Talk:Fall of the Assad regime

Fall of the Assad regime

I propose WP:MERGE WP:CONCISE Fall of the Assad dynasty → Fall of the Assad regime, MOS:AT. QalasQalas (talk) 06:10, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree, and have placed a WP:RMTM for this. The Assads weren't royalty and didn't present themselves as such. In theory, the Baath Party leadership could have passed to others. SnowFire (talk) 07:49, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Comment below. Beshogur (talk) 08:57, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Bashar al-Assad has probably died from a plane crash

There's reports suggesting that Bashar al-Assad has been killed in a plane crash (possibly fake). I feel like this should definitely be mentioned here. However, the reports are unconfirmed. Thoughts? Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 06:17, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Nothing should be done, unless it is confirmed. We need to wait this situation out. DerEchteJoan (talk) 12:35, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Syrian Air Flight 9218 - deleted because even if there was a plane crash, there are insufficient WP:RS and there's no notability related to Assad, since he appears to have fled to Russia. Boud (talk) 23:02, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

With more information coming out it appears he has fled to Russia

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqx89reeevgo Pikachubob3 (talk) 00:47, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right. This was all a hoax. Well, at least we know better now. Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 02:14, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah it's very typical when regimes fall as quickly as Assad's did with very little (for lack of a better word) western media present, speculation goes wild Pikachubob3 (talk) 06:00, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 8 December 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. WP:SNOW close, clear consensus in favor. —Ganesha811 (talk) 12:34, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

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Fall of the Assad dynasty → Fall of the Assad regime – Just check the titles of the sources below, and how mainstream media calls this Assad regime, not dynasty. Search results: "fall of the assad dynasty" / "fall of the assad regime" anyways regime had been the most common word describing the government. WP:COMMONNAME. Beshogur (talk) 08:52, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Support “dynasty” is used for monarchies and regardless regime is the most used 78.182.128.136 (talk) 09:50, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Support, ‘dynasty’ is more of an informal moniker when referring to Assad’s (sr and jr’s) government, while “regime” is more formal and more often used The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 09:54, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Support This would make clarification better. It was also not a Monarchy. DerEchteJoan (talk) 09:57, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Question This article seems tied to Al-Assad family which says, The al-Assad family, also known as the Assad dynasty, is a Syrian political family that ruled Syria... (Italics used in place of bolded text.} If this article is moved, should the other article be adjusted? --Super Goku V (talk) 09:59, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

The article is about the family, noth about Hafez and Bashar alone. This is about the regime that ruled the country. Beshogur (talk) 10:11, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Support Assad's government was not a monarchy and its clearer to the reader what the article is about. YaBoiWilhelm (talk) 10:00, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Support While the question of whether the government characterises itself using the term "dynasty" is not of necessary relevance to the article naming, it is also clear that scholarly and journalistic sources do not commonly use the term "dynasty". Y. Dongchen (talk) 10:16, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose The current title of dynasty is consistent with our article dynasty. Our article regime indicates that that term has a different meaning. Here are their definitions:

A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a monarchical system, but sometimes also appearing in republics.

In politics, a regime (also spelled régime) is a system of government that determines access to public office, and the extent of power held by officials.

So, the Assad family was a dynasty. The regime was Ba'ath Party (Syrian-dominated faction).

Andrew🐉(talk) 10:26, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Not going to try to convince you but almost no one calls it the Ba'athist regime, but rather the Assad regime (media, etc.) WP:COMMONNAME, whether it's true or not. Beshogur (talk) 10:33, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Syria has been notified of this discussion. HurricaneEdgar 10:28, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Support by the reasons exposed by other editors (not a monarchy, better clarification). Impru20^talk 10:52, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Support, having in mind the (at least nominal) republican nature of the Assad/Ba'athist regime. — Sundostund mppria ^{(talk / contribs)} 11:21, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Support as per WP:COMMONNAME.Regime is the more commonly used term and better reflects the ongoing collapse of an entire regime as opposed to a single family dynasty. Guinsardrhineford0079 (talk) 11:22, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Support per WP:NPOV. --Norden1990 (talk) 11:41, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Support. Thought it over for a bit, and the fact the word "regime" is very loaded term, but Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy being at that title means its not without precedent. Also, the other preceding or ancillary members of the Assad family are not really relevant to this article.</MarkiPoli> <talk /><cont /> 11:48, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Support, it's the WP:COMMONNAME and using 'dynasty' presents WP:NPOV issues. AlexandraAVX (talk) 11:58, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Support it is a dynasty but regime is the common name A Socialist Trans Girl 12:06, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Page Protection

Can someone please protect this page so only EC users can edit it, due to constant vandalism by IPs. Waleed (talk) 14:41, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

• You can make a request for protection at WP:RfPP. —Ganesha811 (talk) 16:10, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

  There was already a request for protection made. Mellk (talk) 17:54, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Fall of the government-that-we-don't-like

The current title means, effectively, Fall of the Assad government-that-we-don't/didn't-like.

