Call for Unity in Damascus
Call for Unity in Damascus
Syria’s Different Tomorrow
Three months after Bashar al-Assad’s removal, the country is contemplating its future and the challenges that might threaten its path towards democracy, both internal and external.
After 14 years of civil war and the ousting of a regime that was run with an iron fist by the Al-Assad family for more than half a century, Syria is confronting its past and questioning its future.
A country embroiled in an economic crisis and prolonged internal conflict has weak and worn-out infrastructure, while entire cities have been abandoned as punishment for rebelling against the regime.
According to a World Bank report, Syria’s economy has collapsed by 84%, driving nearly 90% of the Syrian population into poverty. Today, despite repeated assurances, concerns remain about the governance model of the new liberators, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and its leader Ahmad al-Shara’i, who has declared himself interim president. Will they uphold their promise to protect the rights of women and minorities, or will they attempt to impose a new Islamist regime on Syria?
In Damascus, pro-democracy protests were held for the first time since 2011 in recent days.
Some see this as a surprising result of renewed freedom of speech and assembly, while others view it as signs of emerging problems on the horizon. The surrounding outlook is not promising. The Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen have failed, and the ongoing turmoil across the Middle East may ultimately affect the country’s efforts to chart a different path.
Efforts for Dialogue
On Monday, for the first time since the regime’s fall, the new government held a national dialogue conference, bringing together representatives from various communities and groups in Syrian society in Damascus to discuss the path the country should take. As al-Shara’i stated, Syria has a unique, historic, and rare opportunity. We must seize every moment to serve our people and our country.
About 600 present representatives were asked to propose suggestions on key issues on the agenda: establishing a judicial system that facilitates transition, drafting a new constitution, reforming and modernizing state institutions, ensuring individual freedoms and civil society, and the future economic model of the country.
According to the organizing committee, although the proposals are not binding, they will be accepted by the new transitional government, which will begin its work on March 1st. Al-Shara’i stated that a transitional judicial body will soon be formed to restore people’s rights, and those who committed crimes against the Syrian people during the civil war will be prosecuted.
He also emphasized that non-governmental armed groups must be disarmed. The integrity of weapons and their monopoly by the state is not a luxury but a duty and commitment, he said. Syria is indivisible; it is a complete whole, and its strength lies in its unity.
The Issue of Minorities
The measures introduced by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and the moderation efforts promised by al-Shara’i were met with optimism in Brussels, where it was decided to suspend several sanctions and restrictive measures imposed against the Syrian regime for over a decade.
Other sanctions related to arms trafficking, drugs, and cultural goods will remain in place, but European institutions have announced that they will monitor the situation to support and stabilize the transition process in the country.
The results of the conference and the inclusive calls are indeed the first step, but some believe that the political process is merely superficial and that, in addition to not properly addressing women, some minorities like the Druze, Alawites, and Kurds are not truly included in the transition process.
In particular, the Kurdish militia coalition SDF, which controls much of northeastern Syria and has so far refused to integrate its forces into the new Syrian army, was excluded from the national dialogue conference, as this could have put the new government in a difficult position with one of its main allies, Turkey. Ankara is officially at war with the Syrian Democratic Forces, fearing they might destabilize the Kurdish regions in the southeast of the country.
In contrast, the United States considers them its most reliable allies in the fight against the Islamic State, and today hundreds of American soldiers remain in areas under Kurdish control to combat hidden ISIS cells. However, with Donald Trump entering the White House, Washington’s support may diminish, exposing the region to potential Turkish military operations and a resurgence of ISIS.
Another Front for Israel
To the internal challenges, one must add those created by the conflict that began on October 7, 2023, following Hamas’s attack on southern Israel, which is practically changing the face of the Middle East. Immediately after the Assad regime’s fall, Israeli tanks crossed from the occupied Golan Heights and expanded their control over the buffer zone in southern Syria. Among the preventive measures taken by Tel Aviv within 48 hours of the rebel militias reaching Damascus were sinking the Syrian fleet and occupying Mount Hermon, a strategically important hill located about 60 kilometers from the Syrian capital.
Airstrikes continued throughout January and February, fueling fears of a prolonged military occupation. Last Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the complete demilitarization of the southern provinces of Quneitra, Daraa, and Sweida. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also supported these statements, warning that Israel would not allow southern Syria to become like southern Lebanon. President al-Shara’i responded by calling for international community intervention, and people took to the streets in several cities across the country. Syria, this slogan was the most repeated in the protests, belongs to the Syrians.
Finally, the mountain gave birth to a mouse: the Syrian national conference, short, rushed, and with relatively vague results, seemed more like a publicity stunt based on at least two objectives. On the one hand, it aimed to complete the image cleansing of al-Shara’i and his associates, an effort to forget their jihadist past as much as possible. On the other hand, it needed to present an image of national unity and solidarity, which is seen both as propaganda against internal separatist forces and as a tool in regional politics to reassure Arab neighbors on the eve of post-war reconstruction and Damascus’s diplomatic return. However, with the Kurdish issue still unresolved and Israel pressuring at the border with the idea of creating a buffer zone, if not a real protectorate using the Druze, the list of challenges for post-Assad Syria grows longer by the day.
