Syrian President Ahmad Al Shara has been handed a victory on a silver platter, with the US seemingly walking away from the mostly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, his most formidable rival.
In three days, a decade of SDF rule over Syria’s most resource-rich areas in the Euphrates River basin ended as pro-government forces advanced into eastern Syria without meeting any significant resistance.
Washington prevented the group, which had resisted Mr Al Shara's effort to consolidate power under a unitary system, from using its more advanced weapons and did not respond to at least one call for military help, SDF sources said. On Sunday, a ceasefire deal brokered by Washington formalised the government's control over most of the territory formerly held by the SDF, which had demanded a federal system and a share of the country's oil revenue for integrating into the new state.
However, Washington will seek to extract a price from Mr Al Shara to further its wider goals in the Middle East, foremost among them a peace treaty between Syria and Israel, a Syrian government official and other sources told The National on Tuesday.
The Syrian leadership realises that Washington did not side with Damascus “for free” against the SDF, the Syrian official said on condition of anonymity.
The government started its takeover of SDF areas after a US-supervised meeting between Israel and Syria on January 6 in Paris, where the two countries agreed to avoid hostilities and explore security and commercial co-operation. The official declined to say whether Damascus received Washington's permission to advance into SDF territory in relation to the Paris meeting.
“Both the US and Israel realise that the era of dealing with Syria's minorities is over,” the official said.
Syria and Israel are technically at war despite years of negotiations in the 1990s and 2000s under the auspices of Washington and then Turkey. However, Mr Al Shara's rise to power in December 2024 has turned the one-time Al Qaeda operative into a US ally and changed the calculations in the region.
The removal of president Bashar Al Assad by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, led by Mr Al Shara, ushered in Sunni political ascendancy in Syria after 61 years of domination by the country's Alawite minority.
The Alawite elite sought to build a so-called “alliance of minorities”, especially during the 2011-2024 civil war, to counter Sunni numerical superiority. Syrian Kurdish forces co-operated with the former regime, which did not oppose their territorial expansion during the war.
The expansion continued under the Kurdish-led SDF, which the US set up in 2015 as the ground force in the war against ISIS in Syria, investing $1 billion in training and support over the next decade.
More effective
However, the SDF's grip on eastern Syria has always been incomplete because the area is majority Arab, unlike the Kurdistan region of Iraq, which is overwhelmingly Kurdish. Arab tribes swiftly turned against the SDF as government forces advanced over the weekend.
The official said the new government has been “consistent” in its relationship with Washington, unlike the SDF, which at several stages in the civil war sought support from Russia and from the former regime.
Damascus has also proved to be a more effective antiterrorism partner by passing on “insider information” about ISIS to Washington that the SDF could not match, as well as having the military capability to strike ISIS anywhere in the country. Following a visit by Mr Al Shara to the White House in November, Syria became a member of the US-led coalition against ISIS.
While Mr Al Shara's roots lie in Al Qaeda, his forces have fought turf warfare with ISIS for years, and as President, he has shed hardline militant rhetoric, including the rigid anti-Israeli stance common to radical organisations in the region.
The Syrian official said a Syria-Israel treaty would lead to a “Jordan scenario”, with western aid flows similar to those received by the kingdom after its 1994 peace treaty with Israel. However, a solution will first have to be found to restore the occupied Golan Heights to Syria without creating security risks for Israel, which took over the plateau in 1967 and annexed it in 1981, he said.
“The leadership has made it clear that its priority is reconstruction” from the civil war, which would take 15 years,” the official said. “The Golan is important, but it should not stand in the way.”
Damascus is in a better position to start rebuilding now that it controls most of the country. The Euphrates River Valley accounts for the bulk of Syria’s power, energy and farming output – resources now back with the central government.
Following the SDF defeat, Thomas Barrack, the US envoy to Syria and Turkey, said that Washington will enable “our long-term Kurdish partners’ full onboarding into a united, inclusive Syria”.
A Syrian source briefed on US policy towards Syria said that any deal Mr Al Shara signs with Israel, even if it falls short of a full-scale peace agreement, would be an asset to Washington and its moderate Middle East allies because of his ideological background and his status as a member of Syria’s Sunni majority.
“His signature would be a blow to the extremists across the region,” said the source.
