This week, Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), one of many key insurgent teams that toppled President Bashar al-Assad, named a brand new interim prime minister. Mohammad al Bashir mentioned he would lead a caretaker authorities till March 2025 and “till the constitutional points are resolved.”
Bashir didn’t specify precisely what these constitutional points had been, however Syria faces a frightening few months forward. After 13 years of civil conflict, insurgent teams deposed Syria’s dictator after a shock offensive led by HTS, an Islamist militia whose chief, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, broke with Al-Qaeda in 2016. HTS took nominal management of a divided nation with many disparate teams and competing armed factions and a inhabitants going through dire humanitarian and financial crises. The jubilation over Assad’s collapse couldn’t totally overshadow the unimaginable uncertainty hanging over Syria’s future.
This additionally pushes the remainder of the world into a really dicey state of affairs: deal with HTS, which is designated as a overseas terrorist group by the United States, the United Nations, and many different nations.
The HTS terrorist designation has been in place for years, however the classification has a brand new urgency. It makes it tougher for Syria’s new leaders to interact in out-in-the-open diplomacy and entry essential monetary assets. Syria itself stays underneath heavy sanctions. Even with exceptions for humanitarian support, it makes the sorts of investments any authorities would want to revive fundamental providers, rebuild the nation, and resurrect and reconnect the financial system terribly tough, if not unimaginable, to acquire. If any interim authorities lacks the aptitude to begin addressing even a few of these challenges, it could rapidly jeopardize Syria’s fragile stability and any probability the nation has towards a peaceable transition.
“That is the dilemma that the worldwide group is going through now: can we transfer rapidly after which find yourself regretting it and empowering malign actors? Do we act too slowly, too cautiously? But that may even have the identical impact,” mentioned Jasmine El-Gamal, a Middle East analyst and former Pentagon advisor.
HTS has distanced itself from jihadist teams, and Jolani, its chief, has tried to downplay its radical roots. The group has made overtures to non secular minorities. But within the components of Syria that HTS has managed, its civilian authorities has been something however democratic. The administration in Idlib has cracked down on protesters and journalists. Syria’s new interim prime minister, Bashir, was the top of the Salvation Government, the administration in northwest Syria managed by HTS. Bashir’s appointment was an early, worrying signal of the potential authoritarian route of this HTS-led Syrian authorities.
“My predominant concern with HTS, although, isn’t ideology, it’s the dictatorial practices, which they haven’t given up any of these in Idlib over the past 5 years,” mentioned Charles Lister, senior fellow and the Director of the Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism applications on the Middle East Institute.
“HTS will not be going to be making peace with al Qaeda and ISIS anytime quickly, however I’m involved about their dictatorial nature,” Lister added. “Early indicators in Damascus are good within the sense that it’s secure, however they’re not good within the sense that the transition is being solely led solely by this group, and that’s the massive problem mendacity forward.”
The U.S. and different companions have floated the potential for delisting HTS as a terror group, though that isn’t a course of that may occur immediately. There is a recognition of the dire state of affairs Syria faces, but in addition of the chance to forge one thing new after a long time of dictatorship underneath Assad and the horrors of greater than a decade of conflict. Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned this week that the U.S. could be prepared to “acknowledge and totally help” a Syrian authorities if the transition course of “ought to result in credible, inclusive and nonsectarian governance that meets worldwide requirements of transparency and accountability.” Other nations and the United Nations’s envoy to Syria have made related statements.
But HTS’s overtures are simply that proper now – alerts, however not commitments to a pluralism, and its present monitor file will not be precisely reassuring. But HTS additionally desires worldwide legitimacy and recognition, and the terrorism designation does provide leverage to affect the brand new Syrian authorities to satisfy a few of the guarantees.
“The worldwide group ought to have a transparent place on have interaction, what to make use of that leverage for, and the way to make sure that what’s occurring in Syria will not be led by HTS, however is finished in a approach that represents the ambitions and calls for of the Syrian individuals collectively,” mentioned Haid Haid, an skilled on HTS and a consulting fellow with Chatham House.
