By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

After half a century of tyranny, the Assad family’s rule over Syria has come to an end. Syrians have every right to celebrate, but their struggle is nowhere near finished. Although the dictator Bashar al-Assad’s final ouster appeared abrupt, it had its roots in Syria’s 2011 antigovernment protests, and Syrians will now face many of the same problems that beset other Arab countries after their Arab Spring revolutions. These and previous Middle Eastern revolutions were initially led by various societal actors, including secular nationalists, students, public intellectuals, and left-wing activists. But in almost all cases, they were eventually taken over by Islamist groups, which went on to replace a political form of authoritarianism with a religious one. That Islamist groups got the upper hand should not have come as a surprise, as they tended to be well organized, better led, and more disciplined—key advantages in a power vacuum.

Assad’s brutal effort to delay his downfall only left Syria even more vulnerable to a new strongman’s rise. Over 14 years of bitter civil war, millions of Syrians were driven into poverty and famine. Half a million were killed. The war further splintered Syria along ethnic and religious lines and opened it to foreign powers’ competing, destructive efforts to carve out spheres of influence. The collapse of Assad’s much-feared security services has left Syrians searching for tens of thousands of missing friends and relatives who were jailed or forcibly disappeared. The country is scarred. It cannot afford another government led by a single party.

Syria’s new dominant group—Hayat Tahrir al-Sham—has raised outsiders’ hopes by promising to be different. Although HTS is a conservative Salafi-Islamist organization, it invited a variety of like-minded Islamist groups and nationalists to participate in the race to take Damascus. While he ran a rebel enclave in Idlib province, HTS’s leader went by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani; now he has swapped this moniker for a peacetime name, Ahmad al-Sharaa, and traded his fatigues for a business suit.

But there are discomfiting signs that HTS is already abandoning an inclusive mentality and intends to consolidate single-party Islamist rule. As this is history’s pattern, it will take strong action to break it, mainly by Syrians and outside actors.

 

Mind the Gap

Much of the news coverage of the December rebellion cast it as the completion of the Syrian Arab Spring’s unfinished business. But Assad’s ouster has not yet addressed what those protesters fought for. Assad—a member of the minority Alawite group—liked to tout the claim that his regime protected ethnic and religious minorities, but this was misleading. Assad oppressed all Syrians, destroying a beautiful country. The nationalists, human rights activists, and professionals who led Syria’s Arab Spring revolt included a sizable cosmopolitan Sunni contingent that does not share HTS’s rigid interpretation of Islam. Equal citizenship for all Syrians, not religious rule, was their aim.

Since seizing power in December, Sharaa has gone on a charm offensive to persuade the world that he will govern with inclusivity and moderation. In a flurry of meetings with Western and Middle Eastern officials, Sharaa has reassured the world that the new Syria will not pose a threat to its neighbors and that HTS will pursue a practical agenda, focusing on restoring domestic peace, rebuilding the Syrian state, and growing and liberalizing a ruined economy. Sharaa has strenuously distanced himself from other Islamist regimes, publicly stating that Syria is not Afghanistan and that HTS knows that the “logic of a state is different from the logic of a revolution.” He promised that HTS will protect women and religious minorities and will not seek revenge against Assad’s former supporters. One senior American diplomat who visited Damascus in December for the first time in more than a decade noted happily that Sharaa “came across as pragmatic.”

But a gap is steadily opening between such reassuring rhetoric and HTS’s practical moves. In December, Sharaa promised to install a transitional authority in consultation with Syrians of all backgrounds. Recently, however, he walked back these promises, stating that the long processes of rebuilding Syria’s legal system and conducting a census meant that it could take up to three years to draft a new constitution and four to hold elections. In the interim, HTS is creating facts on the ground that ensure the group’s control over vital security, economic, and judicial institutions. On December 10, Sharaa appointed a protégé, Mohammed al-Bashir, as Syria’s interim prime minister, to hold the office until March. Bashir filled his administration with former rulers of HTS’s strongholds in the northern Idlib province, naming particularly trusted confidantes to head key ministries, including defense, intelligence, economics, and foreign affairs. To govern Syria’s major cities, Sharaa tapped loyalists from a single, loyal armed Islamist group, Ahrar al-Sham. HTS has thus effectively transported its old Idlib government to Damascus while mostly excluding secular and more moderately religious opposition groups.