While it's true that "regime" is widely used in the Western press, that's because Bashar al-Assad's government was widely seen as a government that "we" - leaders of Western states - didn't like. They happen to be right in my personal opinion, since al-Assad was a bloodthirsty tyrant, but that's irrelevant in this Wikipedia context. In normal content, we can't write "Assad regime", because that's WP:WEASELly. But for titles, we go by wide usage - WP:COMMONNAME. So two questions:

1. Can we use a weaselly name because it's widely used in the Western English-language press? (The above RM suggests "yes".)
2. Can we use or is it acceptable to use weaselly language in the content of this article to match the title, as an exception to WP:WEASEL?

The first question should probably only have loose discussion, unless the discussion starts evolving towards a "No" answer, since there was a snow close. At least in the short term, anyway.

For the second question, the precedent of Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy, a topic on which there have been many decades of historical discussion, I only see two non-quote usages of "regime" within the article, while "government" is used a lot more. I would tend to say "No", except in cases where it clearly refers to the general system of government, rather than the specific Assad government. The risk of "Yes" to the second question is that then we sound like we're presenting the preferences of Western governments in a WP:WEASELly way - instead of saying outright, Fall of the bloodthirsty Assad government, we're pretending to sound educated by confusing between a meaning useful in political sciences (general system of government) with a word that means "government" but adds a pejorative connotation: Fall of the nasty Assad government written in an intellectual-sounding way to camouflage the meaning. Boud (talk) 19:40, 8 December 2024 (UTC) (strike through Q1 to avoid confusing the two questions Boud (talk) 01:18, 10 December 2024 (UTC))

The eagerness of the mainstream media and the unwitting cooperation of Wikipedians to use "regime" only for governments-that-Western-leaders-oppose makes me very much think of Two Minutes Hate. Boud (talk) 20:01, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose; I've not seen any "unwitting wikipedian" use "Putin regime or Moscow regime" in constrast to the term "Kyiv regime" which was used by some vandals a long time back. Theofunny (talk) 07:27, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, ruling authoritarian governments which have lost the popular support of the people or don't have it yet and are being challenged politically, especially in a war are commonly referred to as "regimes" which is why, we don't see anyone calling the UAE or Saudi governments a regime. For example, in the Russian civil war article, you can see the bolshevik governance referred to as a "regime". Theofunny (talk) 07:44, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

The designation "regime" has a quite specific meaning in political science parlance, and it is misused, both deliberately and not, throughout the encyclopedia.

The bias goes back centuries, though.

cordially, Augmented Seventh (talk) 21:12, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I've done a de-WEASEL edit, hopefully without mistakes. People who see the nuances differently to me, feel free to further fix, or to avoid a risk of violating 1RR, propose them here if you think you've already done one revert in the last 24 hours. @Augmented Seventh: On the wider question of throughout the encyclopedia, someone sufficiently motivated could ask for help handling this with an interactive "de-regime-bot" - e.g. that finds pages with the word "regime" and asks you for each one if you wish to edit the section after checking the context properly. It shouldn't be done blindly, of course (quotes and references should not be changed, and some uses are valid). Boud (talk) 22:58, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

"Regime", in colloquial usage, describes an authoritarian an oppressive government, not a "negative" one. It may be your view (and the view of most of western society) that authoritarianism and oppression are bad but that doesn't mean that the word "regime" is inherently biased. The Assad regime was, by all accounts, authoritarian and oppressive. This is a simple fact.

Removing most instances of the word "regime", however, is biased, as it signals that you wish to separate an authoritarian regime from connotations of authoritarianism. Loytra (talk) 00:28, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

The Assad government was authoritarian and oppressive - that's well-sourced and not under debate. The problem with using "regime" with the connotation of "authoritarian and oppresive" is creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated. If the "authoritarian and oppressive" connotation of "regime" were not vague, then we would state, per V-Dem Democracy Indices, "the Saudi Arabian regime", "the Qatar regime", "the UAE regime", "the Egyptian regime", "the Turkish regime", "the Thai regime", depending on which particular cutoff and which particular index we wish to choose.

