On December 8, 2024, one of the most brutal regimes – the Assad family’s 50-year rule – finally fell. Throughout its reign, Syria endured two civil wars (1982, 2011), during which the regime killed over 600,000 Syrians, with tens of thousands disappearing in prisons, never to be accounted for. More than six million Syrians were forced to flee, seeking refuge in neighboring countries and Europe. The root of this brutal oppression lay in the Assad family’s grip on power as part of the Alawite minority, which constitutes just 15% of the population, while the Sunni, Druze, Kurdish, and Christian majority resisted their rule.
Only through relentless repression and a regime of fear did former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad – and later his son Bashar, an ophthalmologist – manage to prevent the Syrian state from fracturing.
Like many Middle Eastern countries, Syria is a patchwork of sectarian communities held together not by national unity, but by the ever-present threat of its powerful security apparatus. After the fall of Bashar’s regime, records revealed that nearly 10% of the population had been directly or indirectly involved in this vast network of control.
Do these facts predict the unraveling of an oncoming crisis? Does this mean that in order to keep Syria united, there is no choice other than that of armed and brutal repression?
The recent events that unraveled in Syria’s northwest Alawite province stress the fact that the new regime is still vacillating and in search of stability and consolidation.
The new Syrian regime, leaning on a clear majority of Sunnis and fighting an Iranian Hizbullah-backed agenda, is aware that its main enemy is trying to destabilize it and provoke a general upheaval that would lead to its fall.
Syria’s new self-appointed leader, Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa (formerly Abu Muhammad al-Jolani), had little choice but to impose a regime of fear, mirroring his predecessor. To suppress a counter-coup by Assad loyalists – backed by Iran, its militias, and Hizbullah – he resorted to excessive force and ruthless repression. This crackdown not only aims to crush the insurgent opposition but also serves as a warning to other minorities, including the Druze and Kurds, as well as to Syria’s southern neighbor, Israel. High-ranking Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have acknowledged the Sharaa regime’s determination to maintain control and prevent the country from spiraling into another civil war.
Al-Sharaa understands that he cannot survive against a coalition of minorities backed by Israel. To prevent another civil war, he has initiated a national debate on Syria’s future. His strategy is to proceed cautiously, granting major minorities a status that keeps them within Syria while offering them limited autonomy – similar to Iraqi Kurdistan. This includes religious freedom for Druze, Assyrians, and other Christians, official recognition of Kurdish alongside Arabic, and the nominal integration of minority militias into the Syrian army without dismantling their structures.
Will Sharaa embrace this new reality, effectively reviving the partition model introduced under the French mandate? Or will he follow his predecessors’ path, using force to preserve Syria’s unity? The latter choice is dangerously fraught, as it would almost certainly ignite a third civil war.
