Building the Syrian National Army: That Deceptively Simple!

In her book on the civil war in Syria, The Morning They Came for Us, di Giovanni says, “The savage act does not destroy only the souls of both sides—the souls of the victim and the perpetrator—but also destroys the very fabric of society.”

After the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011, the Assad regime did not go down the path of reconciliation with its people and the restoration of the unity of the people and the country; rather, it preferred to detonate the totality of societal, individual, ethnic, regional, and sectarian contradictions, and to hand the country over to the violence of corrupt militias so that it became “all against all”! Indeed, the Assad regime also preferred to dismantle the sovereignty of the country, opening it wide to become hostage to all manner of international and regional contradictions and interventions. Thus, “all against all” came to be not through a spontaneous development of the conflict, but by prior design and insistence.

Now, after the collapse of that regime, Syria stands before one of the most complex and most dangerous dilemmas that any nation can face—namely, building the modern nation-state from scratch, with no mandate of legitimacy, and no army to be the backbone of the new nation.

In the face of such a reality, the task of dissolving the militias and building a new Syrian national army confronts dilemmas of the utmost complexity, in which political and ideological factors and regional strategic considerations intertwine, approaching the point of impossibility, God forbid.

This paper attempts to present a conceptual study of the dilemma of dissolving the militias in Syria and establishing the new national army. Because of limited space, we will proceed with a brief and, by definition, incomplete structural survey, to sketch the characteristics of the most important militias, their objectives, their loyalties, and their ideological structure, and to outline an idea of their sources of funding, etc. Those interested who wish for more may return to us to be provided with what is more precise and more up-to-date from our research.

There are initial prerequisites that decide any attempt to rebuild the state and the army in any country—and no success in solving these tasks can be imagined—namely, guaranteeing civil peace through a legitimacy derived from a consensus established by an inclusive national mandate, and building contemporary sound governance and a solid legal framework. This is the opposite of attempting to impose civil peace by force and of casting off the mentality of transient dominance and destructive revenge.

In addition to that, there are foundational questions facing the Syrians: What model of the nation-state should Syrians build? What model of the national economy? And what, precisely, is the added value that the homeland and the Syrian nation will constitute in its regional environment?

And then, Greater Syria has always been the heart of the Levant and its determining locomotive, so the essential question becomes: in which strategic space will Syria determine its position and its regional alliances?Some states in the region prefer that Syria remain an open arena of conflict, into which they push more militias, so that it once again becomes an arena for offloading the conflicts of the region and the world.Therefore, Syria will have none but its Arab hinterland, which shares with it the same fate and forms the locomotive of development, stability, and peace.

A Preliminary and Concise Glimpse of the Current Reality of the Militias

Militias in Syria can be divided into four groups that differ in their doctrine, demands, and structure.

First: the jihadist Islamist militias with a Syrian agenda:

Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and the forces allied within the framework of the Joint Operations Command:Before the fall of the regime, Western sources estimated the number of forces that were completely disciplined under its banner at forty thousand fighters. Its funding included taxes and tariffs at the crossings, fines, and various forms of the shadow economy. At the time, some British sources estimated the monthly income of the organization at $13 million.However, a major change occurred in its structure as soon as the military operations to topple the Assad regime began.Many local Islamic factions joined its ranks, spread in the cities and towns under the control of the previous regime, characterized by a local nature and by an ideological structure that varies between doctrinal extremism and the zeal of defending local communities.Groups of foreign fighters also contributed to these operations, affiliated with the organization—the most important of them the Uzbek group “Katibat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad,” the Uyghur “Ansar al-Tawhid” group, the Chechen “Ajnad al-Qawqaz,” and the Uyghur Turkistan Islamic Party.After the fall of the previous regime and the dissolution of “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham,” these groups were incorporated into the ranks of the new army’s forces, and the forces of Ahmed al-Awda, stationed in the Daraa area southeast of Damascus and known for their previous relations with the Russian forces, also joined it.Following the victory over the previous regime, large-scale mobilization and recruitment intensified in many mosques of the cities and towns, where young men are recruited based on the endorsement of local sheikhs trusted by “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.”The trainees in these forces undergo intensive courses for several weeks, divided between Islamic ideological mobilization of Salafi-jihadism and military training.The Syrian government is making great efforts to establish a unified and doctrinal new Syrian army, based on firm political Salafi Islamic mobilization. Despite these efforts, it cannot be said that the system of doctrinal and moral allegiance has unified within a clear doctrinal formula.This is because the fighting groups differ greatly in their actual allegiance, their ideological aspirations, and in their conception between the doctrine of jihad and the doctrine of the army and its objectives, and the desired model of the state. Many of these allegiance-based blocs remain morally and materially tied to previous jihadist relationships.

