By Naram Sarjoun - April 2025
I know that President Bashar al-Assad now carries the emotions of Abu Firas al-Hamdani, watching a free dove weep. For he, more than anyone else, is entitled to shed tears—over his homeland, his people, his army, and his dreams of lifting Syria, of resisting the West, and of restoring the glory of the forefathers through victory—the glory of Salah al-Din who once defied Europe.
But the tears of the mighty in such moments are not cheap…
And yet—if anyone deserves to smile today, not out of arrogance, but in bitter vindication—and even though mockery is not among his traits—it is President Bashar al-Assad. Because what some Syrians, deluded by their own illusions, have done, only proves that he was right about everything. Every insight he had since 2011 has now unfolded exactly as he warned.
The so-called “revolutionaries” were never independent. They were mercenaries, agents, and paid pawns. They held no dignity before those who used them, funded them, and bought them for a measly price. Today, they are treated like slaves—and their country like a plundered slave girl.
Syria was the one truly captured by the world. And those who offered her up were none other than some of her own children—dancing in every corner, oblivious that they were being slaughtered. Some Syrians stood behind doors, listening to the sound of Syria’s honor being torn.
Assad was right when he said that many Syrians were, in truth, agents of foreign nations, and that their so-called revolution was never about patriotism—it was a tool of sectarianism and racism. He knew they weren’t even fit to manage a kiosk.
He was also right in knowing that Turkey harbored ill intentions for Syria and the Arabs, and that Erdogan—whether meetings happened or not—could never be trusted. He knew Erdogan was no different than Netanyahu: pretending to negotiate while preparing to stab in the back.
Erdogan was already preparing the terrorists, regardless of political encounters, grooming them specifically for this stage of destruction.
Assad knew from the beginning that this “revolution” was engineered not to unite Syrians but to divide them, to starve them into submission, to push them toward normalization with Israel just to survive. It was a civil war project, one he tried to prevent for 14 years, but which now threatens to erupt even more fiercely—after beginning with a massacre.
What starts with a massacre will only continue down the path of bloodshed—and its only language will be massacres.
Assad and his team saw the bloodlust, the ignorance, and the violence in the “rebels” as early as their meeting with extremist figures from Daraa. And when the people of Daraa came to the palace, fabricating stories like “the children’s fingernails”—he saw through it. They didn’t want solutions—they wanted power and chaos. Because the true demand came from Israel.
He heard the sectarian slogans from day one:
“Alawi to the coffin, Christian to Beirut, we’re coming to slaughter.”
He tried to suppress and contain this hate speech for 14 years—but now the masks have fallen.
The conscience, language, goals, and audience of this “revolution” stand exposed—openly sectarian and hateful. Assad warned everyone he met: the day after Syria falls will not bring peace—it will be the beginning of Syria’s dismemberment. And now, it has been divided in blood and hatred—right in front of her own children.
This division didn’t need borders on a map—it needed psychological rupture. Estrangement. Hatred. The death of the will to live together.
Can anyone from the Sunni majority today convince the people of the coast or the people of Jabal al-Arab that they are equal citizens? Or has the revolution created a new regime of apartheid—against the coast, against the Druze, against every community that doesn’t align with the Muslim Brotherhood or the Ottoman dream?
Assad was also right when he warned that poverty and economic pressure would touch everyone, that the goal was to exile Syrians from Syria itself. Just as Iraqis once thought their problem was with Saddam, only to find that the issue was with Iraq as a nation, so too are Syrians now realizing: the world’s problem was never Assad—it was Syria’s role and sovereignty.
Syrians hoped for miracles to lift the siege. But the sanctions remained. The issue isn’t Assad. The issue is Syria. And this siege will only be lifted at an unbearably high price—a price already being paid. For the first time in the so-called age of “freedom,” salaries have been suspended. Women and children are starving. Men are being humiliated by jihadist migrants from the Caucasus, Turkestan, and the Uyghur regions—and families are losing their homes.
And as for the people of the coast—those who distanced themselves from Assad, thinking his steadfastness brought them no benefit, and that their sacrifices went unrewarded—They’ve now realized that without him as president, what they lost was far greater—their security, their lives, their dignity, and even their rightful claim to full citizenship.
Assad warned them all. Because once the last bastion of patriotism, secularism, and national dignity falls—Syria will become prey, torn apart like a gazelle surrounded by hyenas, each predator ripping a limb.
And today, Syria is that gazelle—fallen, limping, encircled by wolves.
I don’t know how long it will take for Syrians to reflect on the last half-century under Hafez and Bashar al-Assad. But one day, they’ll understand: Syria’s regional weight was a creation of Hafez al-Assad’s strategic mind, alongside patriots and the poor Alawites, who formed an essential leadership core in the military, fought wars in 1973 and in Lebanon, and turned Syria into a key pillar of the region.
But now the Syrian “bubble” has burst—popped by fools calling themselves “Sunnis.” And the ugly truth is: the Sunni majority alone cannot build the regional stature that the Assads gave Syria.
Syria cannot stand without its minorities. Assad gave them a sense of equal value—and they gave everything in return. The proof is in what Syria became when the majority overran the minorities: a distorted shell, smaller than its natural size.
And still, some think they can restore Syria’s stature while behaving like an Umayyad gang dancing to songs of sectarian insults and moral collapse.
Today, in Assad’s absence, Syria has become a servant passed between houses—traded by the Turks, Israelis, Qataris, and Saudis. And yes, there are even days where she serves silently in the White House—or worse, in the White House’s bedroom—to soothe its master.
The truth is, the daughter of Damascus, once the heart of the Umayyads, has become the maid of the region. She was at her brightest under Assad, who brought back her glow, who made Umayyad Square the most important square in the Middle East—negotiating with the world in her name.
He turned the Umayyad sash and medal into symbols of honor. And every sect gathered behind one imam in the Umayyad Mosque.
But today, Damascus will pray as Istanbul, Tel Aviv, and Doha dictate—perhaps even as Mozambique or Micronesia see fit.
I know you cannot bring yourself to smile, Mr. President Bashar al-Assad. It’s not in your nature to gloat. But what has befallen Syria and her people should open their eyes:
You were right.
You spoke the truth—not with prophecies or predictions, but with insight and experience.
Some of your people refused to learn from the pain of Libya, Iraq, and Yemen. They clung to ignorance, even after the bloodshed, the chaos, and the lies. But now, they will feel the weight of their betrayal. They will taste regret, letter by letter, street by street.
And they will whisper, shout, and cry,
Alley to alley, home to home:
You were right, Bashar.
— Naram Sarjoun
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