Vagueness is not encyclopedic.

Replacing some of occurrences of the word "government" by "dictatorship" would be much better than writing "regime": the meaning of "dictatorship" is unambiguous. Particular changes would depend on what makes sense in each particular sentence: repeating that the government is a dictatorship is relevant in some sentences, and of minor importance or distracting in others. Boud (talk) 01:54, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

You're giving such examples, but it's actually your WP:IDONTLIKEIT, you're trying to tell we're not liking Assad and trying to denigrate him, but it's your arguments showing you don't like that terminology. Can't even give proper examples. First of all, it's the WP:COMMONNAME, WP:DUE. Like it or not, Assad's government was a regime. No reason to romanticize it. Beshogur (talk) 17:31, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Exactly, just check the condescending language that he has been using since the start of this discussion about "wikipedians". Theofunny (talk) 18:10, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Comment: There has been a long-term convention in editing Syria articles to use the term "Syrian government" or "Assad government" as NPOV, even though many sources use "regime". I've always complied with that but wondered whether consensus was established. Now there's been a change of government, all our uses of "Syrian government" will be problematic and confusing, and make much more sense if changed to "Assad regime" or "Ba'athist regime". So I think now is a good moment to confirm a new consensus of using the term "regime" for the regime, so we can use "government" for whatever emerges next. BobFromBrockley (talk) 22:57, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

RS uses of "Assad regime" include:

https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-deport-syria-migrant-bashar-assad-regime-fall/

https://www.ft.com/content/7f1f2cfe-9811-471e-85ec-30ceda4140a4

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/12/sudden-collapse-bashar-assad/680917/

https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cdjgder83eeo

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/world/middleeast/iran-syria-rebels.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/12/08/syria-united-states-biden-stabilize/

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2024/12/08/who-will-rule-syria-now-the-assad-regime-has-been-toppled

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/12/05/syria-assad-regime-collapsing-quickly/

Including non-western sources:

https://www.newarab.com/news/how-fall-assad-regime-marks-new-chapter-lebanon

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/12/8/what-the-collapse-of-the-syrian-regime-says-about-the-arab-region

https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2024/12/09/we-havent-heard-from-them-for-over-a-decade-thousands-of-syrians-flock-to-sednayas-infamous-prison/

https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1439034/au-liban-de-premiers-incidents-contenus-apres-la-chute-du-regime-assad.html

https://www.madamasr.com/en/2024/12/08/feature/politics/assad-no-more-the-10-days-that-changed-everything/

https://elwatan-dz.com/evenement-majeur-en-syrie

https://french.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/7/1230/57687/Soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9/Mode-de-vie/Les-Syriens-d%E2%80%99Egypte-h;sitent-;-rentrer-au-pays,-p.aspx BobFromBrockley (talk) 23:10, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

The name Assad regime exists for over 50 years. Beshogur (talk) 17:24, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Syrian state television had nothing on but this message for several hours (in Arabic): “Victory of the great Syrian revolution and the fall of the criminal al-Assad regime". https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2024/12/08/syrian-state-tv-hails-victory-of-revolution-fall-of-al-assad- kencf0618 (talk) 02:24, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

These sources are irrelevant for the question under discussion (my Q2). To clarify things, I'll put a strike through Q1, to avoid confusing the two questions. Q2 is not a title debate. For the information in the body of our articles, we use WP:RS for the meaning of the sources' content, not for their style, especially when that style is vague or euphemistic or jumping on a bandwagon of loose language. For titles, the style of sources is relevant for WP:COMMONNAME. If the vast majority of sources call Joe Bloggs Joe the cool dude, then chances are the article title will be Joe the cool dude. However, the meaning of the sources will probably explain that cool dude means that the guy is popular and has charisma, so the content of the article will say "Joe was highly popular and charismatic", but will not say, "The cool dude was born on 1 Jan 1970 ... The cool dude won an award on 31 Dec 2010". Boud (talk) 01:18, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 8 December 2024 (2)

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved per WP:SNOW. (non-admin closure) Jpatokal (talk) 08:58, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

