Tag: Iran
Between a rock, a hard place, and the US
Syria’s Kurdish forces were once spread along Syria’s northern border with Turkey in three main concentrations. Afrin lay in the west, Kobani east of the Euphrates, and Hasakeh in the east. They have now lost control of Afrin to Turkiye and its proxies, who are threatening Minbij. Ankara wants all Kurdish forces at least 30 km from the border.
Meanwhile Syria’s de facto new leader, Ahmed al Sharaa, wants Kurdish forces brought under the Ministry of Defense. The United States has long cooperated with the Kurds in fighting the Islamic State and imprisoning its cadres.
The American side of the triangle
The Americans won’t want anything to happen that weakens that mission. But American support for the Kurds is the least certain side of this iron triangle. President Trump has long wanted the Americans out of Syria. His National Security Advisor nominee, Mike Waltz, is known as a long-time friend of the Iraqi Kurds.
He is also strongly committed to destroying the Islamic State (IS). That goal requires Kurdish cooperation. But there are few IS fighters remaining in the wild, where the Americans bomb them often. The main IS threat now is from the fighters whom the Kurds have imprisoned. If the Kurds were to release the jihadis, that would revive IS. A secondary threat is from their families, mainly concentrated in a refugee camp in the south.
The rock and the hard place
Ankara and Damascus are the more rigid sides of the triangle. Both have vital interests vis-a-vis the Kurds.
Ankara wants the Kurds off its border with Syria. Or at least diluted with some of the three million Syrian (mostly Arab) refugees Turkiye wants to return to Syria. Ankara has said it would take responsibility for the IS prisoners and their families. Damascus wants the Kurdish forces either demobilized or absorbed into the new Syrian army. It will also want the Kurdish governing institutions in the north absorbed into the Syrian state.
None of this will appeal to the Kurds. But they are weaker militarily than the Turks. And they have long accepted that their institutions, including the armed forces, should be subservient to a post-Assad state. The Americans, their main supporters, will not support a bid for independence.
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide
The Kurds are cornered. Iraq’s Kurds have their own problems and won’t want to support Syria’s Kurds, who espouse a different governing philosophy. They even speak a different Kurdish. Iran, which has sometimes appeared supportive of Syria’s Kurds, also has its own problems. It has evacuated most of its cadres and their leadership from Syria. Kurds still control a slice of Syria’s oil resources. Turning that over to Damascus could be a bargaining chip. Iran and Iraq have halted exports of oil to Syria.
Reaching an accommodation with Ankara and Damascus will not be easy, but the Syrian Kurds have little choice. Unless Syria descends into chaos, the days of their wide autonomy will end. They would do well to offer up their armed forces in exchange for Damascus acceptance of Kurdish governing institutions. Damascus might even want them to maintain a strong police force and intelligence capability. The Kurds should also try to convince Ankara of their willingness to break ties with Kurdish rebels inside Turkiye. In exchange they could ask that Kurds return to their homes along the border.
Politics rather than force
Kurds often portray themselves as the largest ethnic group without a state. That is a dubious claim. And in any case there are no guarantees of a state based on population size. The Kurds live in four contiguous states, none of which they can call their own: Iraq, Turkiye, Syria, and Iran. They need to use their political strength and savvy to gain what they can from these non-democracies. Necessary as it has been, military force has not produced a desirable outcome.
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No free country without free women
Forty-two year old Ahmed al Sharaa is the leader of Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS). That makes him the de facto main power in Syria today. HTS led the successful assault on Syrian government-controlled territory that ended in the surprising fall of President Bashar al Assad.
Early indications
The question is how al Sharaa will use his power. We have some early indications. He has tried to reach out to the Syrian Kurds and other minorities. He has sought to reassure them that HTS intends to build an inclusive regime. But he has also appointed an interim government that HTS itself dominates. The ministers are the ministers of Idlib Province’s Syrian Salvation Government. It has ruled in Idlib for the last several years. The Health Minister is al Sharaa’s HTS-affiliated brother, who is a physician.
