The imperial form of government is considered an antecedent of modernism and the rise of nation-states. For this reason, empires that survived well into the age of modernism and nation-states were thought to be characteristically disadvantaged and obsolete. External influence and direct occupation thus no longer reflected progress within the empire itself, where disintegration and corrosion now afflicted its social structure, at all levels, including education and the economy. Furthermore, spending on the military and security hogged a bloated share of overall public spending, while the military and the security apparatus occupied a central position, if not the central position, in the hierarchy of power. In this sense, democratic life in latter-day empires becomes rather off-limits and out-of-bounds. Beyond that, and because of the overlap upon which empires are built, – for instance between the internal and the external, that is, between the metropoles and the colonies–, these empires often collapse as a result of regional or world wars. There are few exceptions to this, such as the Portuguese Empire, which had come to an end following a coup that had democratic overtones in the mid-seventies. On the other hand, both the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Empire collapsed as a result of World War I. Then following World War II, the Nazi German Empire, which was in the process of being built, was routed. And most recently, the Soviet empire, which had forcibly postponed the demise of the Tsarist Empire during the First World War, collapsed, in turn, after the Cold War. Ultimately, the collapse of empires is very different from that of an ordinary regime, which is ousted only to be replaced by another. In the case of empires, changes impact societies and political borders as well. For example, the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Empire led to their disintegration, making way for a multitude of new nation-states. Similarly, the downfall of the Eastern Bloc led to the Soviet Union retreating into the borders of the 'Russian Federation', as a result of its collapse. Yet, once again, Portugal, after decolonizing its African possessions, was spared from such a fate, owing to the unity and homogeneity of its society, which were both reinforced by embracing democracy and due to the fact that Western democracies, in turn, had embraced Portugal. It would not be farfetched to argue that Syria, as molded and engineered by Hafez al-Assad, possesses many imperial traits – whether in terms of its influence abroad and in the region; its internal and social decadence; or the resistance to any democratic transformation rooted in its military and security services. Yet one difference here is that the Syrian revolution has substituted regional or international war, which is otherwise the event that usually overthrows imperial regimes. But only a minimal amount of intervention is taking place, escalating the chaotic nature of the conflict and its contradictions, yet without inviting a major intervention that would bring salvation. Saddam Hussein had been the sponsor of the Iraqi version of a similar imperial experiment, which eventually led him to war with Iran and then to the invasion of Kuwait. In that experiment, we saw how a huge international coalition to liberate Kuwait, and then a smaller one to topple him, had carried out the task of changing the regime, on behalf of the Iraqi victims. In other words, the Syrian revolution draws its epic and heroic character from the fact that it is carrying out something that only powerful international coalitions usually undertake. But, for this same reason, the revolution in Syria holds and produces countless contradictions, making matters ever more complex, protracted, devastating and difficult. Today, these two characteristics of the revolution [– i.e. its heroism and contradictory nature –] compete in a manner that is clearly discernable in every blow the revolution deals to the criminal regime, and in every blow that the regime deals to the revolution. Here, the devastation in Aleppo and all other Syrian cities seems to be but a terrible testimony to the sheer magnitude of the events unfolding in Syria. Indeed, nothing will remain the way it was before, whether on the ground or in the realm of ideas, because Syria's transformation from a miniature empire into a democratic republic is no simple or ordinary matter. It is a bloody exchange with history and geography, and many of the lies that have since accumulated on their sides.
