Nearly a year after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime at the hands of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its rebel allies in December 2024, Syria remains in a fragile and uncertain transition. A mosaic of ethnic and religious communities, governing this diversity has been a defining challenge since the establishment of the modern Syrian state in 1946 and even during the preceding French mandate.

Today, the new leadership in Damascus seems to be repeating the exclusionary tendencies of the past. Rather than embracing pluralism, it has struggled—or refused—to move beyond the sectarian and majoritarian outlook that defined prior regimes. Addressing the minority question is therefore not just a moral imperative but an urgent political one. The violent confrontations and massacres committed this year by forces aligned with or under the new government’s authority against Alawite and Druze minorities threaten Syria’s political stability and undermine efforts to rebuild a functioning state.

In March 2025, just three months after Assad’s fall, remnants of the old regime launched a low-level insurgency in the coastal region. The government’s response was swift and bloody. Military units and allied militias cracked down violently, killing around 1,500 Alawite civilians in an area considered the Assad family’s stronghold. The massacre deepened fears that the new rulers intended to reverse the sectarian order through collective punishment.

International condemnation followed swiftly. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X: “The United States condemns the radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis, that murdered people in western Syria in recent days. The United States stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities, and offers its condolences to the victims and their families.”

In July 2025, government forces and allied tribal mobilizations stormed the Druze-majority province of Suwayda after clashes between some local Druze and Sunni Bedouin tribes. What began as skirmishes quickly escalated into one of the bloodiest incidents of the post-Assad era, leaving anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 Druze civilians dead. The violence triggered Israeli intervention, with airstrikes targeting government and tribal militia positions—and even the Ministry of Defense and an area near the presidential palace—in central Damascus. Disturbing footage of executions and abducted Druze women circulated online, echoing crimes perpetrated by the Islamic State (ISIS) against non-Muslim minorities in the preceding years. Dozens of Sunni Bedouins were also killed and hundreds displaced as a result of the clashes in Suwayda.

The Suwayda tragedy underscored the depth of the minority crisis facing the new Syria. Officially, the government blamed “rogue elements,” but mounting evidence—including CCTV footage showing uniformed personnel participating in executions—has cast doubt on that narrative. President Ahmed al Sharaa’s praise for tribal mobilizations amid the violence only worsened perceptions of state complicity.

Whether due to intent or incapacity, the outcome has been the same: Syria’s minorities no longer trust Damascus. Having witnessed atrocities against their communities, many have begun organizing for self-defense and, increasingly, for autonomy. In southern Syria, Druze populations—who once supported the revolution—now demand not just self-rule but outright independence, threatening Syria’s territorial integrity and complicating its already fragile transition.

The government’s treatment of the Kurds has also followed a worrying trajectory. Damascus continues to target the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—the US-backed, multi-ethnic, multi-religious coalition that played a decisive role in defeating ISIS. The same factions accused of carrying out atrocities—such as executions, mass displacement, property seizure, torture, and rape—against Kurds and non-Muslim minorities in Afrin and Ras al-Ayn in 2018–2019 remain at the forefront of these operations.

A March 10 agreement between Sharaa and SDF Commander Gen. Mazloum Abdi pledged to integrate the SDF and its affiliated civilian administration in northeast Syria into the new political order and recognize Kurdish rights. Yet the government has failed to enshrine protections for non-Arab and non-Sunni communities—including Alawites, Druze, and Kurds—in the transitional constitution. It has also refused to hold parliamentary elections in SDF- or Druze-controlled territories or to include their representatives meaningfully in governance.

US-mediated talks between Damascus and the SDF have stalled, largely because Sharaa appears determined to carry forward Assad’s exclusionary legacy toward the Kurds into the new era. The government’s unwillingness to embrace decentralization risks reigniting conflict in the north.

As Syria’s transition unfolds, it faces a critical choice: build an inclusive state that reflects its diversity or replicate the sectarian and authoritarian systems that brought it to collapse. The interim constitution and the conduct of security forces suggest the latter path is prevailing. Syria’s long-term stability will hinge on whether its leaders can craft a new national identity rooted in equality and belonging rather than ethnic or religious supremacy. So far, the signs point in the opposite direction—toward a reconstituted state that perpetuates exclusion.

