Syria One Hundred Days Later: Has Julani traded the mask of Ahmed al-Sharaa for Assad?

Nearly one hundred days ago, on 8 December, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), entered the Damascene presidential palace after ‘the butcher’ Bashar al-Assad had fled. Taking Assad’s now empty seat, he thus brought to a close the over half-century of tragic and brutal Assad family rule, cloaked in the pall of the Baath Party.

Al-Julani donned a suit and dug his real name out of the archives: Ahmed al-Sharaa. He developed a savvy political discourse—one that chiefly addressed the international community’s apprehensions about his jihadist and conservative fundamentalist background shaped by his involvement with al-Qaeda and ISIS before he founded the Nusra Front, which later became HTS after breaking with al-Qaeda.

Since 8 December, it’s been difficult to find any public words from al-Sharaa that are genuinely, rather than formally, directed at Syrians and speak to Syrians’ specific political concerns—before 7 March, that is. That was the day of the threatening speech he addressed exclusively to the Syrian people, during the massacres of innocent Alawite civilians in the coastal region perpetrated by security forces, the new army, and groups allied with HTS, following an armed rebellion by remnants of the former regime.

Ideological or Pragmatic Shifts?

Since 8 December, many local and international observers have analysed the implications of the gestures, words, and positions of al-Julani (aka Ahmed al-Sharaa) in search of what they may reveal or refute about the depth of his commitment to jihadist ideology and the orientations of his followers.

Many have overlooked the conclusions reached by solid academic and field research in Syria prior to the launch of HTS’ advance from Idlib toward Damascus last November, under the banner of Operation Deterrence of Aggression. In short, according to these studies some jihadist organisations in Syria, including HTS, have undergone gradual, collaborative reform. This is due to two factors: first, their forced involvement with administrative responsibilities and overseeing residents’ daily lives in the liberated areas they controlled and second, the impact of direct contact with Turkey’s model of government, which is run by a party with Islamist roots.

Key manifestations of this shift were al-Julani’s public abandonment of confrontation with the West and the project for a ‘global’ Islamic state, his involvement in the fight against ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria, and the limitation of the geographic focus of his organisation’s struggle to Syria.

It is uncertain whether this reflected a profound ideological shift or a temporary, pragmatic retreat necessitated by the circumstances of power relations. It is also unclear why al-Julani chose the name of ‘al-Sham’ in his organisation’s new name in 2017 rather than ‘Syria.’ Historically, al-Sham is not limited to Syria but comprises Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Mosul in Iraq, part of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, and a portion of northern Saudi Arabia. Moreover, al-Julani had previously been involved in non-Syrian jihadist organisations: Lebanese and Iraqi—in other words, ‘Shami.’

Perhaps the most striking indicator of al-Julani’s psychological flexibility is that nearly a decade ago, he agreed to have his wounded fellow Nusra Front combatants treated in Israeli hospitals across the border from Syria.

The Second Damascus Spring

While observers have been preoccupied with examining al-Julani’s jihadist mentality, Ahmed al-Sharaa has not wasted a single opportunity since 8 December to bolster every authoritarian pillar that he claims has been packed away for good, in the luggage of the fugitive who previously occupied his seat.

The first step toward another iteration of dictatorship was taken when nearly fourteen years of all-encompassing armed struggle, across multiple fronts and involving parties in all corners of Syria, was reduced to the victory of a single party: HTS. This is despite the fact that HTS was not the first armed group to enter Damascus, but one of several battalions in southern Syria. Nor was Bashar al-Assad’s regime defeated in a decisive military battle. Rather, it gradually collapsed under the weight of a heroic collective struggle spanning more than a decade, compounded by strangling international economic sanctions that undermined every pillar of regime cohesion, including its ability to pay reasonable salaries to its army officers. This gradual collapse coincided with Israel’s devastating strikes against the Assad regime’s most important support on the ground—Iran and Hezbollah— while Russia was militarily, economically, and politically exhausted on the Ukrainian front.

Millions of Syrians – belonging to multiple political, civil, and military forces and affiliated with diverse ideologies, ethnicities, and religious sects – participated in this fierce popular struggle against a despotic regime, unprecedented in the Arab world. Even so, 8 December may not go down in history as the day of a collective victory, but more likely, as the day of the Assad regime’s fall or the day of the HTS victory. It could even go down as the date marking the defeat of the remaining revolutionary factions, should the current unilateral trajectory continue and some or all of the partners in the revolution continue to be marginalised or taken on directly.

The farcical ‘Victory Conference’ of 29 January, which brought together armed factions under the umbrella of HTS, best illustrates the current path, which has devalued and denigrated the revolution and the great sacrifices of the Syrian people. It was decided at the conference to ‘dissolve all political and civil groups and integrate them into the state.’ Do those who issued this resolution understand its meaning or even its feasibility? What kind of state are they talking about? The state that collapsed on 8 December? Or the state that thus far only exists on paper, divided between the armies of Turkey, Israel, the United States, Russia, and armed militias with competing local, regional, and international loyalties? States that have dissolved and absorbed civil and political bodies are totalitarian states, such as Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany; the self-proclaimed Islamic state, ISIS, has also embraced a totalitarian mode of governance. Which of these models does the president of the ‘new’ Syria aspire to?

