Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

ask ian

Ian Bremmer takes a look at the week's top stories in geopolitics.

Presented by

sponsor_image

Why Assad’s sudden fall was surprising

Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.

Why did you originally think Assad would be able to resist being overthrown?

I am absolutely surprised at the sudden regime change after 50 years of the Assads being in charge. A couple of reasons for it. First is because despite HTS wanting to engage in strikes, the Turkish government, which has been supporting them militarily, had been saying, "No, no, no." And even when they supported them, it was a flashing yellow light. It was take local territory, let the Syrians have more control over their border region. It was not going after Assad. Also, because the Russians and the Iranians, though they were significantly stretched, were providing military support in the early days. So that's the reason I thought that they were likely to be able to resist, but the fact is that they imploded very, very quickly.

Keep reading...Show less

More from ask ian

GZERO Series