Covered in the current issue

Angry Sunnis
President Sharaa’s base is beginning to ask awkward questions

Even before the guns fell silent, the questions had begun. Why did interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa authorise the Suwayda operation without securing a firm green light from the United States and Israel? Why were raw General Security recruits sent into a confrontation with Druze militias that were never likely to capitulate? Why was the subsequent army offensive so poorly planned and executed? And after the initial push failed – derailed, crucially, by Israeli airstrikes on Damascus – why were Bedouin families not extricated from their villages when the army that was there to protect them withdrew? Above all, what of the estimated 700 pro-government fighters who lost their lives? Did they die for nothing?

These are some of the uncomfortable questions now being asked within Sharaa’s core constituency: Sunni Arabs from rural and tribal regions, fanatically loyal to the idea of a strong central state and Sharaa’s leadership of it. | continue reading

Mission misaligned
Can the UN adapt to Syria’s new political order?

At a recent meeting in Doha of humanitarian and development actors involved with Syria, one message rang out louder than any other; that the UN’s credibility deficit in Syria is profound. 

Participants described the meeting, convened by Qatar Charity and UN OCHA to improve coordination between humanitarian and development actors, as oscillating between awkward and blunt critique. Some Syrian representatives ignored OCHA’s role altogether, while others called explicitly for a transfer of UN powers to Syrian organisations and the transitional government, and a general contraction of the UN footprint. According to one participant, a major Syrian NGO went so far as to question whether the presence of the many UN agencies in the country was needed at all. Najat Rochdi, the Deputy Special Envoy for Syria, is said to have deflected the criticism with a forceful defence of the UN in a way that participants considered tone-deaf and inappropriate.

A UN source had a different view, describing the critique as “relatively mild”. In Syrian political and civil society circles, however, mere mention of senior UN personnel such as Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Adam Abdelmoula, Special Envoy Geir Pedersen, or Najat Rochdi — widely seen as positioning herself to succeed Pedersen, according to several diplomats based in Damascus and Beirut — elicits the same response: they should all step down. | continue reading

Proxy vote
In Syria’s troubled transition, a weak legislature may be better than none at all

When an estimated 5,000 Syrians head to polling booths on or around 20 August, it will mark a rare moment of political participation in post-Assad Syria. The poll, set to establish a new People’s Assembly through an indirect electoral system, will be conducted under a legal and administrative framework that has yet to be fully finalised. While no one is under the illusion that this parliament will be entirely ‘democratic’, its very existence is not without significance.| continue reading

How Aleppo fell
Iran’s defence of the city faltered when a most trusted brigade defected

If Hezbollah was long considered the crown jewel of Iran’s Axis of Resistance in the Middle East, then the Baqir Brigade held that distinction in Syria. Formed in 2012 in Aleppo province, the militia eventually comprised thousands of fighters and was the most prominent of the local Syrian formations within the Iranian and Hezbollah-backed Local Defence Forces (LDF) network in Aleppo. But in retrospect the group’s influence — and the depth of Iranian and Hezbollah control over pro-regime militias more broadly — was gravely misunderstood.

When rebels launched their offensive on Aleppo in late November 2024, the Baqir Brigade had already secretly agreed a defection deal with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and helped assassinate a senior IRGC commander who headed the LDF in Aleppo. | continue reading

Hope for the Levant
A conversation with Nadim Shehadi

Following massacres along the coast and escalating violence in Suwayda, the question of how to balance unity and diversity in Syria has renewed urgency. The nature of sectarianism in the Levant – and the viability of coexistence in fractured societies – will be critical in shaping the country’s post-war transition. Yet as Iran’s influence recedes and the prospects for regional peace and cooperation begin to grow, the political imagination required to forge a new social contract remains in short supply.

To explore the ideas that could inspire consensus, Syria in Transition spoke with Nadim Shehadi, a Lebanese economist, Middle East analyst, and former Associate Fellow at Chatham House. | continue reading

The Peacemakers
Second Lives

In the final instalment of Part 1 of The Peacemakers, SiT’s satirical novel, Gerald mourns Joanne but is cast adrift by the Americans. Abu Faisal, too, is frozen out by the CIA and marked for death by the Knights of Sharia. Both men must choose between fading into irrelevance or crossing into the dark side - with no going back. | continue reading