The Syrian State After Suwayda
The recent fighting was far more than a transient security incident. It was a profound setback for society.
Diwan
Diwan, a blog from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Program and the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, draws on Carnegie scholars to provide insight into and analysis of the region.
After fourteen years of civil war, Syria is engaged in its toughest battle yet, namely reshaping the state during a complex transitional phase in which local and regional dynamics have become intertwined. The recent events in Suwayda, which quickly descended into sectarian violence, exposed the limits of centralized control and attempts to impose sovereignty within fragile local contexts. Southern Syria, long a contested zone of influence, has resurfaced as a place of conflict, where localism has merged with sectarianism, and where national politics have clashed with regional ambitions.
The Suwayda fighting followed the kidnapping of a Druze vegetable seller by a Bedouin group, in a region where the Druze-Bedouin rivalry has long simmered. This soon escalated into widespread sectarian violence, marked by retaliatory attacks and summary executions. The transitional government, led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, sent government forces to Suwayda to restore order. However, the military operation failed both tactically and politically, as these forces were accused of perpetrating human rights violations against Druze civilians. Meanwhile, Israel seized the moment to implement a decision taken last February that southern Syria remain demilitarized, and it carried through on its pledge to protect the Druze in Suwayda by bombing the Syrian Defense Ministry in Damascus and an area near the presidential palace. This led to outside intervention to prevent an escalation, leading to an agreement involving the United States and the Syrian authorities. Syrian government forces were compelled to withdraw from Suwayda, and since then a shaky ceasefire has been in place.
At the height of the fighting, Bedouin tribes mobilized on the outskirts of Suwayda Governorate in solidarity with their Bedouin kin, but they lacked a unified leadership. The Bedouin-Druze fighting, with government forces deployed in the background, transformed the conflict from a relatively limited local dispute into a complex multiparty struggle with regional repercussions.
The danger today lies in the convergence of three trajectories: a Druze desire to seek protection; the Syrian leadership’s willingness to assert its authority and sovereignty through the use of force; and Israel’s intention to expand its sphere of influence in southern Syria. What Damascus perceived as a green light from the Israelis to expand its authority to Suwayda Governorate, which was allegedly secured during talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, was viewed by Israel as a blatant violation of understandings reached between the two sides. The result was catastrophic—bloodshed, a crisis of trust for the Syrian leadership, and new power relations in southern Syria.
What unfolded in Suwayda was far more than a transient security incident; it was a profound setback for Syrian society. Violence became a catalyst for sectarian polarization, threatening to derail the country’s political transition and undermine coexistence among the country’s different communities and between citizens and the nascent state. Furthermore, the authorities framed the violence in binary terms—good versus evil, patriot versus traitor, and for the state or for chaos. The leading Druze spiritual leader, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, was portrayed as a symbol of rebellion and treachery, even as the broader context was overlooked: Israel’s influence in southern Syria did not emerge overnight but solidified over the years when the central authorities withdrew from the region, which was characterized by a complete absence of security.
Southern Syria has never been a quiet periphery. After 2013, it became a testing ground for various models of regional influence—from Iran’s extensive involvement in trying to build up allied forces in the area, to the experiment of the Southern Front, a coalition of rebel factions backed by the United States and its Arab allies. This reality completely reshaped the south, turning it into an arena for regional competition. Today, Israel appears to be constructing its own sphere of influence in the south, drawing inspiration from Türkiye’s model in the north. This involves local arrangements with informal administrations in place, backed by outside security support, all serving Israeli interests but without direct Israeli control. This is the logic of “flexible borders,” where clear sovereignty is absent, replaced by floating understandings fulfilling external objectives.
What makes this project deeply perilous is not only its military repercussions but the permanent social fragility it has created. Turning Suwayda into a permanent zone of external influence only entrenches a logic of cantonization, turning every local dispute into a potential trigger for broader regionalization or internationalization. It also reproduces a deadly equation, one in which there is no trust among Syrians and no single authority to lead them. The divisive discourse that surfaced during the Suwayda crisis only laid the foundation for a divided Syrian consciousness incapable of moving toward stability.
Ultimately, the events in Suwayda demonstrated that the transitional government’s approach to rebuilding a centralized state along Baathist lines is no longer viable, and may even be dangerous. The violence was not isolated. It was an extension of patterns that emerged earlier along Syria’s coast, which were characterized by an ideological-political dimension that only reinforced political and sectarian identities, driving communities to cling to their weapons. This is especially true in a state such as Syria, where national institutions are weak or have collapsed, but it can also be true in Lebanon to a lesser degree.
Nor is this pattern of violence necessarily confined to southern or coastal areas of Syria. It may spread to other regions, such as eastern Syria where Kurds reside, or border areas with Lebanon, where Shiite communities live in the Beqaa Valley. The spread of violence would emerge from the interplay of clashing political identities, institutional fragility, and frictions arising from overlapping zones of regional influence. In such volatile environments, violence would become not only a tool of coercion but a means of collective identity formation in the absence of statehood.
Postwar Syria is not simply a state in need of institutional reform. It is a multidimensional entity necessitating a deep redefinition. The situation today demands more than troop redeployments or forceful control. It requires a new political imagination that recognizes multiple centers of power and participatory governance, while embracing negotiated conflict management. Such an approach would move Syria away from the illusions of a rigid, unified state, which no longer seems possible.
Kheder Khaddour
Nonresident Scholar, Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center