What's Next for Syria?

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Fredericton, NB] Daily Gleaner

Last December, after more than 50 years of tyranny and repression, the government of Bashar al-Assad fell in Syria, due to a combination of three forces: First, Israel’s military utterly eviscerated Assad’s foreign military support base, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia; second, the Ukraine war has forced Russia to withdraw its support from the Syrian theatre; and third, the Turkish government, led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, stepped into the breach. So Ankara’s favoured radical militia, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), captured the country with almost no opposition.

 HTS leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa is a former al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorist. He formed the Nusra Front, an affiliate of al-Qaeda, but he eventually broke ties with them and the Nusra Front evolved into Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. He is currently attempting to position himself as a moderate figure, despite his history of terrorism and his group’s human rights abuses in the Idlib region of Syria.

 Replacing the country’s minority Alawite Shia regime by a Sunni dictatorship will not solve its problems either. The country is too disparate in terms of religion and ethnicity. The distinct national identities of its Alawite, Arab Christian-Orthodox, Druze, Kurdish, Armenian, Ismaili and Arab Shia populations were all recognised under Ottoman rule. And when France obtained the territory in 1919, it strove to accommodate plural identities by creating two separate states: an Alawite one in north-west Syria and a Druze one in the south-east, both apart from the Sunni majority.

 But when the French gave up their control of Syria in 1946, a Sunni Arab, Shukri al-Quwatli, became the country’s president. He was soon removed in the first of Syria’s many coups. During the next 21 years, 17 presidents followed one another. And three of those years were under Egyptian rule.

 But stability would come in November 1970 when Hafez al-Assad, via the supposed socialist Ba’ath Party, took control as military dictator before naming himself the president in February 1971. He was an Alawite, a suspect sect in a Sunni Arab majority country. The disproportionate number of Alawites in the officer corps, as a loyal minority that had been favoured under French rule, allowed his family to assume control. After his death in 2000, son Bashar continued Ba’athist rule.

 Iran’s support allowed the Assad regime to cling to power for years, even in the face of the mass “Arab Spring” protests led by the Sunni Arab majority that started in December 2010. So the regime survived for another 14 years. But it could not survive Israel’s demolition of Hezbollah. The ongoing war with Israel left Iran and especially its proxies --Hezbollah and Hamas --in an unprecedented position of weakness, significantly undermining their presence in Syria and enabling the rebels’ swift advance.

 Today, the tables have been turned, and members of the Alawite minority have reason to fear they will be punished or persecuted because of their community’s long-standing connections to the Assad family. There has already been fighting in an area that is their heartland, with thousands dead.

 Alawi Islam emerged in the ninth century in northeastern Syria. Alawites have a differing interpretation of several pillars of Islam, which are considered foundational by orthodox Muslims. Alawites prefer to worship in private, don’t think women need to wear headscarves, and use wine in their rituals.

 Among the many challenges the new regime faces are uniting a complex patchwork of rebel groups, gaining control over multiple regions under the sway of powerful factions and rebuilding relations with the international community to undo crippling sanctions.

 It is rapidly implementing stabilization measures, including the appointment of foreign, defence, and other government ministers, and expediting the restoration of Syria’s foreign relations.

 Turkey supported the rebels against the Assad regime throughout the civil war and is now reaping the benefits of its involvement. The current situation in Syria suits Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s nationalist aspirations of positioning Turkey as a regional power. It is expected to have a central role in shaping Syria’s future. There is talk that Turkey might train the new Syrian army and open airbases in the country.

 Ankara’s policy in Syria has been motivated by two main interests: reducing the Kurdish autonomous region in the northeast and pushing its perceived threat away from Turkish territory, and facilitating the return of some of the 3.5 million Syrian refugees currently in Turkey, who pose an economic and political burden.

 The situation of the Kurdish minority in Syria, numbering about 2.5 million residents, has shifted since the country’s upheaval. Much of northeastern Syria has been controlled by Kurds, who call it Rojava, meaning western Kurdistan. Since 2012, they have run it as a self-declared autonomous region, protected by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

 But now Syria’s Kurds have agreed to integrate their autonomous institutions into the Syrian state. Damascus also granted the Druze militias autonomy and permission to keep their weapons. In return, the Kurds have been promised constitutional and language rights. President Ahmed al-Sharaa met with SDF leader Mazloum Abdi March 10 to sign the deal. Abdi called the accord a “real opportunity to build a new Syria” that “guarantees the rights of all Syrians and fulfills their aspirations for peace and dignity.”

 “The best day after a bad Emperor is the first,” wrote the Roman historian Tacitus. The hard work will now have to follow.