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Syria: Anatomy of Regime Change
With a Foreword by Oliver Stone.
In December 2024, Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad departed for Russia after militia forces took Damascus. An Al-Qaeda affiliated group led by Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani (aka Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa) took power. New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman hooted that it was the “biggest…most game-changing event in the Middle East in the last 45 years.” Yet until then, Al-Jolani was wanted for terrorism and had a U.S. State Department $10 million bounty on his head since 2017.
The media-established story of popular “rebels” triumphing over “evil” has since dominated. Washington’s role in this long-standing regime change operation was erased.
This is the first comprehensive account of the U.S. regime change operation in Syria dating back decades. The goal was to end Syria’s nationalist economic program, its support for the Palestinians, and its steadfast opposition to U.S. and Israeli hegemonic designs in Western Asia.
The methods utilized fit a long-standing U.S. regime-change playbook applied worldwide. Key aspects include a protracted demonization campaign, imposition of crippling economic sanctions, and CIA financing of rebel groups under the billion-dollar Operation Timber-Sycamore.
Jeremy Kuzmarov holds a Ph.D. in American history from Brandeis University. He did his BA and MA at McGill University in Montreal, where he was born. He has taught at numerous colleges in the United States and is regularly sought out as an expert on U.S. history and politics for radio and TV programs. Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine, Kuzmarov is author of five books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (2019) and Warmonger (2024). In addition, he has contributed to many edited volumes, including The Oxford Handbook of Late Colonial Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies. Kuzmarov lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Dan Kovalik has been a labor and human rights lawyer since graduating from Columbia Law School in 1993. He served as in-house counsel for the United Steelworkers for twenty-six years. He has represented plaintiffs in human rights cases arising out of egregious abuses in Colombia. He also taught International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law from 2012 to 2023. Author of many books, including The Case for Why It Matters and Why You Should Care, he received the David W. Mills Mentoring Fellowship from Stanford Law School, the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism, and Iran’s 15th Farabi International Award. Dan Kovalik lives in Pittsburgh.
Oliver Stone is an Oscar-winning Filmmaker as (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July) and is the author of several books including the highly acclaimed memoir Chasing the Light.
Praise for the authors’ previous books.
About Kuzmarov’s Obama’s Unending Wars
“A devastatingly clinical analysis “―Max Blumenthal
“extraordinary book”―Peter Kuznick
About Warmonger (on Clinton’s foreign policy)
“Who first set us on this disastrous road of endless war and imperial overreach? Kuzmarov brilliantly answers these questions in his stunning new book.”―James Bradley
About Kovalik’s The Case for Palestine
“New leaders like Dan Kovalik are now among us. New books like his are our weapons.” George Galloway
In December 2024, Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad departed for Russia after militia forces took Damascus. An Al-Qaeda affiliated group led by Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani (aka Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa) took power. New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman hooted that it was the “biggest…most game-changing event in the Middle East in the last 45 years.” Yet until then, Al-Jolani was wanted for terrorism and had a U.S. State Department $10 million bounty on his head since 2017.
The media-established story of popular “rebels” triumphing over “evil” has since dominated. Washington’s role in this long-standing regime change operation was erased.
This is the first comprehensive account of the U.S. regime change operation in Syria dating back decades. The goal was to end Syria’s nationalist economic program, its support for the Palestinians, and its steadfast opposition to U.S. and Israeli hegemonic designs in Western Asia.
The methods utilized fit a long-standing U.S. regime-change playbook applied worldwide. Key aspects include a protracted demonization campaign, imposition of crippling economic sanctions, and CIA financing of rebel groups under the billion-dollar Operation Timber-Sycamore.
