Syria is unstable because it is not possible for it to be stable in its current form. This is because it is trying to walk on one leg only — a security-focused, confessional one — in a society that is diverse and plural. In practice, this means standing in place unsteadily, before eventually tumbling and falling. The precedent set by the Assad regime is illuminating in this regard. For decades, it too tried to walk on just one leg — again, a security-centered, identitarian one. The result was a rigid, stagnant Syria, lagging in every way behind even its own neighborhood, let alone more advanced regions. In the end, it collapsed.
There are important differences, however. The rule of the Assad dynasty did not start on one leg. It tried to fabricate a second leg, a political one: the so-called National Progressive Front (NPF), a coalition combining the ruling Baath Party with various other pseudo-progressive parties, which were forbidden from activity within the army or among students. Together, these accessory parties held only one-third of the total votes within the front, while the Baath was granted the remaining two-thirds, which sufficed to pass any NPF decision. It was evident from the outset that this political leg didn’t function, not even as a crutch. From the mid-1970s on, it became even clearer that the regime was entirely structured around its own security. Within a few years, the NPF had become little more than political window dressing.
Today, there isn’t even an attempt to fabricate a second leg to help the country balance, let alone walk forward. Instead, we see a Sunni sectarianization, or Sunnification, of the security forces and military formations, mirroring the Assad regime’s reliance in its security and military apparatuses on loyalists drawn primarily from the Alawite community. In fact, the Assad regime had worked with some success to broaden its support base even within its security structure. Today, by contrast, the thinking behind the Sunnification appears to be that Syria’s Sunnis are the demographic majority, rather than a mere “sect” (the word “taifa” in Arabic implies a group that is not very large). At times, Sunnis are even referred to as the entire “ummah” itself, meaning the “nation,” a term often used to denote the global Muslim community. But this is fundamentally invalid from the perspective of the nation-state on which Syria is, in principle, founded: a political entity within a known and internationally recognized territory, with a people comprising all its population, and a state made up of governing institutions, empowered with authority over the public on the basis that it represents the public. In this nation-state framework, the only legitimate “ummah” is the citizenry, over whom the state may wield no authority if it is not representative of them.
We needed the Syrian Revolution — and the wave of defections from Assad’s army and ruling apparatus — in order to make the distinction between the exterior facade of the state, which held no real authority, and the inner state that was the true seat of power. The exterior facade — comprising the Cabinet ministries, the civil administration, the parliament, the judiciary and the education sector — had the appearance of being representative, even if it was implicitly based on a sectarian division of spoils. The inner state, by contrast, was heavily sectarian and exclusive. Today, we have an exterior facade with a nominally representative government (which is, in fact, even less representative than that under the Assad dictatorship), soon to be joined by a stumbling bureaucracy and a parliament whose members will, in practice, be appointed rather than elected.
As for the inner state today, it is even more clearly sectarian and exclusive. Just as in the Assad era, there appears to be one official national discourse on the surface, and another, very different, partisan and religious discourse at the true center of power. If this arrangement persists long enough, we may begin to see a clearer division emerge, between a facade of an opposition, protesting the powerless facade of a state — objecting, say, to Hind Kabawat, the Minister of Social Affairs and Labor in the transitional government — and an inner opposition resisting the sectarian, securitarian inner state. Perhaps we might even see the same distinction as before between “exterior” prisons, like Adra in Damascus and Aleppo Central Prison, where prisoners are allowed family visits and their whereabouts are known, and more brutal “interior” ones, where torture and killings take place, like Palmyra in Hafez al-Assad’s day and Sednaya in his son’s.
Syria’s nation-state — and sense of national affiliation — are undergoing an ordeal on multiple levels, not merely a difficult experience but a gruelling trial and test. The first and most dangerous of these is the widespread sectarianization afflicting the country. Clannish, fanatical and neurotic, it draws on a model of Islamic rule and justifies itself through a Sunni victimhood complex, reinforced by a narrative of Sunni superiority that fuses “God’s religion” with “conquering the world” — that is, absolutist theology fueled by an imperial imagination. Yet in reality, not only are Syrians as a whole not united around an Islamic vision of governance, but even Sunnis themselves do not agree on the issue. Syrian Sunnis are indeed not a “sect” — not because they are “the ummah” but because of their many and diverse social and cultural milieus, and the fact that they have never historically coalesced around a single political project or orientation. There are deep intra-Sunni divisions — between urban and rural Sunnis; between Damascenes, Aleppines, Homsis and Hamawis, Shawis (tribal shepherds in the northeast), those from the Houran region in the south and others; between peasants and Bedouins; between Sufis, Muslim Brothers, Salafists and Salafist-jihadists. These fundamental differences preclude the formation of a single, cohesive sect, despite the presence of sectarianizing forces, such as the Islamists, and the enduring narrative of Sunni victimhood.