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Fall of the Assad regime → Fall of the al-Assad regime – Like al-Assad family. ArionStar (talk) 21:17, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Weak Oppose nobody refers to them as 'al-Assad' unless using their full names. Assad is always used. Great Mercian (talk) 21:59, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose The "al-" part, i.e. wikt:ال, means "the", so Fall of the al-Assad regime would mean Fall of the the-Assad regime. That's why it's not common; it's a case of code-mixing that sounds bad to people knowing at least a little about both languages. Boud (talk) 22:33, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. Sources generally don't use the "al-" when discussing the regime. 331dot (talk) 22:34, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. per 331dot. HurricaneEdgar 22:37, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose per Boud and 331dot Horsers (talk) 23:03, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. It's not as if the Assad family uses the multi-part naming convention of non-Westernised Arabs (comprising an ism, laqab, kunya, nasab, and a nisba), and that "Assad" is somehow ambiguous. It is short and unambiguously refers to the political family starting with Hafez al-Assad. Y. Dongchen (talk) 23:07, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose Per Google Scholar, "Assad regime" gets 26900 results, while al-Assad regime gets 4340 results. Even if we assume the former search encapsulates all instances of "al-Assad", it is more than sextuple that number. Aintabli (talk) 23:09, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

  A clear contrast on NGrams as well. Aintabli (talk) 23:32, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. Most non-Arabic sources refer to him as Assad, not al-Assad Randomperson43322 (talk) 00:20, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose per above demonstrations that "Assad" is more common than "al-Assad". estar8806 (talk) ★ 01:20, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose “al-“ prefix in Arabic means “the” so it is redundant. It would basically become “fall of the the-Assad regime”. So either “fall of the Assad regime” or “Fall of al-Assad regime” would be the choices here The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 03:56, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

• Strong oppose – That isn’t even his surname! The Arabic surname is Assad; NOT al-Assad. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 06:31, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose - Intl media generally uses the term "Assad regime" not "al-Assad regime". "al-Assad" is usually used while discussing the dynasty. Theofunny (talk) 07:20, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose:and Concur per @Boud adding Asad is family name if you [al-Assad] that mostly implied the fall of the last 24 years of al-Asad QalasQalas (talk) 08:22, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

What if we change it to Fall of the Ba'athist Assad regime or a variant of this. Zyxrq (talk) 02:25, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose That is unnecesarily verbose Horsers (talk) 03:00, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose it's redundant and clearly not the usually used form of address in English. Pincrete (talk) 06:13, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose it's too long adds against WP:PRECISE QalasQalas (talk) 08:25, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

`Weak Oppose. I think either would be ok, but it's probably better to stick with the name usually used by Western media. MarchRain ♡ ^{「weather station」} 06:34, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Given that we're now at 16 opposes and 0 supports, I'm invoking WP:SNOW and closing this out. Jpatokal (talk) 08:55, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Adding more context about the start of the anti-Assad offensive.

I added a paragraph about the political context to the start of the anti-Assad offensive against Aleppo, noting that rebels had planned the offensive in late 2023 (exact date not clear, but almost certainly after October 7). Turkey initially blocked the offensive but lifted its hold after a diplomatic initiative by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was rebuffed. The initial goal of the offensive was to be limited.

More could be added about the Aleppo phase of the anti-Assad offensive.

I initially proposed this as an edit to Bashar al-Assad's bio, but BobFromBrockley judged it to be too detailed for that article, and suggested it belonged better here; he is correct. ScottWade56 (talk) 02:01, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Wrong date possibility

I the first paragraph under the map in section "Opposition takeover" the date is "27 November 2023". Shouldnt it be 2024? Gubernator2 (talk) 09:03, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 9 December 2024

Fall of the Assad regime → Fall of Ba'athist Syria – "Assad regime" appears in no other article titles on Wikipedia, and its use in this title implies that the 1970-2024 rule of the Assad family over the Syrian state is all that ended rather than the entire 1963-2024 state itself. –Gluonz ^{talk contribs} 18:20, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose no source is refering to it as Ba'athist Syria. Only Wikipedia is. Great Mercian (talk) 18:51, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Syria, WikiProject Politics, and WikiProject Military history have been notified of this discussion. Feeglgeef (talk) 19:36, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose The Assad regime fell, and the Syrian Arab Republic with him. Assad regime = SAR. We don't need article titles, "Assad regime" that's how sources refers to Assad's rule. Google up.

