When protesters started trying in 2011 to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, they were part of a cascade of revolutions, known as the Arab Spring, that aimed to oust authoritarian leaders across the Middle East.

2011年，抗议者试图推翻叙利亚总统巴沙尔·阿萨德，那是被称为“阿拉伯之春”的系列革命的一部分，旨在推翻中东地区的威权领导人。

While opposition groups elsewhere experienced swift success, the Syrian revolution devolved into a 13-year civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions and carved the country into competing fiefs.

当其他地方的反对派组织迅速取得了成功，叙利亚革命却演变成一场长达13年的内战，导致数十万人死亡，数以百万计的人流离失所，国家四分五裂。

Mr. al-Assad’s stunning fall finally allows Syrians to feel the joy that their counterparts experienced more than a decade ago in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen — the four Arab countries where dictators were toppled far more quickly.

阿萨德令人震惊的倒台终于让叙利亚人感受到十多年前埃及、利比亚、突尼斯和也门人民感受到的喜悦，在这四个阿拉伯国家，独裁者被推翻的速度要快得多。

Yet while those four states provided a template for revolutionary success, their trajectories since the Arab Spring also constitute a warning.

虽然这四个国家提供了革命成功的模板，但它们自阿拉伯之春以来的发展轨迹也构成了一个警告。

In Egypt and Tunisia, new strongmen eventually rose to power, crushing efforts to build pluralist democracies. In Libya and Yemen, rival militias jockeyed for control, leading to civil war and the partition of both countries.

在埃及和突尼斯，新的强人最终掌权，粉碎了建立多元民主的努力。在利比亚和也门，敌对的民兵争夺控制权，导致内战和分裂。

“The people who have survived the last 13 years deserve to enjoy the moment before they worry about the future,” said Alistair Burt, a former minister in the British government who helped spearhead its Mideast policy during the Arab Spring.

“在过去13年里幸存下来的人应该在担心未来之前享受这一刻，”英国政府前大臣阿利斯泰尔·伯特说，他在阿拉伯之春期间帮助制定了英国的中东政策。

“At the same time, we all know the experience of the region since 2011,” Mr. Burt said. “We want to hope for the best but we prepare for something worse.”

“与此同时，我们都知道该地区自2011年以来的经历，”伯特说。“我们希望有最好的结果，但我们也在为更糟的情况做准备。”

叙利亚人周日早些时候在叙利亚霍姆斯市的主要广场举行庆祝活动。

The dynamics in Syria make for a particularly fraught transition of power. The Islamist rebel alliance that led the rapid advance on Damascus, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, is one of several rival opposition groups that must now agree on how to run Syria in the post-Assad era.

叙利亚的局势导致了令人特别担忧的权力交接。伊斯兰叛军联盟沙姆解放组织领导了对大马士革的快速进攻，它是几个敌对的反对派组织之一。这些组织现在必须就如何在后阿萨德时代管理叙利亚达成一致。

While Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is now the most influential group in Syria, it is competing for influence with another Turkey-backed group based in northern Syria, as well as a secular Kurdish-led alliance in eastern Syria that is supported by the United States. And southern Syria is dominated by local rebel groups, including militias led by the Druse minority, an offshoot of Islam.

虽然沙姆解放组织现在是叙利亚最有影响力的组织，但它正在与另一个总部位于叙利亚北部、土耳其支持的组织，以及美国支持的叙利亚东部库尔德人领导的世俗联盟争夺影响力。叙利亚南部由当地反叛组织控制，包括由伊斯兰教分支德鲁兹少数民族领导的民兵组织。

Once affiliated with Al Qaeda, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has tried to present itself as a moderate movement that seeks to preserve the rights of Syria’s many minorities, including its Christians, Druse and Alawites, the Shiite sect that formed Mr. al-Assad’s base.

曾经隶属于基地组织的沙姆解放组织一直试图把自己标榜为一个温和的运动，寻求维护叙利亚许多少数群体的权利，包括基督徒、德鲁兹派和阿拉维派，后者是构成阿萨德支持基础的什叶派。

Unless the group, which the United States has designated as a terrorist organization, makes good on that promise, analysts say, it could end up prolonging the civil war: Militias from different minorities may feel obliged to defend their areas from the new central government.

分析人士说，除非这个被美国认定为恐怖组织的派系兑现这一承诺，否则内战可能会因此而延长：来自不同少数群体的民兵可能会觉得有义务保卫自己的地区不受新中央政府的侵犯。

“You can’t tell people that they’re safe: They have to believe it,” said Mr. Burt. “That’s why the conduct of H.T.S. — and all those with guns at the moment in the liberated cities — is so important.”

“你不能光告诉人们他们是安全的：他们必须真心相信这一点，”伯特说。“这就是为什么沙姆解放组织的行为——以及此刻在被解放的城市里所有持枪者的行为——如此重要。”

周日，大马士革的一群人围住了阿布·穆罕默德·乔拉尼（中），他是周日攻占大马士革的“沙姆解放组织”组织的领导人。他随后在该市历史悠久的倭马亚清真寺发表了讲话。

Foreign powers like Iran, Turkey, Russia and the United States, which support different sides in the conflict, are expected to push to retain influence in the new era, potentially prolonging Syria’s internal disputes.

伊朗、土耳其、俄罗斯和美国等外国势力在冲突中支持不同派别，预计它们将努力在新的时代保持自己的影响力，这可能会延长叙利亚的内部争端。

The role and intentions of Mr. al-Assad’s former generals and security chiefs also remain unclear. They could yet prove decisive in any new power play, as their counterparts did in the countries where leaders were toppled in 2011-12.