With Turkey’s backing, Sharaa also convinced a number of rebel factions to disarm and integrate their fighters into the interim government’s defense ministry. He then swiftly and unilaterally promoted 50 hard-line Islamist commanders to senior military posts, including foreign fighters from China, Egypt, Jordan, Tajikistan, and Turkey. It is clear that the new Syrian military will police an Islamic identity for the country: the defense ministry has instituted a 21-day Sharia law course for new recruits alongside their military training. The ministry also released a statement declaring that the new military’s aim is to work “as one hand” to “serve ‘our religion.’”

Sharaa likes to emphasize that the December Revolution belongs to all Syrians. But so far, he and his Islamist coalition partners are behaving as if they alone toppled Assad and that the spoils belong to them. Syria’s secular nationalists and activists have been completely shut out of the new government, to an extent that has shocked them. HTS has not, to date, carried out any large-scale revenge killings of Assad supporters. But Syrian human rights groups and locals have publicized unsettling accounts of summary executions and disappearances of Alawites. Some powerful opposition factions, such as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, have yet to lay down their arms, insisting that they first need to see HTS make real progress toward more transparent and inclusive governance.

 

Radical Cliques

Although HTS’s top leaders have distanced themselves from al Qaeda (from which the organization sprung), they have never disavowed their adherence to Salafi Islam. Salafism teaches that a rigid application of sharia is the foundation of a stable political order. No matter what they say to secure meetings with Western officials, HTS’s leaders are unlikely ever to accept that the will of the people is the source of legitimate political authority.

This reality does not mean that HTS will seek to replicate the Taliban’s extremism in Afghanistan or the Islamic State’s (also known as ISIS) genocidal repression in Iraq and Syria. The Taliban ruled “a tribal society,” Sharaa has said. “Syria is entirely different.” But HTS has used its much-touted efforts to combat religious extremism in Idlib—efforts that delighted outside observers—to sanitize and mask a politically authoritarian streak. Calculating, ambitious, intelligent, and nimble, Sharaa turned a ragtag armed outfit into a disciplined, semiprofessional military organization by prioritizing consolidating authority over performing ideological purity. To maintain power in Idlib, Sharaa balanced HTS’s rank-and-file hard-liners against pragmatists, often siding with the latter. But he implemented his pragmatic strategies with iron-fist tactics. Sharaa deradicalized HTS, but he did so from the top down, executing and imprisoning some extremists.

Sharaa’s leadership style will likely fuse aspects of conservative Sunni Islamism, pre-Baath Party Syrian nationalism, and technocratic functionalism—a melange that bears a resemblance to the ideological underpinnings of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party. HTS looks to Turkey as both an ally and a development model. Indeed, Turkish officials are already mentoring Sharaa and helping him consolidate power; more than any other external actor, Turkey will exercise considerable influence in shaping Syria’s trajectory.

Ultimately, the new Damascus government’s legitimacy will be based on a Salafi interpretation of Islam and majoritarian rule. Sharaa has never uttered the word “democracy,” which he considers secular and un-Islamic. He speaks, instead, about rebuilding state institutions, which could mean Islamicizing them. Indeed, Syria’s new minister of justice, Shadi Mohammad al-Waisi, stated confidently in early January that because 90 percent of Syrians are Muslims, they will vote for the application of Sharia law. This statement suggests that Waisi—and other top HTS leaders—see elections not as an end in themselves but as a means to an Islamist end. Already, Sharaa’s caretaker government has overhauled the national school curriculum to privilege an Islamist interpretation of Syrian history and removed teachings such as the theory of evolution from lesson plans.

