Syria’s New Leader Is an Autocrat; Will That Be Good or Bad for Israel and Turkey?
Sharaa’s insatiable appetite for undisputed power makes national reconciliation harder
Hussain Abdul-Hussain
Islamist or not, Syria’s self-proclaimed interim president, Ahmad Sharaa, seems like he will do anything to keep power.
This is good news and bad news for Sharaa’s two strongest neighbors — Turkey and Israel — whose interests clash in Syria. The Trump administration thinks that the best outcome is to deconflict tensions between the two regional powers. The gap, however, seems unbridgeable.
Ankara wants a strongman protégé in Damascus, whose top priority is to break Kurdish power and autonomy in the northeast. Jerusalem, for its part, has strong ties with Syria’s Kurds and does not want to see others trample on them.
The arbiter here is Washington, which relied heavily on these Kurdish fighters in defeating ISIS and keeping their leaders locked up in prisons under Kurdish supervision.
The US has maintained a minor military presence in Kurdish territories in northeast Syria, which has bolstered the Kurds and helped them wither down one Turkish military offensive after another.
But now that President Trump is in office, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan thinks that he can convince Trump to fold, hoping that such an American move would weaken the Kurds and allow pro-Turkish Syrian militias to run over Kurdish territory.
Washington has encouraged the Kurds to sort things out with Damascus, because American troops will not stay forever. Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi has met with Sharaa twice, signing an agreement to “discuss” the unification of their ranks.
But unification is tricky. Sharaa thinks that he is Syria, and that his militia is the national army. He has thus demanded that other militias surrender their arms to his “army.”
The Kurds countered by saying that they are willing to join a national army, but one whose bylaws and structure are agreed upon. The Kurds seek a merger with Sharaa, not a surrender to his militia.
To buy them out, Sharaa has contemplated granting the Kurds their demands: Kurdish battalions in the army, under Kurdish officers, stationed in the northeast, and administrative autonomy. But these Sharaa concessions conflict with Turkey’s demand for absolute surrender, even humiliation, of the Kurds. This is where the interests of Ankara and Sharaa diverge and this is when the Turks might consider supporting Sharaa’s Islamist rivals — such as Abu Amsheh or Hassan al-Dgheim — to take him out and take his place.
Where does Israel stand on this? Jerusalem supports an agreement between the Kurds and Sharaa on Kurdish terms, even if the agreement results in Sharaa becoming Syria’s undisputed autocrat thereafter. Israel, therefore, disagrees drastically with Turkey.
Israel also has other allies in Syria: the Druze in the south. Like the Kurds, the Druze have demanded Druze battalions, under senior Druze officers, stationed in their territory as a guarantee that they will not be subjected to Sharaa’s future possible Islamist tyranny, and to avoid a repeat of past ISIS massacres against them. Granting the Druze, and Israel in general, their demands in the south, is easier for Sharaa than giving the Kurds concessions.
Sharaa, however, has not yet conceded anything to anyone. The Kurds and the Druze, in return, have not surrendered their arms or power. And while Sharaa is busy building his power base in Damascus, both Turkey and Israel have relied on their own forces to protect their interests inside Syria.
Turkey’s Syrian militias have launched a few attacks on the Kurds, all failing and retreating. The Turkish air force has repeatedly struck targets in the landlocked Kurdish enclave.
Israel, for its part, has been more active inside Syria, with its fighter jets policing and striking the remnants of pro-Iran militias, such as Hezbollah, while also making sure to destroy all heavy weapons south of Damascus.
As Turkey and Israel carve their own spheres of influence inside Syria, Syrian national unity becomes elusive. Sharaa’s insatiable appetite for undisputed power makes national reconciliation ever harder.
America has correctly tied lifting of the crippling sanctions it has imposed on the Syrian government, under former President Bashar al-Assad, to Sharaa sharing power with Kurds, Druze, Alawites, and others.
The Europeans have insisted that Sharaa weed out radical Islamists, especially foreign fighters. The interim president has yet to do either. Until he does, an economy in tatters will make rebuilding the state an even more gargantuan task.
To give Sharaa credit where it is due, in his bid to build his dictatorship, he has been responsive in dealing with the different foreign intelligence agencies: Jordanian and Gulf governments commend his cooperation in stopping the narcotics trade, while America praises his crackdown on ISIS. Even Israel has telegraphed to Sharaa its intentions whenever it struck inside Syria. In return, the budding Syrian autocrat has steered clear from bombastic anti-Israel populism.
But is Sharaa’s cooperation enough for a new and better Syria? So far, things do not seem to be on the right track.
Isn't it a little early to say that Sharaa is a dictator? He's been in power less than 4 months during a turbulent period, with Western sanctions still in place, and sections of the Alawite population attempting to undermine the new regime. Under these circumstances you can't expect Syria to turn into Switzerland overnight.
People react to incentives. I would like to see the West lift sanctions, which were, after all, put in place while Asaad was in power. More carrot and less stick might move the Syrian regime into the West's corner.