Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sworn in for fourth term.

 

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Hill/Getty.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been sworn in for a forth term. The Hill. Assad has been in power since 2000, when his father died. Assad got 95% of the vote with a 79% turnout rate. Two other candidates ran in a mostly symbolic fashion. Assad's critics and US officials claim that the election was a sham. Assad faces major challenges to his rule in his fourth term as poverty and the fallout from the 10 year civil war remain major issues. Since the conflict has begun there, 400,000 people have died. 

My Comment:

First of all, I have to point out the hypocrisy of our media criticizing the Syrian's elections when our own elections are just as fraudulent. I honestly believe that there is a better chance that Assad got 95% of the vote than that Biden actually won the election on the up and up. I do think that the election probably was a joke in Syria but mostly because anyone who opposed Assad wouldn't have participated in the election regardless. 

I don't think there was much doubt that Assad was going to win. Indeed, I don't think we will ever see Assad leave power until he either dies or retires. He is fairly popular among his supporters at least, though he obviously doesn't have the support of the people rebelling against him. He has a ton of power in Syria and he will likely survive long term. 

However, Syria is facing major problems that Assad will have to try and figure out how to deal with. The Civil War there has devastated the country and caused untold suffering and damage. Though Syria wasn't the best place in the world to live before the war it's doubtlessly a lot worse now. Poverty is a huge problem and so is continuing violence. 

The good news for Assad is that the effort to remove him has mostly failed. Though the war isn't over yet it's clear that Assad is not going to be removed from power due to the actions of the rebels. Indeed, the rebels are a spent force and only really exist now in areas where they have external help (like the Turks in the north, the Kurds, and the Americans in the south). The violence is at a dramatically lower level and groups like ISIS and al-Nusra are destroyed or greatly reduced respectively.

Assad does have something to fear from his neighbors. Israel is still pretty mad that Iran is using Syria as a staging area and it has lead to bombings and other skirmishes with the Syrians. And the Turks are occupying quite a bit of their territory in an effort to stomp out the Kurds. 

Still, Assad would need a massive amount of foreign capital to fix the damage that was done to his country due to the civil war. Russia might be able to help there as they need the seabase at Tartus, but Syria's main problem is that they are still an international pariah. They are very limited in who they can ask for help and remain under sanctions. Until that changes I think that Syria will remain a mess with major problems, regardless of what Assad does.