Description

This discussion seeks to critically examine the transition of governance in Syria amid the legacies of conflict and revolution, focusing on the enduring tension between centralized authority and alternative visions of political order. One of the primary challenges faced by revolutionary forces was the absence of sustained international solidarity with their transformative goals, particularly their “radical rhetoric” aimed at dismantling deeply entrenched systems of oppression. The lack of transnational support significantly limited the global legitimacy of their efforts, as international public opinion often diverged from the revolution’s aspirations for systemic change.

Today, this challenge resurfaces in the struggles of the emergent governance structure that, although shaped by revolutionary forces, is similarly seeking recognition and acceptance within the existing international system. This raises a pivotal question: does the re-creation of a centralized nation-state offer a viable pathway for restoring internal control and securing international legitimacy, or does it risk Syria’s isolation and a possible relapse into autocracy under a new guise?

Alternatively, could a reimagined model of governance—one that reduces dependency on Western frameworks and fosters solidarity networks within the Umma—offer a sustainable path forward? By empowering civil society, promoting grassroots development, and enhancing political unity among Muslim societies, could such a model serve as a substitute for formal international recognition while reducing the disadvantages of a centralized regime? Or does this approach risk further fragmentation, creating competing centers of authority and putting the state under greater international isolation?

This session will explore the dilemmas of legitimacy and recognition that both the revolutionary discourse and the emergent governance structure face, while also reflecting on the broader role of international systems in either supporting or constraining transformative movements.

Zaid Al-Ali has law degrees from Harvard Law School, the Université de Paris I (Sorbonne), and King’s College London.  He started practicing international arbitration in 1999.  From 2005 to 2010, he was a legal adviser to the United Nations focusing on constitutional, parliamentary, and judicial reform in Iraq. Since the beginning of 2011, he has been working on constitutional reform throughout the Arab region, particularly in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Sudan. He has published widely on Iraq and on constitutional law.

Dr. Noor Ghazal Aswad is an assistant professor in the department of communication studies at the University of Alabama. She draws from the rhetorical tradition, post-colonial theory, critical theory, social movement theory, and transnational studies. Her work has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Environmental Communication and Presidential Studies Quarterly, among others.

The discussion and subsequent Q&A session was moderated by Dr. Usaama Al-Azami, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Date: Saturday, January 25, 2025, at 11 AM ET.

 

Summary

Main Presentations

Dr. Noor Ghazal Aswad

Introduction

• Syria’s transition followed 53 years of struggle against the Assad regime.
• Idlib, once isolated, became the revolution’s stronghold.
• Syrians celebrate while mourning immense losses and sacrifices, including 1.2 million deaths, massive displacement, and ongoing hardships and challenges.

 

Lack of Solidarity During the Revolution and Today

• A major challenge is the general absence of international support for the revolution.
• Western and Arab countries recently normalized relations with the Assad regime.
• Syrians fought not just the regime but also disinformation, propaganda, and conspiracy theories.
• After the regime’s fall, lukewarm congratulations quickly gave way to a resumption of disinformation under the cloak of concern for Syria’s future.
• The pessimistic global narrative about the future minimizes past atrocities and ignores Syrians’ resilience.
• Syrians are under no illusions regarding upcoming challenges but are also aware that the worst is behind them.

 

Depictions of the Revolution Impacting Narratives About the Future

1. Extremism: Discontent had festered since the repression of the 1982 Hama uprising, finally boiling over in 2011 as a peaceful grassroots solidarity movement. The revolution was demonized when people armed themselves to defend against military crackdowns. Islamophobic narratives persist, equating resistance and humanitarianism with terrorism. The “Islamist vs secular” distinction distracts from more meaningful distinctions of “democracy vs authoritarianism.”

 

1. Sectarianism: The revolution is framed as a threat to religious and ethnic minorities, whereas Assad was depicted as the protector of minority rights. This obscures several facts, including Assad’s repression of the Sunni majority and the longstanding history of minorities without sectarian injustice. Much of this critique is colored by Islamophobia.

 

1. Imperialism: Assad instrumentalized the Palestinian cause while committing atrocities against Palestinians in Syria, such as in the now depopulated Yarmouk Refugee Camp and by the Palestine Branch—the largest branch of Syrian intelligence. Framing the revolution as an imperialist plot was propagated by the regime to deny the plausibility of Syrian agency in orchestrating a popular uprising.

 

1. Reverse moral exceptionalism: There is a tendency to think of Western nations, especially the U.S., as the only rogue imperial actors capable of evil—or even history—in the world. This leaves little room to consider negative roles of figures like Qassem Soleimani, whose death Syrians celebrated because of his actions, not because of who killed him.

 

Conclusion

• The revolution aims not just to remove Assad but to rebuild a democratic Syria.
• Syrians’ hopes and concerns must be taken seriously, beyond racist orientalist stereotypes.
• Unlike other Arab Spring uprisings, the Syrian revolution has resulted in the collapse of the entire state apparatus, in principle reducing the risk of counterrevolution.

 

Zaid Al-Ali

Introduction

• As a constitutional lawyer who has worked on most Arab constitutional processes since 2005, Al-Ali contextualizes Syria’s upcoming challenges.
• Arab constitutions fall into two broad categories, both hybrid (lacking checks and balances; suffering from concentration of power):
  • Hybrid Presidential (Tunisia, Egypt, Syria)—power concentrated in the presidency.
  • Hybrid Parliamentary (Lebanon, Iraq)—power concentrated in parliamentary leaders.
• Syria under Assad was a Hybrid Presidential system in both the 1970 and 2012 constitutions, now defunct, with the country divided among multiple factions.
• HTS controls Damascus, Idlib, and several other regions—with a relatively small force of around 30,000—while other regions, such as the northeast, are under different forces.
• HTS has hinted at a more inclusive approach in Damascus, and a national dialogue conference is being considered.

