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Will Syria stay together or fragment?

One of the threats to Syria now that Assad has fallen is fragmentation. In my experience, all Syrians say they want to preserve the country and its borders. But the conflicts among them and with neighboring countries can foil that goal and lead to partition.

The pieces of the puzzle

Syria’s population is mixed. Ninety per cent of its population is Arab. The rest is mainly Kurdish and Turkmen. More than 70% of Syrians are Sunni Muslim. But there are also various denominations of Christians as well as Alawites, Druze, Ismailis, Shiites and others. Damascus was thoroughly mixed. Several concentrations of Kurds were found along the northern border with Turkey, along with Turkmen and Arabs. The Alawite “homeland” was in the western, Mediterranean provinces of Tartous and Latakis. But they were a plurality and not a majority there. More Sunnis have sought refuge there, as under Bashar al Assad, an Alawite, those provinces were relatively safe.

The war is superimposing on this hodge-podge an additional dimension: military control of territory. Hayat Tahrir al Sham, the leader of the uprising, will control much of Idlib, Aleppo, Hama, and Homs. Turkey and its surrogates will control most of the northern border. They are trying to push Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) east of the Euphrates, an area the SDF already dominates. Other opposition forces will be in charge of the south and the Jordanian border. The Druze have long maintained their insular community in Suwayda. It is unclear who will dominate Damascus. The southerners are arriving there first, but it is hard to picture HTS settling for second fiddle there.

There are no clear pre-existing regional lines along which Syria might fragment, except for the provincial boundaries. But those do not generally correspond to ethnic or religious divisions. The pieces of the puzzle do not fit together. They overlap and melt into each other.

The divisive forces

That would be a good reason to avoid fragmentation. Homogenization of ethnic groups on specific territory would require an enormous amount of ethnic “cleansing.” Ordinary Syrians don’t want that. But there will be forces at work that might make it happen.

The Turkmen/Kurdish conflict has already removed a lot of Kurds from Afrin in the northwest and border areas farther east. Ankara backs the Turkmen and wants to prevent Kurdish access to Türkiye. This is because the Syrian Kurds have supported Kurdish rebels inside Türkiye. The Kurds have built their own governing institutions in eastern Syria. They might seek independence if they get an unsatisfactory political outcome at the end of the war.

The Alawites of Tartous and Latakia are dreading revenge from the rest of Syria for mistreatment under the Assad dictatorship. They could try to set up their own statelet, perhaps even attaching it to Lebanon. They could also try to chase the Sunni Arab population out, while importing as many Alawites as possible from Damascus. Many there served the Assad regime and will want out.

The unifying forces

Syria’s neighbors won’t want a breakup. Türkiye has the most clout because of its presence in Syria and support for HTS. Ankara will oppose even autonomy for the Kurds. Jordan and Iraq have less clout, but they won’t want fragmentation either. Nor will Russia and Iran, which supported Assad and are big losers due to his fall. Ditto Israel and the United States, which would fear radicalization of any rump Syria if its Kurds or Alawites secede. Israel doesn’t want a jihadist entity on its northern border.

HTS and other opposition forces will also resist fragmentation. They want to govern all of Syria, not a part of it. HTS has moderated its attitude toward non-Arab and non-Sunni Muslims. It has also tried to minimize revenge and has emphasized continuity of the Syrian state. But HTS is an authoritarian movement, not a democratic one. It remains to be seen how it will behave in practice.

The obvious solutions

The obvious solution is decentralization. Devolving authority to provincial and municipal institutions offers minorities opportunities to govern themselves, or strongly influence how they are governed. The Alawites and Kurds might be satisfied with decentralization, provided they also get reasonable representation at the national level. The Kurds already have their own institutions. Some non-Kurdish opposition areas in Syria have used local councils for governance since the 2011 uprising against Assad.

There are also power-sharing arrangements that can assuage minority concerns at the national level and lower levels. Quotas in parliament, reserved positions in the state hierarchy, and qualified majority voting in parliament or local councils. I’m not an enthusiast for these, as they often entrench ethnic warlords, but sometimes they prove necessary.

Syrians may invent mechanisms I haven’t considered. In any event it is they who should decide. The country will need a new constitution, then in due course elections. The existing road map for Syria’s political process is UN Security Council resolution 2254, which Assad stymied. HTS and the rest of the opposition can revive it and gain international support by doing so.