Several models of different political structures are currently emerging in the region, attempting to define the form of the state and its social contract. Two of these are still in the process of formation and have not yet been fully crystallized. However, in principle, two prominent models can be discussed. The first is the Turkish model, which effectively represents the Kurdish thesis for rebuilding the republic. This model seeks to redefine the state in a way that breaks the century-old mono-nationalism and allows Kurds to enter the political structure as genuine partners and citizens of the republic, without relinquishing any of the national territories that are internationally restricted under the name of Turkey. This process is driven by the surplus Kurdish struggle there, not by the “national consciousness” in the definition of the republic. Therefore, the “new Turkey” remains a hypothesis rather than an achievement. The evidence for this is found in the second model:
The reproduction of “Old Syria” is taking place under the auspices of its northern neighbor. This situation involves a Turkish dilemma, as the unitary structure of the republic seeks to export its internal disintegrating model to the outside world. In other words, it is exporting “Old Turkey” to the new Syria. This reflects Turkey’s crisis with itself and its early alienation from the supposed “multi-national” “New Turkey.” During the survival of the Assad regime amidst the civil war between 2017 and 2024, Turkish diplomacy, through the Astana process with Iran and Russia, focused on maintaining the Syrian regime’s nationalist character and insisting that it not abandon its “unilateral nation-state” structure. Instead, Turkey pressured Assad to wage war against the Kurds in the name of “Arab nationalism.” It is well known that the Syrian revolution was only undermined after restrictions were imposed on it and it was denied a pluralistic approach. The initial revolutionary currents, still in opposition, emerged as a nationalist, abolitionist regime hostile to all forms of pluralism—religious, sectarian, or ethnic.
It appears that the Turkish Ministry of Interior is heading toward significant constitutional changes—assuming the peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is completed—yet the Ministry of Foreign Affairs remains committed to the nationalist regime of the 1980 coup. Similarly, the emerging Syrian model under the rule of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) reflects the political mentality of the first Ba’ath Party coup of 1963. This closed model is unlike the new Kurdish-Turkish openness in northern of the Levant, Kurdistan, and Anatolia. Instead, it saturates the scene with discourses, positions, and statements characterized by multi-directional isolation: it is implicitly colonialist toward Lebanon, sectarian toward Alawites and Druze, and supremacist toward the Kurds, with projects involving transitional and shifting massacres.
Syria is a country with no middle ground: either it is governed by failed factional dominance, as it has been throughout its history since Mu’awiyah and the Banu Sufyan took control and reshaped the country through demographic engineering—summoning large populations and displacing others—or it breaks with this sectarian history, which persists today, including the Assad regime’s emulation of the Umayyad model. The goal is to transition toward a non-dhimmi partnership in managing the country—a society without a mentality of minorities, but with vibrant communities that are both integrated and non-subjugated. This is a contractual relationship in which no one is required to surrender or accept “national slavery.” Such a system can only be established and rectified by a rational head of government.
It is a striking paradox that what is being built today under the banner of “New Turkey” is primarily based on dismantling what is called “Old Turkey,” which has repeated its mistakes and patterns throughout the past century, costing Turkey two trillion dollars spent on nationalist obstinacy against reforming the republic. This concept—that “Old Turkey” is repeating itself—was also used by Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), to describe the PKK’s own situation. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who seeks to be the leader of the “New Turkey,” has acknowledged the Turkish Republic’s responsibility for many past mistakes, such as the burning of villages and the forced displacement of populations overnight, mothers being prohibited from speaking Kurdish to their children in prison, and the Taurus vehicles used by military intelligence in assassinations and liquidations of Kurdish civilians.
In Syria, the incomplete model of what is supposed to be the “New Syria” is not based on criticizing or surpassing “Old Syria,” but rather on inheriting its literature and reproducing it from its imaginary and illusory origins. The Umayyads were not Sunni; They were later defined as the “Sunni with an interpretation of history,” not as a sect in doctrine, since they adhered to the doctrines of determinism (Jabriyya) and then predeterminism (Qadariyya). Perhaps this doctrine is more suitable for the new rulers.
Ultimately, this narrative is called the “New Syria.” One of its most prominent features is what can be called the “freedom to express hatred,” embraced by its media outlets, where calls for genocide are used as tools of media pressure. Examples include the tribal mobilization campaigns against Sweida, the earlier call for jihad against the Alawites, and later against the Kurds—marking the fourth time after Afrin, Kobani, and Serekaniye. Indeed, frightening and overt slogans have begun to appear, such as the chant heard at a small popular gathering in northern Syria: “There is no god but God, and the Kurd is the enemy of God.” This exemplifies a new form of nationalism attempting to cloak itself in religious rhetoric—an effort to evade its jihadist image. It does not reflect any genuine cultural openness, despite the claims of its theorists over the centuries.
