Eurasia Press & News
In Syria, putting Humpty Dumpty together again is no mean task. Israel’s demolition of the ill-equipped Syrian military and the recent occupation of additional Syrian territory beyond the Golan Heights it conquered in the 1967 Middle East war is just one obstacle. So is a daunting list of challenges that, if unresolved, threaten the new Syrian rulers’ ability to rebuild an economy ravaged by 14 years of civil war and, potentially, the country’s territorial integrity.
The challenges include Turkey’s military presence in northern Syria, fighting between a pro-Turkish militia and Syrian Kurds, differences over whether Syria should be a centralized state or a federation, the failure of many of former Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s conscripts to turn in their weapons and concerns about the place of religious minorities in the future Syria.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the rebel group that led the toppling of Assad’s regime, insists it will build an inclusive Syria. It has sought to prevent retaliation against former Assad government officials and promised judicial due process in holding those accused of war crimes accountable.
Tensions flare over Assad’s arms
The challenges are evident on the streets of Homs, Latakia and Tartous. Here, law enforcement, primarily populated by units of HTS, hunt for former regime officials. They seek to prevent the emergence of an armed resistance, possibly backed by Iran, and collect arms of former conscripts. Only an estimated 50,000 former personnel of Assad’s 150,000-strong, primarily Alawite military, have reportedly turned in their weapons. There were no reports of serious clashes in HTS’s security sweep.
Many Alawites, adherents of a Shiite Muslim sect to which Assad belongs, were happy to see an end to the former president’s rule. However, they are uncertain about their place in the new Syria. The raids have fueled anxiety.
The challenges are also evident in suspicions of the new government’s vision of a four-year transitory run-up to elections and the drafting of a new constitution in which HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, would remain Syria’s leader. Sharaa justified the four years, saying the civil war’s displacement of 13 million people, half of which fled Syria, made it necessary to conduct a census in advance of elections.
Many in Syria want to see elections in the next two years. Sharaa said a transition government will replace the post-Assad HTS caretaker government this March. The representation of minorities in this impending government will serve as a litmus test of Sharaa’s intentions.
Differing visions of the transition and Syria’s future have complicated HTS’s plans to hold a national dialogue this month, where all segments of society would chart the country’s transition and future course. Sharaa sparked opposition by seemingly insisting leaders of political and rebel groups could participate as individuals, not as representatives of their organizations. Similarly, Hadi al-Bahra, the head of an Istanbul-based opposition alliance internationally recognized during the civil war but now rendered obsolete by Assad’s downfall, said the grouping had not been invited to the dialogue.
Ethnic and sectarian divisions
The different visions of Syria’s future also color the new rulers’ effort to reconstitute the military from myriad rebel groups that agreed last month to lay down their arms and become part of a force capable of ensuring domestic security. The rebels would be joined by some Assad-era conscripts.
Like Syrian Kurds, Hekmat al-Hijri, the spiritual leader of the Druze — a sect considered heretics by mainstream Islam — vowed that the group would not surrender its arms until Syria’s future was decided and a constitution had been drafted that guaranteed Druze rights.
In apparent support for a federated Syria where minorities would enjoy some autonomy, Hijri said a “decentralised system is most appropriate for Syria.” Even so, he recently met with the Kurdish National Council, a one-time popular Syrian Kurdish group that has lost ground to the Democratic Union Party (PYD).
Turkey accuses the party and the associated United States-backed Kurdish militia, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), of being extensions of the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). This party has waged a four-decade-long low-intensity war in southeastern Turkey for Kurdish rights. They were also the US military’s shock troops in the fight against the Islamic State.
Turkey rejects Syrian Kurdish demands for autonomy. Unconfirmed media reports suggest Turkey and Syria were discussing defense arrangements that would include Turkey operating two military basesin Syria.
Sharaa, seemingly concerned that external powers would use a federated Syria as a geopolitical playground by playing one group against another, has insisted on a centralized state.
In early January, the Syrian leader met with the SDF for the first time. Unlike the Syrian National Army (SNA) — a misnomer for the Turkish-supported militia with which the Kurds are locked into battle — the SDF was not included in the rebel disarmament talks. It is reluctant to join the other rebel groups without an agreement on the status of Syrian Kurds and guarantees, if the group agrees to disarm and integrate into the Syrian military, that SNA elements will not harass their troops.
The SNA is expected to be influential alongside HTS in the reconstituted Syrian military.
On a visit to Damascus on Friday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot insisted that “a political solution must be reached with France’s allies, the Kurds, so that they are fully integrated into this political process that is beginning today.”
Barrot, together with his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, advised Sharaa that diplomatic recognition of Syria’s new government depended on three main points: a resolution of the Kurdish issue, the destruction of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons stockpiles and a clear pathway towards an inclusive political transition to democracy.
In negotiations with HTS, the SDF may well take its cue from developments in Turkey. Two Turkish lawmakers said imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan had indicated that he may call on the group to lay down its arms. The pro-Kurdish lawmakers were allowed to visit him for the first time in almost a decade; Öcalan has been in prison since 1999.
HTS’s controversial changes to Syrian education
If there is one thing that Kurds, Druze and Alawites share, it’s a deep-seated distrust of Sunni Muslim militancy, including HTS.
Burdened with a jihadist history that it has sought to shed over the past decade, HTS sparked outrage this week with the introduction of changes to primary and secondary school curricula. Critics charged the changes Islamicized the curricula. Many of the education ministry’s changes removed references to Assad’s regime, including photographs and references to the military and national anthem.
However, the materials removed also included the word “deities,” references to pre-Islamic deities and Zeinobia, a pre-Islamic queen of ancient Palmyra. In a bow to Islamic history and Turkey, a long-time supporter of HTS, the changes rolled back criticism of the Ottoman Empire. The ministry also deleted chapters about the origin and evolution of life, the evolution of the human brain and Chinese philosophy.
Insisting that the old school books would remain until a committee could audit them, Education Minister Nazir al-Qadr conceded that “incorrect” interpretations of Quranic verses were removed. That did little to convince critics that the textbook changes were not pointers in the direction of where HTS was taking Syria.