So long as the balance of power favors the Islamists, the new Syria is unlikely to make a clean break with its authoritarian past. History is a lesson: in Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s 1979 overthrow was driven by nearly a decade’s worth of protest by Iran’s large middle class, dynamic intelligentsia, nationalist and liberal Islamic groups, and strong socialist and left-wing political movements. But after the shah fell, a coalition of religious conservatives were able to hijack the revolution because they were better organized and more disciplined. Boasting a wide network of mosques, a charismatic leader, and a willingness to use force against their rivals, they successfully politicized religion to rally supporters and purge leftists, liberals, and secularists from government and public life. What began as a democratic revolution ended as an Islamist one.

Similarly, the Arab Spring uprisings were first led by a diverse coalition of students, human rights activists, labor unions, and middle-class professionals. In Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen, Islamists joined the protests belatedly—but subsequently took ownership. Assad’s particular brutality militarized Syria’s initially peaceful uprising, justifying an increasingly militant opposition to him. With their charismatic leadership, organizational skills, puritanical ideology, and internal solidarity, HTS and other militant groups were the unintended beneficiaries. Recent history shows that Islamists are the likeliest inheritors of post-authoritarian Middle Eastern societies. And once they assume power, it is very hard to dislodge them.

 

Center Pivot

In Syria, the odds are stacked against a smooth political transition. The country’s practical challenges are daunting, not to mention the lack of trust among key stakeholders jockeying for advantages and dominance. Overall, the fewer external actors that meddle in the country’s internal affairs, the more inclusive and effective the transition is likely to be. This means that Syria’s neighbors—including Iran, Israel, Turkey, and the Arab states—must step back and stop supporting separatist factions.

But the right actions by the right outside actors can help. The Syrian Democratic Forces, with U.S. backing, are still clashing with Turkish-backed rebels in Syria’s northeast. The group’s Kurdish leaders must be given a seat at Syria’s decision-making table. The United States can help facilitate this outcome by using its enormous influence with the SDF to encourage the group to play its part. A win-win formula could be an inclusive government that strikes a balance between preserving national unity and honoring Kurdish aspirations for autonomy. Such a solution could also address Turkey’s security concerns. And by preventing the resurgence of the Islamic State, a group that feeds on social and political upheaval, an effective, inclusive governance]model could also allow the United States to withdraw its 2,000 troops from Syria.

The Syrian National Council (SNC)—a broad opposition coalition that emerged during the Arab Spring—has called for the UN to oversee and guide, not manage, the country as it drafts a new constitution; the UN should take up this appeal. There is no reason why Syria cannot hold free and fair elections within 18 months, especially with the help of UN election monitoring. But for any of these endeavors to work, world leaders must engage with a wider range of local, civil society, activist, and nationalist leaders, not just HTS. If Syrian opposition groups and civil society leaders can mobilize and engage in collective action, they will have more success acting as a check on HTS’s authoritarian impulses.

And these same world leaders must put more pressure on Sharaa to speedily build an inclusive and transparent governing process. Syria’s trajectory can only be positive if the country makes a radical break from its repressive, single-party past. Sharaa must immediately include other political parties and groups in the transition process, especially nationalists and independent activists who had led the revolt against Assad since 2011. HTS has promised an inclusive conference to promote national dialogue but it has refused to invite political parties and opposition groups to participate. Outside actors have more leverage with HTS than they are using: for example, they could make the lifting of HTS’s terrorist-group designation conditional on practical moves to establish a more inclusive governing process.

But whether they succeed in directly pressuring Sharaa, the United States and its allies must start to lift the sanctions that have crippled the Syrian economy, facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid and allowing Syrians living abroad to send remittances to stimulate the economy. According to the UN, 90 percent of Syrians now live below the poverty line and 75 percent need urgent humanitarian assistance. Seven million remain internally displaced, and more than five million have fled to Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. As a result, too many of the Syrians who should be rebuilding their country for the better are distracted by poverty and shut out of power. If they cannot participate in governance, a golden opportunity to build a new Syria—and to break a dispiriting historical pattern—will be lost.

 

 

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