The Syrians have a chance to be free. They need our help.

The regime of Bashar Assad, like that of his father Hafez Assad, was one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. Its collapse is to be applauded.

The future of Syria, and the wider Middle East, remains uncertain, however, and the ultimate outcome could be more threatening than that of the Assad era. The world must not wait to see what emerges, but engage now to try to shape that future.

The Assad family ruled Syria for more than half a century. After seizing power in a coup in 1970, the father, Hafez, instituted a system of repressive cruelty, one that played on the insecurities generated by the country’s ethnic and religious divisions. In one incident in 1982, he leveled the city of Hama after an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood, killing tens of thousands of people.

Bashar inherited that government when his father died in 2000. A dentist who had lived in London, the world anticipated that he would liberalize the brutal regime. They were wrong. As democratic movements flowered across the Middle East, Bashar cracked down, a strategy that resulted in full blown civil war in 2011.

It is estimated that 500,000 people have died since then and virtually all of them — more than 90% of the victims — were killed by the Syrian government and its allies. Thousands were snatched off the streets and thrown in secret prisons, where they were tortured and killed. The United Nations estimates that over 14 million people — out of 18 million total — have been displaced by the war; 7 million within Syria and the rest forced to flee the country.

Those that remained lived lives of terror, deprivation and desperation. The U.N. estimates that 90% of the population lives in poverty and 50% are food insecure. Assad is reckoned to have created one of the world’s largest drug cartels to finance his government.

Assad’s grip on power was tenuous, nonetheless. He was thought to control just one-third of the country and that was only possible with support from allies like Russia and Iran that facilitated his regime’s brutality. Various groups held the rest of the country and used that territory to pressure the government in Damascus.

One of those opposition groups is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former affiliate of al-Qaida that is deemed a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union and other governments. Supported by Turkey, it operated from its base in the north of the country. It claims to have repudiated its extremist roots and is now more moderate, however.

Earlier this month, it launched an offensive against Homs, quickly taking control of the city. As the rebels advanced, the Syrian Army collapsed, refusing to fight, putting down its arms and melting into the civilian populace. The regime’s supporters, Russia and Iran, were distracted by more immediate problems — Ukraine for the former, the destruction of Hezbollah for the latter — and unable to counter the government’s collapse. Within two weeks, Damascus had fallen and Assad had fled to Moscow.

The world now waits to see what an HTS government will do. While Western governments hold their breath, fearing the group’s roots in Islamic militancy, organizations that have worked with it in Syria say HTS is pragmatic and ready to engage with partners. That may be true, but optimism should be tempered: The Taliban presented the same image when they first emerged in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

Syria’s new leadership is working with the prime minister of the Assad regime, Mohammed al-Bashir, to ensure a smooth transition of power. It has issued a general amnesty for conscripted members of the military, has started to restore public services in Damascus and ordered other government officials back to work.

The greatest fear is not that HTS will prove iron-fisted and doctrinaire in its governing style. Rather, it is that it will be weak, the country will remain divided and thus a source of instability for the entire region. Syrians have 50 years of scores to settle. Governments throughout the region — and the world — remember well what followed when the regimes in Libya and Iraq collapsed years ago. The chaos that followed spread throughout the Middle East. Instability continues to this day.

A particular concern is the Syrian government’s stockpiles of chemical weapons. While Damascus gave up some of its arsenal in a 2013 deal, it is widely believed to have cheated and retained a considerable number of those weapons. Fearful that they might fall into the wrong hands, Israel launched waves of airstrikes across Syria this week, trying to destroy the government’s remaining arsenal and degrade its military capabilities. Among other things, it destroyed virtually the entire Syrian Navy and Air Force.

Israeli forces also moved deeper into Syrian territory, beyond a demilitarized buffer zone, to seize more land in the Golan Heights. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu justified the move saying it was done “to ensure no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel.”

The strikes and the land grab were condemned by regional governments. Other neighbors could intervene to eliminate rebel groups that have established camps in Syria and which target their governments. There are reports that Turkey has made similar moves against Kurdish rebels operating in Syria’s north. In other words, the danger of instability is very real.

The best way to block the spread of contagion is for those governments, along with other key partners like the U.S., the EU and the U.N., to establish relations with HTS and help it build a working government. That effort should be guided by several principles.

First, the new government should be inclusive and the transition process transparent. All the country’s factions need to be represented and the human rights of all citizens protected. the former prime minister whom the militants appointed as the transitional head of government, said “we will guarantee the rights of all people and all sects in Syria.” We shall see.

Second, the new government should commit and take steps to ensure the public accounting for and destruction of the former regime’s chemical weapons. That process should be subject to international inspection and verification. Third, the new government should pledge to hold the former regime accountable, but that process too must be public. Justice must be seen to be done.

With those pledges, Japan, European governments and the U.S. should be prepared to recognize the new government in Damascus and provide the support it needs to end the suffering of the Syrian people. Already, it is reported that thousands of refugees are returning home. The world must give them the opportunity to rebuild their shattered country.