Can Syria Survive?

After there had been attacks by Alawites on the new government’s security services, crowds of Sunnis marched on Latakia, accompanying the Syrian army. They went to dispense their own justice, by murdering hundreds of Alawite civilians. By one count, 340 Alawite civilians have been killed; by another 1,800 Alawite and Christian (chiefly Greek Orthodox) civilians have been killed. Many Alawites who had fought in Assad’s army are prepared to fight on against the government’s security services. These men were the backbone of Assad’s army, and made up most of its officer corps. They still have their weapons, and have not forgotten their training or their extensive military experience.

The assurances by the new regime in Damascus that it will stop these “individual violations” by Sunnis bent on revenge killings of Alawites certainly have not convinced the Alawites, who more than ever are determined to hold onto their stronghold in Latakia, and refuse to surrender their weapons.

The government blames the Alawites — “Assad-aligned militia” — for launching attacks first, on “security patrols and checkpoints” in certain areas of Latakia. There is no way to know if this version of events is true. If the Alawites fired on the Sunni soldiers who had arrived to take over their stronghold, who can be said to have “started it”? The Alawites who, protecting their people, may have fired the first shots, or the Sunni soldiers who had arrived to make sure opponents of the regime were properly subdued?

In the months to come, we will see if the regime’s security services are strong enough to impose and maintain their hold on Latakia and the Alawites, or whether those Alawites will successfully engage in a long, drawn-out guerrilla campaign against the Sunni soldiers sent to Latakia to subdue them. Ahmed al-Sharaa will have his hands full, trying to deal simultaneously with three million restive Alawites in Latakia who will continue to hold out against his government, with the four million Kurds who, in the northeast, control 30% of Syria, to the jihadists running things in Damascus, with the Turks who have seized an enclave in the Kurdish-dominated region and intend to remain in Syria in order to prevent Kurds in Syria from linking up with Kurdish separatists in Turkey, with the 600,000 Druze, who do not want to surrender their autonomy to the central government, and with Israel, that has made clear it will be holding onto its new military outposts on the Syrian side of both Mt. Hermon and the Golan, to help keep tabs on military moves by the jihadist government in Damascus whose long-term intentions the Israelis deeply distrust.

Syria is in danger of splitting apart. Out of a Syrian population of 24 million, 3 million are Alawites. Under Assad, they formed a military caste that dominated his army. They are determined to hold onto their stronghold of Latakia and to resist the Sunnis — jihadists — now running things in Damascus. Nearly four million Kurds control almost 30% of Syrian territory; they have a well-trained and well-equipped militia, the peshmerga, thanks in large part to their alliance with the American forces in combatting ISIS in eastern Syria. The 600,000 Druze who live to the east and south of Damascus want to keep their autonomy, and they have been given assurances by the Israelis that the IDF will support them militarily. The IDF issued this statement on March 1: “We will not allow the terrorist regime of radical Islam in Syria to harm the Druze. If the regime harms the Druze, it will be harmed by us.” Then there are the 300,000 Christians — Greek Orthodox, Melkites, and Assyrian Orthodox and  Catholics — who fear the jihadists now in power and would support any group or faction opposed to the new rulers in Damascus. Syria could split into three or four distinct autonomous regions. Most of the country would be ruled by the jihadists in the capital; the area that includes Latakia and Tartous would become the Alawite mini-state, with a separate army, politically split off from the central government and possibly receiving financial and military help, possibly, from fellow Shiites in Iran. The Kurds would hold onto most of the territory they now control, supported by the large Kurdish populations in northern Iraq, southern Iran, and Turkey, that have separatist dreams of their own, hoping ultimately to become part of an independent Kurdistan. The Kurds would continue their military alliance with the Americans, providing them with secure bases, and might also form an alliance with the Israelis who have been allied with Kurdish groups, especially in Iraq, in the past. The Druze, their security now guaranteed by Israel, might become part of that Kurdish enclave.

And if all these things were to happen simultaneously, how could Ahmed al-Sharaa and his army of Sunni jihadists possibly keep Syria intact?