English Portfolio & International Summaries
I am Talal Aldebbeiat, a Syrian journalist and political writer. My work focuses on political analysis, authoritarianism, freedom of expression, minority issues, and the political transformation in Syria after December 2024.
This page includes selected English-language publications, as well as English summaries of my Arabic articles for international readers, press freedom organizations, and institutions that need to understand the content and context of my work.
Selected English Publications
1. Original English article: Syria’s Transitional Authority: In the End, the Cheerleaders Decide | by Talal Aldebbeiat | Apr, 2026 | Medium
Summary:
This article argues that Syria’s transitional authority is more focused on managing its public image than addressing Syrians’ urgent needs, such as jobs, healthcare, education, reconstruction, and daily living conditions. It criticizes the rise of digital loyalist networks that defend the new authority, attack dissenters, and label critics as traitors, heretics, or enemies. The article compares the propaganda logic of the current authority with that of the fallen regime, arguing that both rely on spectacle, fear, and manufactured loyalty rather than genuine public participation. It concludes that no amount of public relations, hashtags, or staged media campaigns can hide repression, sectarian intimidation, or the absence of real freedom.
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By adopting the slogan “He who liberates, decides,” Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) establishes what can be described as a "zero-power equation"—a formula that effectively transforms the revolution into a self-consuming prophecy. This logic blurs the line between liberation and possession, replacing social consent with military conquest and stripping the "liberator" of any moral responsibility toward the people. Tragically, this mindset mirrors the very despotism it claims to oppose, echoing the fallen regime’s infamous slogan “Assad or we burn the country,” as both sanctify brute force as a legitimate basis for political guardianship over society.
The crisis of legitimacy is further deepened by HTS’s strategic silence regarding its intended governance model. By refusing to clarify its vision—whether it aims for a hard-line regime or a pragmatic Islamist path—the group leaves Syria’s future on a roadmap to nowhere. This ambiguity is coupled with a systematic policy of exclusion, where HTS consistently installs loyal but inexperienced cadres into sensitive positions while marginalizing skilled professionals and civil bodies. Such an exclusionary approach undermines institutional building and forces Syria’s diverse social components to retreat into sectarian and communal shells as a defense mechanism against a new form of military and religious despotism.
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The Syrian tragedy today manifests as a grim reproduction of historical despotism, where Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Al-Jolani seek to transform the slogan "He who liberates decides" into an absolute deed of ownership over both power and society. This Machiavellian formula treats military conquest as a justification for erasing the popular will, warning that the revolution is morphing from a dream of freedom into a "double trap"—moving Syrians from one cage of tyranny to another.
The text specifically critiques the "architecture of sacred power" engineered by Al-Jolani, where piety is weaponized as a bank of legitimacy to withdraw divine authorization for political repression. By masking a new dictatorship with the threads of sanctity, HTS follows the same path as Napoleon or Stalin: transforming the revolutionary rifle into a bureaucratic pen that signs decrees of subjugation. Ultimately, this represents a reversal of political time, where the "poem" of the revolution ends in a religious dictatorship that devours the future in the name of past.
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This article exposes the behind-the-scenes ascent of Al-Jolani and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to power under the guise of "revolutionary legitimacy." It argues that the "Victory of the Syrian Revolution Conference" was little more than a transition from political despotism to religious authoritarianism. With the stroke of a pen, a century of Syrian political and partisan history was erased, replacing the concepts of a modern state and citizenship with a "Sharia Shura" system that enshrines absolute individual rule.
The text highlights a dangerous shift in Al-Jolani’s political rhetoric; his use of populist phrases like "I am a servant, not a ruler" is a calculated mimicry of historical religious titles, intended to bestow sanctity upon his authority and position himself as a spiritual shepherd rather than an accountable political leader. The article warns of a "gradual Islamization" of institutions through parallel tools such as "Virtue Committees" and "Sharia Councils" designed to infiltrate education and culture. This leaves Syria facing grim scenarios ranging from deep social polarization and civil resistance against the "Salafization" of the state to HTS evolving into a distorted hybrid of hardline ideology and pragmatic power-seeking.
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The article provides a profound psychological and political critique of how Al-Jolani and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) exploit a pre-existing "machinery of obedience" within the collective consciousness. The author draws a chilling parallel between a child being indoctrinated through the fear of "divine punishment" and the Syrian people being conditioned to accept political despotism as an inescapable fate. The text argues that the new regime is merely the twin of the old, differing only in vocabulary; it transforms elections into a "religious ritual" where questioning is treated as heresy.
The core danger of HTS’s approach lies in its inheritance of religious architecture to consolidate political control. By shifting the source of fear from security services to "stones from the sky," the group ensures that political participation remains a matter of submission rather than citizenship. Ultimately, the article asserts that Al-Jolani is simply redeploying the same "technology of submission"—rebranding the ritual and repainting the walls of power while the essence remains an authoritarian system that stifles the nation’s future. In this view, history is merely repeating a funeral prayer over a nation whose freedom is being sacrificed once again.