In this edition of The New Lines Institute Middle East Center’s Post-Assad Podcast series, Middle East Center co-director Nicholas A. Heras sits down with Dr. Sultan Alamer to assess how the new governing authorities in Damascus can reimagine Syrian nationalism after Assad and build an inclusive state for all Syrians. Dr. Alamer is a Resident Senior Fellow with the Middle East Center at The New Lines Institute, and a senior member of the editorial committee of Alpheratz, an Arabic language magazine. He is also a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University’s Center of Middle East Studies, an executive committee member of the Arab Political Science Network, and a Bucerius Fellow at the Zeit-Stiftung Ebling und Gerd Bucerius. Heras and Dr. Alamer analyze the potential scenarios where the successful Syrian revolution could result in new mass movements for political reform, or even revolution, in other states in the wider Middle East.
Nicholas Heras:
Hello everyone, my name is Nick Heras, and I’m the co-director of the Middle East Center at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy. I am hosting this episode in the institute’s post-Assad podcast series. In this episode we will be discussing the prospects for building Syrian nationalism after Assad, and the implications of the successful Syrian Revolution for inspiring other mass political movements for reform, and even revolution, in the wider Middle East.
Joining me for this conversation is a truly special expert on state building and national identity creation in the Middle East, the world-renowned academic Dr. Sultan Alamer. Dr. Alamer is a Resident Senior Fellow with the Middle East Center here at the New Lines Institute, and a senior member of the Editorial Committee of Alpheratz, an Arabic-language magazine that is a sister organization to the Middle East Center. He is also a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Center of Middle East Studies, and a Bucerius Fellow at the Zeit-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius. Dr. Alamer is the author of many scholarly articles on nationalism and nation building, governance, technology, and regional politics in the Middle East, with a special focus on the Arab Gulf countries.
Welcome, Dr. Alamer, and thank you for joining me for this discussion. Dr. Alamer, I want to start by asking you, as a noted scholar on state formation in the Middle East: In your analysis, what dynamics should analysts be following closely as the post-Assad governance structure in Syria is being created?
Dr. Sultan Alamer:
Thank you, Nick. I think Syria presents us with several challenges for people who want to understand and study state formation. These include, first of all, issues with basic governance needs and requirements. These include building their institutions and their political structures for the ability for the new leadership to project power from large cities to the periphery of the countries. They also present us with a challenge of political transition from a war-torn country, and which include the process of constitution-making and ability of building an inclusive government. This challenge is also combined with the challenge that there is a lack of basic governance institutions in the country. These two challenges also are becoming even more challenging if we add to them the challenge of transitional justice. We see demands from certain segments of the Syrian population asking for remedies and addressing the injustices that happened during the Assad regime, and that might complicate the process of political transition.
In addition to this third challenge, we also see a problem with nation building and reconstruction. Syria is in a dire economic state, and that would hinder the ability of the new leadership to build institutions and have the ability to project power on the other parts of the country, and also steer the transition in a peaceful manner. In addition to these challenges, I would add the problem of building and maintaining the coalition. We know that the people and groups that toppled the Assad regime are not coherent and are composed of different factions and groups. If that coalition isn’t managed in a wise manner, that might lead also to a recurrence of violence and infighting between these groups.
So Syria is faced with all these challenges, and at the same time it is in a difficult neighborhood, in terms of the region. The countries that surround Syria are either failed states or states with active wars happening, surrounding them, or are in a neighborhood where the major players are not democratic states interested in promoting some kind of democracy and peaceful transition. Instead, these countries are more into the authoritarian promotion business than into democracy promotion.
Adding to this, Syria is under a sanctioned regime that it is very severe. This would limit the ability of countries in the region and globally to provide some kind of aid or help during this process. Each one of these problems could be a huge challenge. Having all these challenges together in this country that just came out of 13 years of civil war and is in a very dire economic situation makes the overall challenge for its leadership huge, and requires all kinds of help for them to navigate this without falling into another civil war or a recurrence of violence.
Nicholas Heras:
Thank you very much, Dr. Alamer, and it’s a very detailed breakdown of some of the challenges ahead for the HTS-led transition government in Damascus.
I want to ask you, there’s a big debate among Syrians right now, and within the interested international community, about how the post-Assad state in Syria conceptualizes what we might call Syrian nationalism and what Syrian nationalism should mean, and for which Syrian communities. What is your assessment of the best approach that the post-Assad Syrian state should take to construct and achieve buy-in to an inclusive Syrian nationalism that can appeal across the country’s diverse communities?
