This past weekend, the world woke up to something many thought they'd never see: the sudden collapse of Bashar al-Assad's brutal dictatorship. After over five decades of the Assad family's grip on Syria, the regime crumbled as its two lifelines, Russia and Iran, finally pulled out, distracted by their own mounting crises. It's a moment that feels both overdue and precarious, a mix of cautious hope and the dread of what’s next.

I've been drawing Bashar Assad for more than 25 years, watching his transformation from an awkward heir apparent to one of the Middle East’s most notorious autocrats. Back in 2000, when the younger Assad inherited power from his father Hafez, there was a brief flicker of optimism that maybe, just maybe, he’d steer Syria toward reform. He was, after all, "from my generation," two years older than me—a fact that still unsettles me as I think about how differently our lives turned out. It took about five minutes for that hope to evaporate. My first drawing of Bashar captured that cynicism. Twenty years later, it’s not smugness I feel about being right—it’s exhaustion at the cost of his reign: a half-million lives lost, cities turned to rubble, the mass displacement of Syrians, and atrocities like barrel bombs and sarin gas attacks on his own people.

Now that he’s toppled, the map of Syria looks like a surreal Christmas cookie—splintered into countless zones of control, each a proxy for international players or local factions. Russia and Iran, Assad's chief backers, are the obvious losers here. Their investment in this dictatorship hasn’t just failed; it’s left them weaker on the global stage. For Iran, it’s a blow to its regional influence. For Putin, it’s another humiliation in a year full of them. The rubble of Assad's Syria is now their shared legacy.

And then there’s the United States, where President Trump seems blindsided by all of this. His long-standing preference for "staying out of the Middle East mess" is being tested in real time. It’s hard to imagine him being thrilled about having to recalibrate American policy—or frankly, even getting briefed on it. You can practically hear him grumbling, “This isn’t my problem,” as he reluctantly puts his golf clubs away.

In many ways, Assad’s collapse feels like the fall of Mubarak or Gaddafi—a dictator toppled, a power vacuum created, and a nervous world watching to see which warlord, faction, or proxy will claim the spoils. Yet there’s a unique tragedy to Syria, a country that has been so relentlessly broken by both its rulers and foreign meddling that it’s hard to imagine what "stability" even looks like anymore.

One thing is certain: whatever comes next, it cannot be worse than Assad’s reign. But then again, we’ve said that before, haven’t we?

This animated making-of clip of the Dec 10, 2024 editorial cartoon introduces an attempt at trying out an AI generated Trump voice. Yes, I know, it needs work… volume up please. Enjoy! Enjoy!