In December, a band of rebel groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham shocked the world by ousting Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. HTS’s leader, Ahmed al-Shara, created a government to oversee the country’s transition. Shara is a former jihadist who once led al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate. Nonetheless, U.S. President Donald Trump soon threw his weight behind him, describing him as “tough” and “attractive” after meeting him in May. Since then, the United States has suspended sanctions against Syria and issued statements in support of Shara’s interim government.

Since Shara assumed power, he has courted foreign support by disavowing jihadism and raising the prospect of normalizing Syria’s relations with Israel. Such rhetoric, combined with his relatively successful rule over Syrian Sunnis in Idlib Province during the final years of the civil war, persuaded current and former U.S. officials that Shara was the man for the moment.

Today, Syria is once again racked by violence, and Shara’s coalition includes unreformed jihadists. The problem with Washington’s Syria policy is not that it backs a former al-Qaeda ally but that it endorses Shara’s vision of centralized rule over a diverse and sectarian country riven by deep mistrust. In July, the U.S. special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, went so far as to rule out U.S. support for any sort of federal arrangement, such as allowing for local control of policing.

The transitional government in Damascus has fiercely repudiated federalism, which it sees as a prelude to anarchy, state disintegration, and the loss of HTS control. Nearby examples hardly inspire confidence: Lebanon’s consociational system and Iraq’s federal one are marginally functional. And some of Shara’s allies believe it is the prerogative of Syria’s Sunni Muslims, who make up a majority of the population, to rule over religious minorities.

Shara and his closest advisers lack a clear vision of the country they want to build. They are used to running Idlib, a small city with one main street, as a haven for Islamists—not a large, multiethnic state. Moreover, Shara is not an all-powerful authoritarian; he is constrained by his inner circle and makes decisions in consultation with them. His advisers are inclined to hoard power.

For the country to have a chance at recovering from 50 years of despotism and a decade of civil war, it must allow minority communities to retain a degree of autonomy. Syria is likely to be ruled by a strongman, and without some form of federalism, intense intercommunal violence will continue. If minorities fear a predatory central government, they will resist and potentially enlist outside powers in their fight. A return to civil war is not out of the question. Syria’s partners, including the United States, should encourage a power-sharing arrangement.

LITTLE ARMIES EVERYWHERE

When Assad was toppled, Shara struck many foreign governments as the right person to govern Syria. Syria’s Sunni Arabs assumed that the country could no longer be ruled by a religious or ethnic minority—such as the Assads, who were Alawite—and that the Islamists who forced Assad out would be part of the next government. Washington recognized that its influence over the transition would be limited. The United States did have clout in northeastern Syria because for years it maintained a small military presence there to prevent the reemergence of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and to disrupt Iran’s access to Lebanon. Now that ISIS appears a shell of its former self and Syria is run by a government that is staunchly opposed to Iran, Trump has begun to remove troops from seven of the eight U.S. bases in Syria.

There was a moment following Shara’s seizure of power when relief at Assad’s departure and longing for stability might have laid the groundwork for uncompromising centralization. Today, Shara’s government controls a corridor from Daraa in the south to Aleppo in the north, along the M5 highway, as well as Idlib and the Alawite coast in the northwest of the country. It does not control Suwayda in the southwest or the Kurdish northeast.

The possibility of centralization, however, was curtailed in March when Sunni fighters—some of whom belong to Syria’s new government forces—killed at least 1,500 Alawites. Shara’s government has blamed the Alawites for initiating the cycle of violence and said that the killings should be seen in the context of a natural desire for vengeance against a community that had supported Assad’s malignant regime. The composition of Assad’s support base was, in reality, more complicated. Plenty of Sunnis supported and fought for the old regime. And the Assads did little to alleviate poverty among Alawites to ensure they would remain trapped in servitude to the army and the state. Wherever the balance of vice and virtue lay, Shara’s government appeared to condone retributive violence.

Then, in July, Shara’s government facilitated attacks against another minority religious community, the Druze, who populate Suwayda Province, which stretches from the south of Damascus to the Jordanian border. Syria’s Druze live in an impoverished area and adhere to an esoteric religion rejected by many Muslims as un-Islamic. The government accused the Druze of resisting its rule and, in combination with tens of thousands of Bedouin tribal fighters, attacked Druze villages, killing hundreds of people, including many noncombatants. They also blockaded Suwayda, restricting road access to a southern checkpoint where they regulated the entry of humanitarian convoys. Although Bedouin tribes and Druze joined forces against Assad during the civil war, they have long been at odds. Competition for resources has renewed their old rivalry, and radical Islamist influencers on Telegram, a messaging app, have whipped up sectarian animosity between the two sides and have exulted in the murder and rape of Druze villagers.

