It's difficult to answer your question because a lot happened from 2011 until now.

Within the civil war there were a lot of different phases where different sides were doing well, others poorly, etc. The situation now, as it has been since maybe ~2016 (around the conclusion of the Battle of Aleppo), is that Assad controls the vast majority of Syrian territory (thanks mainly to Russian military support).

You cannot understate the pure physical destruction that took place in this civil war though. Like, there's a reason people call the Battle of Aleppo "Syria's Stalingrad". The devastation is horrendous and you can only really understand it by looking at it now and knowing what the city was like before. Idlib, which is a city near Aleppo, was never re-captured. I'm not 100% clear on who controls it now but shit is still not good there. Also Erdoğan occupies parts of Syria near the border. I'm not very clear on the Kurds but they have their own region in the East and I'm not sure what their relations with Assad are tbh.

In terms of day to day life, shit has gotten much much much harder over the past couple years. Anybody not rich (and even people who were rich) who managed to get this far have been brutalized by the (hilariously named) Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act that the U.S. passed in 2019 (in Syria, you'll hear people say they have no money because of "Caesar", this is what they're referring to). Before the war 1 USD was like ~50 Lira (iirc) and in 2017 it was ~500. Thanks to the Americans, 1 USD is now like 2,500 Syrian Lira. People don't have the money to feed themselves or keep themselves warm. Physical destruction aside, the sanctions have honestly made life in Syria harder than the rest of the civil war did, it's fucking horrible.

tldr: Syria was destroyed, mainly by the U.S. if you can believe it. Oh and lots of millennia old history was destroyed. Hope this helped.

I had saved most of this from a user long ago but thi is the general syrian conflict and situation regarding Rojava-US-Assad-Turkey-Islamists:

Young, secular, middle-class students form a spontaneous anti-Assad “pro-democracy” movement in the upswell of discontent that was the Arab Spring

They are almost immediately given massive coverage by Western media, and even approached by Westerners giving them advice on how to conduct their protests (ie the elaborate apparatus goading and trianing color revolutionaries that has existed since the late 80s)

A disparate network of American and British ex-spooks rapidly organizes a elaborate propaganda apparatus designed to propagandize for all anti-Assad groups and activity

The destabilization of the Assad government triggered by the Arab Spring protests in turn triggers a massive upswell in hyper-sectarian Sunni fundamentalism that dwarfs the original protesters, which organize into murderous sectarian militias to conduct pogroms against non-believers

The Assad government rapidly loses control of the situation and its authority effectively disintegrates in most parts of the country. The original middle-class secular student protesters realize what is happening and back the government.

The United States, its propaganda apparatus now continuing to portray these radical fundamentalist militias as “moderate rebels”, begins flooding arms to these various sectarian Sunni fundamentalist groups. These guys are all fighting each other as well as the Assad government, not merely for sectarian reasons but because they are various proxies for rival US-allied Sunni states - Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia - jockeying for influence in the presumed successor government

The most effective anti-Assad fighters by a considerable margin are al-Qaeda affiliates like the al-Nusra Front/Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and Islamic State, the latter of which rapidly gains influence between 2013-2014 in the vacuum left by the Assad government’s disintegration of authority due to being experienced in fighting insurgencies and being highly organized before the conflict even started (due to having its origins in the anti-US insurgency in Iraq). Despite the US explicitly telling the proxies they’re arming not to give these weapons to groups like al-Nusra, because those people are literally the most effective fighters this inevitably happens anyways.

Islamic State spills across the border into Iraq in 2014. The completely unreliable Iraqi military basically disintegrates before them. Only desperate action, IS overextension, and extensive American intervention prevent the Iraqi government from collapsing.

Russia begins intervening extensively to protect their ally , as they have been fed up with the Americans since at least 2008 and are now acting accordingly to roll back or resist American encirclement

The US begins backing the Kurds against both Assad and Islamic State, in both northeastern Syria and northern Iraq, against the wishes of their Turkish allies. The Kurds turn out to be more reliable proxies. Their initial plan is to split off northeastern Syria from the Assad government and form a Kurdish state chiefly in order to deny Assad control of oil resources in the region. This is obviously contradictory with the US’s firm commitment to the Turks as a member of NATO.

