| The end of al-Assad’s isolation? |
| In the months since a devastating earthquake struck Turkey and Syria, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, has made a remarkable comeback, going from years of near-total global isolation to a welcome back into the Arab fold with virtually no strings attached. He is today expected to attend an annual summit of Arab leaders for the first time in 13 years. |
| Assad was shunned for brutally suppressing in 2011 his country’s Arab Spring uprising, which morphed into a grinding civil war. His government stands accused of widespread torture, the use of chemical weapons against its own people and forced population transfers in a conflict that has left hundreds of thousands of people dead. |
| The Biden administration has made it clear that the U.S. has no plans to re-establish relations with Syria, and Human Rights Watch has urged the Arab countries normalizing ties with the Assad government to at least push for accountability and reforms. Syria’s government is still subject to Western sanctions, but al-Assad does not appear to have paid a heavy price for readmission into the Arab League of leaders. |
| Repercussions: Analysts said the Syrian war helped set the stage for what the world is now witnessing in Ukraine. The survival of al-Assad’s regime came in large part because of extensive military support from Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. But Russia was never held accountable for the attacks it carried out in Syria, including the targeting of hospitals. |
