The rapid demise of the brutal Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria has taken every geopolitical analyst and self-proclaimed Middle East “expert” by storm.
Following 53 years of brutal Assad family rule and 13 years of bloody civil war, the Syrian strongman abruptly fled for asylum in Moscow as rebels finalized their encircling of Damascus. In the blink of an eye, one of the two Ba’athist Arab states—along with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq before the U.S.-led 2003 invasion—was no more.
Start with the obvious: Assad was a world-historical tyrant, even by bleak Arab world standards. He led with an iron fist, incarcerating political enemies and siccing his totalitarian security apparatuses on all those whom he deemed a threat. (You can see where Democrats may have gotten some ideas.)
Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, he racked up a death toll of over half a…