Dr. Sultan Alamer:
Currently, there are at least three visions for Syrian nationalists. The first one we can call Syria as an Arab-Sunni-Umayyad country. This vision of Syrian nationalism was developed during the war as an anti-Iranian strategy, but it grew to have its own life. The basic idea within this vision of Syrian nationalism is that Syria, as a state, is owned by the Sunni majority, and it should be led by this majority. Normally, proponents of this strand of nationalism advance all reasons to support their position; for example, that Sunnis are the majority. Here we see how the normative connotation of the notion of a democratic majority is being transferred and attached to the numerical and communal majority.
They also advance another reason when they say that the Sunnis are the ones who suffered the most from the Assad regime, and they add that the Sunnis are the ones who liberated the country from the Assad regime. And finally, the Sunnis are the legitimate inheritors of an imagined, medieval, glorified Umayyad Empire. This vision is mainly promoted by people belonging to the Sunni militant groups that defeated Assad, and they are socially based, both inside and outside Syria. It is also shared by Islamist groups and Sunni groups around the region.
The other vision for Syrian nationalism is that Syria is a kind of a sectarian, mosaic nation. This vision aligns with the first vision in viewing Syria society as composed of sects and ethnicities. However, instead of allowing Sunnis to take a leading and hegemonic rule, this vision suggests some kind of framework in which each sect has a relatively equal membership in the Syrian nation, and equal in Syria’s future. This vision is mainly promoted by individuals who belong to minorities within Syria, as well as by international actors who seem to want to replicate the arrangements we’ve seen in Lebanon and Iraq to also be in place in Syria.
The third vision of Syrian nationalism is one that is based on individual rights and human rights; it’s a kind of a civic nationalism. This vision of a Syrian nation is based on equal political and civic rights for all citizens, with some kind of cultural and religious recognition of communal groups. Unfortunately, this third vision of Syrian nationalism appeals to the Syrian diaspora who live in Europe and North America, and some of them in Türkiye as well, but it’s not widely shared by Syrians on the ground, based on my preliminary observation.
As for the best approach the Syrian state should take to achieve some kind of a buy-in, I could list a few things. I think, first and foremost, that the state should get rid of any sectarian framing in its discourse, or official media, or policies and practices. And when it comes to policy areas related to state identity, such as constitution making, education, or religious affairs, I think the state should refrain from top-down strategies or highly technocratic approaches. Instead, it should adopt roundtable strategies that kind of institutionalize the participation of stakeholders, without conditioning their participation on their sectarian or ethnic background, focusing instead on their political agenda or programs.
Given that the previous regime was highly sectarian, the state should be very careful and sensitive in addressing past injustices and crimes. The emphasis should be on criminals as individuals and bringing them to justice as not revenge or an act directed to their sectarian or ethnic community. You don’t want to see a scene similar to the execution of Saddam Hussein’s in Iraq. When he was executed, sectarian chants were voiced, making it seem as though the Shia in Iraq executed him as a Sunni leader, rather than that the state of Iraq executed him as a brutal dictator.
Nicholas Heras:
Thank you, Dr. Alamer. I want to ask you, following up from that response: Do you think the region is watching Syria closely? Syria, as you know and as you’ve outlined, is a hugely important country in the Middle East, for both historical and other purposes. And it seems that what might happen in Syria could in fact significantly affect the perceptions of a range of different stakeholders across the region who believe in reform movements and would like to see the Syrian Revolution be the inspiration for reform in their own country. So, in what way do you think there is a potential domino effect that could occur as a result of the successful Syrian Revolution that we’re seeing unfolding?
Dr. Sultan Alamer:
I would say that, first, we must recognize that the fall of the Assad regime was partially a result of the war in Gaza, and this war is still active in Gaza and in Yemen and partially in Syria itself. And if we take the threats from the coming administration seriously, then we might see this war expanding in the region. This context limits the attractiveness of the Syrian Revolution because many pro-Palestine, reform-oriented groups in the Arab world, especially in Egypt, Iraq, and North Africa, view what happened in Syria negatively and through the lens of Gaza war. So this is the first aspect.
As for the second aspect, the new leader of Syria, made it very clear that the revolution has ended, and that Syria will not act as a kind of a revolutionary exporter country. That in itself is not significant, but it shows some kind of indications of where the new leadership would go in dealing with the dictatorships and authoritarian governments in the region. In terms of how both groups and regimes in the region responded to the prospect of having some kind of a spillover or a domino effect from Syria, we see a variation of responses on regimes.
For example, Egypt is being now the most country that has some kind of a panic response. Since the fall of Assad, the Egyptian media haven’t stopped from attacking and aggressively viewing what happened in Syria as some kind of a bad thing, that there’s something negative. The Egyptian president appeared several times addressing what is happening in Syria and showing tension and anxiety about what is happening there. Also, just a few days ago, Egypt just adopted a new policy of preventing Syrians from visiting Egypt. All these responses indicate some kind of stress and panic within the leadership of the Egyptian state. On the opposite side, if you take a look at what’s happening in Saudi Arabia, we see there was an increase of tolerance of speech in public forums and social media. And also, we see a series of releases of prominent political human rights activists in the past month.