The Syrian government says it has recruited 100,000 soldiers.

Israel views itself as a protector of the Druze because it has its own substantial Druze minority and wants the Syrian Druze to serve as a buffer between Israel and the new Islamist regime in Damascus. Israeli forces ended the assault on the Druze by launching airstrikes against Bedouin fighters and bombing Syria’s defense ministry. If Israel had not intervened, many more people may have died.

Shara is inclined to use force to get what he wants and has a formidable tool in the Bedouin fighters at his disposal. During the Assad regime, the state enlisted some Bedouin tribes to fight its battles but did so on a much smaller scale. In July, Shara’s government was able to mobilize Bedouin forces from nearly all parts of Syria, aided by jihadist online influencers, many of whom are not affiliated with the government. This burgeoning digital network has terrified vulnerable minority communities, as has the government’s refusal since the attacks to guarantee Druze security or allow enough aid to pass into Suwayda. Officials within Shara’s government believe that any concessions to Druze would reward them for rebellion.

These bouts of violence have galvanized yet another minority, Syria’s Kurds, who occupy a stretch of territory in the country’s northeast. The Syrian Democratic Forces, a mostly Kurdish militia that includes Arab fighters, allied with American troops to defeat ISIS in Syria. In pursuit of centralized rule, Shara has pressed the SDF to surrender its arms and integrate with a new Syrian army that would replace Assad’s military. But after witnessing the regime support attacks on Alawites and Druze, the Kurds have lost whatever appetite they might have had for surrendering their arsenals and melting into Shara’s army. Indeed, SDF representatives have described the shift in their attitude toward the interim government as “pre-Suwayda” and “post-Suwayda.”

The interim government was meant to hold talks with SDF leaders in Paris this summer but withdrew in August, saying that the time for negotiation was over and that the issue of Kurdish integration would be settled “on the ground,” presumably by force, with Deir ez-Zor as a possible starting point. Still, Shara’s forces don’t seem strong enough to subsume or challenge Kurdish militias. The Syrian government says it has recruited 100,000 soldiers, including 30,000 from the former Syrian National Army, but these numbers appear inflated. Even if Damascus succeeded in organizing, training, and equipping an army of this size, it would be responsible for huge swaths of land, so the SDF would continue to enjoy superiority over the smaller territory it controls. Druze leaders, who have historically been factionalized, have united to reject efforts to absorb their land into a centralized state dominated by HTS. And Druze militias have come together to form a so-called national guard to protect the territorial integrity of Suwayda.

MAJORITY RULES?

The more the government represses minorities, the more minority groups will resist the government’s push for centralized rule. The result will be more bloodshed, greater opportunities for foreign states—such as Israel or Iran—to intervene in Syria, and the continued impoverishment and immiseration of ordinary Syrians of all stripes. The United States would be wise to stop rejecting federalism and encourage the transfer of some power to local or regional authorities. Fiscal and monetary policy, foreign relations, and defense of Syria’s borders should remain with the central government. Such a system could avoid the political gridlock that consociationalism has produced in Lebanon by allowing minorities to wield some power in the parts of the country where they make up a majority rather than forcing inclusivity at the federal level. It would also be preferable to Iraq’s system, which is plagued by endless economic disputes because it devolves significant power to the Kurdistan Regional Government. Although Lebanon and Iraq still have problems, they would be worse off if their central governments were not constrained. Washington must try to persuade Syrian leaders that their quest for total centralization of power will backfire by driving intercommunal wedges deeper, stoking violence, depressing economic growth, and weakening their international credibility.

American policymakers seem to be slowly coming around to the idea of a federal structure for Syria. The office of the U.S. special envoy for Syria still maintains that it has complete faith in Shara’s competence and his commitment to a pluralistic Syria but is more wary about the high cost and feasibility of centralized rule. In August, Barrack said he supported “something short of [a federation].”

Ultimately, Syrians will determine their own system of government, and that is how it should be. Yet the Trump administration must recognize the weight of its words and ensure that it is not inadvertently encouraging the interim government’s worst inclinations, which could wind up pushing the country back into civil war.

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