Can Syria be unified? |
In recent days, leaked recordings and documents have provided the rough outline of a conspiracy to launch an insurgency in the Alawite-dominated coastal region of Syria. Behind the plan are a number of high-level officials of the former regime of Bashar al-Assad living in exile. The leaks reveal the recruitment of fighters within the Alawite community, the movement and storage of weapons, and the transfer of payments to their families.
The revelations come months after an insurrection staged in the coastal region in March led to the deaths of more than 1,000 people, including civilians, government troops and Alawite fighters.
Similar violence erupted again in July in Suwayda, the Druze stronghold in southern Syria where several hundred Druze civilians were killed as government forces tried – unsuccessfully – to restore order after clashes between Sunni tribes and Druze militias.
There have also been sporadic clashes between the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and government forces despite a March 10 agreement to integrate the former into the national army.
Concerns are now growing that minority-dominated regions may be carved out, undermining the establishment of a strong Syrian state or even violating the territorial integrity of the country. Such a development, however, is not inevitable.
While the leaked recordings and documents show that al-Assad regime remnants have not accepted their fate and are planning a comeback in some form, they are far from being successful. Most Alawites, deeply shaken by what they view as abandonment and betrayal by the al-Assad family, seem to have resigned themselves to living under a new authority and are trying to adapt to this reality.
While a small number of die-hard figures may still harbour fantasies of a return to power, possibly through the creation of a coastal enclave, such ambitions remain politically detached from the broader Alawite community.
What shapes Alawite attitudes today are economic deprivation and physical insecurity, not aspirations for secession or restoration of the former regime.
Last month, the response to calls for protests by Ghazal Ghazal, head of the so-called Islamic Alawite Council in Syria and the Diaspora, reflected accumulated grievances rather than realistic political........