Supporting HTS is a very unfair accusation, I've always been against them despite being very critical of Assad in the past. Assad is of course the lesser evil, but that reality simply doesn't exist anymore and it's better to move on and adjust to a new reality instead of clinging on to a dead project. After nearly 14 years of instability and half of the population being displaced because of the war, it's hard to look at any wider geopolitical implications or anything like that, what happened happened and hope for the best. I've been one of the biggest advocates for the Axis of Resistance on this website, but that project is now in terminal decline after the assassination of Nasrallah and the fall of Assad, so I don't think that it's bad to point out the shortcomings of the project now that it's pretty much over. Yeah the current situation is shit, Syria is going through it's own Iraq post-invasion phase which will inevitably kill a lot of people, but that doesn't mean that there's zero optimism about the future. Iraq was destined to be an American colony if you would analyse the situation back in 2003, but 15 years later the country emerged as a strong anti-imperialist state in the end.

Well yeah, the Baathist state was stable until it wasn't, and considering the past 14 years, it feels insane that anyone could sit in a car from Daraa to Idlib without getting extorted at a military checkpoint by some NDF robbers. I was also just talking from a bureaucratic standpoint, the overall situation is shitty of course. It's just impressive that simple services such as the streets getting cleaned, border checkpoints working and wages being paid are functioning despite the whole government evaporating in a week.

Eh it's okay, people don't even know in which country I live and there are a million Arab dads raging on social media

Back from my self-imposed Hexbear exile, I needed to turn off news (which dramatically failed) and stop reading some of the weird ass tantrums here. Now some unrelated points as usual:

• Situation in Syria is slowly reaching a new chaotic state. Numerous sectarian clashes between HTS and Alawites, and Kurds vs Turkish-backed fighters in the north. The main cities are still calm and in an optimistic mood though, I was in a video call with my cousin on Monday and he filmed some of the markets and main squares in Damascus, it looked pretty calm and people are still in some sort of revolutionary euphoria. Iraq 2003-2007 is still definitely on the cards, sectarian battles and stuff like that will escalate and reach a climax before things settle. The new government from a pure bureaucratic standpoint are doing okay imo though, things are slowly returning to normal and somehow functioning.

• Russian crossing of the Oskol was strangely uneventful, they just crossed from 2-3 points and established a pretty solid bridgehead on the other side of the river. I expected some grand battle when they would inevitably cross the river one day, but it was pretty anticlimactic and Ukrainian troops on the west bank of the river seem to be unprepared and outnumbered even by some Russian troops without heavy equipment. Kurakhove, Velika Novosilka and Toretsk seem to be wrapping up by the end of January, next step is probably Pokrovsk until some bigger Russian movements by summer 2025. The war in the current pace still doesn't reach any final stage until summer 2026.

• Visiting Iraq with the wife and the kid in around a month, you'll get a trip report and some non-doxxing pics if things permit.

• I don't like how things are going in Iran, the country seems to be entering a hard period of decline and they'll be Syria'd by Trump and Israel if they don't get their shit together soon.

• This website has some of the dumbest drama I've ever seen lmao, grow up

My heart still breaks into a million pieces whenever I see a clip of Nasrallah on twitter or anywhere else. I can't believe he's really gone, I still can't fully accept it. I kept watching a beautiful clip of a Lebanese man in Iraq reading a little poem to mourn him on repeat today. The lyrics were this:

أين نصرالله أين - Where is Nasrallah, where

ليته في الحاضرين - I wish he was present

نحن اقسمنا يمينا - We took an oath

للشهادة سائرين - Towards martyrdom we march

It sounds better in Arabic I promise

Looks very fake

Some interesting tidbits from Arab social media since the fall of the Syrian state:

• The euphoria is pretty much over, the discussion is slowly shifting to "what's next?".

• Revanchism towards Shias or whatever on social media is also shifting towards a more reconciliatory tone. HTS behaving well towards the Shia shrines has been the main catalyst for that shift imo.

• Lots of criticism towards how freeing the prisoners turned into some type of social media clout treasure hunt, many felt that it was dehumanising and distasteful.

• Girls are thirsting for Jolani

• Lots of Egyptians and Bahrainis are basically saying "God I wish that was us", they're dreaming about changing their shitty regimes and opening the prisons

Lastly, I spoke with my aunt who lives in Aleppo and my cousin who has a farm outside of Damascus. They're both kinda content with the current situation. They mostly feel happy that the pressure of living under Assad is gone and that they can freely insult him now. Services and stuff like that haven't been interrupted and shops are functioning normally. Currency confusion remains mostly in Aleppo though, where people alternate between Syrian Liras, Turkish Liras and USD.

Some pretty credible reports in Iraqi media about Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Al Sistani's health rapidly deteriorating. He's considered the Grand Marja of the Shia Muslim faith, which makes him pretty much the Shia Pope. Shia Marja politics are incredibly interesting, and his death might actually trigger a pretty massive upheaval in the upper echelons of the political side of Shia Islam. This might be the topic of my next effortpost, something about the evolution of the Shia Marja since colonialism and then Sistani's interpretation of the role which made him the modern Marja (but actually not, more on that later). The fight about succession will be interesting with many clashing dynamics (Persian vs Arab, Qom vs Najaf, Sistani family vs Islamic Republic of Iran, Political vs Apolitical, Old vs Young), and the looming Sadrist cult threat is even more interesting.

cuck n chad ranking: 14 years of Syrian meltdown

Note: temporary removal of the first RUS vs UKR row, this edition is fully dedicated to Syria and related conflicts

Lmao okay

Honestly kiss my ass, we all know that HTS is fucking trash, but one can still be moderately happy about Assad and his murderous government eating shit.

Chud-cuck ranking is being written right now, it's a full breakdown of all 14 years of the war. Thank you for the well wishes my friend.

Gotta give myself and @MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net a big pat on the back for correctly dooming from the start, we were the only megaheads that got the Afghanistan-scenario prediction correctly.

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I'm still in a state of shock, it feels weird that the Assads are gone when they've been such a constant in every Syrian's life for decades. I teared up today imagining that God might bless us one day with sights of Arab fighters storming Israeli prisons and freeing prisoners like we saw in Syria today.

It will be the greatest day of my life if we see these scenes in Cairo and Amman one day

For everyone that is confused why me and other Syrians might be happy about this:

A stagnant, oppressive and expired regime has finally been kicked out after strangling us since 1971. Yeah yeah the geopolitical implication and all that, but we're human in the end and there's an emotional weight in seeing the omniscient Baath regime with all the fucking Hafez and Bashar statues and pictures get stomped on and thrown in the trash. Let us have this at least, these fuckers have killed or tortured a young man from every single Syrian family.

US troops are already present at Al Tanf and in SDF-controlled territory. SDF already exists as a tool for the occupation of Syrian land by the US, them expanding their presence as SDF role grows is sadly expected. I trust Jolani and HTS more than these frauds

Israeli tanks have officially crossed the border of the demilitarised zone between the occupied Syrian Golan and Quneitra. Fuck Israel for not even letting people have one hour of fucking calm and good mood.

AMK is the only reliable UKR flag emoji account

Fitting and funny ending if he died like Prigozhin on an ancient soviet plane