American journalist Neil MacFarquhar spent a week in Damascus last month. He did not explore the map of control, the government’s management of internal affairs and conquests, or the Ottoman Orientalism of U.S. envoy Thomas Barrack. Instead, MacFarquhar published a lengthy report in The New York Times titled “Are We Seeing the Outlines of a New Middle East?”
The report, which is particularly accessible to American readers, traces the disintegration of what was known in the media as the “Shiite Crescent,” extending from Tehran to Beirut via Baghdad and Damascus, after more than two decades of Iranian control and influence in the region.
MacFarquhar presents a symbolic scene that expresses change—one that Western journalists visiting the region often excel at capturing—where certain details serve as narrative and symbolic markers. In the opening of his report, he describes the appearance of the new Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa (Abu Muhammad al-Julani), riding a graceful black Arabian horse. Neil had seen a video clip of this scene, accompanied by a song praising the Umayyad state. Al-Sharaa was in a sandy arena adorned with dense palm trees: “He was alone, wearing an elegant leather jacket, while the tall, high-stepping horse circled inside the arena.”
His dramatic portrayal of the scene, up to the end of the report—which concludes that Syria is the central piece in the missing puzzle—is reminiscent of Hegel, when he saw Napoleon and uttered his famous line: “I saw the soul of the world embodied in a man on horseback, dominating the world and moving it.”
In his report, Neil MacFarquhar examines the collapse of Iran’s regional influence—particularly its expulsion from Syria—and how this represented a turning point unseen in the Middle East for more than two decades. One aspect of this geopolitical shift, according to the author, may be the decline of the overt sectarianism that has swept the region since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the subsequent rise of Shiite power in Baghdad.
However, by focusing on Shiite sectarianism, the author overlooks the full picture, as if the normal state were the dominance of counter-sectarianism. This perspective echoes primarily in the statements of Thomas Barrack, who envisions the pluralistic East surrendering to a “sectarian majority” through an unattractive model—not a Gulf-style rentier system, for example, but an authority that periodically carries out massacres in Syrian territory and threatens everyone through unofficial media outlets.
Nevertheless, the author highlights some aspects of this transformation, which are important for understanding the perspective from which many Western observers interpret the events in Syria. He notes that with the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime last December, what King Abdullah II once called the “Shiite Crescent”—the network of armed allies stretching from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Hezbollah-controlled areas in Lebanon—has collapsed. The Assad government, as a sovereign state rather than a militia, was a cornerstone of the Iranian project and a hub of support for the “axis of resistance” against Israel and the West.
Neil MacFarquhar draws attention to a striking point: religion alone cannot explain what is happening in the Middle East. He argues that regional powers have used religious doctrine as a cover for material interests. Today’s rebalancing, he notes, revolves around political, military, and economic struggles. This is clear from the fact that the driving force behind these changes has not been Sunnis or Shiites, but Israel. However, Iran, in its efforts to expand influence, has long promoted a sectarian agenda, which Arab states have responded to in kind. Still, it seems unlikely that Tehran will be able to sustain this strategy in the near future.
The question MacFarquhar poses is: what will emerge when Sunni-Shiite divisions cease to serve as tools for geopolitical dominance? Syria now stands as the primary testing ground for a new order. Sunni-majority countries are seeking to turn the page on sectarianism, which they see as a threat to political stability and economic development (according to the author, who appears to be probing the depths of the region). In a subsequent passage, he offers his understanding of the new government in Damascus, stating—despite regional sectarian hostility—that “the new leadership realizes that any continued outbreak of sectarian conflict will derail efforts to build a stable and unified state,” perhaps unaware—or unwilling—to acknowledge that the mechanisms of power-building in this Levantine Mediterranean are rooted in a long history of empire expansion and medieval dynamics.
The author quotes a comment by Lebanese political commentator Mustafa Fahs, described as being close to Shiite circles in Lebanon: “When you return Damascus to the Sunnis, you completely change the political geography of the Middle East… It’s a historic event.”
The author goes back in history a bit to explain to the American reader where the story of sectarianism and the Sunni-Shiite conflict began in the region. According to his understanding and sources, the Islamic Revolution of 1979 launched a new phase of Sunni-Shiite rivalry—an assumption that is challenged by facts and political developments. The current form of social sectarianism erupted with the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, then took a more serious and dangerous turn with Hezbollah’s intervention to support the Assad regime, along with the influx of foreign jihadists backing the Syrian opposition starting in 2012.
