Chaos has erupted in Syria with the downfall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the rise of the terror group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), leaving the world guessing at what comes next. “There are no good guys here. Bashar al-Assad, really bad guy. [HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani], really bad guy. All these other terrorist groups, really bad,” Shapiro said Sunday in a video reacting to Assad’s ouster and exile over the weekend. “There are some people on the ground who presumably aren’t as bad; that would be, you would imagine, the Druze, the Kurds. But those are not the main forces that we’re talking about right now,” Shapiro said. Syria is broken down into a number of factions within the country itself, as well as influenced by its neighbors vying for greater control over the region. With so many players and interests at play, the outcome of regime change in Syria is impossible to predict, according to Shapiro. With Assad’s downfall comes some reasonable inferences, however. According to Shapiro, the situation for Christians in Syria, which was bad under Assad, is likely about to get worse. Christians in Syria are a minority group making up about 10% of the population. “What it means for Christians is a much more fraught existence. It was already pretty fraught in Syria,” Shapiro said. “All of this pretend that Bashar al-Assad was wonderful to Christians, that is not true. There were significant human rights predations against Christians on the ground, not only in the areas controlled by Sunni terrorists, but also in the areas that were controlled by Shia terrorists.” CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE In the United States’ favor, however, the downfall of Assad signals weakness in Russia and Iran, according to Shapiro. Assad in Syria was a useful ally for both Moscow and Tehran. Russia built several military bases inside Syria. Iran used Syria as a thoroughfare to ship weapons and extend its influence through terror proxies. “What does it really mean? It means that Russia is weak, Iran is weak. These were paper tigers,” Shapiro said, “and their attempts to invade Ukraine and invade Israel, respectively, those went really poorly for them.” “What you are watching is the complete collapse of the Russian-Iranian alliance in Syria, and it is indicative of the interior weakness of these countries,” he added. Iran’s influence has been especially blunted in the region. Assad’s loss is only the latest in a string of defeats for Iran’s most significant allies in the region. “It means that the Iranian regime is actually in quite real trouble here. All of their biggest proxies are gone. Hamas gone, Hezbollah gone, Assad gone,” Shapiro said. “That means the Shia influence game is beginning to wane, it’s beginning to end. The Houthis are basically isolated down there in Yemen. The Shia regime in Iran still has impact in Iraq, but internally they are much, much, much weaker right now.” My INSTANT reaction to the fall of the Assad regime, and what it means pic.twitter.com/RJZ5lU6ZPU — Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 8, 2024