Jeremy Kuzmarov holds a Ph.D. in American history from Brandeis University. He did his BA and MA at McGill University in Montreal, where he was born. He has taught at numerous colleges in the United States and is regularly sought out as an expert on U.S. history and politics for radio and TV programs. Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine, Kuzmarov is author of five books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (2019) and Warmonger (2024). In addition, he has contributed to many edited volumes, including The Oxford Handbook of Late Colonial Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies. Kuzmarov lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Dan Kovalik has been a labor and human rights lawyer since graduating from Columbia Law School in 1993. He served as in-house counsel for the United Steelworkers for twenty-six years. He has represented plaintiffs in human rights cases arising out of egregious abuses in Colombia. He also taught International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law from 2012 to 2023. Author of many books, including The Case for Why It Matters and Why You Should Care, he received the David W. Mills Mentoring Fellowship from Stanford Law School, the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism, and Iran’s 15th Farabi International Award. Dan Kovalik lives in Pittsburgh.
Oliver Stone is an Oscar-winning Filmmaker as (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July) and is the author of several books including the highly acclaimed memoir Chasing the Light.
Praise for the authors’ previous books.
About Kuzmarov’s Obama’s Unending Wars
“A devastatingly clinical analysis “―Max Blumenthal
“extraordinary book”―Peter Kuznick
About Warmonger (on Clinton’s foreign policy)
“Who first set us on this disastrous road of endless war and imperial overreach? Kuzmarov brilliantly answers these questions in his stunning new book.”―James Bradley
About Kovalik’s The Case for Palestine
“New leaders like Dan Kovalik are now among us. New books like his are our weapons.” George Galloway
280 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 9, 2026
While this book offers a legitimate account of US involvement in the downfall of Bashar al-Assad, it ultimately presents a highly one‑sided and misleading picture.
The US did have geopolitical interests in toppling the Assad family, did support armed religious groups during the civil war, imposed sanctions, and actively worked on plans to weaken and remove the regime; however, this does not justify Assad remaining in power, nor does it explain or justify the Assad dynasty’s long record of repression, corruption, criminalized statehood, systematic disappearances, industrial‑scale torture, police-state surveillance, large‑scale demographic engineering, fraudulent elections, a militarized patronage network favoring the Alawite sect, deep involvement in the regional drug trade, entrenched authoritarian rule, and the crushing of any independent civil or political life which the author tries to undermine or present as false accusations.
There is so much sugar‑coating and selectivism that I found myself fact‑checking almost every claim as I read. The author tries to rationalize the Hama massacre—one of the worst acts of state violence committed by an Arab regime against its own population—by emphasizing Islamist fighters allegedly armed with American‑made weapons.
The book portrays the Syrian conflict as a “civil war triggered by outsiders,” in which the initial Arab Spring protests were violent, illegitimate, and proxies of Israeli, Turkey, and the United States, in which Assad’s response was supposedly focused only on the “militant” elements, even citing the storming of the Omari Mosque as a legitimate state operation against militants, despite evidence that the regime planted weapons inside the mosque to manufacture this narrative. This author does everything in his power to focus exclusively on crimes committed by the opposition, leaving mounting evidence of regime brutality and decades of oppression out of the picture in order to frame Assad as the savior of Syria.
Don’t get me wrong: there are legitimate grievances against the opposition forces currently in control of Syria. There is sectarian conflict, killing, kidnapping, extortion, and rape targeting Alawites, Druze, Christians, and other minority groups, as a result of armed Islamist factions, exploitation by global powers, the expansion of Israel’s border along the Golan Heights, and a range of internal problems that are direct consequences of the new regime’s emergence and the fragmented postwar order. Yes, Syria still remains extremely poor and damaged, but what the author doesn’t acknowledge is the significant improvements under the post‑Assad regime, in things such as basic services, macroeconomic stabilization, and institutional reform. Inflation has slowed and purchasing power has improved compared with the final years under Assad. Syrians now enjoy more reliable access to electricity, fuel, and transport thanks to new power plants, gas trade with Türkiye, and the removal of many front lines and checkpoints. Reconstruction-driven growth of around 1% has created new jobs and services, helped in part by the easing of sanctions. Syria has also begun to reintegrate internationally, attracting investment from Gulf states, the US, and EU members, and has already signed multi‑billion‑dollar deals focused on reconstruction, infrastructure, and energy (which the author characterizes as effectively “selling Syria” to multinational corporations). Most importantly, Syrians are now back on the streets celebrating, speaking out more openly, and no longer living behind closed doors under pervasive surveillance and fear of political repression that defined the Assad era.