The author discusses the atmosphere surrounding the building of a new regional order and considers:
The region needs job opportunities for its youth. In the past, the lack of hope drove young people into the arms of jihadist groups. Today, governments hope to change this trajectory through ambitious development projects that include futuristic cities, artificial intelligence, and modern technologies. However, regional chaos will undermine these ambitions. For this reason, the Israeli attack—with American participation—on Iran was initially shocking in the Gulf. The fear was not only of Iranian retaliation but also of a repeat of the Iraq scenario: regime collapse, displacement, and years of sectarian bloodshed. Nonetheless, the brief conflict shattered the illusion of Iranian strength. While the extent of the damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear program remains unclear, Iran’s failure to protect itself revealed a profound weakness and suggested that a new regional order was beginning to take shape.
He adds: Although the Assad regime did not ideologically align with the Islamic Republic, its alliance with Tehran was based on a shared hatred of Israel and Saddam Hussein. Therefore, Syria’s return to the Sunni fold is the central piece in a puzzle that was missing.
Sunni countries are seeking to rebuild Syria and turn it into an economic hub for the region, connecting it via roads, pipelines, fiber optics, and electricity grids. However, the new central government is weak and in need of substantial support. The estimated cost of reconstruction ranges between $250 billion and $400 billion—amounts that the collapsing Syrian economy cannot afford.
The new government must first address the violent sectarian tensions that fueled the civil war and continue to threaten the future of a unified state. However, the fact that the new government was formed by Sunni jihadist militias raises questions. Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East politics at Georgetown University, states: “The new national force in Syria came from the far-right Salafis— from the extremist al-Qaeda environment, imbued with deep anti-Shiite hostility.”
Nonetheless, some analysts view the wave of popular hostility toward Iran in Syria as a form of political resistance in itself. In other words— as the contributors to the author’s report attempted to convince him— the narrative seems to suggest that the end of the Iranian threat and hegemony will lead to the complete disappearance of sectarianism!
The American journalist quotes experts close to the Sharaa government, who at first appear to be victims of misinformation and easy targets for conveying targeted messages aimed at “politically whitewashing” violations. Colonel Hisham Mustafa, a Syrian political analyst and strategist who defected from the army during the revolution, tells the author: “A new geographic balance is already taking shape.” It has not yet fully crystallized, but it is taking on clear features—especially after the irreversible decline of Iranian influence in Syria and the reorganization of the Arab landscape, free from sectarian slogans.
Colonel Mustafa acknowledges that some attribute a historical and religious significance to the changes. The comparison to the Umayyads suggests that “the Syrian leadership is reclaiming its authentic Arab identity and freeing itself from foreign dominance,” he says.
Dr. Mustafa al-Issa, a Syrian political analyst, noted that the new government has not officially used the term “Umayyad,” adding: “The Syrian government is actively working to bridge the gaps among the different Syrian components… The simplest—and most dangerous—tool used by the previous regime was religious fragmentation, not only between Sunnis and Shiites but also within each sect and society as a whole.”
Arab states do not oppose Iran’s decline or the diminishment of its nuclear threat, but they are concerned that this was achieved through an American-backed Israeli military campaign. Gulf relations with Israel were growing, but the war in Gaza and its devastating aftermath have galvanized Arab public opinion. Although this war departs from sectarian lines, it poses a significant obstacle to any vision of a more stable and integrated Arab world in the post-Iran era. As long as the Palestinian issue remains unresolved, it will continue to be a persistent source of unrest, according to Neil MacFarquhar.
Badr Al-Saif, a history professor at Kuwait University, says: “We’re caught between two fires… The Gulf states certainly don’t want to be part of an Israeli-led regional order.”
It remains unclear what will emerge from the decline of sectarianism that the victorious forces in Syria and their allies herald, once Iran is defeated.
According to Neil, the closest precedent was in the 1990s, when Iran emerged from a devastating war with Iraq and turned inward to rebuild. At that time, moderate leadership abandoned the export of revolutionary ideology, and many Shiites in the region distanced themselves from the Iranian project. Analysts believe a similar scenario could unfold now. With Iranian influence waning, Arab states may exert pressure, and Shiite communities might seek national integration rather than secession.
This conclusion is what the author arrived at through brainstorming after a series of interviews, tours, and reflections—beginning with the video clip that perhaps best embodies Thomas Barrack’s vision of one state, one nation, one army. It’s not unlikely that Barrack will someday explicitly state what he saw in the sand arena video, saying more clearly than Neil MacFarquhar: “I saw the spirit of the East embodied in a man riding a horse, controlling and moving the Levant, then nominating my dear President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.”