If we take another example, which is the United Arab Emirates, we see that there was an incident of an Egyptian-Turkish activist, Abdul Rahman Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is the son of Yusuf al-Qaradawi. the famous religious scholar. He went to visit Syria and he made a video at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, criticizing the United Arab Emirates in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. When he went back to Türkiye through Lebanon, he was arrested in Lebanon, and today he was deported to the United Arab Emirates. This case has been all over the news in the Arab world, especially in social media and among activist groups. It shows the extent to which countries like the United Arab Emirates would go to prevent a spillover from what’s happening in Syria to the region.
In terms of the reform groups, based on my conversation with activists from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and others, it seems that the Syrian model is doing two things. The first one is it shows that the Turkish-Qatari axis has proven itself to be successful, in allowing supporting groups to topple dictatorships in their country and bring some kind of a change within that regime. And I’ve heard from colleagues in different parts of the Arab diaspora that they now view Türkiye and Qatar as solid partners in their pursuit of achieving reform in their countries.
There is also a new perception of the role of bearing arms against a dictatorship. I’ve read several statements from fringe Egyptian activists and reform movements that they would view holding arms against the ISIS regime to be something new because they see that this is a group affiliated with Al-Qaeda, has all the sanctions, and is listed as a terrorist organization in every country. But when it was able to topple the Assad regime, the perception of its leadership and itself has changed suddenly. So they’re now rethinking their peaceful and nonmilitary tactics. But again, this is only on the fringes of the movement. The main bodies of these movements are still committed to come kind of a peaceful strategy for political change, but they are all viewing the axis, the Turkish-Qatari axis, as being potentially a good strategic partner for bringing change in their home countries.
Nicholas Heras:
Could I build from this point that you make, because I think it’s really important? We have become accustomed, as both regional observers but also those from outside the region, to a type of Saudi, Emirati, Qatari, Turkish rivalry. And of course, relations between those countries are complex, dynamic, and nuanced. But it does seem that one of the major analytical questions for many observers in the Middle East, both inside the region itself and outside it, is to what extent will Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates accept a regional chain of events that’s heavily influenced by a sort of Turkish-Qatari partnership, as you’ve outlined? From your perspective, Dr. Alamer, what do you believe will be the Saudi approach to this emerging reality of Turkish-Qatari influence in the region? And do you think there’s a lot of opportunity for there to be pragmatic and practical engagement between these state actors to bring stability to the region?
Dr. Sultan Alamer:
Thank you, Nick, this is a really great question. I would say that since 2021, for the Saudi-Emirati relationship, the two countries have started to have divergent regional policies. And the partnership that was in place between 2015 and 2021 started to weaken and become not as strong as it was before 2021. Since then, we see that Saudi Arabia, from 2015 to 2021, had a war in Yemen, a conflict with Iran, a conflict with Türkiye, and a crisis with Qatar alongside the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bahrain. But since 2021, the Saudis have started to have some kind of a zero problem policy regionally, and that is different from the way that the United Arab Emirates have their policy in place in Yemen and Sudan and in other places.
So given that divergence between the two countries, I would expect that the Saudis would have a different attitude toward what’s happening in Syria than the United Arab Emirates. I would suspect that the Saudis would be much closer to Qatar and Türkiye in their approach to Syria than the Emirates, unless something happened in another country that would change the calculation for the Saudis. But as long as it is contained within Syria, this political change is being received by the Saudi leadership as a positive thing.
Nicholas Heras:
Thank you, Dr. Alamer. I want to ask you both as an academic and intellectual, as a mentor, about the events that we’re seeing unfold now in Syria and the region that are quite, quite a shock, and that potentially could set the region on a course for fundamental change. I want to ask you, in your engagement with the younger, rising generation of intellectuals, activists, and thought leaders in the Middle East, how do you approach that mentorship of them as they engage with this emerging regional reality? What are your tactics to engage with them and to help them place what’s unfolding before their eyes now, in the context of what has come before, so that they can be effective change agents in the future?
Dr. Sultan Alamer:
I would think that what is taking place in the region, not only with Syria but also the whole events that we’ve seen in the past two or three years, is making all our old ways of dealing with and understanding what is taking place in the region, insufficient. And how I deal with this, is that I tend to look at the region within the global trends that we are seeing happening around the world. So there is this global trend of democracy backsliding. The third wave of democratization that started in the late ’80s and peaked in the late ’90s and early 2000s and then started to decline and, since the 2010s, has continued to decline. And the changes that we have seen in Syria are the first that we’ve seen where the leadership doesn’t show those kinds of commitments toward democratic change or a democratic transition. And that fits within this global trend of democracy backsliding.
