Experts vs Prediction Markets on Assad's fall in Syria

On 6th December, Project Syndicate published a piece titled 'The Global Power Vacuum Comes to Syria' by Ian Bremmer, a world-renowned political scientist, and the founder of Eurasia Group.

It had been 10 days since the start of the renewed offensive led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Syria. The former Al Qaeda-affiliated group had captured the major cities of Aleppo, Hama, several towns, and was on its way to Homs. The offensive took everyone by surprise, especially the ease with which HTS took over Aleppo. Reports of Syrian Arab Republic army units deserting their positions raising concerns that the rebels might take even more territory, but certainly not Damascus, right?

In his piece, Bremmer wrote about how HTS had been preparing for this moment for months. They took the opportunity with Russia's distraction in Ukraine, and Hezbollah's reduced capabilities due to their war with Israel. However, he also said that "But as weak as Assad is, the fighting is unlikely to topple his regime", and that "Assad defied the odds 13 years ago when Barack Obama’s administration said that he “must go,” and he is likely to do so again".

At that point, few people would have disagreed with Bremmer. Assad's regime had fought an 11-year civil war backed by Hezbollah, Russia, and Iran. A few days before the fall of Assad, the Iranian Foreign Minister also visited Assad in Damascus, pledging support in countering the rebel offensive. Later we learned that behind closed doors, Tehran had informed Assad that it cannot send more forces to support the regime, but at the time few doubted that Iran and Russia would let one of their key allies in the Middle East leave without a fight.

What is interesting is that on the same day, on Polymarket, a prediction market where users put real money behind their forecasts, the market on whether 'Assad remain(s) President of Syria through 2024?' declined rapidly from 78% to a low of 39% on 6 December, signalling what was to come. This decline was the result of a number of emerging reports showing that Russia did not have "a plan to save Syrian President Bashar al Assad and that Russia is unlikely to create such a plan as long as pro-regime forces continue to abandon their positions".

What made this an interesting market to follow was the volatility of the situation, the impact of outside state and non-state actors in the event, as well as the volume of the market, more than $7.5 million. On the events in Syria, Polymarket was a better news source to follow than most of the major news organisations.

Overall, I'd say that this was a win for prediction markets, just as in the case of Donald Trump's election as President in November 2024. This market demonstrated the power of prediction markets in incorporating new information, rapidly interpreting volatile geopolitical events, which could prove a vital tool in understanding fast-evolving situations.