The Best Way for America to Help the New Syria
The shocking, sudden fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime at the hands of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has prompted jubilation among Syrians who suffered 13 years of civil war and decades more of oppressive rule. But as a new government takes shape in Damascus, Syrians and foreign observers alike worry about how inclusive, representative, and Islamist it may be. The country’s de facto leader, Ahmed al-Shara, is a former al Qaeda militant, although he claims to have renounced terrorism. HTS itself is designated a terrorist organization by the United States. And there are fears that unresolved tensions between Syria’s ethnic and religious groups could impede Shara’s efforts to unify the country and consolidate his rule.
Choices that the United States makes in the near term will affect the ability of the new regime to extend its writ throughout Syria and rebuild. As Washington considers how to respond to the change in government, there are reasons to give Syria’s new leaders the benefit of the doubt. One is the dire state of the war-torn country: more than 70 percent of Syrians are living below the poverty line, Syria’s GDP has fallen from $60 billion to $10 billion since 2011, and the cost of reconstruction is projected at $400 billion. Shara has also demonstrated his ability to adapt to new circumstances. After capturing Syria’s Idlib Province in 2017, he proceeded to build a proto-state from scratch, expelling many foreign fighters from HTS to embrace a Syrian nationalist agenda. He disavowed previous jihadist ambitions to win the military and financial support of Turkey and Qatar, which enabled HTS’s eventual march to Damascus. Shara also reached out to the province’s small Christian and Druze communities and embraced women’s education, opening the door for humanitarian assistance from Western states and nongovernmental organizations.
Perhaps most pertinent for Washington, the United States’ objectives in Syria have largely been met. Assad’s rule is finished. The Iranian and Russian troops that supported the regime have withdrawn from the country. For Iran, in particular, the loss of a friendly government in Syria is a significant blow: Tehran has lost its main route for shuttling arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and thus its path to rebuild its severely weakened “axis of resistance.” U.S. forces and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish militant group based in northern Syria, have also badly damaged the Islamic State, known as ISIS. Washington no longer has a pressing need to maintain its military presence or the crushing sanctions that were initially designed to incapacitate the Assad regime.
The best outcome for Syria and its neighbors is a unitary, cohesive state that can negotiate and deliver on diplomatic agreements that foster long-run regional stability. The alternative is a weak, divided, and conflict-prone Syria—an outcome that would require a longer-term and increasingly costly U.S. military presence in the region, create problems for Turkey (a U.S. ally), jeopardize a delicate rebuilding process in Iraq, and generate another wave of Syrian emigration. To avoid that scenario, the United States should give the new Syrian government a chance. It should withdraw its troops from the country, allowing Damascus to regain control of the agricultural and oil-rich provinces in Syria’s northeast. First, however, Washington needs assurances that Shara and HTS have the capacity and will to keep ISIS in check and that the new government will guarantee the safety and inclusion of Syria’s Kurds, if necessary distancing itself from Ankara to do so. Using the leverage at its disposal—including a commitment to lift sanctions, which will permit foreign investment in Syria and give the government access to the international banking system—Washington can convince Shara’s government that cooperating to facilitate a U.S. military departure is in its best interest.