Examples:

• French MFA: Syria – Fall of Bachar al-Assad’s Regime (8 December 2024)
• France 24: Why the Assad regime collapsed in Syria – and why so fast
• CNN: Behind the collapse of the Assad regime
• Council of the European Union: Syria: Statement by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the fall of the Assad regime
• BBC: Watch: The final hours of the Assad regime
• FP: Why Assad’s Regime Is Collapsing So Quickly
• Politico: EU welcomes collapse of Assad regime in Syria

Beshogur (talk) 22:29, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Weak support. Seems like a good idea to be more historically accurate and formal DeadlyRampage26 (talk) 22:31, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

There is nothing formal with that. Wikipedia doesn't have to be formal either. We use the most common name as possible. Assad regime is used since the 1970s. Beshogur (talk) 22:36, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Ba'athist Syria would be a better descriptor in my view rather than Assad's Regime (not even al-Assad I might add). DeadlyRampage26 (talk) 22:41, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose, people are calling it the fall of the Assad Regime or the toppling of Assad's Regime, so the title is fitting. There is only no sources calling it Ba'athist Syria.

-https://www.npr.org/sections/the-picture-show/2024/12/08/g-s1-37387/syria-photos-damacus-rebels-assad-regime

-https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/09/middleeast/syria-assad-rebels-explainer-intl-hnk/index.html Randomdudewithinternet (talk) 22:45, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose for the reason given by Beshogur. Y. Dongchen (talk) 23:09, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. Clunky and doesn't follow sources. As well as ones posted here, I posted several in a section above. BobFromBrockley (talk) 23:12, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose A redirect from Fall of Ba'athist Syria -> Fall of the Assad regime is more preferable. Rager7 (talk) 00:02, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Weak Oppose on the move; but very strongly support a redirect. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 00:43, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

I’ve went ahead and created the redirect. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 06:40, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Support per nom; "Assad regime' is not proper for an encyclopedia in my opinion. And not only the Assad family fell but the entirety of Ba'athist Syria fell. Hujjat al-Umari (talk) 09:08, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Strong Oppose per Beshogur. HurricaneEdgar 12:59, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Support, per MOS:LABEL, as the word 'regime' in the Syrian context can be considered loaded and unencylopedic in tone. Fall of Ba'athist Syria is a more precise and better descriptor. – anlztrk (talk | contribs) 13:55, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Support the title is more accurate & sounds more encyclopedic. Ahammed Saad (talk) 14:55, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Skitash (talk) 17:58, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose: The proposed title is not pursuant to WP:COMMONNAME; it should remain a redirect. XxTechnicianxX (talk) 18:38, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose: as WP:COMMONNAME the common name for an event and as Beshogur pointed out multiple Reliable sources use Assad regime. Darkdeath0123 (talk) 19:03, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Sorry i meant to say the most common name for an event should be used Darkdeath0123 (talk) 19:07, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

@Darkdeath0123, you’re supposed to put your !vote in bold. Thanks. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 19:18, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose per Beshogur and WP:COMMONNAME. I feel I should also note that "Ba'athist Syria", to me at least, could be interpreted at a passing glance as saying that Syria as a whole has fallen. /home/gracen/ (yell at me here) 21:23, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose no one calls it Ba'athist Syria. Everyone calls it the Assad regime. Djprasadian (talk) 23:23, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Support. Although , it's true the show was mostly by the Al Assad family , the regime's principles conducive to such atrocities and brutality wasn't their own brand as in "Stalinism". The background of Ba'athist ideology , which some may oversimplify as an Arab copycat of Fascism , is too important to omit.

Ba'athist rule in Syria goes back to 1963. Bashar's father , Hafez , wasn't president until he staged a coup in 1970. Now 7 years might sound tiny compared to the 50-so years of this father-son dictatorship , but they didn't rule in their own name , as pointed out in the first thread of the talk page. Each of them ruled as the chairman of the Ba'athist party.

There's also another difference of Syria with those "X regime" situations , and that's we aren't dealing with a single government led by a single strongman like Pinochet , Pol Pot or Hitler. We instead have one person and his only successor who led this regime , and Hafez was a murderous tyrant too.

It should also be pointed out that we already have a precedent against keeping the current name : Baathist Iraq , which if not for the war 20 years ago one of his sons might have succeeded Saddam as well. We'll likely see in the next few years a similar treatment with a large portion of all articles of every topic dealing with Syria from 1963-2024 being merged into a single article under such title. That's something those insisting on keeping "Assad" because RS sources say so aren't paying attention to. For SEO related reasons, we could add the "Fall of the Assad regime" as a bolded name in the article's lead.

