“In Syria, rebels raced to Damascus, ending Bashar al-Assad’s 24-year-old dictatorship, which few in the outside world thought was in danger of collapse. In August, student protests sent Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year reign in Bangladesh crashing down,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Other authoritarian leaders and their governments came under new pressure in 2024, from Nicolás Maduro’s iron-fisted regime in Venezuela to the mullahs of Iran to the military junta of Myanmar.
”“In a world President Biden has cast as split between democracies aligned against a rising tide of autocracy, authoritarians suffered unexpected setbacks in 2024 that exposed their weaknesses, geopolitical analysts and historians said.”