Syria needs a functioning state to take on ISIS

ISIS extremists in Deir Ezzor province in eastern Syria. AP

Nearly three months since the fall of Bashar Al Assad’s government, the new authorities in Damascus still must grapple with the challenges of reuniting Syria. Building a fully functional state that has primacy over a country divided by a 14-year-long civil war was always going to be arduous. But it has taken on a new urgency amid the growing threat posed by ISIS.

In January, interim President Ahmad Al Shara had announced the dissolution of all armed factions and other revolutionary bodies opposed to the Assad government, and their merging into state institutions (including a reconstituted army). This remains a work in progress. All eyes are also on the interim government expected to be announced by Mr Al Shara, including who is chosen to be minister of justice, interior and defence.

Syria’s new Ministry of Defence is in talks with more than 60 rebel groups, many of which have yet to merge into the army. Reasons vary from a reluctance to give up control over the territories they govern, to a lack of trust in the new rulers who, as some groups justifiably point out, don’t have the people’s mandate. Two such groups include the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army in the north-west and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the north-east.

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Ankara and Damascus worry that the SDF may be seeking to carve out a Kurdish semi-autonomous state of its own. There are also concerns about SDF ties with the militant PKK group, considered a terrorist organisation by numerous countries. But the group is also a partner to the US-led global coalition against ISIS. Having contributed to its defeat in 2019, it now holds many of its fighters and their families inside closely guarded camps. The SDF has repeatedly insisted that it wants to be part of a unified Syria, but as one official told The National, the group will retain its weapons as long as ISIS remains active in the country. This has put Damascus in a quandary.

Today, as Syria emerges from its decade-long civil strife, a regrouped ISIS poses an even bigger security threat to the country as well as to its neighbours. As Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein recently told The National, a weak security status in Syria means ISIS’s resurgence can be destabilising for the whole region. It is a situation that calls for a coalition of regional, and even international, agreements to fight and defeat ISIS militarily.

Given Syria’s centrality in such an operation, Damascus may have little option but to lean heavily on groups such as the SDF

But winning the ideological war against ISIS is even more critical to Syria’s long-term security. The group’s use of social media gives it the ability to exploit existing or new divisions and grievances in societies with the objective of recruiting fighters and growing its ranks. This makes it vital for the interim administration to ensure that no Syrian is left behind in the nation-building project.

To build credibility with all Syrians, Damascus requires a deft hand while negotiating with armed groups like the SDF and the SNA. Indeed, it should know that a top-down approach – similar to the one adopted by the Assad government over the past five decades – and worse, a return to armed confrontation, won’t help to put Syria back together. The military restructuring currently under way must, therefore, be linked to the political transition, which requires a new constitution and, eventually, elections.

Syrians need only look to countries such as Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan to understand how creeping sectarianism undermines the often-painfully slow mission of ensuring a viable nation-state. There is no time to be wasted.