The interim Syrian President, Ahmed al-Sharaa, stated in remarks to journalists that a security agreement with Israel is a \u201cnecessity\u201d and would serve as a \u201cprelude to the conclusion of further agreements.\u201d Meanwhile, the interim government\u2014represented by Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani\u2014concluded an agreement dubbed a \u201croadmap\u201d with both Jordan (Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi) and the United States (Ambassador Tom Barrack). Barrack, in a post on his X account, described it as \u201cnot only charting a path for recovery, but one that future generations of Syrians can follow as they build a homeland rooted in equality of rights and responsibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regardless of the interim government\u2019s engagement with foreign actors on what is fundamentally an internal Syrian issue\u2014and its attempt to impose \u201cfundamental solutions\u201d that purport to be a \u201cpath for future generations,\u201d as Barrack claimed\u2014the deliberate exclusion of the people of Suwayda and their administrative and military representatives cannot go unremarked. Their absence from the meeting that produced this \u201croadmap\u201d makes clear that the underlying problem remains unresolved. So long as the authority continues to ignore Suwayda\u2019s political will and opts, as it habitually does, to bypass national consensus and political participation with local actors\u2014choosing instead to negotiate with foreign powers and hand over sovereignty\u2014it renders these efforts illegitimate. As if to confirm this dynamic, the Jordanian Foreign Minister explicitly noted that the roadmap also guarantees \u201cIsrael\u2019s security.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amid the flurry of political maneuvering in Damascus, talk of a \u201csecurity agreement\u201d with Israel, and the crafting of a \u201croadmap\u201d concerning Suwayda, Ankara\u2014determined to remain at the heart of developments and secure the largest share of the \u201cSyrian cake\u201d\u2014swiftly dispatched its intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalin, to Damascus to meet with al-Sharaa. According to Turkish media, the meeting addressed \u201cregional developments, the fight against ISIS, and the refugee file.\u201d Kalin had previously visited Damascus in May, where he engaged with authorities on the March 10 agreement between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the interim government. Ankara is exerting pressure to prevent Damascus from recognizing a decentralized model for northern and eastern Syria, or from accepting the integration of the SDF as a unified, independent structure within a reformed Syrian army. Turkey also seeks to influence the nature of the upcoming \u201csecurity agreement\u201d with Israel, ensuring that any peace or normalization efforts do not occur behind its back. In essence, Turkey wants a regime that remains within its sphere of control, follows its script, and respects the \u201cred lines\u201d drawn by the Sublime Porte\u2014one that recognizes both its own limits and Turkey\u2019s centrality.<\/p>\n
The authority of Hay\u2019at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is acutely aware of the scale of the struggle over Syria, and of the power wielded by regional actors\u2014particularly Israel, which drew its red lines from the very first hours of HTS and its allies\u2019 arrival in Damascus. Israel destroyed Syria\u2019s heavy weaponry, expanded its military and intelligence footprint in the south, and placed limits on Turkish influence by targeting and dismantling bases Ankara had begun to develop.<\/p>\n
From here, Syrian Authoruties (HTS),\u00a0 versed in the \u201cjurisprudence of war\u201d and the strategic principles of \u201cpatience and waiting,\u201d \u201cprohibition of aggression,\u201d and \u201cempowerment,\u201d appears intent on de-escalating, weathering the storm, and ensuring its own survival amid the clash of powerful actors on Syrian soil. There is a clear willingness to accommodate foreign influence, to surrender national sovereignty, and to cede parts of Syria to Turkey and Israel alike\u2014all in the interest of retaining power. The aim is to convert this \u201cfunctional role\u201d and mutual accommodation with external actors into a system of reciprocal services, bolstering the faction\u2019s grip on power and deflecting attention from the massacres and violations it has committed\u2014and continues to commit\u2014against the Syrian people. This approach is driven by narrow factional interests, not national ones. It rests on the belief that foreign backers are the sole guarantors of continued rule, thus negating the need for democracy, national consensus, or power-sharing with other forces. In other words, the faction seeks to evolve into a functional oligarchy that bows to external demands while remaining rigidly opposed to internal calls for democracy and the peaceful transfer of power.<\/p>\n
One of the main reasons driving the authorities to depend on foreign powers and play all sides\u2014just as we have seen over the past few months\u2014is their desire to tighten their grip on all aspects of the country and not relinquish control of the state (their state). This is evident in their rejection of decentralization and recognition of Syria\u2019s diversity and societal specificities, as well as their refusal to lift bans on national political forces and parties. The authorities aim to establish a subordinate, highly centralized state, governed by a minister appointed through fake quotas, along with a subordinate cleric or supervisor who is linked to the top of the pyramid and to whom they owe complete loyalty. There is a clear obsession within this faction to rule the country with a rigid, centralized authority, suppressing all wills emerging from the regions and components. And in order to escape the horrific crimes they have committed, they are willing to abandon land and sovereignty, and to distribute the country among this axis or that, each according to their strength, brutality, and the extent of harm they can inflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The interim Syrian President, Ahmed al-Sharaa, stated in remarks to journalists that a security agreement with Israel is a \u201cnecessity\u201d and would serve as a \u201cprelude to the conclusion of further agreements.\u201d Meanwhile, the interim government\u2014represented by Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani\u2014concluded an agreement dubbed a \u201croadmap\u201d with both Jordan (Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi) and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1249,"featured_media":6414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"jnews_post_split":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,61],"tags":[1031,1013,724,725,40],"ppma_author":[904],"class_list":["post-6413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-slider","tag-ahmed-al-sharaa","tag-hayat-tahri-al-sham","tag-israel","tag-sdf","tag-syria"],"authors":[{"term_id":904,"user_id":1249,"is_guest":0,"slug":"tariq-hamo","display_name":"Tariq Hemo","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Tariq-Hamo-2.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Tariq-Hamo-2.jpg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1249"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6415,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6413\/revisions\/6415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6413"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=6413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}