Syria post-Asad: “Power Vertical” or Consociational Covenant?
Wolfgang Mühlberger: Syria post-Asad: “Power Vertical” or Consociational Covenant? AIES Focus 2025/1.
19.05.2025
The Syrian upheaval of 2011 quickly morphed from a peaceful civic protest movement into a supremacist jihad, carried out by more than 100 different militant outfits – primarily financed by Arab actors from the Persian Gulf, and substantially facilitated by Turkey. During their eventual geographic confinement in parts of the North-Western governorate Idlib for several years, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), managed to emerge as primus inter pares among the armed Sunni factions. In December last year, apparently against all odds, this Salafi-jihadi outfit has been able to lead a successful military campaign to topple the Asad regime in Damascus.
In fact, the jihadization of the uprising has been part and parcel of its regionalisation and internationalisation, made up of opposition supporters and regime contenders, both fueling the conflict until the most recent episode. At this stage, though, Syria has become the only Arab spring country where toppling a regime was achieved by jihadist violence. This leaves a considerable question mark concerning both the domestic trajectory ahead as well as regarding future regional stability. Both neighbouring and more remote Arab countries that experienced regime contestation as well as reconsolidation efforts during the last decade of uprisings will be affected one way or the other. International actors with varying interests in the Levant and Syria, such as Europe, the US, or Russia, will need to make up their mind under which circumstances cooperation with the new transitional regime is recommendable.