Al Sharaa’s political origins lie in Al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq. The Americans imprisoned him there from 2006 to 2011. He established Jabhat al Nusra (JN) in Syria in 2012 with AQ support but broke with AQ in 2016. In 2017, JN rebranded to HTS, which established primacy in the parts of Idlib Assad did not control.
So al Sharaa is no cure all. His political pedigree is extremist. He was less draconian in Idlib than the Islamic State, but he was autocratic and jihadist. He applied what he called Sharia. Women and minorities were not treated equally with HTS-loyal men. His nom de guerre was Abu Mohammed al Jolani, that is father of Mohammed from Golan. Though born in Riyadh, his parents were from the Golan Heights, now in Israeli hands. He says the second Palestinian intifada radicalized him.
Current pressures inside Syria
Inside Syria, al Sharaa faces pressure from HTS cadres to reward them and to rule the way they would like. His coalition includes even more extremist forces. Its ideology is Islamist. Many of the fighters will have little use for minorities or women. They won’t bother with democracy. They will want an extreme version of Sharia that privileges men and their strict interpretation of Islam.
But al Sharaa also faces pressure from relatively liberal Syrians. Many of them want a secular regime based on equal rights, including for women and minorities. Pro-secular demonstrations have already occurred in Damascus. And al Sharaa has appointed a woman (for women’s affairs) to the interim government to respond to public pressure.
International pressures
The US, Europeans, UN, Turkiye, Arab Gulf states and others have united to call for an “inclusive” government in Syria. By this they mean one that includes minorities and women. Western governments are far less concerned about democracy than at times in the past. Islamist-governed Turkiye will want to clone something like its own semi-democratic system. Saudi Arabia and the UAE can live with that, even if they suppress pluralism and political Islam at home.
International leverage comes from two main sources. The first is al Sharaa’s need to get the Western countries to lift sanctions. That would allow international financing to flow. The second is Syria’s need for aid of all sorts. Once sanctions are lifted, the main lever will be aid flows, especially from the IMF and the World Bank. They have far greater resources available than those from individual governments.
Western governments are acutely aware of the Taliban precedent. The Taliban made all sorts of promises, but once in charge of Afghanistan they relapsed to extreme Islamism. Girls no longer go to school and they prohibit women from speaking and singing. No one in the West, or even in the Gulf, wants to finance that.
Triangulating
Whatever his own views, al Sharaa is a good triangulator. He is aware of the different pressures and looks for ways to respond, albeit only partially, to all of them. He has forsworn any new wars (read: with Israel) and has welcomed many different opposition forces to Damascus. Al Sharaa has met with foreign diplomats, including the Americans. He pledges himself to a unified and free Syria. He says he wants to implement UN Security Council resolution 2254, which calls for elections in 18 months. The Americans can depend on him to fight the Islamic State, which is more rival to HTS than ally.
But at some point there will be contradictions that he will need to resolve. The interim government is in place only until March 1. It is not clear how or with what it will be replaced. Nor is it clear how the new constitution al Sharaa has promised will be written and by whom. HTS has closed Syria’s courts. They will need to re-open under new management. Where will that come from? What laws will it apply? How will accountability be handled? What will be done to restore and ensure property rights? How will the health and education systems be reformed?
These would be difficult issues for any governance transition. They will need decisions that displease one constituency or another. It is not yet clear what kind of Syria will result. It could be a free and inclusive state. Or an autocracy like the previous one but with a different family in charge. Or Syria could break apart into warring fiefdoms. Al Sharaa won’t be able to decide, but his decisions will influence the outcome. Let’s hope he is wise beyond his 42 years.
