Four and a half years have gone by, and the conflict in Syria has only gotten worse. In the midst of huge civilian casualties, war crimes, foreign power involvement and an enormous humanitarian crisis, there is one man: Bashar al-Assad.

For 16 years, al-Assad has ruled Syria, but every year he has become more ruthless. Through his decisions in the first 11 years of his presidency, he caused mass anti-government protests which eventually turned into an uprising. These decisions included his suspected involvement in the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, and his somehow almost perfect vote referendum for re-election in a race with no other candidate. His direct actions which caused a civil war include his force’s attack on Syrians most well-known cartoonist because of his anti-government pieces and the killing of 5,000 civilians and protestors in an effort to stop the expansion of rebel brigades that began trying to take control of their cities back from government forces. By the summer of 2013, almost 100,000 people had been killed, with that number escalating to a quarter million within the next two years.

In 2013, at the suspected order of al-Assad’s regime, hundreds of civilians were murdered when rockets filled with deadly chemical gas were fired at multiple suburbs in Damascus, the capital of Syria, then in 2014 investigators reported the use of chlorine in deadly concentrations against areas held by rebels. To escape the conflict, persecution or both almost five million people have fled the country and over six million have been displaced within it. Many of them flee from the violence caused by the Syrian regime forces whom have shown that they will not hesitate to kill civilians in their effort to take back power. In late 2014, al-Assad seemed to be at the end of his rule, four military bases were lost to ISIS and the whole Raqqa province was lost, public support of his rule began to dwindle because of the large amounts of soldiers being captured and executed by the Islamic State and the amount of corruption that plagued what was left of the regime. Yet when al-Assad’s end seemed to be close he formed an alliance with Russia and accepted their military support in their fight against rebels, ISIS, and other jihadists. Towards the end of 2015, Russia began their air raid campaign against enemies of the regime, and even after the enormous amount of civilian collateral damage the campaign was called a success, this put al-Assad in a position of higher power as he begins to regain his country with the help of his new found ally.

As seen by his presidency, and the handling of the uprising, as-Assad has put power over his people and disregarded the lives of anyone who stands in his way, including his family and supporters. Since he has denied all efforts to get him to step down I believe that he must be forcibly removed in order for Syria to successfully defeat their enemies and give back the Syrian people their home and freedom.