Nevertheless, it can be said that the ideological orientations of the dissolved “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham” are gradually advancing to become the founding doctrine of the new army.Moderate estimates favor that the number of forces under the banner of the new Syrian army is about ninety thousand fighters. These numbers are steadily increasing with the intensive and concise recruitment and training cycles.

The process of adaptation and transformation: Over the past seven years, the survival strategies of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham consisted of practical adaptation and rapid alteration of the internal structure. The organization changed its names several times, which appears to be a reinforcement of its discourse directed at Syrians and a retreat of its usual global jihadist discourse.Militarily and politically, the organization neutralized or co-opted its potential adversaries in its stronghold of Idlib. It also established the Syrian Salvation Government in an attempt to found a primitive quasi-state, and administrative bodies for civil affairs in Idlib.In addition to the implicit alignment with Britain and the United States, the organization reached security understandings with Turkey, which shares with it control over wide areas of northwestern Syria; thus the organization neutralized the Turkish position, while, in return, benefiting from the Turkish presence to deter regime attacks.

Foreign fighters:Given their critical and problematic position in the Syrian military situation, we devote a concise paragraph to the foreign fighters under the banner of the dissolved Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and the new national army.With the Syrian revolution arising and turning toward military action to fall into the hands of Islamic jihadist movements, global jihadist groups gathered in Turkey from the Balkans, Albania, and Bosnia, and the Turkistan Islamic Party, and jihadist fighting groups from Egypt, the Gulf, and the Arab Maghreb, etc. Under various Chinese and Arab pressures, these groups left Turkey to move to northern Syria.After the fall of the previous regime, on December 29, 2024, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham published an order that included the promotion of approximately 50 military officers as part of the “development and modernization of the army and the armed forces.” Among them were Jordanian, Turkish, Albanian, and Egyptian nationals from jihadist groups such as the Turkistan Islamic Party, the former al-Nusra Front of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, and Ahrar al-Sham. Many of them obtained the rank of brigadier general and colonel as leaders of the new army.

The Syrian government and some Western circles estimate the number of Uyghur fighters at 3,500 to 4,000 fighters, but the concerned circles in China say that their number is 7,000, “known by name.” The number of Egyptians is estimated at 400 fighters, and the number of fighters from the Gulf at 500 fighters, etc.According to some estimates, the total number of foreign fighters reaches 15,000 fighters, some of whom still maintain their bases in northern Syria.

The Muslim Brotherhood: Numerous cumulative reports document the relations of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood with many militias, particularly with the Syrian Salafi movement Ahrar al-Sham, despite repeated denials of that by the Brotherhood movement. These factions operate in areas of northern Syria and the Hama countryside.

Turkish-backed militias, northwest Syria: and the direct steering of their military operations; and despite their integration into the structure of the army, they still operate, to a large extent, independently and without settling the question of their allegiance, their point of reference, or their funding. Their combat missions are concentrated on confronting the forces of the “SDF.”

Second: the jihadist Islamist militias with regional and international agendas:Syrian territory remains of vital strategic and symbolic importance for international Salafi-jihadist movements.

ISIS:Moderate estimates place the current number of ISIS fighters on Syrian soil at about 3,000–4,000. They are concentrated in small clusters in the eastern and southern Syrian desert, and they are also present in the southern and eastern countryside of Aleppo, extending to the countryside of Raqqa. But there is information and evidence that they are expanding recruitment operations in the rural areas of towns adjacent to the Syrian desert and in some cities such as Aleppo, Raqqa, and al-Sanamayn, etc.

These reports and indicators also point to threadlike connections for ISIS within many jihadist organizations. The movement recently appointed a commander for it in the Aleppo area, which indicates a tangible horizontal spread toward the northwest.And it is important to note that, with the collapse of the former army’s forces, some ISIS factions obtained large quantities of weapons abandoned by the former army in the desert areas and in the vicinity of the camps in southern Syria.

Reports from Western research centers state that the camps of ISIS fighters’ families east of the Euphrates have turned into hubs for reorganizing their ranks and recruiting children and adolescents, so that these camps—according to the expression of one of the most important experts on terrorism—are “the new frontier of ISIS.” In these detention centers and camps, Islamic law in its most stringent forms has been imposed, matched by an almost complete ebbing of the control of their guards from “SDF” fighters over the internal life of the camps. The camp contains many women and children exposed to all kinds of extortion, and the women in the “Morality Brigade” carry out military training covertly throughout the camp.

The process of adaptation and transformation:After the fall of its rule in Raqqa, ISIS changed its tactics and adopted a number of adaptations, the most important of which are:“Not holding territory.”Creating a climate of dread in specific areas, thereby allowing freedom of movement and flexibility of action.Keeping the movement’s operations and capabilities “below the surface.”Infiltrating through local communities—“Stay and expand.”Bolstering the available financial resources through donations and levies. Some research reports estimate that ISIS enjoys a budget reaching more than ten million dollars.

These assessments are reinforced by the fact that ISIS fighters killed approximately 4,100 people in Syria between 2019 and late June 2024.

Hurras al-Din:Hurras al-Din split from Hay’at Tahrir in February 2018. It is widely believed that this organization is the new branch of al-Qaeda in Syria. Hurras al-Din strengthened its military capacity through various combat alliances with the Hilf Nusrat al-Islam and other organizations such as Jabhat Ansar al-Din and Jama‘at Ansar al-Islam. There is an aggregate estimate for all these groups of about fifteen thousand fighters under arms.We note here that the hardline character of this movement has significantly limited its ability to survive and adapt.

Averting the threats against President al-Shar‘:Before and after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, U.S. forces carried out several airstrikes on the leaders/operatives of “Hurras al-Din,” who continue to operate throughout Syria.

Third: the forces representing the various ethnic, tribal, and civil components.

With the exception of the SDF forces, stationed in northeastern Syria and having a particular history, we can say that the majority of the local armed groups, including many Sunni tribes, were formed as a reaction to the internal war and in confrontation with ISIS, and in an attempt to protect their communities or their ethnicities.But the fall of the Assad regime, and what followed it of a wide state of uncertainty and fear among many population groups, and amid fears of the emergence of a doctrinaire totalitarian Islamic rule, heightened the unifying zeal of many Syrian components.And after these components’ fears were embodied in numerous events—reaching their peak in the coastal massacres and in the clashes in the Jaramana neighborhood, where there are Druze and Christian components—feelings of solidarity among these components rose to confront a number of risks and the state of uncertainty.We note here that the Syrian government is still investigating these events.But the events quickly led to the crystallization of local forces intersecting with the SDF’s aspirations for a geographically decentralized state and a constitution that recognizes their rights and Syria’s doctrinal and cultural differences.In addition, reports indicate very many unfortunate incidents as a result of the former army’s discarding of its weapons randomly, such that they fell into the hands of children.

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—(Rojava): The SDF took its final form in 2015, and constitutes the military arm of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. The Kurdish People’s Protection Units form the core of the SDF, and it is founded on a leftist nationalist ideology.The SDF entrenched its self-rule in 2012, and its political wing, the “Syrian Democratic Council,” which includes more than a dozen blocs and non-Kurdish forces, supports demands to build a decentralized state. This council acts as a legislative body for civil local governance, and gathers under its roof a broad alliance of Arab, Assyrian, and Turkmen militias with leftist and democratic political inclinations. Despite its opposition to the Assad regime, the “SDF” has directed most of its efforts against Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS.

The “SDF” forces are estimated on average at 60,000 fighters, and British and American research centers estimate the proportion of non-Kurdish fighters among them at 40%.These forces continue to receive high-level training and advanced qualitative armament from U.S. forces. These forces are characterized by high discipline and political cohesion.The process of adaptation and transformation: The SDF built survival strategies on gradual expansion rather than rapid conquest. It focused on unifying defensive military capacities and building political alliances, later becoming a reliable ally for the United States, which secured for the SDF a protective umbrella against Turkish attacks and filled gaps in heavy firepower.The SDF also established rudimentary governance and achieved a degree of pluralism through alliance with different ethnic groups.Ultimately, the SDF effectively managed to establish a miniature quasi-state with its institutions and civil system, thereby achieving relative stability in an area of great ethnic and doctrinal diversity.

Armed groups in Jabal al-Arab—the “Druze” forces in Jabal al-Arab: Their scope of operations is confined to Jabal al-Arab and southern Syria, and includes the “al-Suwayda Military Council,” the “Jaramana Shield Battalions,” and the “Men of Dignity Forces.” These forces are estimated at about 12,000 fighters. The various Druze forces succeeded in unifying their position, preventing infighting, and building alliances with the Sunni tribes in Daraa adjacent to them.Practically, these militias intersect to some extent with the SDF’s aspirations for a geographically decentralized state and a constitution that recognizes their rights and Syria’s doctrinal and cultural differences.

Individual cases of armed local self-defense on the coast:In this paper, we distinguish between the remnants of the previous regime’s forces—which are scattered military formations linked to the outside—and the attempt by the local community on the coast at self-defense following the massacres. After the fall of the regime, many community leaders, former military personnel, and local notables undertook numerous initiatives in which they expressed their serious desire to cooperate with the new government in achieving transitional justice within a professional and impartial legal process.Following the crimes committed against the Alawites and other components on the Syrian coast, the coastal area turned into the greatest challenge and the most important criterion in the issue of civil peace, where the situation could develop dramatically at any moment unless the Syrian government hastens, on the one hand, to develop mechanisms of transitional justice and, on the other, to achieve voluntary national reconciliation, hold those responsible for the coastal massacres to account, and respond to aspirations related to amending the constitutional declaration.

The adaptation of militias in Syria:As we address the issue of dissolving militias in Syria, we note that some of these militias have proven capable of extreme adaptation, retaining their structure and developing their doctrinal core to become more flexible, in a climate of fierce and aggressive conflict among competing factions. They have managed to carry out profound shifts in their tactics without losing their basic doctrinal and military orientations.

We believe that the strategy and military tactics that allowed these groups to survive within a climate of fierce contention include flexible hierarchical organizational adaptation, clear ideological cohesion, in addition to an effective system of financing and recruitment, a precise strategy for preserving the core fighters, and maintaining morale through ideology and shared identity, as well as the ability for organizational adaptation and changing names according to shifts in the strategic situation. We conclude that these tactics are still the ones adopted in the phase of empowerment and dominance.

Strategies for dissolving the militias and establishing the new Syrian army.

Challenges of building the new Syrian army:The Syrian army of the previous regime was transformed into a repressive apparatus whose goal was to retain Assad’s power, and, following the Syrian revolution, it completely lost its national, societal, and developmental base.In our presentation, we aimed at distinguishing in the manner of dealing with each of the three groups of militia forces present in Syria, for there are specific dilemmas for each of the groups.

First: dissolving and integrating the jihadist Islamist militias with a Syrian agenda:

The approach to building the army requires a comprehensive framework that addresses the aspect of allegiance and ideology, structural reforms, and the integration of the various armed factions. This appears to be the central issue for the transition of ideologically loyalist militias to the condition of a national army fully subject to an elected civilian administration.In this context, it is necessary to answer a number of main questions: 1. Does the army in its current state embody the true features of the Syrian people? And does it adopt an inclusive national outlook? And does it enjoy the capability and the required capacity to preserve and reinforce the outcomes of the political process, and to create conditions of stability and enhance them?

The prospective model of the state constitutes the foundational governing factor in the success of this transformation.There are two possible models for the state and the national economy:The first is a model of rule of national capitalism based on unleashing the energies of the private sector producing material goods and services, and a definitive break with the experience of patronage and corrupt monopolistic state capitalism.The second: a model embodying the return to corrupt monopolistic state capitalism, whereby the Syrian army would again become a tool to protect centers of patronage power, under the cover of a sectarian oligarchic system that entrenches the condition of the failed state.

Ideological realignment: From the doctrinal standpoint, and according to the available documents, the Syrian government is attempting to regulate the process of building allegiance in the new army on the basis of an Islamic Salafi ideology, and to build its internal solidarity on its historical narrative and on entrenching the complex of glaring grievances produced by the previous regime’s brutal policies.

We have multiple and updated versions of the curricula taught at the lower and higher ranks for preparing the new Syrian army, and these models confirm the nature of the prevailing cultural and ideological indoctrination, which places additional challenges before establishing a national army built on national loyalty away from politicization, and before turning the army into a neutral institution fully subject to the supreme national interest, and deeply rooted in society with all its components in the service of building the nation-state. This transformation naturally includes removing any level of political indoctrination outside the principles of absolute loyalty to the homeland and to a constitution, instead of loyalty to a party or a leader.Liquidating the financial and human resources of militia-loyalty systems: in favor of a transparent budget that guarantees a decent and stable life for fighters to immunize them against need.Civilian oversight: the necessity of establishing solid mechanisms for civilian control over the army, including financial, legislative, and behavioral oversight, and ensuring transparent appointments to senior military positions.Structural and organizational reforms—integrating the armed factions: developing a clear and transparent process for integrating former groups and militias. This includes vetting procedures, unified training, and establishing a genuinely unified command structure.Professionalism and training: implementing comprehensive training programs to instill professionalism, discipline, and commitment to international humanitarian law among military personnel.Modernizing the military doctrine: shifting from a doctrine centered on protecting the regime to a doctrine focused on national defense, territorial integrity, protecting citizens’ rights, and building peace.Accountability and transitional justice: the great Cardinal Desmond Tutu says in transitional justice: “Without forgiveness there is no future for us.” Establishing mechanisms to address the human rights violations committed throughout the country, ensuring accountability, and promoting reconciliation.Monitoring and verification: engaging international organizations in monitoring the integration of former fighters and adherence to human rights standards within the army.

Solving and integrating groups of foreign fighters into the Syrian army poses a complex and qualitative problem:The extent to which these groups abandon their international and regional agendas, especially since the system of allegiance to the new Syrian army has not matured and has not become clear ideologically and politically, and the doctrine of the new army has not yet been set within an inclusive national framework; rather, it still strongly relies on a strict Islamic loyalty system as a continuation of the previous ideological orientation of the dissolved “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.”The extent of their readiness to live in a society that has conceptions of its civilized model of open Islam and has lived a civilized civic life for many decades.The extent of these groups’ linkage to their previous patterns and sources of funding.The extent of their submission to civilian political decision-making, which is supposed to prevail over military decisions in the modern Syrian state.From the foregoing it becomes clear that, despite the current government’s adoption of the principle of integrating these fighters into the Syrian army, and despite the evident American support for this approach, the integration of foreign fighters appears fraught with risks, and must include intensive, neutral ideological and professional re-education processes, to prevent the re-establishment of their relationships with previous jihadist organizations and to eliminate their threat to the countries of origin.

Second: dissolving and integrating the jihadist Islamist militias with regional and international agendas:We believe that if a serious framework is available to build a professional army based on a comprehensive national consensus, and if appropriate regional and international support is available, it is possible to achieve effective cooperation in liquidating these militias, drying up their resources, and withdrawing their social base.

Third: the forces representing the various racial, ethnic, tribal, and civil components.All these components affirm their categorical rejection of any kind of partition of the country. In general, these groups demand a geographically decentralized state and the recognition of their cultural, legal, and economic rights under the roof of national unity. Practically speaking, these components demand replacing the current constitutional declaration with a new constitutional declaration that fulfills their demands in a decentralized structure, embraces the unity of the country, and excludes the possibility of the emergence of a fundamentalist totalitarian rule based on political Islam.As for their constituencies, creating a sense of safety and stability and the rule of law, and eliminating all forms of discrimination against them, are basic conditions for these demands that constitute their raison d’être.This approach seems like the deceptively simple!—which, if achieved, becomes the central link in guaranteeing all the links we mentioned above, including consolidating national unity; ensuring a smooth, peaceful transition from the condition of militias to the condition of a comprehensive national army; guaranteeing civil peace; confronting jihadist terrorist forces; averting the risks of external intervention that bets on investing in inter-Syrian disputes; and opening the road to effective recovery and to reconstruction, development, and stability in the country.How much easier it would be for Syrians to reconcile among themselves before they seek reconciliation with the regional powers surrounding them that have long bet on the dismemberment of their country.

The new Syria in its regional and international environment

In the current geo-strategic context, control over Syria constitutes the key link in shaping the features of the region and determining its future, in determining the fate of the Syrian societal, economic, and state recovery process, and in leading it toward reform and development.

We are confident that the safest and only option for Syria is for the new Syria to be fully sovereign over its territory, and to work for a coordinated withdrawal of all foreign forces from the country—sovereignty that excludes all forms of external allegiance within the army, so that the Syrian national interest is the sole arbiter of military and security policies.At the beginning of the article, we summarized the reality of the options available to the Syrian leadership to save the country from the crushing external dangers lying in wait for it. For some states in the region still treat Syria as an arena for regional conflict, lying in wait to slip through Syrians’ disagreements and to invest in the extreme uncertainty prevailing in the country, making it a pasture for investing in the dismemberment of the country; indeed, they are preparing once again to push more militias so that Syria returns to being the place where the region and the world empty their conflicts.

Therefore, Syria will have none but its Arab hinterland, which shares its fate and constitutes an incubator and locomotive of development, stability, and peace in the region.The Soviet Union—and then Russia—built the former Syrian army, and the collapse of the regime and the army constituted an invaluable loss for it, since the former army had been an irreplaceable asset for the Russian role in the region.From this logic, Syrian military alliances will be a fundamental, governing factor in shaping the country’s fate and Syria’s positioning in the region. For the party that will undertake the retraining, arming, and rehabilitation of the Syrian army is the party that will give the strategic dimension to the Syrian strategic repositioning in the region.And this is what the historical experience indicates to us!For four thousand years—and especially since the independence of modern Syria—the course that Syria takes and the central alliances it establishes have been the main link in shaping the political and economic movement in the entire Levant (and sometimes in Iraq), so that Syrian choices are reflected, in a governing way, over the entire Arab Mashriq of the Eastern Mediterranean.

This fact is fully recognized by the various regional strategic powers, and it is equally recognized inside Syria by the Islamic jihadist forces as much as by the civil and political forces working to establish the new Syrian republic.

At this point the conflict revolves around Syrian foreign policy, between the jihadist Islamic project and the Gulf–Arab strategic dimension that has chosen the path of regional development, peace, and stability.

There are indications that Iran is no longer able—and perhaps no longer willing, for objective and subjective reasons—to revive its disastrous experiment in building regional arms and relying on them as bargaining chips with the United States, the West, and Israel. For after the bitter defeat, it discovered that it had squandered billions of dollars, wasted enormous human capacities, and lost great historic opportunities with its Arab surroundings because of investing in these regional arms and undermining stability in the region. Indeed, these militias failed to be a bulwark or an advanced line of defense for Iranian national security. The power of the arms melted away with astonishing speed.And despite the reality of expectations that Iran can continue to sponsor the societal political forces loyal to it in both Iraq and Lebanon, we do not imagine that it will be beneficial to the Iranian national interest to continue blind spending on ramparts that have proven to melt like walls of salt at the moment of the real crisis.

For its part, Turkey is considered a strongly rising regional and international strategic star, in light of its repositioning as a principal strategic link of NATO’s southern flank—a matter that has objectively entrenched its role, whether in Bosnia or Libya or in the Ukrainian war or in the Armenian–Azeri wars. Turkey crowned all of that with its successes in the process of deterring aggression that brought down the former Syrian regime.

While the Arab states have clearly, in both the Aqaba and Riyadh conferences, set out their visions for the horizons of recovery and reconstruction in Syria, it will be in Syria’s interest for Turkey to agree to cease its support for any Syrian armed force, with the exception of the new Syrian army, and within Syrian sovereign decisions.Turkey currently enjoys governing strategic influence in Syria, and it needs to crystallize clear conceptions for the horizons of its cooperation with the Arab states in building a peaceful, pluralistic, democratic, unified Syria.

The assessments of Israeli research centers regarding Israel’s interest in the transformations of the situation in Syria are contradictory.It is clear that it is working to achieve the greatest possible intelligence and operational gains in the present moment of weakness, benefiting from its military pressure and from the weighty American pressure in this context.From this logic, we can say that Israel’s current dealing with Syria will remain security-oriented and tactical, not political and strategic, in the foreseeable term.But at the strategic level, Israeli decision-support centers, across their various currents, reflect the reality that Israel—despite its previous reliance on “the devil we know,” the Assad regime—found the previous regime’s inability to control its internal arena and to prevent militias from spreading throughout the country in bands to be a very grave and entirely unacceptable risk to its interests.

Accordingly, Israel deals with the current situation by the same logic. It prefers a scenario of a unified, peaceful Syrian state, militarily weak, cohesive, distancing itself from jihadist militias, and able to control its components so as to be a stable state.But Israel keeps all its options open, should it become clear that Syria will return once again to a state of instability that could open its territory to various jihadist militia forces.In that case we have no doubt that it will act to avert the risks by its own hand directly on Syrian territory, without resorting to de-escalation through the forces dominating the country. For Israel has come to act from an entirely new perspective, and it no longer accepts mortgaging its national security to under-the-table intelligence understandings to manage a cold war with ideological regional states that make it the object of those states’ blackmail.Thus it appears that it will not allow the emergence of Syrian alliances based on religious asabiyya, which will inevitably turn into asymmetric threats to its territory.

And after Trump’s visit to Riyadh and his meeting with President al-Shar‘, and after the lifting of American sanctions, many Arab and international circles suggest that the Trump administration has chosen the Arab option of steering the new Syria toward stability, far from the projects of political Islam.Thus it appears clearly that the Arab dimension is the only mandatory safe passage for the new Syria.It is the only opportunity to fortify Syria against the attempts of numerous regional and international powers to invest in and inflame every fissure in its internal structure and to stoke feelings of revenge and sectarianism, in hopes of turning Syria once again into a black hole into which the region empties all its contradictions, conflicts, and creeds.Will Syrians succeed in contriving a new miracle to build their homeland, their army, and their society, and to achieve a possible tomorrow for themselves and their children?It is a challenge entrusted to the Syrian government, of course, but it is, to the same degree, entrusted to all Syrians of all stripes!