Few assume this will probably be a simple or instantly profitable course of. HTS is the important thing insurgent group proper now, however it’s removed from the one one in Syria. Other armed teams have pursuits and regional facilities of energy. Rebel fighters and opposition forces from the Druze minority in Syria’s south joined the struggle to defeat Assad, and had been among the many first to achieve Damascus. Then there are the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish group that partnered with the U.S. to assist defeat ISIS and governs the autonomous northeast of the nation. The SDF has mentioned it has a cope with the HTS, and can ship a delegation to Damascus. Kurdish forces additionally raised Syria’s revolutionary flag, utilized by the opposition forces since 2011, in a gesture of solidarity. But the SDF can also be underneath strain from different militias, together with the Syrian National Army; Turkey is backing that ragtag opposition coalition with the intention to undermine the SDF’s affect in northeastern Syria. Those two teams have engaged in severe clashes, although they only reached a ceasefire in Manbij, a website of heavy combating within the days after Assad’s fall.
These tensions is not going to disappear, and all of those events will search affect or a stake in any Syrian future. The check for HTS will probably be whether or not now, nearer to energy than ever, it would willingly discover methods to share it round, or if it would search to additional consolidate management. “It’s simpler to ship the entire proper alerts amidst the euphoria of liberation and freedom. It will probably be lots tougher to maintain these alerts going as soon as HTS begins to be challenged by minority teams and be issued calls for by minority teams,” Lister mentioned.
Lister added that engagement, reasonably than isolation, was most likely the perfect technique right here. But once more, this can be a precarious balancing act.
Syria will not be a neat narrative. A tangle of insurgent teams, of various political and spiritual extremes, lastly ousted Assad, reasonably than some ultimate model of a pro-democratic resistance. But all of these events, HTS included, ought to get an opportunity to evolve and work out the transition for Syria. So ought to the civil society leaders, activists, and civilians in Syria and overseas who’ve been envisioning a democratic future for Syria for years. That course of will probably be messy and ugly and veer from the Western playbook of good political course of – which truly has a fairly horrible monitor file anyway. The U.S. and the worldwide group can and will situation issues like sanctions reduction on seeing actual strikes towards protections for minorities or commitments to human rights and rule of legislation. But it additionally ought to hold again channels open for engagement, and contemplate methods to provide the transition some cushion to determine it out, together with by making certain unfettered entry to humanitarian support.
The U.S. and its companions will even have restricted affect within the consequence in Syria. In the previous decade, different regional and different worldwide gamers have vied for energy and affect in Syria – usually to the detriment of the Syrian individuals. But they don’t seem to be simply going to dip out of Syria quietly.
Turkey looms massive, and it’s actively exerting its affect by its shut alignment with insurgent teams in Syria, together with HTS and the Syrian National Army, largely as a counter to Kurdish affect and energy in Syria. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has a stake in a secure Syria, one that can permit the thousands and thousands of Syrian refugees in Turkey to return.
Russia propped up Assad’s regime, and his defeat is a humiliation to Vladimir Putin’s world ambitions. Moscow is unlikely to utterly abandon its complete Syria funding, and has reached out to HTS, together with to guard a few of its navy property. Assad’s defeat is one other blow to Iran’s axis of affect after a sequence of them this yr. Israel is increasing into Syria, and has launched round 350 strikes on navy websites and alleged chemical weapons stockpiles amenities in current days. Israel has known as these actions preemptive, however their objectives aren’t solely clear, although these are precisely the type of destabilizing actions that will rapidly upset a fragile and shaky authorities transition course of.
The United States, too, has performed bombing campaigns towards ISIS targets in Syria, which it says is in an effort to forestall a resurgence of the fear group in an influence vacuum. Incoming President Donald Trump has mentioned Syria will not be the U.S.’s drawback, however will probably be as much as his administration to find out what to do with the 900 U.S. troops nonetheless stationed there – and, doubtless, deal with HTS.
Perhaps the worst consequence for Syria could be one other model of out of doors powers selecting a aspect and vying for management. That’s basically why permitting and empowering a Syrian-led course of is so essential, as it could buffer makes an attempt at exterior energy grabs.
None of this can be a assure for achievement, however Syria does have an actual probability to chart a completely new future after half a century of oppression and battle. The first step, mentioned El-Gamal, “is simply listening to Syria, and to these Syrian voices, notably those that’ve been concerned in these political negotiations, in that political course of, over the past decade.”
