Syria risks relapsing into chaos amid US sanctions, infighting

The transitional authorities in Syria are viewed with suspicion by the US and Israel, while various groups want a decentralised government

Reading Time:4 minutes

Syrians protest against Israel in the southern city of Suwayda on February 25. Photo: AFP

Published: 6:32pm, 4 Mar 2025

Optimism about Syria’s future that greeted the fall of the Assad regime in December is fast waning as sustained US economic sanctions against Damascus and distrust of its transitional government threaten to tilt the country towards chaos again after 14 years of civil war.

There are also fears over Israel’s military intervention in southern Syria to prevent the Islamist administration of transitional president Ahmed al-Sharaa from establishing control there.

Meanwhile, the Kurdish-majority northeast remains in control of the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), despite a military offensive by the Turkish proxy Syrian National Army.

Although the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)-led government in Syria has stayed out of the fighting and engaged the SDF in negotiations, al-Sharaa has failed to ease concerns among the country’s minority communities that HTS could impose an Islamist dictatorship on them.

This undermined al-Sharaa’s efforts to persuade the leaders of minority groups to participate in a national dialogue about Syria’s political roadmap last month.

Faced with domestic uncertainty and foreign intervention, the al-Sharaa administration reneged on its commitment to form an inclusive government by last week. Instead, it appointed a committee of law experts to formulate a constitutional framework for a transitional governance phase of undetermined duration.