Forget the risk of Syria turning into an Islamist emirate. The country’s de facto ruler and former al-Qaeda operative Ahmad Sharaa on Wednesday proclaimed himself “transitional president,” with his X account simply dropping the word “transitional” and referring to him as “president of the Syrian Arab Republic.” But who died and made Sharaa king? The answer is no one. In a region where “might is right,” the guy with the gun becomes “president,” and, before we know it, Sharaa will be president, forever.
But not all Syrians are on board. Taha Bali, a Syrian-American Sunni from Damascus and a supporter of the Syrian revolution since its outbreak in 2011, has been vocal in calling out Syria’s new autocrat and his autocratic tendencies.
Two months after moving into the People’s Palace, once Bashar Assad’s seat of power, Sharaa had “received foreign ministers, intelligence chiefs, celebrities, [International Criminal Court] prosecutor, foreign media and Syrian diaspora,” Bali wrote on X.
But, Sharaa had yet to receive families of Syrians whom Assad had killed or imprisoned, those injured and maimed in 14 years of civil war, local non-governmental organizations, unions or local media. Bali concluded that Sharaa’s intentions were clear. He was only interested in connecting with “the strong,” whether domestic or foreign, while not addressing the Syrians directly or visiting places outside the presidential palace, such as the notorious Saydnaya prison.
To be fair, Sharaa did leave the presidential palace, but only to receive Emir of Qatar Tamim Bin Hamad, whose plane landed at the Damascus airport on Thursday on the first visit by a head of state.
In another post, Bali welcomed the merger of all armed factions into a centralized army but added that the event was exploited to cover for Sharaa taking the reins of power.
Another Syrian revolutionary, Mazen Ezzi, a French-Syrian Druze from Sweida in the south, also objected to what looked like Sharaa’s usurpation of power. The fact that Sharaa relied “on armed factions, rather than political and civil forces,” made it look like a coup rather than political transition, Ezzi argued.
Factions that pledged allegiance to Sharaa, when he proclaimed himself president, were all Sunni, according to Ezzi. “Any political process that excludes Kurds, Alawites, Christians, Druze, Murshidis, Assyrians and others is not a truly national one,” he concluded.
Ezzi was right. Vast swaths of the country remain outside the control of “President Sharaa.” In the southeast, the Kurdish Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) maintain an autonomous government and military. Sharaa called on the Kurds to surrender their arms, but they insisted on agreeing on the process first.
“We told Sharaa that we are willing to join our military capabilities to create a national Syrian army – an institution with agreed on rules and chain of command,” according to SDF chief Mazloum Abdi. “Sharaa does not want to treat us as peers but [wants us] to surrender to him, and that’s something we are not willing to do.” For the Kurds, it helps that their military capabilities, and global connections, are superior to Sharaa’s. But with time, the balance of power might change against them.
Prior to his accession to power, Sharaa said all the right things, claiming that he was not seeking power or fame and that his only goal was to build a diverse and prosperous Syria worthy of its citizens. But since then, Sharaa’s behavior has shown that he only denounced his past to win global recognition that he needs to consolidate power, and – likely – never relinquish it.
For the time being, Sharaa continues to ride on the popular euphoria of ejecting the Assad dynasty, over half a century since the Assads took power.
But soon enough, when Sharaa becomes the undisputed master, he will have to govern. Should the economy tank, Sharaa will need to deploy tactics similar to those of other Middle Eastern dictators: a combination of brutal repression of opponents and deflection of responsibility unto foreign parties – mainly the West and Israel.
Another tactic, perhaps closer to the hearts of Sharaa’s base, would be to revert to Islamism. In 1991, after a global coalition ejected Saddam and crushed Iraq and its economy, the reeling Iraqi dictator launched the “belief campaign” and added the Islamic phrase “God is Great” to the flag. It is likely that, when rubber hits the road and Syria finds itself struggling with unemployment and poverty, Sharaa will revive his Islamist past and engage in Islamization that, in combination with brutal repression, produces an Islamic state in Syria, similar to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, aka ISIS.
Toppling bloody tyrants is great, but no guarantee that whatever comes next will be any different from what preceded it.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD).
