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إستماع
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(General Muhammad Al-Jasem (Abu Amsha), to the right of interim Syrian President Al-Shara’a)
*
The ruler was grateful for their loyalty, they had been fanatical in his service and a key part of his rise to power. But they wanted more, caused him problems both internally and internationally, they rose up against him and tried to replace him. That gave him the opportunity to have them all jailed or killed.
That was not Syria but actually Saudi Arabia almost a century ago, when King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud destroyed his own fanatical followers during the so-called Ikhwan Revolt from 1927 to 1930.[1] That is one option that Syria’s current ruler Ahmed Al-Shara’a could take but probably will not. It is not clear whether he could prevail in a full-scale conflict, although he may find it in his interest to disappear some of his ostensible military cadres that have caused him such trouble.
The brutal suppression by the regime Al-Shara’a heads of a nascent, bloody insurgency by pro-Assad elements has shocked the world. Hundreds, if not thousands of civilians, most of them Alawites, were killed. Much of the shock has been overseas with a concerted propaganda campaign against the Damascus government seeking to portray it as the slaughter of Alawites (as if foreigners even knew what Alawites are) and Christians, the latter added to increase the hype and outrage. Syrian Christians were killed over the past week, but they were bystanders, not part of either the mostly Sunni Muslim authorities nor the Alawite Assad regime remnants.[2] Internally, while many Syrians, especially minorities, were horrified by these recent events and filled with foreboding, some Syrian Sunni Muslims saw it as payback in a blood feud prompted by 50 years of Assad rule. They were not too upset by the events.
Al-Shara’a has said and promised all the right things after the massacre speaking about accountability and justice, but he is at a crossroads. He will almost certainly lead an Islamist regime but what type of Islamist regime it can be is the question. Syria’s interim president initial steps have been almost flawless in the first few months of rule, until this week. He projected the right mix of humility and pragmatism, both inside and out of Syria.
The slaughter on Syria’s coast has not derailed him but it has dented his image and pointed to a dangerous future. More than tyranny, it has raised the specter of chaos. He will at some point need to either destroy the more unruly, even more radical, elements of his coalition (some of whom he has already given high rank in the new Syrian Army) or will need to become more like them.[3] Instead of making Syria like his allies in Islamist-ruled Turkey or Wahhabi-ruled Qatar, he risks making it like Islamist-ruled Afghanistan.
On paper, this week he has been able to make real progress in unifying Syria. First an agreement with the Syrian Kurds, the country’s second strongest military force, was signed.[4] The Kurds signed because the Trump Administration essentially held a gun to their heads, the Americans are leaving, sooner rather than later, and surrendering some important clout on the ground in an attempt to curb American imperial overreach.[5] The Kurdish-led SDF faced the option of making a more advantageous deal now, or a far worse one later when they could be fighting a Turkish invasion. The reordering of American foreign policy in the region is, at least for now, a boon for the Islamist Syrian regime and its Turkish and Qatari patrons.
Al-Shara’a is trying to pull off a similar deal with Syria’s Druze, also well-armed and being aggressively wooed by the State of Israel.[6] Alone among Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, the Druze have the advantage of geography, close to a potentially sympathetic border, something most of the country’s Alawites, Christians, and Kurds lack. Initial reports of a Damascus deal with the Druze were exaggerated. They seem to be carefully weighing their options. On March 2 (before the Alawite massacres), Laith Balous, the leader of the main armed Druze faction, the “Men of Dignity” movement denounced Israeli intervention and attempts to divide Syria. On March 14, 60 Syrian Druze clerics crossed the armistice line into Israel to meet the religious leader of the Israeli Druze community and visit the main Druze shrine in Galilee.[7]
Syria’s interim president faces a narrow path – narrower than before – for success. He is not going anywhere (unless he is assassinated) and will be a major force in Syria for the foreseeable future.[8] But he is being pushed in different directions by the very fractiousness of Syrian and regional politics. Radical Islamists may have been pleased (or at least not too upset) by the Alawite massacres and encouraged by a new Islamist-friendly interim constitution, but both of these events will have disconcerted the newly reconciled Kurds and ambivalent Druze. Some Syrians believe that it was not Iran behind the Alawite uprising but rather certain Arab regimes terrified of the prospect of popular, successful Islamist governance in Syria. To truly succeed, the Al-Shara’a government needs both stability/security and tangible steps toward economic prosperity. Anything like real democracy, unfortunately, hardly enters into the equation. A Qatari gas pipeline that will double government-supplied electricity in Damascus is an initial step in the right direction but rebuilding the country is estimated to cost at least $400 billion.[9]
As far as stability/security is concerned, Al-Shara’a would seem to need to compromise, to be a “pragmatic Islamist,” but can he compromise with his own, with people like the criminal warlord “Abu Amsha” and his Sultan Suleiman Shah Division (accused of being involved in the recent massacres)?[10] The joke in Syria is that Al-Shara’a deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, because he is putting both Abu Amsha and the Syrian Kurds who bitterly fought him into the same Syrian Army. Put another way, the interim Syrian President risks being too Islamist for the skeptics and not Islamist enough for some on his own side. If he can keep everyone onboard, even if some are somewhat dissatisfied, he can win.
*Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice President of MEMRI.
[1] Silverfarb, D. (1982). Great Britain, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia: The Revolt of the Ikhwan, 1927-1930. The International History Review, 4(2), 222–248. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40105200
[2] Ncregister.com/commentaries/in-syria-real-massacres-phantom-killings-constant-threats, March 10, 2025.
[3] English.enabbaladi.net/archives/2025/02/syrian-defense-ministry-appoints-abu-amsha-as-hama-brigade-commander, March 2, 2025.
[4] Nytimes.com/2025/03/10/world/middleeast/syria-kurds-agreement.html, March 10, 2025.
[5] Msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-steered-syrian-kurds-towards-damascus-deAl-sources-say/ar-AA1AMPm0?ocid=BingNewsSerp, accessed March 17, 2025.
[6] Haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-03-04/ty-article/.premium/israels-overbearing-embrace-threatens-syrias-druze-at-a-criticAl-juncture/00000195-6120-db7b-afdd-f32cb90c0000, March 4, 2025.
[7] Al-monitor.com/originals/2025/03/syrian-druze-cross-armistice-line-pilgrimage-israel, March 14, 2025.
[8] X.com/Karam__Shaar/status/1900485746714153365, March 14, 2025.
[9] Msn.com/en-us/news/world/qatar-will-send-naturAl-gas-to-syria-to-increase-its-meager-electricity-supply/ar-AA1AUPyG?ocid=BingNewsSerp, March 14, 2025.
[10] Hrw.org/news/2024/07/30/turkiyes-troubling-embrace-syrian-groups-accused-grave-crimes, March 14, 2025.