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Iran’s predicament incentivizes nukes
Iran is the biggest loser in the Middle East over the past year. Israel has been attacking Gaza for 14 months without restraint. Iran’s Hamas ally has lost most of its military capability and virtually all of its governing authority. Israel has also destroyed the bulk of Lebanese Hizbollah missiles and thousands of cadres. The Iran-friendly regime in Syria is gone, to the benefit of Iran’s rival Turkiye. Israel is now battering the Houthis in Yemen. The Americans are joining in.
Greater Israel
October 7, 2023 traumatized Israel’s citizens. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu figures he can hold onto power if he can eliminate the prospect of another such nightmare. To do this, he wants a Greater Israel. The aim is push Israelis enemies off its borders. That Netanyahu thinks will make it impossible for Israel’s enemies to launch ground attacks.
Israel is already safe from Egyptian and Jordanian threats. This is not only because of the peace treaties. Israel provides internal security technology and intelligence that President Sisi and King Abdullah regard as vital. Both Cairo and Amman complain, sometimes loudly, about Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. But both Arab capitals, along with the rest of the Sunni Arab world, are happy to see Hamas destroyed.
The aim of the current ceasefire in Lebanon is to move the Iran-armed Hizbollah forces north of the Litani River. It runs about 30 km north of the border with Israel after turning towards the Mediterranean:
That won’t end rocket attacks. But it will end the risk of another ground attack, provided the Lebanese Army and UN keep Hizbollah away. Meanwhile, the Israeli Defense Force has seized a UN buffer zone on the Golan Heights. That will keep any future Syrian army or other armed force away from Israel’s border with Syria.
Where does this leave Iran?
Greater Israel makes Iran’s Forward Defense a fairy tale. It can no longer rely on Hamas, Hizbollah, or any Arab state to punish Israel for attacks on Iran. It can rely only on the Houthis, whose drone and missile capabilities have grown enormously. But so far they are unable threaten strategic targets in Israel or cause significant numbers of human casualties.
The Iranian regime is shaky in other ways as well. The economy is moribund. Energy is in short supply, despite the country’s big gas and oil reserves. Sanctions have hurt infrastructure and finance. Mismanagement is rife. The currency is weakening:
So too are the Islamic Republic’s social constraints. Emigration is increasing. Women are resisting the hijab:
Reasserting authority and legitimacy
Under attack in the region and weak at home, the Islamic Republic also faces an impending leadership transition. While Supreme Leader Khamenei’s health status is unclear, he is 85. Iran failed to respond to the last Israeli attack on its military sites in October. It has been ineffectual in preventing Israel from killing leading Hamas, Hizbollah, and Iranian figures in the “axis of resistance.” Even loyalists must be wondering when they will see a more vigorous leader.
There is one sign of vigor. Iran has re-accelerated production of highly enriched uranium. It would be surprising if hardliners in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were not arguing for nuclear weapons. They are a possible fallback defense, one that has worked well for North Korea.
Unlike North Korea, Iran has good reasons not to go all they way to building or deploying nukes. That would create uncertainty in Israel that could lead to a pre-emptive strike. But transparently assembling all the material and technology needed for nuclear weapons might serve Iran well as a deterrent. The deterrent might work not only against an Israeli attack. It might also against a Trump effort to squeeze the sanctions tighter.
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Getting to Syria’s next regime
The fall of the Assad regime in Syria was swift. Now comes the hard part: building a new regime that is an improvement. We know from past experience some of the elements required. Let’s review those, in light of the discussion among Syrians above.
Safe and secure environment
Above all, a safe and secure environment free of large-scale violence is a prerequisite.
The biggest threat for now is in the north. Turkish and Turkish-supported forces there are pressing hard against Kurdish and Kurdish-led forces. Turkiye President Erdogan wants the Kurds east of the Euphrates and at least 30 kilometers from the border. An American-mediated truce between the Turks and the Kurds has broken down. There is a real risk of a major conflict between them. Turkiye says its objective is eliminating the Kurdish forces. But Ankara and its allies don’t seem to make much distinction between specific Kurdish forces and Kurds iin general.
