From the very first day Al-Shara’s forces entered Damascus, it became evident that the new regime had chosen to shed the cloak of jihadist Salafism and embrace the concepts of a nation state. The aim was to align with the Arab environment working to consolidate the foundations of Al-Shara’s rule, fill the Iranian and Russian vacuum on Syrian soil, and prepare for integration into the western camp that seeks to use Syria’s geopolitical position to resolve complex international issues.
Clearly, Ahmad Al-Shara’s regime is attempting to break away from its past by opening up to the west and avoiding a repetition of the Taliban’s experience in Afghanistan. It seeks to provide political assurances that can stabilise the region, creating flexible political margins that allow for accepting the principle of negotiating with Israel. This would open the way for a peace agreement that builds on the atmosphere of peaceful coexistence initiated by regional states and reinforced recently through the Abraham Accords.
For some observers, the wager on the Ahmad Al-Shara’s model in Syria – if it manages to endure and succeed in building the foundations of a state based on equal citizenship for all components of Syrian society through democratic means – offers a credible path to regional stability. By adopting peaceful methods in addressing both Syria’s internal complexities and wider regional issues, this model could become a genuine entry point for burying the ideologies that relied on jihadist Salafism as a political tool to control nations and peoples.
[by Hameed Qaraman in Al-Arab]
Compiled and translated by Faizul Haque
