Author: Allison McCulloch, Professor of Political Science, Brandon University

The end of a half-century of Assad family rule in Syria marked a turning point in the country’s deadly 13-year civil war after rebel forces led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) conquered Damascus. A peace resolution for Syria was long deadlocked, despite efforts by the United Nations to find a Syrian-led, Syrian-owned political transition. Talks on constitutional reforms, power-sharing between the government and opposition and institutional safeguards to protect the country’s multicultural and diverse heritage came up empty-handed. Now that former president Bashar al-Assad and his family have fled the country and amid the retreat of longstanding Russian, Iranian and…