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The excuses given are

  • the situation is still very fluid
  • unsure if they will become an oppressive dictatorship.
  • continuity of use to avoid confusion

However

  • When Communism fell, Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement were immediately not refered to as 'rebels". Even though the situation was still fluid.
  • When Ceauccescu administration fell, the new Revolutionary forces were rather fluid and a stable government was not present for two years. But they were not called "rebel forces" as soon as Ceauccescu was deposed.
  • When the Iranian rebellion against the Shah succeeded, they were immediately called the Iranian Revolutionary government. The situation then too was fluid. And no legitimate elections have taken place.
  • when Khmer Rouge fell, the international community refused to accept the legitimacy of the Heng Samrim and his fractured Salvation Front in an extremely fluid situation- they were immediately no longer called "rebel" forces.

So, why can't the news establishment stop calling the new governing authority "rebel forces", because technically the on-the-run former Syrian military and the Russian forces are the current "rebels". Also it is extremely unlikely that Assad would return to power to cause the revolutionary coalition of Syria to be rebels again.

Perhaps because no government has changed their terminology whilst the media is not neutral in some respects and prefer to defer to various governments' terminology preferences.

Perhaps the media does not want to be apparently seen as supporting a formerly, or still, jihadist authority but whilst they have had no issue terminologically "supporting" the Iranian jiadist rebel forces when the Shah was toppled.

What are the fine-tuning rules to decide whether a new Revolutionary authority is still the "rebel"?

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    To provide a specific example, the BBC currently refer to them as the "victorious Syria rebels" and "the HTS rebels who now control Syria".
    – F1Krazy
    Commented yesterday
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    I think, the "rebel" here is a placeholder for "revolutionary", because they haven't declare a "revolution" yet, but rather toppling of the regime.
    – Anixx
    Commented yesterday
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    When the governments mentioned in the OP fell there was only one clear pre dominant opposing group led by clearly know leader or leaders who were in charge. In Syria no such group exists. The only know common denominator of the who will rule Syria is that they are rebel groups. Hence the title and description,
    – Schmerel
    Commented yesterday
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    All of your examples are, what, 35 years old at minimum? So expecting news sources to be consistent with decades-old practice is already shaky, assuming the assertion is indeed correct (since it isn't backed by citations from that period).
    – Obie 2.0
    Commented yesterday
  • As for the rest...Lech Wałęsa won an election very shortly after the fall of Communism in Poland, so it's logical that people wouldn't really be calling him a rebel at that point, since he had become the establishment (nor do people really call the Taliban rebels anymore in Afghanistan, for instance). And in the case of Iran, the Iranian Revolutionary Government was what they called themselves, but did foreign news outlets tend to use it?
    – Obie 2.0
    Commented yesterday

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There are no clearly defined rules.

The western media has refered to the rebels as rebels for years. The new government's leadership hasn't been solidified yet.

It would presumptuous for western media to determine who is the legitimate government of a country that has multiple factions. Sometimes the factions work together, sometimes not is a simplification.

When a single rebel force overthrows a governement, it is much easier to say "The new governement".

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  • An additional complication here in switching terminology is that HTS is still a designated terrorist entity. Were they the only party, like say with the Taliban, that might be overlooked more easily, but few are going to rush anointing them, unlike the OP's examples. These are unusual circumstances overall.
    – Italian Philosopher
    Commented 2 hours ago

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