Washington DC

Here is the headline over the final chapter of fifty-four years of tyrannical rule over Syria by the Assad family: Crime Without Punishment.

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Like his father Hafez, Bashar al-Assad got away with murder. No arrest, no prosecution for war crimes, no trial. Just a plane ride to Moscow, where the family has been granted asylum and own several luxury apartments. They will no doubt miss the ornate presidential palace in Damascus but will not lack comfort or money.

US authorities estimate that the family – Bashar’s British-born wife Asma, their daughter Zein and son Karim – are worth around $2 billion in numerous accounts, shell companies, offshore tax havens and real estate, including apartments in one of Moscow’s highest buildings.

The Assad dynasty collapsed over the weekend without a fight after a lightning assault by a coalition of around 25,000 anti-regime fighters that swept from Aleppo to Damascus in just over a week. The forces that drove the Assad into exile were led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist group once allied with al Qaeda.

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The leader of HTS has begun to form a transitional government and named an interim Prime Minister, Mohammed al-Bashir who was a prominent figure in the rebel-dominated northwest of Syria.

What comes next in Syria is anyone’s guess. Both Syria’s sprawling security apparatus and western intelligence agencies were clearly taken by surprise. Predictions from American officials should be taken with a pinch of salt after a series of flawed assumptions and expressions of wishful thinking.

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They go back to December 2012, when the U.S. State Department’s leading expert on Syria, Frederic Hof, told a Congressional committee that “our view is that this regime is the equivalent of a dead man walking…I do not see this regime surviving.”

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That came after the violent suppression of anti-government protests in March 2011 gradually morphed into full-scale war pitting an array of Islamist groups against the Syrian military. Within a year, the anti-Assad forces were gaining ground and the government’s situation looked precarious.

A chorus of Western leaders, including then U.S. President Barack Obama declared that “Assad Must Go”. But the tide of the multi-sided civil war turned in favour of the regime when Russia intervened, using its superior air power against the anti-regime forces.

The Russian air assaults, combined with Iranian-backed Hezbollah militias, saved the regime.

Now, Russia is busy fighting in Ukraine and Hezbollah has been so weakened by a fierce Israeli campaign that acting on behalf of Syria is out of the question.

So, Assad escaped punishment for what United Nations General Antonio Guterres described as “one of the greatest war crimes the world has witnessed this century.” The war has driven around six million Syrians into exile and killed more than 600,000 people, by U.N. estimates.

That Bashar escaped with impunity is a bitter pill to swallow for millions of Syrians as well as the small army of Western officials and aid agencies involved in trying to stem the bloodshed.

But escaping accountability is something of a family tradition. His father, Hafez, from whom Bashar inherited his power, also enforced authoritarian rule with mass murder. Even in a Middle East dotted with massacres, the way he dealt with Moslem dissidents in the city of Hama stood out.

On February 12, 1982, an army raid on militants of the outlawed Moslem Brotherhood sparked fighting throughout the city. The government responded by surrounding the city with tanks and artillery and blasted the densely-populated centre for 27 days, without pause. Estimates of those killed ranged from 10,000 to 40,000.

Also read: India evacuates 75 nationals from Syria as rebels topple Assad`s regime

The carnage went largely unnoticed, out of sight in an era before cell phone videos uploaded to the Internet provided evidence for all the world to see. In 1982, Syria’s Arab neighbours remained silent, reaction from the West was muted.

His country pacified and cowed, Hafez ruled for another 18 years. He died peacefully in bed, of pulmonary disease. He was never held to account for the massacre. Crime without punishment. Just like his son, 24 years later.

To close on a personal note: I share the joy of the Syrians celebrating the end of the murderous dynasty because I experienced its ruthlessness. When I was based in Beirut, I reported extensively on the Syrian government’s crackdown on dissent.

The stories displeased the government of Hafez al-Assad and officials urged me to take a less critical tone “or you will feel the anger of the masses.”

Ignoring this had a cost: On June 6, 1980, a gunman using a pistol with a silencer shot me in the back. The bullet lodged so close to my spine that surgeons thought it would be too risky to extract it. So, it’s still inside me and startles doctors whenever I take an X-ray.

I call it a memento to a vicious government exercising censorship by bullet.

Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.