Is the New Syrian State Revolutionary?
Post-Assad Syria was, in theory, a blank canvas for revolutionary transformation—in reality, its leaders inherited conditions that narrowed the horizon of possibility before the first stroke was made.
Less than forty-eight hours after Bashar al-Assad’s ouster in December, the interim Syrian government, led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, announced plans to transition to a free-market economy. It was a peculiar and seemingly premature declaration; there was scarcely a functioning state, let alone an economy, to speak of. Under Assad, Syria endured decades of crippling economic sanctions but was able to manage a crony state through its strategic alliances, primarily with Russia and Iran. The new leadership effectively inherited these sanctions without the state apparatus or international partnerships that had long sustained Assad. With their swift takeover of multiple cities and towns on the path to the presidential palace in Damascus, the new Syrian leaders had not simply captured the state but effectively ended whatever remained of it. This reality was thrown into sharp relief by the Israeli invasion and bombing of Syria which began immediately after Assad’s departure. As Israel expanded its occupation in the southwestern part of the country and escalated its aerial campaign against hundreds of military targets—including air bases, munitions depots, research facilities, and other sites containing sensitive equipment and data—the al-Sharaa government could offer no response and had no allies upon whom to call. Even localized sectarian clashes have proven difficult to regulate and contain, including the recent attack on the Mar Elias Church in Damascus.1
In the immediate aftermath of Assad’s ouster and Israel’s belligerence in Syria, what the new leaders effectively possessed was a proto-state with minimal military resources, no clear international partnerships, and a heavily sanctioned economy, all while facing various domestic and foreign threats. A statement of allegiance to the free market may have seemed bizarre and misplaced under these conditions, but it was likely the opening move in a calculated campaign to secure international legitimacy and new lifelines. To build the Syrian state anew, the fledgling post-Assad government needed access to global capital, trade routes, and the support of diplomatic recognition. And to gain such access and support, al-Sharaa, as Syria’s new leader, had to become acceptable to the very powers that once branded him a terrorist—they held the keys he now needed to drive his country forward. In pursuit of these objectives, the new regime emphasized shared security interests with the West and its international partners by identifying Iran as the region’s greatest threat, remaining rhetorically reserved about Israel’s bombardment of Syria and Gaza, and even signaling a willingness to become a signatory to the Abraham Accords.2 This shift is particularly apparent in al-Sharaa himself, who, under his former identity and nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, once claimed Palestine as the wellspring of his political consciousness and denounced the Gulf monarchies as servile, decadent rentier states. Upon becoming president, however, he has remained fairly muted about the Gaza genocide and warmly embraced the very rulers he previously condemned.3 In one especially obsequious moment, al-Sharaa publicly welcomed the prospect of building a Trump Tower in Damascus. The very next day, Donald Trump announced that U.S. sanctions on Syria—decades old and once seen as immovable—would be lifted.
In theory, post-Assad Syria was a blank canvas upon which the revolutionary movement could realize its vision for a new kind of state. In reality, the political and economic conditions in which Syria’s emergent leaders found themselves sharply delimited the horizon of revolutionary possibility. As many continue to hail the success of the Syrian revolution, it is increasingly clear that what is materializing is not a revolutionary state, but a political order shaped by the same structural pressures and conditions that have historically defined state formation in the post-colonial Middle East. Among these pressures and conditions is the imperative to prioritize capital investment to satisfy what Fred Block calls “business confidence,”4 which is bound up with the viability of statehood in the contemporary global economy. In this context, the rhetoric of economic “reform” and “openness” expressed by the new Syrian government is less a reflection of ideological orientation than a currency of survival in a world shaped by asymmetric flows of capital and power. Accordingly, the new regime’s calculated flirtation with the Abraham Accords and its overtures to the Gulf investors and Western developers it once sharply criticized are also not mere “smart policy choices,” but incentivized rituals of compliance pursued in exchange for access to the material conditions that permit state-building.
Syria’s new leaders thus find themselves in a position emblematic of what Immanuel Wallerstein describes as the double bind of the weak. For the weak, the “gift” of being politically and economically welcomed into the international system by the powerful confers a dilemma: “to refuse the gift is to lose; to accept the gift is to lose.”5 Incorporation into the international system is never a no-strings-attached affair, least of all for states emerging from the rubble. Accepting the “gift” demands serious concessions, while refusing it often means forfeiting even the most basic conditions for long-term survival. This is not to suggest that al-Sharaa’s government lacks agency, but that its agency is circumscribed by structural pressures so deeply ingrained that necessary political compromises often appear as shrewd or pragmatic choices. What may look like political savviness or moderation is in effect submission by other means and an embrace of neoliberal6 logics that secures short-term survival at the cost of long-term autonomy.
