Why Everyone Is Misjudging Al Sharaa Ability To Stabilize Syria

When Bashar al-Assad fell in December 2024, the world scrambled to figure out who Ahmed al-Sharaa really was. The former head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) had traded his military fatigues for sharp civilian suits. He began preaching the gospel of pluralism, Western integration, and institutional reform. Now, well into 2026, the initial euphoria of the regime change has evaporated. It has been replaced by a brutal reality check. Al-Sharaa's capacity to bring security to Syria and the region under scrutiny is no longer a theoretical debate for think tanks. It is a daily, high-stakes crisis playing out on the ground.

Western governments, led by the United States, made a massive bet on al-Sharaa's pragmatic pivot. They welcomed his transitional government and even supported Syria's entry into the international coalition against ISIS. But looking at Damascus from the outside gives you a warped perspective. The real story isn't the slick political declarations or the diplomatic handshakes in Washington. The real story is the massive structural cracks tearing at the foundation of the new Syrian state. For an alternative look, check out: this related article.

Al-Sharaa is attempting a political magic trick. He wants to convince the world he's a moderate nationalist statesman while relying on the raw firepower of hardline fighters to keep order. It isn't working out the way his planners hoped.

The Illusion Of Central Control

If you look at an official map of Syria right now, the transitional government claims to manage the major urban centers. The Damascus-Homs-Hama-Aleppo corridor is functionally under state administration. Schools are open, taxes are being collected, and ministries are putting out press releases. But this administrative veneer hides a deeply fractured security apparatus. Similar coverage on this trend has been shared by Al Jazeera.

The core of the problem lies in how al-Sharaa built his new Syrian Armed Forces. In January 2025, the transitional authorities ordered the formal dissolution of all armed opposition factions and mandated their integration under the Ministry of Defense. On paper, it sounded like a textbook stabilization measure. In practice, it was a messy compromise.

Instead of building a unified national army with a single chain of command, the government basically slapped a new label on old militias. Rebel factions were brought under the defense ministry umbrella but kept their internal structures intact. There is no systematic rotation of officers. There's no shared institutional identity. The 84th division, for instance, absorbed roughly 3,500 foreign fighters, mostly Uyghurs from the Turkistan Islamic Party along with Chechen and Dagestani veterans from Ajnad al-Kavkaz.

You can't build a reliable national army out of autonomous, ideologically rigid brigades. Al-Sharaa's Western-leaning agenda—prioritizing constitutional democracy, minority protections, and open security cooperation with the U.S.—is causing severe friction with these hardline elements. They didn't fight a decade-long war just to watch their leaders establish a secular state. This growing ideological divide means the very forces tasked with securing the country are becoming its biggest internal threat.

The Minorities Left In The Cold

A state's security depends on its legitimacy, and legitimacy requires trust. Right now, Syria's minority communities don't trust Damascus. Al-Sharaa talks a big game about a multiethnic, multiconfessional Syria, but the ground reality tells a different story.

Sectarian reprisals against Alawite villages and violent clashes involving Druze and Bedouin communities in the south have severely damaged the regime's credibility. It doesn't matter if these incidents are deliberate state policy or simply the actions of rogue militias that al-Sharaa can't control. The result is the same. People feel unprotected, so they arm themselves.

Look at how the regime handles the military transition. The institutional exclusion of officers and soldiers who served in the old Syrian army—most of whom happen to be Alawites—has backfired completely. Instead of neutralizing a potential opposition group, it has created a massive pool of unemployed, armed, and angry men. This exclusion virtually guarantees the rise of localized rebel insurgencies in the coastal regions.

Then there's the ongoing failure with the Kurds. In March 2025, the Sharaa regime signed an ambitious agreement with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to integrate the Kurdish population and their military structures into the state. It looked like a breakthrough. But the deal quickly collapsed when the central government failed to deliver on its promises. Clashes restarted, and the prospects of a peaceful, negotiated reunification faded. If al-Sharaa can't integrate the northeast through politics, his only alternative is military coercion. That's a war he can't afford to fight.

The Regional Powder Keg

Syria's instability never stays inside its borders. Al-Sharaa's domestic struggles are actively shaping the regional security balance, and his neighbors are getting anxious.

Take Turkey, for example. Ankara initially welcomed al-Sharaa's push to centralize power. Turkey wants a stable northern Syria so it can eventually wind down its own military footprint and repatriate millions of refugees. But Turkey also funds and trains many of the northern militias operating under the new Ministry of Defense. This funding happens without transparent civilian oversight, leaving Turkish-backed groups with immense leverage over Damascus. If al-Sharaa moves too aggressively against these factions to please the West, he risks an open conflict with his most important northern neighbor.

In the south, the calculus is completely different. Al-Sharaa has explicitly distanced himself from Iran, denouncing its sectarian regional policies and promising that Syria will no longer serve as a launchpad for Iranian proxies. He even publicly backed Lebanon's efforts to disarm Hezbollah, a move that would have been unthinkable under the Assad regime. Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar love this rhetoric. They've stepped up with diplomatic backing and promises of reconstruction funds, hoping to fully detach Syria from the Iranian orbit.

But cheering from the sidelines in Riyadh doesn't stop the mortar shells on the ground. Recent intelligence data shows a steady rise in ISIS activity across Hama, Homs, Aleppo, and Idlib. The jihadists are exploiting the "ungoverned spaces" left behind by the weak integration of state security forces. Al-Sharaa joined the international coalition against ISIS to gain global legitimacy, but his under-professionalized, splintered security forces are struggling to contain the threat. If ISIS keeps gaining ground in the central desert, the entire regional counterterrorism framework crumbles.

What Needs To Happen Next

Fixing Syria's security crisis requires moving past the empty political theater. If the transitional government wants to survive its five-year transition toward elections, it needs to change its approach immediately.

First, the Ministry of Defense must dismantle the autonomous command structures of the integrated militias. Leaving rebel units intact under their old commanders creates a parallel state within the military. Damascus needs to enforce strict officer rotation and mix units to build a genuine national army rather than a coalition of convenience.

Second, the government must halt the blanket exclusion of former state employees and military personnel based on sectarian lines. Stability is impossible when you alienate the entire Alawite community. Rebuilding the state security apparatus requires leveraging the professional administrative and military talent that stayed behind after Assad fell, provided they pass basic vetting for war crimes.

Finally, Western and regional backers need to tie their financial reconstruction aid to strict, verifiable benchmarks regarding minority safety and militia accountability. Pouring money into Damascus without monitoring where the funds go will only subsidize the rogue militias currently undermining al-Sharaa's authority. The international community needs to stop grading the transitional government on a curve just because they aren't the old regime. Syria is running out of time, and good intentions won't stop the next civil war.