For 54 years since the early 1970s, the Assad family continually dominated Syria's government. A serious challenge to the family's long rule over the country erupted in 2011 when protests evolved into Revolution which evolved into full-scale Civil War.

But after nearly a decade of brutal fighting throughout the country that claimed the lives of around 600,000 people and forced more than 6 million others to flee the country as refugees, the war entered into a tenuous ceasefire in 2020 that largely froze the front lines where they stood at the time which left the Assad regime in control over most of the country's major cities and population centres. 

Over time, most of the world began moving on from the conflict in Syria and after years had passed with a ceasefire generally holding steady many began presuming that Assad, along with his Russian and Iranian supporters, had effectively won the war.

Then a renewed rebel offensive against the government that began at the end of November 2024 exposed the Assad regime in the country as an empty house of cards.

The Assad family's 54 yearlong rule in the country was decisively overthrown in a matter of only 11 days. 

This sudden and unexpected collapse of such a long-lasting regime in such a strategically significant country has generated one of the 21st Century's most substantial geopolitical earthquakes, the aftershocks of which will be felt far far and wide throughout the world as the players on the Middle East chessboard re-calibrate their moves.