The Iranian Association of International Studies International Relations Researches 2251-8444 14 4 2025 02 19 The reasons behind the different outcomes of power struggle in Syria after the Arab Spring: From the civil war to the fall of the Assad’s regime The reasons behind the different outcomes of power struggle in Syria after the Arab Spring: From the civil war to the fall of the Assad’s regime 173 206 216408 10.22034/irr.2025.499126.2652 FA Seyed Amir Niakooee Associate Professor of Political Science, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran. 0000-0001-8865-8824 Seyed Hossein Mousavi Kordmiri PhD Student in Regional Studies, Middle East Orientation, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran. Iran. 0009-0006-9891-8021 Journal Article 2025 01 11 With the uprisings in Tunisia and its spread to Arab world, Syria underwent a wave of protests in 2011, which quickly led to a civil war. Although Assad gained increasing success on the ground after 2016, the advance of the opposition and the rapid fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 surprised many researchers. This research seeks to answer the question: how can the civil war in Syria and subsequently the fall of the Syrian government be explained? To answer the question, Goldstone's approach is used and the factors affecting the civil war and the fall of the regime are analyzed. The findings indicate that social fragmentation and the support of some social layers for the regime, the stability of the main core of the army despite of some defections, and the regional and international support of both sides of the conflict played a prominent role in the continuation of the civil war. However, the regional and international supporters of the Syrian government played the most important role in preventing the fall of the regime in the civil war. On the other hand, the regressive course of support for Assad among the minorities who were affected by corruption and economic crises, along with the severe erosion of the army and finally the change of the balance of regional and international power in favor of the opposition caused the rapid collapse of the Syrian government. The research method is explanatory and the method of data collection is a library method. With the uprisings in Tunisia and its spread to Arab world, Syria underwent a wave of protests in 2011, which quickly led to a civil war. Although Assad gained increasing success on the ground after 2016, the advance of the opposition and the rapid fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 surprised many researchers. This research seeks to answer the question: how can the civil war in Syria and subsequently the fall of the Syrian government be explained? To answer the question, Goldstone's approach is used and the factors affecting the civil war and the fall of the regime are analyzed. The findings indicate that social fragmentation and the support of some social layers for the regime, the stability of the main core of the army despite of some defections, and the regional and international support of both sides of the conflict played a prominent role in the continuation of the civil war. However, the regional and international supporters of the Syrian government played the most important role in preventing the fall of the regime in the civil war. On the other hand, the regressive course of support for Assad among the minorities who were affected by corruption and economic crises, along with the severe erosion of the army and finally the change of the balance of regional and international power in favor of the opposition caused the rapid collapse of the Syrian government. The research method is explanatory and the method of data collection is a library method. https://www.iisajournals.ir/article_216408_f6bc17c304fd7b09677782fe6f52c63c.pdf