On today’s edition of The Editors, Rich and Co. discuss the end of Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria.

“It’s seismic,” says Noah. “The stunning collapse of this regime amid the revivification of the Syrian civil war — the most important profoundly impactful crisis of the 21st century, which the West allowed to metastasize and internationalize and has implications for the politics of the entire West — simply collapsed all but overnight. And . . . it says a lot about the exhausted legitimacy of the Assad regime, first and foremost. And the incredible sacrifices of the Syrian people to liberate themselves from the last socialist Arab . . . dictatorship in the Middle East.”

Rich asks Jim if this collapse can be seen as a victory for the Biden administration, but Jim laughs, saying, “Biden was very supportive of Israel, except for all the times that he wasn’t.”

“I can’t anticipate what is going to happen next or for whom this will be good,” says Charlie, “but it should just serve as another reminder that even a regime that had been around for 50 years disappeared like dust overnight because people finally said that they had had enough and there just weren’t enough girders underneath it to sustain it.”

The Editors podcast is recorded on Tuesdays and Fridays every week and is available wherever you listen to podcasts.