Syria, Year One: Elements of an Assessment

One year ago, on the night of 7–8 December 2024, a regime that had stamped Syria with its iron rule for fifty-four years collapsed. In a lightning offensive lasting twelve days, the forces of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and several other insurgent groups successively seized Aleppo, Hama, Daraa, Deir ez-Zor, Homs, and finally Damascus. The flight of Bashar al-Assad, without any real fighting, revealed the extent of his isolation, as even his praetorian guard disbanded ignominiously.

The new leaders of Syria were thus confronted with colossal challenges in a devastated country: 530,000 dead, nearly 200,000 missing, half of the population displaced or in exile, 80% of the population living below the poverty line, and between 300 and 500 billion dollars required for the country’s reconstruction.

Questions quickly focused on the possible political trajectory of the new authorities in Damascus, led by Ahmed al-Charaa. Their jihadist past is well known, but their political evolution is no less evident. Embodying a form of Islamo-nationalism, they do not renounce their affiliation with the Islamist movement they claim. At the same time, they are deeply Syrian, and their primary concern is to rebuild and preserve the unity of the country. In view of the multiple challenges to be addressed, particularly economic ones, the stakes are threefold: establishing a more inclusive regime, rebuilding solid relations with as many states as possible, and securing the lifting of sanctions that continue to affect the country. At this stage, the results are mixed, warranting neither undue complacency nor excessive condemnation.

With regard first to foreign policy objectives, the trajectory of the new authorities in Damascus has been crowned with success and marks Syria’s reintegration into the so-called international community. Received by Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée at the beginning of May 2025, then by Donald Trump in Riyadh during his official visit to Saudi Arabia on 14 May, Ahmed al-Charaa delivered a speech before the United Nations General Assembly in September, something no Syrian leader had done since 1967. He was finally the first Syrian official to be received at the White House, on 10 November, since the country’s independence in 1946. Among his international successes, one must also recall his lengthy meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow on 15 October, which resulted in an agreement on maintaining Russian military bases on Syrian soil, even though Russia had shown unwavering support for Bashar al-Assad almost until the end of his rule.

This series of meetings reveals two essential elements. First, the gradual suspension of economic sanctions—though not their full and definitive lifting—mainly Western, imposed on Syria to pressure its predecessor, is being implemented or promised. Nevertheless, the country remains classified as high-risk by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), effectively preventing any significant transfer of funds to Syria. The resumption of economic activity has therefore stalled, and international economic investors remain very scarce. What is occurring rapidly is above all Syria’s political reintegration into the international arena, as the country becomes one of the parameters of the reconfiguration of power relations in the Middle East. Symbolically, during his visit with Donald Trump, Ahmed al-Charaa agreed to become the 89th member of the US-led international coalition against the Islamic State formed in 2014, which, given his political trajectory, is particularly significant. In reality, however, the essential issue lies elsewhere, namely in his acceptance of the American policy of containing Iran. In other words, accepting allegiance to Washington in order to benefit from its goodwill. The fact that his two main supporters, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, are themselves currently aligned with Donald Trump’s initiatives leaves little doubt as to the regional policy orientations of the new leaders in Damascus. Ultimately, they are applying what a Turkish foreign minister once theorised as “zero problems with neighbours”.

From this perspective, however, a difficulty remains with regard to Israel’s policy. We are well aware of the all-out militaristic policy deployed by Tel Aviv in the region, in disregard of the fundamental principles of international law. Syria is no exception. Taking advantage of the brief period of political uncertainty following Bashar al-Assad’s flight in early December 2024, Israel multiplied its strikes: 300 bombings of Syrian military targets were recorded within a few weeks. Since then, probably more than 800 strikes have targeted Syrian infrastructure and strategic capabilities in order to prevent the reconstitution of a national army. The Israeli army has also occupied the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, part of the Golan Heights, unilaterally violating the 1974 ceasefire agreement. Israeli military units are therefore illegally stationed on the territory of a sovereign state, and once again preventive war has become the norm for the Israeli army. It is worth noting in this regard that international condemnations have been rare, timid, and devoid of any deterrent effect.

In terms of domestic policy, the assessment is far more nuanced. First, it can be observed that the vast majority of decision-making posts and positions of political and administrative responsibility have been assigned to Ahmed al-Charaa’s former comrades-in-arms, those who surrounded him in the governance of Idlib province since 2015–2016. The temptation to exercise a form of Sunni hegemony is clearly present and is therefore contradictory to the proclaimed desire to implement an inclusive political system.

Furthermore, a crucial test concerns the management of confessional and/or ethnic communities, foremost among them the Kurds. The memorandum of understanding signed between the interim authorities and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on 10 March 2025 outlines the prospect of integrating the civil and military institutions of the Kurdish autonomous region into the state. This agreement was quickly endorsed by Ankara, which fears a potential resumption of civil war in the country. Nevertheless, many clauses remained imprecise and were to be clarified by the end of 2025 for normalisation to become effective. This does not appear to be the case at present, as divergences persist between the SDF and Damascus, particularly regarding the degree of integration of Kurdish forces into the national army and the extent of autonomy of the Kurdish regions—also populated by Arab tribes—vis-à-vis the capital.

Relations with other minorities, this time confessional ones—the Alawites and the Druze—are even more tense and have led to characterised violence and reprisals in March and July 2025. In the eyes of the new authorities, Alawites are viewed with suspicion because of the origins of Bashar al-Assad’s family. Admittedly, the violence committed against them is largely the work of independent militias that the authorities struggle to control and, above all, to integrate into the national army. Nevertheless, the tendency to impose collective responsibility on this minority community is reprehensible. As for the Druze, the issue is even more complex, since some of them are being instrumentalised by Israel, which also uses this means to weaken the country by claiming to act as their protector. Managing these two communities is undoubtedly the most delicate challenge facing the transitional government, and to date it has not succeeded on this front.

Reconstituting the country’s unity and sovereignty therefore represents the major challenge for the new leaders, who are subject to contradictory pressures from two of Syria’s neighbours. Turkey first, the main beneficiary of the regime change in Damascus, is seeking to obtain a strategic defence agreement that would allow it to establish one or more military bases in the country. Israel, secondly, for the reasons mentioned above, whose continued presence on Syrian soil reflects a clear intention to weaken the Syrian authorities.

In this complex game, it appears that the United States, driven by its desire to reconfigure Middle Eastern power relations under its aegis, faces a major difficulty. While maintaining unconditional support for the Hebrew state, it must also seek to limit the aggressiveness of its regional policy, which has become an obvious factor of destabilisation. This is why Donald Trump prefers to rely on Turkey and Saudi Arabia to support Syria, while simultaneously attempting to promote a normalisation agreement between Syria and Israel. In vain, since Ahmed al-Charaa’s demand that all Israeli troops withdraw from Syrian territory has so far not been met.

While the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship is of crucial importance for the Syrian people and for the evolution of power relations in the Middle East, history has not yet been written, and the difficulties facing the leaders in Damascus are numerous. They believe that integrating the American framework is, in their eyes, the best guarantee of stabilising the country.

Didier Billion