It is perhaps a bit difficult to grasp that, just a few months ago, the Syrian Civil War, one of the deadliest conflicts of the twenty-first century, effectively came to an end. Following an offensive launched in late November on the city of Aleppo, the forces of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, made a rapid advance through Syria’s largest cities. Joined by other rebel groups, such as army defectors in the south and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast, the militant group was able to topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad in a matter of weeks, with the ousted dictator fleeing to Russia on December 8th.
While the bloodiest period of the conflict is now over, Syria has not been free from strife over the past few months. The nation’s future is at a critical point, and it remains to be seen whether or not al-Sharaa’s new government will be able to maintain stable—and, importantly, just—rule over Syria. To see why this is the case, it is necessary to review some of the major events in Syria since Assad’s fall.
Tensions on the Border
While December 8th marked the end of one conflict in Syria, it marked the escalation of another, much older conflict. The day Damascus fell to Syrian rebels, Israeli tanks rolled into the UN buffer zone located in Quneitra Governorate, a province in the country’s southwest. The buffer zone was established in 1974 as part of an agreement between Israel and Syria to cease fighting in the area around the Golan Heights, a region in southwestern Syria that has been occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War in 1967. Israeli forces quickly took control of numerous strategic sites in and around the buffer zone, such as the abandoned city of Quneitra and Mount Hermon, which is located on the Lebanese-Syrian border and is the tallest mountain in Syria. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that Israel intends to occupy the parts of Syria it has invaded “for the foreseeable future.”
The direct land invasion by Israel was accompanied by a large-scale air attack, consisting of over 480 strikes, which resulted in the destruction of many weapons stockpiles and the country’s naval fleet. Since December, Israel has struck Syrian targets on numerous other occasions. In February, for instance, Israel launched another round of strikes in southern Syria, including in the vicinity of Damascus. At the same time, Prime Minister Netanyahu demanded the “complete demilitarization” of Southern Syria. Just a few days ago, Israel launched further strikes and deepened its ground incursion, accusing Syria of threatening its security by increasing defensive relations with Turkey. While the Syrian government has criticized Israel for its “impunity” in the strikes, it has so far avoided any large-scale acts of resistance to the strikes, likely fearing further escalation.
Tensions Within
Another reason the Syrian government may be less likely to respond to the Israeli incursions is because it deals with major tensions at home, most notably mass ethnic strife. Syria is a multiethnic country, with around 80% of its population being Sunni Arabs and the rest of the population being a mix of Alawites, Druze, Christians, and other groups. The Alawites are a small ethnoreligious group concentrated in the coastal west who follow Alawism, a religion, or, according to some scholars, an offshoot of Shia Islam. While Alawites have historically been persecuted in Syria, 50 years of rule by the al-Assad family, who were themselves Alawite, gave some members of the group privileged status in society. Allegations of favoritism and connections to the al-Assad family have been applied to Alawites as a whole, leading to fears that vengeful Sunni Arabs would exact vengeance against the group following the downfall of the previous regime.
These fears were in large part verified last month, when well over a thousand Alawites, the vast majority of whom were civilians, were massacred by militias allied with al-Sharaa’s government amidst fighting with pro-Assad remnants in the country’s west. While President al-Sharaa pledged, in theory, to hold those responsible for the massacres, little has been done on the matter so far, and groups such as Amnesty International have called for investigation of the violence as a war crime.
Tensions between the Syrian government and the Druze, another ethno-religious group who follow an Abrahamic religion of the same name, are also at risk of escalating. The Druze are mostly concentrated in the country’s south, and, like the Alawites, have a history of persecution under previous governments. The relationship between the Syrian government and Syrian Druze has recently become tangled with the conflict between Israel and Syria, as the Israeli government has positioned itself as the defender of Druze in the region and has used this as a pretext for its incursions in the nation’s south. The Druze, for their part, while skeptical of the current Syrian government, are generally skeptical of Israeli intentions as well, and have turned down offers for Israeli military support.
In northern Syria, fighting between Turkish-backed forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (“SDF”) have threatened the peace as well. For years, the Turkish government and allied forces have been launching strikes and ground incursions in northern Syria in hopes of dislodging Kurdish rule in the region. Despite a recent agreement by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (“PKK”), another Kurdish militant group active in Turkey, to lay down its arms, Turkey has so far not reciprocated on much of the deal, and has continued its strikes on SDF targets, which it considers to be effectively equivalent to the PKK.
A Case for Hope?
Despite all of the issues the Syrian government has faced since the end of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, there is a case to be made for optimism about the new government. President al-Sharaa recently signed a deal with the SDF to merge their forces and state institutions with the government’s, which has effectively joined together the two largest players in Syria at the moment. Assuming the merger is successful, the vast majority of Syrian territory will be united under one government for the first time in over a decade.
Additionally, a few weeks ago, a provisional constitution took effect. Whether or not the constitution will guarantee freedom for the people of Syria is ambiguous. On one hand, the constitution vests significant power in the executive, and mandates that Islamic law be “the main source of legislation” in the country. On the other hand, the constitution “enshrines separation of powers and judicial independence, and guarantees women’s rights, freedom of expression and media freedom.” Whether the provisional government chooses a path of autocracy or a path of freedom remains to be seen, but we must not discount the possibility that things could end up for the better in the next few years. Success, however, will require a great deal of patience, cooperation, and, when necessary, a degree of non-military pressure from the international community.
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