阿萨德的前将军和安全部门主管们的角色和意图也不明朗。在新的权力角逐中，他们可能会成为决定性的力量，就像在2011至2012年那些领导人被推翻的国家中的将军和安全主管们所做的那样。

After the fall of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt in 2011, the military leadership still controlled the pace of the political transition. After allowing elections, the military later took back power in a popular coup in 2013, ousting Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president. Mr. Morsi, an Islamist, had himself angered many Egyptians through heavy-handed governance, leading some to lose faith in the democratic process.

2011年埃及胡斯尼·穆巴拉克倒台后，军方领导层仍控制着政治过渡的步伐。在允许选举后，军方又在2013年的一场民众政变中重新掌权，推翻了埃及首位自由选举产生的总统穆罕默德·穆尔西。穆尔西是伊斯兰教徒，他自身的高压统治激怒了许多埃及人，导致一些人对民主进程失去信心。

Elections were also held in Libya after the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011, but the country has been partitioned since civil war broke out three years later.

2011年穆阿迈尔·卡扎菲上校下台后，利比亚也举行了选举，但自三年后内战爆发以来，该国一直处于分裂状态。

In Yemen, the departure of Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2012 was also followed by a civil war, which allowed the Houthis, an Iran-backed movement, to seize the capital.

在也门，阿里·阿卜杜拉·萨利赫2012年下台后，也发生了内战，伊朗支持的胡塞武装占领了首都。

For years, Tunisia was the most successful of the Arab Spring countries, holding several elections after the downfall of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. But Tunisia returned to a form of one-man rule in 2021, when President Kais Saied removed checks on his power and began to restrict the media, weaken the judiciary and exert greater control over the electoral authorities.

多年来，突尼斯是阿拉伯之春运动中最成功的国家，在宰因·阿比丁·本·阿里倒台后举行了几次选举。但突尼斯在2021年又恢复了个人统治，时任总统凯伊斯·赛义德取消了对权力的制衡，开始限制媒体，削弱司法，并对选举机构施加了更大的控制。

2022年，突尼斯首都突尼斯的一个二手货市场。背景是限制民众自由的凯斯·赛义德总统的海报。

Given the complexity of Syria’s internal dynamics, some think that Mr. al-Assad’s departure is more likely to widen the rifts left by the country’s 13-year war, rather than heal them.

鉴于叙利亚内部局势的复杂性，一些人认为，阿萨德的离开更有可能扩大该国13年战争留下的裂痕，而不是治愈它们。

But other analysts say that it is precisely because of their wartime experience that Syrians may be able to achieve what their counterparts in Egypt and elsewhere could not.

但也有分析人士表示，正是因为叙利亚人拥有战争经验，他们才有可能取得埃及和其他地方的人民无法取得的成就。

A side effect of suffering for so many years is that Syrians have had far longer to prepare for this moment and consider how to navigate a post-Assad transition, according to Sanam Vakil, head of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, a London-based research institute.

伦敦研究机构查塔姆研究所中东和北非项目负责人萨南·瓦基尔表示，多年苦难的副作用是，叙利亚人有更长的时间为这一时刻做好准备，并考虑如何顺利通过阿萨德之后的过渡期。

That is “what distinguishes this moment for Syria,” she said. “There’s also been a lot of learning, there’s been mobilizing, there’s been activism.”

这就是“叙利亚此刻的不同之处”，她说。“还学到了很多，有很多动员、很多行动。”

For now, though, many Syrians say they want to enjoy the euphoria of Mr. al-Assad’s departure.

然而，就目前而言，许多叙利亚人表示，他们希望享受阿萨德下台带来的喜悦。

Mr. al-Assad oversaw a cruel government that threw hundreds of thousands of opponents into dirty, overcrowded prisons, where thousands were tortured and killed. Mr. al-Assad’s forces dropped thousands of barrel bombs on his own citizens and gassed some of them with chemical weapons.

阿萨德所领导的是一个残酷的政府，将数十万反对者关进肮脏、拥挤的监狱，数以千计的人在那里受到酷刑和杀害。阿萨德的部队向自己的公民投掷数以千计的桶状炸弹，还用化学武器对一些人进行毒气袭击。

His refusal to relinquish power in 2011 led to a bloody civil war that displaced millions of people, destroyed much of the country and led to the rise of terrorist groups like ISIS.

2011年，他拒绝放弃权力，导致了一场血腥的内战，数以百万计的人流离失所，国家的大部分地区遭到破坏，导致了伊斯兰国等恐怖组织的崛起。

“No matter what comes next, it won’t be worse than Bashar al-Assad’s regime,” said Hashem Alsouki, a Syrian former civil servant detained and tortured early in the war who later sought safety with his family in Europe.

“无论接下来发生什么，都不会比巴沙尔·阿萨德政权更糟糕，”前叙利亚公务员哈什姆·阿尔苏基说，他在战争初期被拘留并遭受酷刑，后来与家人一起前往欧洲寻求安全。

“Yes, there is concern for the future,” Mr. Alsouki added in a telephone interview. “At the same time, I have faith that we will overcome this stage. Because the Syrian people have learned a lot in these 13 years.”

“是的，人们对未来感到担忧，”阿尔苏基在电话采访中说。“与此同时，我相信我们会克服这个阶段。因为叙利亚人民在这13年里学到了很多。”