Please do not read this book if you genuinely want to learn about the Syrian civil war. Instead, start with Assad or We Burn the Country by Sam Dagher, and only then turn to this book if you are interested in seeing how Assad‑apologist rationalizations are constructed. The author has legitimate points about the new government and the internal problems currently facing Syria. However, he frames these issues within a narrative that casts Assad as a savior, suggesting that these problems exist primarily because he was removed from power.
The US did have geopolitical interests in toppling the Assad family, did support armed religious groups during the civil war, imposed sanctions, and actively worked on plans to weaken and remove the regime; however, this does not justify Assad remaining in power, nor does it explain or justify the Assad dynasty’s long record of repression, corruption, criminalized statehood, systematic disappearances, industrial‑scale torture, police-state surveillance, large‑scale demographic engineering, fraudulent elections, a militarized patronage network favoring the Alawite sect, deep involvement in the regional drug trade, entrenched authoritarian rule, and the crushing of any independent civil or political life which the author tries to undermine or present as false accusations.
There is so much sugar‑coating and selectivism that I found myself fact‑checking almost every claim as I read. The author tries to rationalize the Hama massacre—one of the worst acts of state violence committed by an Arab regime against its own population—by emphasizing Islamist fighters allegedly armed with American‑made weapons.
The book portrays the Syrian conflict as a “civil war triggered by outsiders,” in which the initial Arab Spring protests were violent, illegitimate, and proxies of Israeli, Turkey, and the United States, in which Assad’s response was supposedly focused only on the “militant” elements, even citing the storming of the Omari Mosque as a legitimate state operation against militants, despite evidence that the regime planted weapons inside the mosque to manufacture this narrative. This author does everything in his power to focus exclusively on crimes committed by the opposition, leaving mounting evidence of regime brutality and decades of oppression out of the picture in order to frame Assad as the savior of Syria.
Don’t get me wrong: there are legitimate grievances against the opposition forces currently in control of Syria. There is sectarian conflict, killing, kidnapping, extortion, and rape targeting Alawites, Druze, Christians, and other minority groups, as a result of armed Islamist factions, exploitation by global powers, the expansion of Israel’s border along the Golan Heights, and a range of internal problems that are direct consequences of the new regime’s emergence and the fragmented postwar order. Yes, Syria still remains extremely poor and damaged, but what the author doesn’t acknowledge is the significant improvements under the post‑Assad regime, in things such as basic services, macroeconomic stabilization, and institutional reform. Inflation has slowed and purchasing power has improved compared with the final years under Assad. Syrians now enjoy more reliable access to electricity, fuel, and transport thanks to new power plants, gas trade with Türkiye, and the removal of many front lines and checkpoints. Reconstruction-driven growth of around 1% has created new jobs and services, helped in part by the easing of sanctions. Syria has also begun to reintegrate internationally, attracting investment from Gulf states, the US, and EU members, and has already signed multi‑billion‑dollar deals focused on reconstruction, infrastructure, and energy (which the author characterizes as effectively “selling Syria” to multinational corporations). Most importantly, Syrians are now back on the streets celebrating, speaking out more openly, and no longer living behind closed doors under pervasive surveillance and fear of political repression that defined the Assad era.
Please do not read this book if you genuinely want to learn about the Syrian civil war. Instead, start with Assad or We Burn the Country by Sam Dagher, and only then turn to this book if you are interested in seeing how Assad‑apologist rationalizations are constructed. The author has legitimate points about the new government and the internal problems currently facing Syria. However, he frames these issues within a narrative that casts Assad as a savior, suggesting that these problems exist primarily because he was removed from power.
