces regained control over the major cities and the rebels were largely confined to the Idlib enclave. On the other hand, large parts of the country were destroyed, the economy collapsed, and Western sanctions further restricted it. Moreover, Syrian sovereignty became subordinate to Russia and Iran, both of which demanded money from the regime. Assad supporters who survived the war also expected compensation.
For example, it was noted that in the regime's final days, foreign ministers from other countries called and offered deals. Assad did not answer. Instead, he was said to have sulked and expressed anger over any proposal that might include giving up the presidency.
The Arab Gulf states had the funding and influence to pull Assad's regime out of its stagnation, and in 2017 the United Arab Emirates began engaging Damascus. But according to the report, Abu Dhabi maintained the same condition for assistance that it had held since before the civil war: Bashar al-Assad had to distance himself from Iran, meaning leave the pro-Iranian axis.
Relations between Abu Dhabi and Damascus were indeed renewed, but did not go beyond that. Assad refused to distance himself from Tehran. Khaled al-Ahmed, his former representative, who led the negotiations with the Emiratis and believed change was possible, concluded that Assad was incapable of changing. "He was the dead elephant in the room," he said of Assad. Today he advises the government of al-Sharaa.
According to The Atlantic, around 2017 an Israeli national security official reached the same conclusion, that Assad had no intention of breaking away from the Iranian axis, and recommended to his superiors pushing for a palace coup. The Israeli official, no longer in service, told the US magazine that by 2019 he began to fear Assad was no longer reliable and was acting more recklessly. "The Assad regime was an empty shell," he said. The report added that Israel opposed the idea of a palace coup, even though it came up for discussion from time to time in talks with the Americans, though it never progressed very far.
"Everyone in the region felt comfortable with him being there," the former Israeli official said, "weak, and not a threat to anyone." A former representative of Hezbollah who operated in Syria was quoted as saying: "Bashar lives in a fantasy world. 'The Iranians need me. The Russians have no other option. I am the king.'"
According to him, in 2019 even the Russians and Iranians began pressuring Assad to implement symbolic reforms that would appease Western countries and ease the economic burden. Instead, Assad neglected the matter.
Another example of the dictator's rigidity and that of his regime was cited from 2020. Two US officials, Roger Carstens (then the special envoy for hostage affairs) and Kash Patel (then chief of staff to the defense secretary, now director of the FBI), arrived in Syria. They met Assad's security adviser Ali Mamlouk in an effort to locate US journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared in Syria.
According to Carstens, Mamlouk responded that the US would need to lift sanctions and withdraw its forces from Syria before any request involving an American could even be discussed. Abbas Ibrahim, a former Lebanese security official who was present at the meeting, believed it was merely an "opening move," and that Mamlouk did not truly expect the Americans to make such sweeping concessions.
Surprisingly, the Trump administration signaled willingness to agree to a deal in exchange for proof of life from Tice. But afterward, Assad's response arrived: no deal and no further talks. Mamlouk told the Lebanese official Ibrahim the reason was that "Trump described Assad as an animal" several years earlier. Ibrahim told Mamlouk: "This is madness."
In 2023, the Biden administration renewed efforts to locate Tice and sent a delegation to Oman to meet Syrian officials. According to the Lebanese official Ibrahim, Assad again behaved "in an almost insulting manner," and refused to send a senior official. Instead, he sent a former ambassador who was instructed not to speak about Tice.