In other parts of the country there are also risks. It would be a mistake to assume that Assad did not organize “stay behind” forces. Even if not organized, they may emerge spontaneously, or Islamic State sleeper cells may awaken. In Iraq, the Saddam Fedayeen originated the insurgency against the American occupation that the Islamic State continued. There is still the possibility of revenge killings. A single mass grave near Damascus apparently holds 100,000 bodies. That means close to one million people with motives for seeking revenge.
Unifying the many armed groups under the new Syrian government will be a major challenge and priority. HTS has announced its intention to do this. But it will need to convince rebel leaders and find the resources to pay the fighters. Eventually it will need to demobilize many of them and integrate them into civilian life.
Rule of law
While there was some looting of government offices in Damascus, most Syrians have maintained law and order. Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), the leading force in the revolution, has kept police and government officials in their positions. Opposition forces in the south and other parts of the country have done likewise. There has been no sign, yet, of widespread revenge killings.
It will be years before Syria can reform its laws. In the meanwhile, there are urgent issues. Perhaps first among them is establishment and protection of property rights. In Idlib, HTS had a serious system for property issues. Expanding that to the national level will be a major challenge. Without that, it will be hard even to start reconstruction. According to the World Bank and the European Union, Syria has suffered an enormous amount of infrastructure damage. In 14 cities, they estimate damages of $8.7-11.4 billion.
Syria’s judicial sector was not independent of the Assad regime. It did what it was told. Judges and prosecutors will need to be vetted and new ones trained and named. Prison officials and guards will need to be likewise vetted and many replaced. Lawyers will need to be trained and retrained.
Accountability will be a priority. Identifying those responsible for Assad regime abuses will be easy at the top levels. But most of those people will have fled. Europe and the US need to be alert for their entry and capture them sooner rather than later. At the lower levels, many perpetrators will try to melt into the general population. It will be difficult to ferret them out and put them on trial quickly. Doing so will take years of concerted effort. It is not easy to gather the evidence a serious jury trial requires.
Stable governance
While Assad’s Syria conducted elections and had a parliament, it operated as an autocracy. The Assad family, the Ba’ath party, and Alawite military officers were pillars of the regime. It showed no respect for the rights of others. The new regime should reflect what Rafif calls a core commitment to human rights, including freedom of expression and religion. The mantra today is “inclusion,” which ultimately will require political pluralism, including full participation of women and minorities.
That will not be easy. HTS is also an autocratic organization, with little respect for women’s equality and dubious commitment to equal rights for minorities. It has appointed an interim government with little “inclusion” and has been less than clear about the role of women.
Political parties and civil society organizations are emerging quickly, but elections are still far off. It may be possible and desirable to convene a national dialogue of notable citizens. Russia and Iran, the foreign mainstays of the Assad regime are calling for one. Choice of participants would of course be problematic. But a national dialogue may provide common ground not only for Syrians but also for international powers interested in Syria.
Ultimately Syria will need a new constitution. Lots of constitutional proposals already exist. But Syria will need a constituent assembly of some sort to draft a democratic and inclusive document. Many of the issues involved have been discussed, but difficult choices lie ahead.
In the meanwhile, local governance will need to suffice. Syrians have practiced it a good deal in opposition-held areas in recent years. It won’t be a bad place to start.
Sustainable economy
Syrians are destitute. Their most immediate needs are food and fuel. Humanitarian assistance should flow as soon and as quickly as possible. This means using the United Nations and international relief organizations, which are already overburdened by Gaza and Lebanon.
Going much beyond humanitarian relief will require relief from sanctions and de-designation of HTS as a terrorist group. This will take time and convincing. The Americans and Europeans will want to be sure they are not snookered. They won’t want to provide reconstruction assistance to a new regime that fails to meet reasonable criteria. The big money will come from the World Bank and the Gulf. Washington and Brussels control the former and influence the latter.