October 1, 2025
Nearly finished with the Kindle version, very well written, but one-sided view. Neither of these authors have lived there or interviewed any of the thousands of refugees on why they left, neither have met any White Helmets who have been targeted and killed in double tap strikes as they were taking innocent women and children to hospitals all because of the propaganda of Vanessa Beeley. Neither have they a degree in science to be able to refute or back up any chemical weapons story. Even Theodore Postol went back and forth basing his doubts on cloudy YouTube videos and which way the wind was blowing that fateful day. Neither of these authors spoke with the people in Khan Shaykhun, and there are plenty who lived through this and witnessed the aftermath. I am actually shocked that an international human rights attorney like Kovalik would defend someone who has committed these crimes by Assad family, and never even investigated them just blaming the US for a coup. The last straw was really the bombing of refugee tents in Idlib by the Assad regime with Putin's help just days before the advance. If you want a dose of "Assad apologists", plenty of writings and quotes in this book from bloggers none of which have lived in unprotected areas there much less in Syria itself. No one has the firsthand knowledge of who was doing what and when. No one in Syria right now, short of a history professor cares about Syria's past or Jolani/Shara'a's past. There was much violence in the beginning of this coup that part is sadly true as hardline groups dug in, Alwites and Assad henchmen hunted down along with Captagon makers and smugglers. It didn't help matters that over 200 security officers were ambushed. All Alwites are not particularly singled out because they are in a majority in certain towns and areas so to say this is all sectarian is in my opinion not the whole story. Rape is sexist about control and nothing to do with sectarianism. There are Alwites, Christians and Druze in the new government, some have high positions. The authors have yet to interview those who have known Jolani even in Idlib. This would be a whole new book, that neither writer would dare write. What do we know about the present, instead of 5 hours of electricity a day, it's nearly at 24 hours like Idlib, new sewers are being replaced and flooding in Damascus now will be under control, the stench will be gone and the stones from old Christian streets were carefully laid back after repair, many streets too badly damaged from flooding. Newly equipped schools and hospitals freshly painted by prideful citizens and aid from the Arab league. Critics of Jolani do not fear torture and with the new highly screened and trained police, fear of reporting is slowly going away, and criminals are being caught due to the facts they can safely report. The motorbikes on which they rode to commit drive by shootings with no license tags are confiscated. Two rapists have already been caught along with other criminals. Millions of dollars were raised by citizens for Idlib to get housing for the poor and orphans who are still living in tents. No one in Syria is blameless, from HTS, PKK, least of all the Assad family. Rebellion only happens if there is corruption and bad leadership. Israel will not be allowed any peace agreement without giving back the Golan and will not be able to break the new unified Syria. They are trying to cause trouble with the Druze, many of which want unity. Turkey is only after the terrorist PKK they know the difference in good and bad Kurds and the who's who of the area and clans. PKK committed terrorist attacks in Turkey. The authors are good writers but should stick to the full story, not the one-sided versions. I have enjoyed their other works, but this falls short in my opinion.
November 24, 2025
My mother is from Syria my father is from Iraq, and we visited often until 2013. My grandparents went into hiding from Bashar Assad cruelty, grandpa disappeared and his body wasn't found until later. This book is interesting and well written from an outsider's point of view, of course we all agree on Americans involvement. What is failed to understand is that sometimes the Americans call it as it is. We have gone back recently, and things feel differently now. We brought my grandma to the states because her home was destroyed but she wants to go back. What these writers are not getting is that the US had little to nothing with the fall of Bashar, he was out of men and out of weapons and there was little profit for Russia and Iran to help him. What they used was drug money to fund bombing civilians. My mother's friend had her baby stolen from her by Assad and the chemicals were there only at his disposal brought in from Iraq during the war there. This regime change was caused by the citizens hardship and war on his own people. He is too busy now playing video games to care about the damage and hate he caused. Arming some rebels yes, but the final years American arms were not handed to Shara's men, Turkey helped feed and support Syrians. It's a shame there are no honest books about Syria or Iraq from citizens of all kinds, it's always about what the Americans do there. Nothing about actual Syrians and their hardships that led to the rebellion and regime change, it's just blame on others. Syria now has something it hasn't had in decades, hope!
January 7, 2026
Would give 3.5 if I could.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews