For Whom Do the Bells of War Toll in Syria?

As Syria approaches a decisive moment, I contend that the continued delay of genuine national reconciliation efforts now poses an imminent threat of fragmentation and territorial disintegration. At a time when Benjamin Netanyahu expresses surprise at the speed with which the Syrian side has offered concessions to advance security negotiations, the United States is exerting maximum pressure on Damascus to sign a security agreement with Israel. Israel, in turn, insists on a contractual security arrangement with the Syrian administration that would effectively render Damascus a militarily defeated city—indefinitely.

Israel has gone further by imposing stringent conditions aimed at limiting Syria’s capacity to develop its air defenses, including missiles and drones. It has also demanded access to security files concerning individuals present on Syrian territory whom it considers threats to its national security. Amid all this, Syrian authorities repeatedly assert that Syria will not pose a threat to any of its neighbors.

If the Syrian administration is prepared to sign long-term security agreements with Israel, and if it claims no desire to wage war against any of its so-called “friendly” neighbors—Israelis, Turks, or Iranians—then who, exactly, are the enemies? For whom do the bells of war toll in Syria? Why, then, does the Syrian army continue to arm itself and prepare? Against whom? And who is the enemy?

Rather than pursuing partial security agreements with Israel, the Syrian government has postponed serious political negotiations aimed at achieving voluntary national reconciliation among Syrians—reconciliation that could lead to sustainable civil peace and the construction of a decentralized national state. Such a state must be founded on an inclusive, democratic civil social contract that serves as the primary source of rights, underpins the state’s monopoly over legitimate violence, and regulates relations among Syrians of all backgrounds—relations that cannot, and must not, be reduced to sectarian or ethnic identity.

A genuine social contract would also establish a unified national military doctrine for the Syrian armed forces, embodying the ideological neutrality of the state and stripping the army of sectarian, religious, or ethnic affiliations. Only then can the military function as a truly national institution rather than as a representative of any particular group.

What, then, does it mean to maintain the current domestic stagnation without voluntarily and consensually unifying the country? What does it mean to move toward partial agreements with Israel that grant it everything it seeks, strip Syria of sovereignty over large portions of its territory, and transform Damascus into a militarily and politically defeated capital? And what does it mean to pursue piecemeal internal arrangements while delaying the production of a Syrian consensus-based constitution and social contract?

Without the unity of the Syrian people—both in spirit and in structure—neither American guarantees (as Gaza has so starkly demonstrated) nor agreements with “friendly” neighbors will protect Syria. Promises alone offer no real security.

I argue that delaying consensual, contractual national reconciliation and postponing transitional justice will, in practice, sustain extremist and exclusionary rhetoric on the one hand, while reinforcing mobilizing narratives centered on perpetual conflict on the other. Ultimately, this delay entrenches division indefinitely and keeps the embers of internal war alive, threatening the country with final and irreversible partition.

Whether in eastern Syria beyond the Euphrates, in Jabal al-Druze, or in northwestern Syria—where Turkish-backed factions, recently sanctioned by Britain, remain dominant—a practical reality persists outside the control of the central state.

A profound danger thus emerges from the rush toward partial and risky external security arrangements, coupled with the slow pace of internal contractual reconciliation. The central issue is one of priorities: which must come first? Should the state be built internally—through a new social contract—before external challenges are addressed from a position of national unity? Or should external risks be managed at the expense of postponing the “contract,” thereby entrenching division, hardening weakness, and reviving the logic of excommunication and internal violence?

In such a scenario, division ceases to be a mere political disagreement. It evolves into competing zones of influence, parallel institutions, fragmented economic and security loyalties, and irreconcilable narratives of legitimacy.

What Syria urgently requires is a decentralized, contractual national reconciliation that produces an inclusive democratic civil social contract—one that defines rights and obligations and reestablishes the relationship between citizens and the state on the basis of citizenship rather than sect, religion, or ethnicity. States are not built by constitutions alone, but by the neutrality of sovereign institutions toward subnational identities, ensuring that the function of force is to protect the national domain rather than serve a particular group. Only then can foreign policy reflect internal unity rather than internal crisis, for every delay in internal settlement opens the door to external intervention.

The fundamental flaw of security arrangements lies in their assumption that a single, unified state already exists—one capable of transforming calm into political reconstruction. When the internal landscape is fragmented among de facto authorities and zones of influence, calm does not lead to reunification; it entrenches division.

There can be no peace on the borders without peace at home. Antonio Gramsci once observed of transitional phases that when the old is dying and the new cannot yet be born, monsters emerge—forms of chaos, extremism, and militarized economies. In the Middle East, what becomes entrenched on the ground endures; the “temporary” produces realities that solidify and persist.

Thus, the bells of war cease to be a question and become an answer. They toll when the state is left without a social contract, the army without a unifying doctrine, and sovereignty without national consensus. As John Donne famously wrote: “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”