Assad’s regime was dependent on production and trade of Captagon, an amphetamine. That will have to stop. HTS will crack down hard, but it will need also to generate economic opportunities to replace the drug trade. Syria is a country with limited oil and gas resources, big agricultural and tourism potential, and a good geographic location. Where its future livelihood will come from is unclear. Like Jordan and Egypt, it will need international assistance for decades into the future.
The World Bank has found that disruption of social networks has caused most of the economic damage in Syria. Restoring trust will take time and effort.
Social well-being
Half of Syria’s population is either refugees or displaced within the country. Many will want to return home. Others will not. Compensation for destroyed or expropriated property will be a major issue. Some communities will never return to their pre-war composition. Others will want to make an effort to do so.
The health system in Syria has imploded. Even in areas where the Russians and Syrian did not attack hospitals, sanitary supplies and equipment are limited. Many doctors and nurses have fled. Technical capabilities are not up to modern standards. Rebuilding will be a major enterprise.
The education system still functions in most of the country. Children go to school in both government and opposition controlled areas. But many buildings are destroyed and students will be behind in learning. Efforts were made to keep the education system in some opposition-controlled areas compatible with Syrian government requirements. But the culture of the schools and the experience of the students will be dramatically different.
The international dimension
Syria now faces two main challenges from neighbors. One is the Turkish effort to destroy the Kurdish institutions in the northeast. The other is the effort to destroy the strategic assets of the Syrian Arab Army, which Israel is bombing. Additionally, Israel has seized a UN-patroled buffer zone on the Golan Heights. HTS leadership is not prepared to fight Israel, even though some of its cadres would like to do so. HTS wants to bring the Kurdish institutions under Damascus authority. The Kurds are amenable. They do not advocate independence or union with the Kurds in Iraq. But Turkiye has vowed to try to destroy the Kurdish institutions. This is a serious threat and could vastly complicate the post-war situation.
Russia appears to be withdrawing much of its military assets from Syria. Iran has already done so. The US for now is maintaining its troops in support of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The Americans will want to withdraw, but will not do so before Donald Trump takes office in January. What he will do is not clear.
United Nations Security Council resolution 2254 (2015) is still the main international community statement on political transition in Syria. It is not a bad one.
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Winners and losers from Assad’s fall
The success of Syrians in deposing Bashar al Assad poses the question of who wins and who loses. Inside Syria, Hayat Tahrir al Sham is the big winner for now. It led the breakout from Idlib and inspired the many risings elsewhere in Syria.
There are lots of other countries that stand to win or lose something in the transition. Let’s assume Syria remains reasonably stable and its government basically inclusive and not vindictive, which appears to be HTS’ intention. We can try to guess the pluses and minuses for the rest of the world.
Turkiye is the big winner
In the region, Turkiye is the big winner. President Erdogan had been ready to negotiate with Assad, who refused to engage. Erdogan lost patience and backed a military outcome. He unleashed both Turkish proxies and HTS, which could not have armed and equipped itself adequately without Ankara’s cooperation. He does not control HTS 100%, especially now that it is in Damascus. But he will have a good deal of influence over its behavior. Let’s hope he uses it in the democratic and less religious direction. That however is the opposite of what he has been doing at home.
Erdogan has two primary goals in Syria. First is achieving enough stability there to allow many of the three million Syrian refugees in Turkiye to return. Returns will take time, but there is already a spontaneous flow back into Syria. The second is keeping the Syrian Kurds associated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) away from Turkiye’s border with Syria. Erdogan would also like its Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) dissolved. Or at least as far from power as possible.
Refugee returns look like a good bet. Disempowering the Kurds in eastern and northern Syria does not. They are well-established and cooperate closely with US forces in that area. Future President Trump will want to withdraw the Americans. But the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces will remain essential to fighting the Islamic State (IS). HTS, IS, and the PKK all carry the “terrorist” label in the US and Europe. But HTS and IS are rivals. HTS will want the Kurds to continue to fight IS. They will also be vital, at least temporarily, to preventing Iran from re-establishing a land route through Syria to Lebanon.