Pretty much all players in the conflict unite against Islamic State. They are essentially defeated by 2018. The Assad government and Kurdish SDF are the biggest beneficiaries. By now the tide has turned decisively against the rebels and in favor of the Assad government. At some point (2016?) the rebel forces in southern Syria become pinned in and a massively “humanitarian” evacuation campaign led by the US and Israel either gets them out of the country or dumped into a stronghold around the city of Idlib in Northerwestern Syria. Additionally in late 2017 the recovered Iraq government moves to crush the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government by force to put down any hint of separatism and uniting with Syrian Rojava as a Kurdish state. This pretty much scuppers any US plan to partition off Rojava into a Kurdish state, but they keep the Kurds in limbo about this, deliberately telling them to stonewall negotiations from Assad, for like two years.

Turkey, which has been heavily supporting the Sunni fundamentalist rebel groups throughout the war, intervenes directly by invading the SDF’s enclave in Afrin in early 2018. This is due to long-running concerns about the Kurdish communist-nationalist-separatists that have plagued the country for decades, and them potentially becoming emboldened and strengthened through cross-border cooperation.

In 2019, the Turks invade Rojava, intending to secure a “buffer zone” all along the border where they can expel the Kurds and resettle the region with their Sunni jihadist proxies. Rojava, who again have been discouraged from negotiating with Assad by the US for years, are cut loose and thrown to the (grey) wolves. In desperation, they cut a deal with Assad where they will presumably be able to negotiate regional autonomy after the war is over. The SAA takes positions with the SDF in northeastern Syria and effectively halts the Turkish-jihadist advance

In very late 2019 the SAA begins a renewed offensive against the Idlib Pocket. They are rolling them back rapidly and it seems an end to the war is in sight. Then a (probably Russian) air strike kills like 60 Turkish special forces “advisers” near Idlib. This causes the Turks to again escalate their intervention and they inflict severe losses on the SAA, halting their advance.

With decreased US occupation of the erea the Kurds were forced to strike ,a hopefully long lasting now, deal with the Syrian state and governent to avoid getting completely genocided by the Turks and continue with some very limited regional autonomy since the Syrian state . They neither got genocided nor assimilated Rojava since that would mean again exasterbating the situation into an utterly chaotic and violent civil war, becoming even weaker against the islamic oposition groups and destroying their country. The thing Kurds lost and would lose is a big degree of regional autonomy that in many ways never had cause they never could say no to any of the US requests and decisions about what will happen in their erea

And on the opposite side, US presence has and had the goal of Assad being defeated by the US-led coalition which would not lead to a better outcome for the Syrian or Kurdish peoples based on the primary opposition inside syria.In this sequence of events there is effectively no scenario where the secular Syrian Government can become stable economicaly and geopoliticaly with US prolonging their occupation in the erea since its very presence and action there is for it to not happen. Prollonging the current situation of even a decreeased US presence in the erea (which can always and probably will be attempted to ramp up) means misery and suffering for millions of syrian citizens with no future where they will have a full belly and a safe ans stable life. You pretty much have three scenarios for that case :

1. Islamic foundementalists win. This probably triggers a direct and large-scale intervention by the United States, which will mean prolonged war and insurgency for decades.

2. The Assad government collapses entirely, without Islamic State as the primary beneficiary. Syria essentially turns into a Libya-style anarchy except worse, as the jihadist proxies for various actors in the region begin conducting sectarian pogroms with no resistance and fighting each other for their share of the ashes. Eventually one faction will win out and impose a Sunni fundamentalist regime that is a puppet for either Turkey, Qatar, or Saudi Arabia.

3. The same as Scenario 2 except the SDF carves out an independent Kurdish state in northeastern Syria in the process. Then 1.Turkey invades and crushes them, then either annexes the region outright or eventually hands it off to a puppet government they help set up in Damascus. 2. The US completes morphs that erea into a semi-vassal state under the guise of “protecting the second only democracy in the middle east” with continued pressence for influencing anything military or geopolitical in the erea strengthening their position against Iran and rival forces. The Kurds can never exist without the US and can never say no to anything the US decides to do in and from their erea since again any US pulling back would mean Turkey /and or the worse than Assad power that controls syria now invading them

Personaly i always had an issue with supporting Rojava as a project existing under and only through US presence. Mostly against the mainstream narrative that it HAD TO and that there WAS NO CHOICE and THAT ASSAD AND TURKS WOULD SLAUGHTER THEM OTHERWISE and so US presence is the lesser evil for them.Which was and turned out to be not the case. The Americans are the greatest opressors in the erea by an insane degree, and anything else that comes close (isis) is basicaly a result of their presence and interference. People that became downtrodden by the american empire and resist against its opressive presence and occupation (especially them basicaly cutting of Syria's oil fields and breadbasket by essensialy "controlling" the Kurdist erea) are both the majority comperatively and the group that takes precedent (as long as they arent straight up islamic foundementalists) and supporting them means the complete removal of US from the region which means that Rojava as a project will just lose its percieved “autonomy” and be set back .

