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Syria's New Dawn Is Already a Nightmare

(Spiked-UK) Maj. (ret.) Andrew Fox - Last week, Druze villages in southern Syria were overrun by Syrian regime forces and allied Islamist militias under the guise of "restoring order," only for those forces to unleash executions, looting and arson upon Druze neighborhoods. This is, it appears, the dark reality of "national unity" under Syria's new rulers. The optimism that met Syria's new Islamist-led regime last year now appears deeply misguided. Sharaa's ascent to power in December was greeted by many Western leaders and media figures as a fresh start. But for Syria's minorities, the regime change has meant a change in the costumes of the rulers rather than a change in their character. If Syria's president is too weak to stop genocidal violence by forces fighting under his banner, then Syria remains a patchwork of warlords with no real peace. If instead he quietly endorses or tolerates these pogroms, then his government is complicit in crimes against humanity, merely continuing Assad's legacy of brutality under a different flag. The West's willingness to overlook the jihadist pedigree of Sharaa's Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militia in exchange for a quick diplomatic win now looks not just cynical, but also dangerously naive. Sharaa's cabinet is literally teeming with individuals and factions under terrorism and human-rights sanctions. Did London and Washington really believe such actors would morph overnight into guarantors of pluralism and human rights? The writer, who served in the British Army in 2005-21, is a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society and a lecturer at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
2025-07-20 00:00:00
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