Israel wins and loses
The Israeli government would have preferred to see the Assad devil it knew stay in power. But his fall means the Iranians and their proxies will no longer be stationed along the northeastern border of Israel. The Israelis have already moved their troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone inside Syria. They didn’t want some known or unknown force filling that vacuum. That advance might give them a stronger position in future negotiations with Damascus, whenever those occur.
But Israelis have to be worried that a jihadist group led the overthrow of Assad. Ahmed al Sharaa, the birth name of HTS’s Abu Mohammed al Jolani, was born in Riyadh to Syrian parents. They were displaced from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The second Palestinian intifada motivated his conversion to jihad. It is hard to picture someone with that background more pliable than the impacable Assad on border and Palestinian issues. Jolani himself appears to have said little about Gaza or the Lebanon war. But some of his followers are clear about where they want to go next:
Lebanon and Jordan
Lebanon and Jordan, two key neighbors of Syria, can hope to be winners from the change of regime . Both will want to see Syrian refugees return home, as they were a strain on their economies. They will also stand to gain from reconstruction and eventually a more prosperous Syria.
Assad had been financing his government and his cronies with proceeds from the export of the stimulant Captagon. Decent people in both Beirut and Amman will welcome relief from that flood of poison into and through their societies. Some of their corrupted politicians may regret it.
Lebanon will have to reabsorb Hezbollah fighters who supported Assad. They will be a defeated and unhappy lot. But the Lebanese Army and state stand to gain from any weakening and demoralization of Hezbollah. Anyone serious in Beirut should see the current situation as an opportunity to strengthen both.
Iran and Russia are the biggest losers
Apart from Assad, Tehran and Moscow are the biggest losers. They backed Assad with people, force, money, and diplomacy. They are now thoroughly discredited.
Iran has already evacuated its personnel from Syria. Tehran has lost not only its best ally but also its land route to Lebanon.
Russia still has its bases. Almost any future Syrian government will have a hard time seeing what it gains from the Russian air force presence. Moscow’s air force brutalized Syrian civilians for almost 10 years. The air bases will no longer have utility even to Moscow. Moscow will prioritize keeping the naval base at Tartus, which is important for its Mediterranean operations.
The Gulf gains, Iraq loses
Gulf diplomacy was trying to normalize relations with Assad in the past year or two. But few Gulfies will mourn his regime, provided stability is maintained. Qatar may be more pleased than Saudi Arabia or Abu Dhabi. The Saudis and Emiratis are less tolerant of political Islam. Nor do they like to see regimes fall. Qatar is more comfortable with political change, including of the Islamist variety.
Iraq’s Shia-dominated government loses a companion in Damascus. It won’t welcome a Sunni-dominated government in Damascus. But Baghdad, like the Gulf, is unlikely to mourn the fall of Assad. He did his damnedest to make life difficult for Iraqis after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The United States and Europe gain but will need to ante up
The US and Europe have long viewed Assad as a regrettable but necessary evil. They hesitated to bring him down for fear of what might come next. Now they need to step up and fund Syria’s recovery, mainly through the IMF and the World Bank. They will want Gulf money invested as well. The best way to get that is for them to ante up matching funds.
That is also the best way for them to gain leverage over the political settlement. If they want an inclusive outcome, they’ll need to be ready to pay for it. Hesitation could open the door to malicious influence.
Let the Syrians decide
That said, the details of the political settlement should be left to the Syrians. They will need to write a new constitution and eventually hold elections. The extensive constitutional discussions the UN has hosted for a decade may offer some enlightenment on what Syrians want. Just as important in my view is how the new powers that be handle property issues. Only if property rights are clearly established and protected can Syria’s economy revive. But who rightfully owns what and what to do about destroyed property are complicated and difficult issues.
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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.
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