The Minority Question as a Strategic Regional Fault Line

The minority question in Syria is not merely a moral concern; it carries deep political and geopolitical consequences. It directly intersects with Syria’s relations with Israel, Turkey, Iran, and even Iraq—making it a defining factor for the country’s future stability and territorial integrity.

As the Suwayda tragedy showed, Israel has become a key stakeholder in shaping Syria’s future, particularly regarding the fate of the Druze community. The Druze’s prominent place within Israeli society gives their safety in Syria a direct political dimension for Israel. Any renewed assault on Druze areas could compel Israel to intervene militarily again—regardless of Washington’s or its regional partners’ reservations. Under pressure from its own Druze citizens and seeking to project strength in the post-Oct. 7 regional landscape, Israel would likely feel obliged to act.

Iran and its allied Shia militias in Iraq may also seek to exploit minority tensions and Damascus’s fragile control. Given Iraq’s shared border with the SDF-held areas along the Hasakah-Deir ez-Zor line, Tehran and its proxies could find opportunities to bolster the SDF if hostilities erupt between the Kurdish forces and Damascus. Such a scenario risks drawing in Turkey—and possibly Israel—creating an unpredictable combustible regional situation. At the same time, if and as Iran and its regional network recover from sustained blows by Israel and the United States, they may look to provoke an Alawite insurgency along Syria’s western coast as a means of regaining leverage.

Ignoring the legitimate grievances of Syria’s minority communities risks igniting new internal conflicts and overlapping insurgencies of varying intensity. The consequences would not remain confined within Syria’s borders—creating instability that neither the region nor the international community can afford.

US Stakes and the Importance of Decentralization

The United States has a direct stake in ensuring that the new Syria emerges as both a friendly government and a stable, prosperous state. This is particularly important given Washington’s ambition to position Syria as a centerpiece of its broader strategy for building a new regional order rooted in security and economic cooperation. Achieving that outcome depends substantially on securing the buy-in of Syria’s minorities, who comprise roughly 30 percent of the population and control strategically important territories across the west, south, north, and northeast.

For Washington, the key lies in promoting a decentralized model of governance—now the central demand of Syria’s minority communities. Despite an initial period of opposing such an arrangement, top US officials including Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack appear to have warmed to the idea now, particularly in the wake of the violence against the Druze. Given the country’s religious, linguistic, and cultural diversity, decentralization would grant each community a degree of administrative and political control over its own affairs while maintaining shared national interests centered in Damascus. Such an arrangement could help transform Syria’s fractured landscape into a more stable and inclusive system of governance.

Absent this structural reform, the minority question will remain a persistent source of instability and potential violence, with far-reaching regional implications. Israeli airstrikes near critical institutions in Damascus are stark reminders of the fragility of the current situation. Renewed internal conflict could easily spill across borders and invite external interventions—from Israel, Turkey, Iran, or other regional powers—undermining both Syria’s integrity and Washington’s broader strategic objectives.

US officials, including Barrack, have emphasized that Washington does not seek to engage in nation-building or redraw the region’s borders as European colonial powers did after the Ottoman collapse. Commendable as this is, the choice need not be viewed as a binary between nation-building and inaction. The United States can help preserve Syria’s borders while encouraging an internal transformation of its governance structure.

In practice, Washington is already engaged in a form of nation-building by supporting a government that draws almost exclusively from the Sunni Arab constituency. By pushing to centralize power under Sharaa, the US risks reinforcing the rigid and unviable Sykes-Picot legacy. To ensure Syria’s long-term success, Washington should instead help design political arrangements that recognize the country’s non-Arab and non-Sunni communities, laying the groundwork for lasting stability and a genuinely inclusive state.

Image credit: Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Commander of Syrian Kurdish-led forces Mazloum Abdi shake hands, after Syria reached a deal to integrate the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with state institutions, the Syrian presidency said on Monday, in Damascus, Syria, in this handout released on March 10, 2025. SANA/REUTERS