The Future of Syria

Now that the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadis appear to have taken charge of Syria, will they fulfill their promise of moderation, or will the hardcore among them depose their current leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammad Al-Jolani)? Or will Al-Jolani himself revert to his previous views, when he for so long supported Al-Qaeda and ISIS, thereby earning a ten-million dollar bounty on his head from the American government? What will happen to the Syrian Kurds, longtime allies of the Americans in the fight against ISIS, but now under assault by Turkey, which has seized Kurdish-populated areas in northeastern Syria without a peep of protest from HTS? Will the Alawites remain in the country, or flee Syria out of fear of retribution from those who suffered under the rule of the Alawite Assads? How many of the two million Syrians now living in Western Europe will be sent home now that they can no longer claim refugee status? Will the Americans end their designation of HTS as a terror group? Will the Saudis and Emiratis agree to provide tens of billions of dollars to start the rebuilding of Syria’s devastated infrastructure? Will Israeli troops remain in control of the Syrian side of the Golan? So many questions, so much up in the air about a country where everything seems to be on the brink of being something else.

More on what the future of Syria may look like can be found here: “The fall of Assad is just the beginning: The struggle for Syria has resumed – opinion,” by Elie Podeh, Jerusalem Post, December 22, 2024:

Syria constantly manages to surprise us anew. With the death of Hafez al-Assad in 2000, his son Bashar survived against all the odds and contrary to all predictions. At the beginning of the civil war in 2011, most experts wrote him off. Notably, Ehud Barak, then Israel’s defense minister, stated that Assad’s days were numbered. Bashar, of course, survived, albeit largely thanks to the outside help he received from Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah.

In contrast to its image as a stable regime, a quick look at the history of Syria shows that before the rise to power of the Alawite Assad dynasty in 1970, it was the least stable country in the Middle East. From 1949 to 1970, it experienced no fewer than 17 military coups, most of which failed. Hafez al-Assad learned from these earlier failures, gaining a clear understanding of the necessary conditions for establishing a lasting dictatorship.

Syria has long been a focus for regional and international tensions, leading the journalist and Assad’s biographer Patrick Seale to refer to the phenomenon as “the struggle for Syria.” Seale argued that whoever wants to control the Middle East from an international perspective, and whoever wants to lead the Arab world, must rule Syria, due to its geostrategic location and importance. While this thesis has not always stood the test of time, the idea of the struggle over Syria as a reflection of a broader struggle in the regional and international arenas remains entirely valid.

After it sided with Iran in the Iran-Iraq War in 1980, Syria became an important component of the “Axis of Resistance” against Israel. With the expulsion of Egypt from the Arab League following its peace treaty with Israel in 1979, it was Syria – not Iran – that led this axis, and strove for “strategic equilibrium” with the Jewish state. However, the 1990 Gulf War and the collapse of his Soviet patron led Hafez to break off relations with Iran, forge new relations with the United States, and enter into negotiations for a peace treaty with Israel….

FROM A regional perspective, Syria has returned to its natural position in the Arab world. The alliance with Iran since 1980 has been rather unnatural, given that Syria, from its independence, was allied with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Though it was Nasser’s Egypt that promoted Pan-Arabism, the roots of this ideology lie in Syria. Thus, even if Islamist ideology becomes a central feature, Syria will remain an important actor in the Arab world. The removal from power of the Alawites, who are viewed as either infidels or Shi’ites (depending on who is being asked), and the return of Sunni rule means that the alliance with Iran and Hezbollah is no longer relevant….

The Alawites constitute only 12% of the Syrian population. The non-Alawite Shia make up another 3% of the population. Sunnis are 74% of the Syrian population. The Sunnis of Syria will not forget the critical roles played by the Shia of Iran and Hezbollah in supporting Bashar Assad’s criminal regime, and there is no possibility of any future Syrian regime reconciling either with Iran or with Hezbollah. Those alliances are dead.