 

Challenges for Syrian Governance

• Procedural Challenge: A new process—not a substantive set of rules—is needed to define Syria’s system of government, social contract, and individual-state relationship.
  • The UN process: Consideration of continuing the UN process—which was as a charade—has since been abandoned.
• Substantive Challenge: Syria must rethink its governance across all fields, from the constitution to human rights.

 

Lessons from Other Countries

• Libya: Rushed constitutional drafting by non-political technocrats led to 14 years without a functional constitution. The process lacked political inclusivity and the draft produced in 2017 was ignored by all political forces.
• Iraq: Post-occupation, Iraq hastily adopted a constitution, which 20 years later remains incomplete and only partially applied, with huge problems in governance and legislation.
• Sudan: The 2019 uprising collapsed due to mismanaged transition priorities and an eventual loss of confidence in the process, leading to an apathetic response to the 2021 coup. Economic and political reforms should be pursued simultaneously, without sacrificing one for the other.
• Egypt and Tunisia: Poorly negotiated constitutions, respectively adopted in 2012 and 2014, concentrated too much power in the President, leading to the return of authoritarianism.

 

What this Means for Syria

• Presidential systems often lead to authoritarianism due to weak rule of law.
• Parliamentary systems have worked globally but have failed in Iraq and Lebanon.
• Syrians should be open minded and creative about the system of government, including considering a less centralized system that places less importance on the President.
• Checks and balances are crucial—considering historical examples from Egypt, neither a dominant president nor an overpowered judiciary is sustainable.

 

Panel Discussion

Dr. Noor Ghazal Aswad

• Syrians have demonstrated willingness to learn from experiences of other Arab and Muslim states (Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, etc.).
• Syrians have gained political awareness after having long been stripped of political literacy.
• Local Coordination Councils (LCCs) established during the revolution once numbered 800, demonstrating decentralized governance skills that can be used in transition.
• The Syrian diaspora, educated in democratic countries, can also contribute.

 

Zaid Al-Ali

• Syria is already balkanized—the challenge is reversing fragmentation.
• Decentralization and federalism have pros and cons.
• In Iraq, while the rest of the country was fragmented during the drafting of the 2005 constitution, Kurdistan—largely autonomous since the early 1990s—imposed its governance model on the country. This backfired, demonstrating the risks of overreach.
• Solidarity is key to preventing regional hostility.
• Syrians have accumulated valuable political experience since 2011, comparing positively to experiences in Iraq and Tunisia, which proved ill prepared for change.
• The importance of civil society in absence of political awareness should not be overstated: Tunisia’s robust civil society amounted to nothing in the face of the 2021 coup.

 

Q&A Session

Governance and Fragmentation (Al-Ali)

• Syria must negotiate governance step by step, rather than an all-or-nothing approach.
• Focus should be on major questions of governance, such as centralism, decentralization, federalism, etc.
• Each element of the constitutional process should be negotiated separately, building larger agreements upon smaller ones, as in peace processes.
• Individuals’ rights should be safeguarded through elections and democratic institutions.
• State institutions must be prevented from becoming opaque isolated tribal entities, prone to corruption and mismanagement.
  • Courts should protect people from the state, not vice versa.
  • Judges should not be investigated by other judges, with whom they share group solidarity, but by other members of the public.

 

Solidarity from the Muslim World (Dr. Aswad)

• True solidarity goes beyond words—it requires political and material support.
• Many Muslims lack agency under repressive regimes, reinforcing the notion that “none of us are free until all of us are free”—particularly resonant for Palestinian-Syrian solidarity.
• A strong and sovereign Syria could aid Palestinian liberation.

 

Rebels as Global Actors (Dr. Aswad)

• Western nations are disengaged from Syria’s future, leaving regional powers (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar) as key players.
• Fragmentation remains a challenge, and the counterrevolutionary SDF/YPG controls more land than it represents.
• A U.S. withdrawal is expected soon and negotiations are ongoing for SDF/YPG to retreat to its own regions.

 

An Islamic Syrian Constitution?

Al-Ali:

• A constitution should not declare Islam as the sole source of law, al-Ali contends. Interpretations vary, religious diversity must be taken into account, and the practical utility of such a clause is unclear.
• However, Islamic principles can inform a constitutional framework, as seen in the historically informed preamble to the South African constitution.
• The real danger is a small, unrepresentative group monopolizing power.

 

Dr. Aswad:

• Some have stressed that the 2012 Syrian constitution is fine in principle and that its problem lies in lack of enforcement.
• Constitutions do not solve everything. The Ecuadorian constitution frames environmental issues very well, yet the need for environmental equity protests persists.
• Enforcement remains more important than the text of a constitution.

 

Al-Ali:

• Political will is key: sufficient numbers of groups and individuals committed to and invested in the constitution and working for its success and to avert its risks.
• Iraq in 2006 represented the worst example, where violence quadrupled after the adoption of an unpopular constitution.
• The 2012 Syrian constitution is in fact a terrible text—formally attractive provisions pertaining to rights do little to diminish its fundamental problem: the overwhelming absolute authority granted to the President.

 

Syria and Palestine

Dr. Aswad:

• A war-weary Syria cannot immediately take responsibility for Palestine’s liberation, but Israel’s immediate military incursions into free Syria show it fears a sovereign Syria more than Assad’s rule.

 

Al-Ali:

• Iraq initially distanced itself from the Palestinian cause after Saddam’s fall, but solidarity remains strong across the Arab and Muslim worlds.
• Though HTS may be playing this down for tactical reasons, Israel’s military expansionism inside Syria is a major issue that will eventually have to be addressed.