Even if we accept that the Sunni community is larger than the others, that doesn’t change the fact that it is impossible to walk on this single leg, no matter how large it is. The Assad regime had, in fact, enlarged its own sole leg by including individuals from other Syrian communities. Yet it remained a single leg.
Islamists — including the Muslim Brotherhood — often compare and contrast partners in nationhood with “brothers” in religion, posing such questions as: “Who is closer to you, a Chinese Muslim or a Syrian Christian?” The “correct” answer is a Chinese Muslim. This is a rigid and hostile stance that prevents the formation of a people, a nation, a nation-state and any moral or legal bonds connecting citizens. In fact, not long ago — and to this day, for some — rejection of the nation-state and the very idea of a nation based on citizenry was a point of pride and matter of principle among Salafist-jihadists and Islamists more broadly. Yet the model of a faith-based nation cannot be established without mass forced displacement, ethnic cleansing and large-scale atrocities — horrors that, disturbingly, do not seem alien to the imaginations of certain factions among Syria’s ruling powers today.
The second facet of the ordeal of Syrian nation-statehood today lies in the regional and international relations the present rulers appear to be attempting to forge, centered around one priority: stability. This has always been the chief concern of both Western and Arab powers in Syria and the Middle East, including throughout the decades of the Assad era. Stability — not rights, not freedoms, not equality, nor democracy. There is nothing wrong with gaining friends in the region and wider world, nor with neutralizing adversaries where possible, but only insofar as this is supported by widening the circle of partners domestically and narrowing the circle of enemies to the greatest extent possible — that is, insofar as war at home is averted.
Instead, the opposite has happened. The new government has expanded its circle of enemies at record speed and entered into violent confrontations, without winning any new friends domestically. By narrowing its internal base and focusing solely on cultivating foreign friends — including, it seems, banking on American friendship — Syrian politics has once again turned its head and neck outward, just as in the Assad era, rather than inward, toward the country’s complex makeup and many internal challenges, first and foremost its welfare and the building of trust among its communities. The prioritization of stability aligns with the transformation of the state into a security state, rather than a state of rights, development or public services. A security state, much like a sectarian state, is antithetical to a nation-state. It is impossible, in any case, in a country like Syria, for a state to become a security state, centered around security and stability, without leaning on one particular communal group deemed more “trustworthy” than others — in other words, without sectarianization.
What the new government appears not to grasp is that foreign powers are primarily interested in fighting the Islamic State group and foreign jihadists in Syria (or containing the latter, at least), rather than the Alawites or Druze, who pose no threat to those countries — nor to a pluralistic and inclusive Syrian government.
The third dimension of the ordeal of Syrian nation-statehood concerns the economy and national resources, in particular the question of economic independence. No one today seriously proposes an autarkic, self-sufficient vision for the national economy, or the idea of “severing ties with the global capitalist market,” as advocated by the late Egyptian Marxist Samir Amin and the dependency theory school. Still, domestic economic activity must be given priority over foreign activity, and domestic capital — both public and private — should take precedence over foreign capital. Likewise, the state should retain sole ownership of and control over core strategic resources. The key benchmark is reduced economic exposure — that is, a lower trade-to-GDP ratio — and consequently a more stable economy, with a broader base, more responsive to Syrians’ needs. The neoliberal outlook of the current government threatens to bring about sweeping foreign control over the Syrian economy, stripping away its national character, and with it the national affiliation of any emergent Syrian bourgeoisie. This economic liberalization promises nothing better than the statism of the Assad era: a distorted class structure, a comprador or intermediary bourgeoisie, mediating between the metropole markets (regional and global) and the nascent Syrian economy, and lower classes fragmented along sectarian and ethnic lines.
Moreover, combating poverty — which now afflicts 90% of Syrians — does not appear to be an economic priority for the current government. This effectively removes the majority of Syrians from national life, from which they are already excluded by the sectarianization of the state, its top-down integration into regional and international power structures and the unchecked authority it exercises at home.
With a sectarianized state, a dependent economy dominated by foreign capital and regional and international relations centered on “stability,” Syrian national affiliation and the very notion of a nation-state in Syria face an ordeal — one that may well render that prized stability out of reach.