A better to way to think of it is to imagine replacing "Assad regime" with "Assadist Syria" as in Francoist Spain. Language wise is obviously an even more mouthful and bizarre term , and technically : this regime wasn't just about Bashar , an ophthalmologist who inherited his father's ideology-based regime rather than creating it , and the Ba'ath party's history in Syria is more than just him and his father.

Ideally the article's name should be changed to the one suggested , as it's a much more precise term. TheCuratingEditor (talk) 00:57, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Weak support I personally have never been a fan of using the term "regime" and, as per Anlztrk above, see it as a loaded term and therefore not encyclopedic and not politically neutral enough for usage on a global encyclopedia. That is regardless of how many RS or media outlets use the term. That's my personal view. It is okay for editors to not use the exact same verbiage as the RS. But at the same time I also agree "Ba'athist Syria" does not fit WP:COMMONNAME either. RopeTricks (talk) 01:04, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Wait. I think it would be better to use the term "Syrian Arab Republic" as it's more neutral, refers to the former Syrian government, and is generally more accurate. There is another Wikipedia page, "Ba'athist Syria," that is currently discussing a name change to "Syrian Arab Republic." We should wait until the outcome of the discussion, and if it is renamed to it we should consider a change in this article so that it's more uniform. Wikipubliceditorpro (talk) 01:46, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME

Stephan rostie (talk) 01:59, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose per Beshogur Abo Yemen✉ 08:06, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose Per Beshogur. – 𝙰𝚔𝚜𝚑𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚟™ ^🗿 09:49, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Would you like some more useful sources?

Hello! Unfortunately, I'll have no time at all to help you update this and other pages with more information on the offensive and the fall of the regime; however, I just wanted to leave you some useful sources you can use to add more details and links yourself.

Obviously, we've already got plenty of good live timelines to choose from, including The Guardian, The New York Times, the BBC, El País and Le Monde.

However, I think you should check out the material from Il Post and Al Jazeera, too: the former outlet has put together a very on-point timeline, with lots of references to other newspaper and social media content, as well several in-depth articles like this one, while the latter has created a bunch of maps and graphics that could be quite useful as Creative Commons content that could be uploaded on Wikimedia portals.

Let me know if this helps! Oltrepier (talk) 20:33, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, I'll do it! Randomdudewithinternet (talk) 23:18, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Categorization of the Assad regime as "totalitarian"

The word itself is nigh-meaningless in its vagueness, since there's no political or economic system called "totalitarianism" and its application to one country or another depends entirely on external perception. It is also way too rooted on an ideological framework. Besides, when applied to both North Korea and Ba'athist Syria you know one of the two must be wrong. In my view it is WEASEL and editorialized. I petition it be replaced with more accurate/neutral terminology such as dictatorship or authoritarian. Figueiredo96 (talk) 05:03, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

The Assad regime was absolutely totalitarian in the same way that North Korea was. There were secret police, there was a cult of personality, you could find pictures or statues of Hafez and Bashar practically anywhere. It was a place where the walls had eyes and ears. It was a hereditary fascist dictatorship. -Sailor Ceres (talk) 05:30, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

It was totalitarian, you could have visited Damascus to even experience it. No need to romanticise it now. Theofunny (talk) 18:12, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Per totalitarianism, In the field of political science, totalitarianism is the extreme form of authoritarianism, ... Per the 2024 V-Dem Democracy Indices (i.e. for 2023), Syria was 16th worst in terms of electoral democracy (Saudi Arabia was the most totalitarian by that parameter, Eritrea the second worst), and 15th worst in terms of liberal democracy (Eritrea was the worst by that parameter; North Korea second worst; Saudi Arabia was only the 11th worst). Political scientists have plenty of sources of information on which to make reasonably objective judgments whether or not Syria under Assad qualifies as totalitarian, or "only" authoritarian; the V-Dem Institute publishes numbers; The Economist Democracy Index has four regime types, none of which are called "totalitarian". There are plenty of academic sources that can be used to attribute claims that the Assad government was totalitarian, but giving the ratings on some of the researchers' numerical systems could be useful too. Go to the Wikipedia articles to find the sources.

On the other hand, in relation to the discussion above, The Economist Democracy Index does not discriminate between regimes that are regimes versus regimes that are democracies, since it would be quite confusing to contrast regime regimes versus democratic regimes. Boud (talk) 00:08, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Discussion of Reactions sub-article

Please see Talk:Reactions_to_the_fall_of_the_Assad_regime#Is_this_article_necessary? — ypn^2 00:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)