All founding political and institutional initiatives and decisions since 8 December have consecrated a monolithic state. HTS has monopolised the central government, the governorates, the army, and the security establishment. In fact, the most prominent figures of the political and civil struggle underway in Syria since the Damascus Spring—a quarter-century ago—have been excluded and marginalised from all official deliberations on Syria’s future, including the national dialogue and the constitutional declaration, which crowned a ‘king’ as the head of a republic who enjoys powers to which even Arab monarchs in Morocco and Jordan would dare not aspire.

There is no doubt that many Syrian political actors and intellectuals feel deep distress when they compare the travesty of last month’s (non)national (non)dialogue with the in-depth, extended dialogues that took place throughout Syria during the ‘Damascus Spring’ twenty-five ago. Sponsored by Bashar al-Assad, the initiative was another major manoeuvre aimed at deceiving the Syrian people and the international community as the first steps were being prepared toward an even more brutal and lethal phase of the Assad dynasty’s rule over Syria.

The Insatiability of Power

The massacres on the Syrian coast this month did not come out of nowhere. They grew out of a foundation of scant dialogue, an abundance of directives from on high, and monolithic formations, out of the drive to monopolise power and greedily lay claim to the state. This was reflected in the deplorable, disingenuous move of assembling armed militias and hastily declaring them a state army and a body to maintain public security, in disregard of the painful lessons learned from the disbanding of the Iraqi army after the US invasion. The reckless sidelining of the best Syrian army officers who opposed Bashar al-Assad’s rule and defected with their weapons, paying a heavy price for their noble patriotic stance, was shocking to civilians even more than military personnel.

Ahmad al-Sharaa’s speech on 7 March failed to address the seriousness of the sectarian mobilisation in his military and security forces, as well as in mosques, to attack Alawite civilians on the coast. Instead, he cast the tragedy as a punitive response to a rebellion by former regime remnants, though he is certainly aware of the extent to which armed sectarian mobilisation against Alawite civilians is deeply entrenched in Syrian jihadist organisations, he himself having played a well-documented role in this context.

The brutality and savagery of the crimes committed by militias in the coastal region precipitated another wave of mass displacement within Syria—including thousands of people who sought refuge at the Russian military base in Syria—and external displacement to Lebanon, as if the spectre of Assad continues to loom over the country. The massacres sent a message: Alawites in the coastal region may be the starting point, but others may follow. A report recently published by Al Majalla, citing a Western diplomat, suggested that three other, non-jihadist armed groups run by Turkey were involved in the sectarian violence against Alawites. If accurate, this compounds the complexity of the Syrian situation given the historically unequal relationship between Turkey and HTS since the latter’s inception.

Compounding the problem is the catastrophic economic situation facing Syria. A report issued last month by the United Nations Development Fund concluded that if current growth rates continue, Syria will not reach its 2011 GDP level before 2080—that is, not for another fifty-five years in a country where ninety per cent of Syrians live in poverty. To shorten the recovery period to ten years, annual economic growth must increase six fold.

Undertaking such a historic mission is practically unfeasible in a country divided into armed cantons with a long history of mutual suspicion and into majority and minority sects, large sections of which are imbued with a toxic hatred that did not dissipate with Assad’s departure. In addition, influential international and regional parties who maintain military bases in the country harbour ambitions that are whetted by the slow pace of recovery and the new ruler’s inability to formulate an inspiring Syrian project with which all Syrian forces can identify, even at the expense of his own factional project.

This may be what the UN report meant when it asserted that ‘recovery requires a clear national vision’ and ‘a comprehensive strategy addressing governance reform.’ Unfortunately, many of the measures, policies, and announcements that have come out of Damascus since 8 December are steps in the opposite direction. They reflect the delusion that the new administration can succeed where its predecessors, who identified with the Alawite minority, failed, simply because the new rulers believe they have the support of a Sunni majority. If that illusion is deeply held, they are offering a great service to the project for Syrian partition and its regional sponsors.

The crisis of international confidence in the new Syrian administration has also been exacerbated by the massacre of innocent, unarmed civilians in the coastal region and the inability to prevent or mitigate it or provide evidence to refute human rights and media reports alleging the involvement of militias in the ‘new’ army and the new security administration, with the active participation of foreign fighters supported by HTS.

The waning confidence in the new Syrian administration was also reflected in the closed-door session of the UN Security Council and the statement issued on 14 March. While the majority of the statement’s demands addressed the ‘interim authority’ in Syria, the statement addressed the entirety of Syria regarding the importance of taking the necessary measures to confront the threat of ‘foreign terrorist fighters.’ According to one report on the council’s deliberations, a proposal to direct the demand to address the problem of foreign fighters to the new administration was rejected.

The crisis of declining confidence was also apparent at the international donors’ conference for Syria, held in Brussels on 17 March. The easing of economic sanctions on Syria was postponed, and generous grants intended to aid Syria were not channelled through the Syrian government, but through international institutions.

Ahmed al-Sharaa needs to re-examine the past hundred days. Perhaps he can draw conclusions that will help in the unenviable task of finding a way out of this national sectarian, political, and economic impasse. Perhaps it will allow him to formulate a participatory national vision that kindles the enthusiasm of all Syrians, harnesses their energies, and closes the door to old resentments and regional ambitions.

In this context, it may be useful to take another look at the dead end road taken by the rulers, both secular and non-secular, of most Arab countries since national independence mid last century. The problem was neither the extent of their secularism nor the depth of their Islam. These rulers, despite their divergent persuasions, pursued the same policies as the foreign coloniser, based on the proposition that their peoples are unfit for self-government. Syrians hope that Bashar al-Assad will be the last of these ‘national’ colonisers.

Source: Manassa