Syria After Assad: What Led Here and What Lies Ahead

At The Boundary

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Joining us again is Charles Lister, a senior fellow and director of the Syria Initiative at the Middle East Institute (MEI), where his research focuses on Syria, terrorism, and insurgency across the Levant. In this episode of At the Boundary, Lister breaks down both the history and the sequence of events that reshaped Syria. He details Bashar al-Assad’s sudden flight to Russia to the rise of Syria’s new President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a figure who was once designated terrorist with a $10m bounty but is now engaging with diplomats from over 70 countries.

This discussion takes a look at the following:

· The “Rush to Damascus” and Assad’s unexpected downfall.

· Ahmed al-Sharaa’s foreign policy success and his mixed domestic policy performance.

· The effect of lifting sanctions and Syria’s economic recovery.

· Southern Syria’s clashes, the Druze, and Israel’s intervention.

· The future of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and U.S. counter-ISIS operations.

· The U.S. policy on Syria moving forward.

· How the region now views Syria as the key to unlocking a more stable and prosperous Middle East.

Charles Lister unpacks Syria’s past to help us understand its present and why there may finally be reason to hope for a better future.

Links from the Episode:

• Cyber Bay Registration Link

• "Building Trust in Digital Response: The Role of Chatbots in Cybercrime Prevention" Decision Brief

• "Our Knowledge of the Taliban as Guide for US Policy" JSS Article by Dr. Marvin G. Weinbaum

• 2025 Notes from Cambridge Blog

At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.
A "boundary" is a place, either literal or figurative, where two forces exist in close proximity to each other. Sometimes that boundary is in a state of harmony. More often than not, that boundary has a bit of chaos baked in. The Global and National Security Institute will live on the boundary of security policy and technology and that's where this podcast will focus.
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