The path currently pursued by Syria’s rulers is not the path of building a state for all. Indeed, there appears to be no genuine state project underway. What we see, instead, is a project of coercion and domination. Its base is narrow and its politics sectarian. It is incapable of rationalizing itself, let alone rationalizing public life in the country. No “state” can unify a nation while aggressively alienating wide segments of its people, nor has it any right to demand patriotism from others if it displays none itself.
It is self-evident that the “state’s” forces did not behave as a national army in Sweida recently, just as they did not during the massacres of Alawites on the coast in March. To the contrary, they acted like foreign forces occupying hostile territory, treating the local inhabitants as enemies. It is equally self-evident that these forces received no instructions to act with discipline, professionalism or basic human decency toward civilians. In Sweida, they repeated the same disgraceful conduct they had inflicted upon Alawites on the coast — mere days before the release of a much-anticipated report by an official committee investigating the crimes on the coast. Had this report told the truth and promised justice, it might have helped mend the new national rupture caused by the March massacres. It may even have had a disciplining effect on the government forces in question. Instead, in July, we rewatched the same film we had seen in March. There is no reason to think we won’t watch it again in future, unless the armed forces are radically rebuilt on national, professional and humane foundations.
Both in Sweida with the Druze and on the coast with the Alawites, the “treatment” was worse than the supposed original problem. In its sectarianism and vulgarity, devoid of any national vision or sense of dignity, the “treatment” is sure to endure in the collective memory for a long time. Worse still, it weakened long-standing Alawite opponents of the Assad regime and those Alawites who aspire to a freer and more just future. Among the Druze, too, it undermined those who support the principle of statehood and yearn for a unified Syria in which they share a sense of belonging and pride with others.
Moreover, the latest campaign in Sweida ended in failure: the failure of relying on external guarantors to settle internal conflicts, rather than broadening domestic partnerships to withstand external pressures. Moving the country forward will require walking on two legs: politics plus security, political pluralism plus a unified sovereignty, public freedoms plus the rule of law.
In sum, the situation is unstable because it cannot be made stable. It produces opponents and enemies in abundance, without gaining new friends at home — all while barely standing on a single, unsteady leg.
The days of shame in Sweida did not pass without yet another Israeli aggression, which left casualties among Syrian forces and destroyed military equipment, further entrenching and complicating the situation. Today, Israel is a third active party, alongside the ruling authority in Damascus and the armed local formation in Sweida led by Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajari, the Druze religious leader who has become a political leader as well. Israel would likely have struck the forces of the new Syrian government with or without any request from al-Hajari, seizing the opportunity to further weaken the regime and undermine the country’s chances of recovery, a strategy it has pursued consistently since the day Assad fell on Dec. 8. Israel also seeks to remove the occupied Golan Heights from any current or future negotiations, narrowing the scope of talks to the territory seized in the past few months alone.
Yet al-Hajari’s request for support from “His Excellency Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu” — alongside appeals to the U.S. president, the Saudi crown prince and the king of Jordan — granted legitimacy to the Israeli assault and normalized it, elevating Israel to the position of a recognized authority protecting the Druze in Syria. For this reason, I believe it was not that Israel intervened because al-Hajari asked it to, but rather that Israel asked al-Hajari to request its intervention publicly. The two sides have channels of communication and share a common stance toward the new Syrian government.
This request for Israeli support demands clear and unequivocal condemnation. It sets a dangerous precedent, one that will undoubtedly have far-reaching consequences. In such a shameful moment, one is almost embarrassed to have to restate the obvious: that Israel has expanded its occupation in Syria above and beyond a preexisting occupation that has lasted nearly 60 years; that it has, for almost two years now, been carrying out a genocidal campaign in Gaza and across Palestine; and that we are dealing with the most right-wing, ethnonationalist, racist and extremist government in the history of this genocidal entity.
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Above all else, the priority remains to support the emergence of a domestic political environment grounded in participation, pluralism and trust. In this regard, the responsibility borne by the government in Damascus outweighs all others, because it alone wields the instruments of state power, so that poor judgment, bad decisions or reckless actions on its part have the potential to bring about disasters, even national collapse. By the same token, wise governance by Damascus has the potential to create broad relief and foster a positive spirit among Syrians as a whole.
A version of this essay was published in Arabic by Al-Jumhuriya, a publication co-founded by the author, on July 19, 2025.
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