What does that mean? What does it mean to have a political transition from authoritarianism in a global context, where democracy is no longer the main paradigm? That is one aspect that, when I engage with people who are intellectuals and activists in the region, I try to pose this kind of question in order to think critically about what that has meant.
The second thing is that if we look at the trend within the region for the past 20 years, we see an expansion of civil wars. Most of the political changes that occurred, unfortunately, didn’t lead to a kind of peaceful, liberal, democratic inclusive regime but it fell into a civil war, or a new kind of authoritarianism emerged after the fall of the previous one. So what does that mean for a country like Syria, where all the odds are against the people who would want some kind of a positive outcome, a more democratic, liberal, democratic system? In order to engage with these questions, I emphasize two things.
The first one is that one of the main intellectual obstacles for intellectual leaders and activists in the region engaging critically with these events is that they are prone to believe in an exceptionalist understanding of their own country. Some of my colleagues from Syria are now thinking of Syria as being different, Syria will not repeat the history of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, or other countries. This exceptionalism is problematic because it’s a blind eye and prevents the thinker, intellectual, or activist from benefiting from lessons that can be drawn from comparable cases. And that is the first thing.
The second thing is that because of the way that our communication is being structured, most of these activists and intellectuals are communicating with each other through social media. And the way that these platforms are being constructed, in terms of how the algorithms work, of isolating people from each other, creates some kind of an echo chamber that makes it difficult for them to engage with each other. And the situation in a case like Syria leads to two things. It leads to an increase in polarization among Syrian activists and intellectuals. Each incident happened, each event happened, because they don’t communicate with each other in a healthy way. These incidents act as some kind of a polarizing force, adding more to the polarization that is taking place within this community.
The second thing, because of the weakness of the current government, in terms of its communications strategies, etcetera, etcetera, that makes the Syrian spaces, the online spaces, victims of misinformation and disinformation campaigns, that make it difficult for them to keep up with what’s real, what is not real, what is happening, and what’s not. And that also adds to polarization. So, in order for intellectual leaders and activists and intellectuals to navigate through this, they need to have a very, very disciplined way of thinking critically about things and not having falling debris of exceptionalist thinking or being misled by some kind of misinformation and disinformation campaigns that are happening all around the media or the info system where we interact with each other and communicate with each other.
Nicholas Heras:
Thank you, Dr. Alamer; you outlined very well the opportunities, but also the challenges, that we are facing at this moment in Syria. Can I ask you, what would be your advice to the U.S. and how it should approach Syria moving forward? If you were sitting there at, let’s say, the state Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and they’re asking you, “How do you build an inclusive, transparent, and democratic future in Syria that would also inspire the rest of the region toward reform?” What would you say to them?
Dr. Sultan Alamer:
I would say, first, that I think the change in Syria offers the U.S. a huge opportunity to solidify its position in the region, especially against both Russia and Iran. But in order for the United States to benefit from this situation, it needs to recognize that this country is now in a dire economic situation with a weak governance structure and lacks the basic infrastructure and institutions to become a functional, inclusive, liberal democracy.
Therefore, the approach should be both incremental and recognize the challenges and the conditions that are needed to introduce some kind of political and economic liberalization policies. Because of what we learned from other cases, starting in the ’90s, that when international organizations or third-party countries become involved in a country that just got out of a civil war, and try to introduce some kind of political and economic liberalization policies, normally these policies have destabilization effects on that country. So in order to achieve this goal of an inclusive, liberal democracy, third-party actors should be sensitive in order to be incremental in their way of adopting these policies. At the same time, they need to recognize that certain conditions need to be in place before, in order to be able to mitigate the destabilizing aspects of introducing some kind of economic and democratic liberalization policies.
One other thing is that the policy on Syria should be separated from the policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What we learned from the Sudanese case during the Trump administration, when the Sudanese were able to topple Omar al-Bashir’s dictatorship in Sudan, what the Trump administration did was to condition removing Sudan from the list of tourism-sponsored countries on their normalization with Israel. This condition has nothing to do with creating and building up the institutions of Sudan. And it ended up having Sudan engage in another civil war that is currently taking place and didn’t end. So in order to learn from this lesson, there should be a separation between how to treat Syria and not condition its removal from the sanctioned regime and the policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
We’ve seen now a good step toward easing some of these sanctions imposed on Syria, but these sanctions should be removed permanently in order to allow the Syrian people some kind of room to rebuild their country and address the many challenges that we just talked about at the beginning of this episode.
Nicholas Heras:
Thank you very much for joining us for this discussion, Dr. Alamer. And thank you all for listening today. If you liked this episode, remember to subscribe to the New Lines Institute on SoundCloud, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts. Visit www.newlinesinstitute.org if you’d like to hear more from our team of experts on all sorts of important topics in global affairs, and we will see you in the next episode. Goodbye, and all the best.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not an official policy or position of the New Lines Institute.