James Watt CVO served as British Ambassador to Egypt, to Jordan and to Lebanon. He has dealt with the major issues and conflicts affecting West Asia and the Arab world and has extensive commercial experience in those markets.
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A stable, prosperous, successful Syria is crucial to a Middle East free of conflict and extremism. Its fellow Arab states, Türkiye and Europe all share this conviction. The new leadership in Damascus seems committed to it. Yet hostility by both Israel and Iran are imperilling the country’s recovery. Easing US sanctions is critical, and the Administration has now come up with its conditions.
The swift rout of the tyrannical, corrupt and increasingly criminal regime inflicted by the Assad dynasty on Syria for 53 years was a rare piece of good news at the end of 2024. It fell apart largely through its very rottenness. Ordinary Syrians could breathe again, and start to hope for the country’s recovery from thirteen years of a devastating civil war. During it half the population had either been displaced internally or fled abroad, coming on top of decades of injustice and under-development.
Yet the feeling of relief is tempered by a sense of grim realism. The fact that the forces that swept the old regime out of power had roots in Islamist militant movements made many fear for what the new order would bring. The Alawite minority closely linked to the old regime felt themselves a target for reprisals, having been prominently used by the former regime in its security forces.
The man who had prepared and led the coup de grace against the regime, Ahmed Al Shara’a, has his own complex past relationship with the Islamist militants. But his behaviour since taking power in December, and becoming interim President, has belied the accusations against him of holding extremist beliefs. He has spoken up consistently for national unity on the basis of equal rights for all citizens, respecting the historic cultural diversity of Syria and its deep traditions of respect between its communities. His first steps towards a new constitutional order so far bear this out. So does the largely technocratic government appointed on 27 March, drawing on a range of talent and backgrounds. This moderate agenda has caused resentment among jihadist elements in the coalition of armed groups he had assembled to sweep the old regime away, and who had envisaged a Salafist state.
Al-Shara’a inherited major challenges beyond restoring state authority and a functioning civil service, and launching economic recovery. In the north, Türkiye continued its military pressure on the Turkish terrorist group PKK operating in Syria’s own Kurdish regions, and on Syrian Kurdish elements mingled with them. But the other new positive development in the region, Ankara’s success in getting PKK agreement in principle to lay down its arms after years of conflict, may resolve an important part of the stand-off. On 11 March Damascus and the Syrian Kurds reached agreement, with discreet US encouragement, on the re-integration of the de facto autonomous Kurdish region into the Syrian state structure, and the eventual integration of the highly proficient Kurdish armed forces into Syria’s own defence capability. Keeping that capacity intact has the added benefit of restraining the ISIS terrorists still operating in eastern Syria, along with guarding the camps full of ISIS detainees including families.
In the south of Syria a different challenge emerged as the old regime fell. Israel advanced its forces across the UN buffer zone on the Golan Heights and occupied southern parts of Syria, extending control to close to Damascus itself, and announcing that its presence would be permanent. A PR campaign designed to show that this was in order to protect the Druze minority fell flat when the Druze overwhelmingly denounced the invasion and re-affirmed their commitment to being Syrian citizens. At the same time, in an air campaign Israel comprehensively destroyed Syria’s military, naval and air bases and heavy equipment, leaving it defenceless. This immediately restored Russia’s future usefulness to Damascus as a protector, in spite of the new government’s insistence for now on Russia drawing down its military presence in the light of its long support for the Assad regime.
In early March hard-line elements of the old regime, concentrated in the coastal region of Syria, rose in arms against the Damascus government and inflicted early casualties. Some reports point to covert backing for the uprising by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which had been ousted from Syria with the fall of the Assad regime. Al Shara’a found himself depending in part on militia forces to put down the revolt, the new national army still being formed. In the chaos, revenge attacks broke out on the Alawite community. Some 1,600 people, many of them civilians, have so far been killed. Some 20,000 Alawites have fled across the border into Lebanon. Order seems to have been restored in the main cities, though not yet in rural parts.
The key to Syria’s recovery as a stable and successful country remains however starting urgent economic recovery. Ninety percent of the population live in poverty. Sixty percent of the housing stock is destroyed or unusable. The systematic confiscation of properties by the old regime during the civil war means that people returning home have a legal battle to prove their title. Infrastructure is devasted, with little electricity available. The Central Bank, comprehensively looted by the departing Assads, is unable to put money into the banking system, and the government is unable to pay public sector salaries, including those of the army. The economy is nowhere near being able to relaunch.
Among the Arab States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE are ready to bring massive financial support and investment. They know that the alternative is another prolonged period of chaos, giving encouragement to extremist Islamist groups that feed on despair, division and enfeebled institutions. Türkiye shares this view, with the added key national interest of ending Kurdish militancy and protecting its southern border. Türkiye also has a huge interest in enabling the return to Syria of as many as possible of the almost four million refugees it has been sheltering since the civil war began in 2011. Their presence has been a factor in the rise of ultra-nationalist politics. Europe has the same interest, and the same vision of a restored Syria, one which contributes to regional security instead of being a liability to it. Germany has re-opened its embassy in Damascus and offered an additional Euro 300m in emergency aid. The European Commission has hosted a reconstruction conference in Brussels.
The urgent need for financial support and investment has led the EU and UK to lift their Assad-era sanctions. The far more onerous and intrusive US sanctions remain, however, with their secondary sanctions blocking transfers and other financial measures. At the Brussels conference the US is reported to have handed the Syrian Foreign Minister a list of conditions for partial waivers of the sanctions. If confirmed, the list represents a genuine move by Washington to enable a degree of economic recovery, at odds with the Israel’s policy of keeping Syria weak and divided, and responding to discreet Arab lobbying. It remains to be seen whether the conditions can realistically be accepted. But the cautious signal of good will is in itself positive.