So im happy to support the form the Syrian state-ROjava configuration takes without US presence even if it is less politicaly and economicaly “autonomous” or "based",its better for everyone in the long run and it happening at any point in the last 5-6 years would have spared millions from suffering

Brace Belden

2011-2014: Uprising against Assad, fighting between the Baathists and the Rebels. Initially libs, but increasingly just a bunch of warlords.

2014-2017: The Islamic State gets huge af, freaks a lot of people out and does war crimes. Also Rojava shows up and becomes a state in the north of the country. They get their ass kicked after pissing off 99% of the countries of the world.

2018-Now: The rebels are a shadow of their former self and a bunch of warlords and islamists. The fighting is minor nowadays, except for the area around Idlib and other small/scarcely populated areas. The IS is still around, but as a guerrilla and Rojava is mostly on "we tolerate each other" terms with the Syrian state, but occasionally gets trolled by Turkey, who instituted a puppet islamist government in the occupied areas.

Yeah so basically Syria has been a total shitshow. I closely followed Syria from 2011 to like 2016 or so but I was kind of a lib back then so take this with a grain of salt but this is what I remember.

2011 is the Arab Spring, so some folks in Syria are like "shit sucks let's overthrow the government" as had been happening in neighboring states in the Middle East. Their grievances were mostly justified—the Assad family has ruled Syria for years and kept it economically stable and ethnically stable (Syria is home to many Christians, Kurds, Shia and Sunni Muslims, as well as some non-"standard" Muslims like Alawites (of whom Assad is a part) in exchange for strict political control. The bargain worked for a long time, but as 2011 rolled around there was a massive long term drought that forced many farmers to move from their lands to the cities to find work so they wouldn't starve, so the cities get overcrowded and food becomes a little scarce/expensive and boom you've got massive protests on your hands.

The protestors are mostly vaguely left youths and disaffected farmers, but Assad responds very brutally very quickly. Black sites, killing and imprisoning dissidents, the works. The original protestors mostly refuse to arm themselves, but a select few end up taking up arms. It just so happens to the groups that do decide to fight are almost entirely supplied by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Gulf States who happen to only give arms to the radical Wahhabi Islamist groups who want to turn Syria into a Sunni-ruled Muslim state rather than the multi-ethnic state Assad currently ruled over. So they get good weapons, and then a lot of the original rebels are like "uhhh we wanted to overthrow Assad but we don't want to replace Assad with al Qaeda so no thanks." Then it erupts into this massive proxy war, where Assad gets help from Russia and to a lesser extent Iran, who don't want the whole region to go to shit and become a breeding group for radical Islamist terror groups. They're simultaenously fighting Saudi Arabia/Qatari armed jihadist rebels in the South primarily, Turkish armed rebels in the North since Turkey wants in on the action, and then the breakaway Kurdish region of Rojava who realized that as the "moderate" Islamist rebels gained ground they would revoke the privileges the Kurds had enjoyed in Syria so they formed their own independent polity since they could no longer rely on Assad, being cut off from Damascus and Assad's stronghold by rebel forces.

From that point onward it's just a massive shitshow, with Assad eventually gaining the upper hand thanks to Russian air support, but only after a very long, protracted, and brutal civil war that has completely leveled large parts of Syria. It's noticeable that the "moderate" Islamist rebels went on to partially form ISIS, which is a whole other thing but basically ISIS would never have even existed without the Syrian Civil War, and in particular the American/Gulf State arming of "moderate" Islamist forces in Syria. Assad is not a Good Dude and his government is definitely brutal and repressive in a similar fashion to Iran's, but he does guarantee the safety of Christians and Alawites and Shia Muslims in a Sunni majority state, and he is sure as hell better to live under than an al Qaeda adjacent group aligned with the House of Saud, hence this forum's general critical support towards the Lion of Damascus. Missing some stuff I'm sure but that's the basic gist as I remember it.

the was a Boy that sprayed "Down with Assad" on a Wall in Dara...

Things escalated from there ...

gonna leave this

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