It appears the regime has no choice but to be inherently racist in its structure unless it decides to transcend the “mono-state” model, whether nationalist or sectarian. It insists on an undeclared but clear form of governance based on the binary of “conquerors and the conquered,” with no space for equality or participatory politics. In fact, the new regime has almost entirely borrowed concepts from the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party in its unilateral insistence on state formation—even in its view of Islam as a nationalist pillar that reinforces the unity of Arab Syria—when it feels compelled to present itself as an Arab nationalist state. Notably, this compulsion is driven more by external pressures than internal consensus; no broad internal social agreement has been achieved through a comprehensive national reconciliation process, even though such reconciliation is necessary to redefine the state. In reality, the “Syrian Arab Republic” still inherits tools from the previous regime, most notably sectarian dominance over the country’s diverse Arab cultures, along with an insistence on marginalizing the Kurds—keeping them outside of power and restricting them within a strictly centralized state.
Externally, it seems the regime finds it safer to cloak the state in the guise of “Arab nationalism,” presenting it as a nation-state, while internally remaining fundamentally a jihadist Islamic state. This nationalist image grants it regional and Arab acceptance, enabling it to continue practicing sectarian exclusion against its internal components by transforming them into “subjects” living in lands “conquered by force,” according to traditional conquest logic. This explains the rhetorical and sometimes security-based attacks against Alawites, then Druze, and the campaigns of intimidation against Christians—acts which can be understood as undeclared jihadist imperatives.
In Islamic history, it is well known that the second caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab, questioned the legitimacy of some “conquests” that occurred peacefully in Iraq after military commanders violated these agreements to reconquer the land militarily. This was because military conquest grants the right to spoils and determines how revenue is distributed among soldiers, based on the nature of the battle. Today, this mentality appears in some actions of those in power, who seek to treat segments of the population as if they are powerless, imposing full surrender, and making the “New Syria” group the “heirs” of the country’s farthest reaches.
In any case, there are no regional or international conditions that would allow Syria to be officially declared an Islamic state in its name and identity. Therefore, resorting to slogans of Arabism and the traditional nation-state remains the only available option. This image—the “national bird” used in visual identity—represents the permissible external face of Arab relations with Damascus. For Arabs, when a jihadist is characterized as an Arab nationalist, it is seen as a welcome development. Although this ideology has limited followers today, Arab nationalism is less ambitious and less dangerous than jihadist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood or al-Qaeda, at least in theory. The Brotherhood’s more recent approach has erased the distinctions between Arabism and Islam in governance, making them one and the same—something not even reflected in the Brotherhood’s founding literature, which, for example, expressed concern about the “Kurdish language” and Kurdish culture. Therefore, the current style of rule is, stylistically, more akin to the overt manipulations of the Brotherhood.
Therefore, the so-called “Arab patronage” over Damascus is based on supporting the Sunni Arab state, or at least its outward appearance that makes it seem part of the Arab system. For the Damascus government to be acceptable within this framework, the appropriate formula for its inclusion is to declare itself a “non-jihadist Syrian Arab Republic.” Moreover, the current rulers of Damascus desire a centralized, subjugating state—where “whoever liberates decides” and “the kidnapped should not ask their liberator where to take them.”
It is notable that the new Damascus still lacks a coherent discourse—neither Arab nor Islamic—apart from sectarian cries in its squares and the government’s cover-up of assaults. It also lacks a political thesis for governance. Yet, the path to power—a power devoid of a democratic national foundation and lacking a legitimate national governance thesis—passes through this familiar formula of nationalism and religious Arabism, despite its repeated failures in the past.
Furthermore, the principle that once underpinned the Arab nationalist state—the hostility to Israel—no longer holds today. This is due to the divergent trends aiming to incorporate Syria into peace agreements with Israel, which renders this thesis entirely void of its traditional, historical, and political justification, namely the liberation of the land.
Thus, the new narrative upon which the “New Arab-Islamic Syria” is built is to defend the remaining unity of Syria, precisely, and to seek out “imagined enemies” within, working preemptively to break and destroy them as a way to compensate for the declared inability and defeat before the regional power, Israel.
