Syria’s Unfinished Transition: Risks and Realities in the Post-Assad Era
Written by Elisa Garbil – 29.09.2025
When Bashar al-Assad fell in late 2024, many Syrians dared to imagine a future beyond authoritarianism and endless war. The dictator’s sudden departure sent a wave of relief across the country, and for a fleeting moment, optimism seemed to outweigh fatigue. Yet the early glow of freedom quickly dimmed. By mid-2025, it was clear that Assad’s collapse had not left behind a functioning state but a brittle skeleton of institutions, drained by years of war, corruption, and sanctions.
Observers likened this moment to a short honeymoon. The euphoria of Assad’s ouster gave way almost immediately to the hard grind of governance. A fragile new leadership inherited a nation in ruins and a population impatient for change. Electricity still flickered off, water systems remained unreliable, and public wages lagged. The legitimacy of the transition was suddenly tied to how fast, and how visibly, daily life could improve. Listen to Broderick McDonald to find out more about the Future of Syria.
Suweida’s Warning: Local Violence, National Risk
The depth of the challenge came into stark relief in the southern province of Suweida. Long considered relatively calm, the Druze-majority region erupted into violence as local militias clashed with Sunni Bedouin tribes. What might have remained a provincial skirmish soon escalated into a political crisis, forcing the government to delay parliamentary elections in several provinces.
For analysts, Suweida was not an isolated disturbance but a symptom of the deeper fragility of Syria’s transition. Even as nationwide fighting has ebbed, local grievances remain combustible. A single clash can ripple outward, undermining confidence in the central government and emboldening spoilers who thrive on instability.
The risks are recursive. If Damascus cannot guarantee security and basic services, local communities will fall back on militias or parallel authorities. The more they do, the harder it becomes for the state to reassert national cohesion. The temptation, in such circumstances, is to impose order through force. Yet leaning on the security apparatus to substitute for governance risks repeating the very mistakes that hollowed the old regime: stability enforced by coercion but devoid of legitimacy.
Inclusion or Illusion?
At the heart of Syria’s political test lies the question of inclusion. The Arab Reform Initiative has stressed that the new authorities cannot afford to appear as merely reshuffling old elites. For a society fractured by more than a decade of war, inclusivity is not optional; it is the bedrock of stability. Minorities and marginalised groups, from Kurds to Druze to displaced Sunnis, have learned to govern themselves in the absence of Damascus. Unless they see themselves represented in the new order, they have little reason to buy into it.
Exclusion is not simply unjust. It is dangerous. A government that fails to broaden participation risks reigniting old fractures, encouraging local authorities to go their own way, and undermining any claim to national legitimacy. In this context, inclusion is not a matter of political generosity but of strategic necessity.
The Election Dilemma
One of the thorniest questions in the transition is the timing of elections. For international actors eager to demonstrate progress, an early ballot offers symbolic closure to the Assad era. But many analysts caution against rushing to the polls. Elections held in the absence of robust institutions, a credible electoral commission, an independent judiciary, and mechanisms to resolve disputes, are likely to deepen divisions rather than heal them.
The risk is that premature elections will create winners who cannot govern and losers who will not accept the outcome. Instead of providing legitimacy, the ballot could spark violence. Elections in Syria are not a talisman but a tool. Without the right foundations, the tool may backfire, hardening fault lines and undermining the very stability it was meant to produce.
Sanctions Relief
Economics is often the quiet battlefield of politics, and in Syria’s case, sanctions loom large. Recent shifts by Washington and Brussels have begun to ease the chokehold. In June 2025, the United States terminated the Syria Sanctions Regulations through Executive Order 14312, while the European Union suspended major sectoral restrictions earlier in the year.
Yet this relief has not lifted the entire burden. The Caesar Act remains in force until 2029. Targeted sanctions against Assad-linked networks endure. And both the US and EU retain tools to impose fresh penalties for human rights abuses or security concerns. The result is a halfway house: the sanctions window has opened, but the bars remain firmly in place.
For businesses, this means ambiguity. Compliance officers still face a labyrinth of rules. Firms that rush in may find themselves exposed to reputational damage if partners are later re-designated. And international investors remain wary, waiting for clarity before committing serious capital. For Damascus, the dilemma is sharp. Relax too many conditions and invite corruption, or impose too many safeguards and stall recovery. The smart path lies in pairing sanctions relief with visible integrity measures: transparent procurement, beneficial ownership disclosure, and independent audits. These are to attract serious investment rather than speculative rent-seeking.
Europe’s Pragmatism and Regional Games
If sanctions have long symbolised Western distance, Europe’s new approach signals a different mood. Having absorbed lessons from Afghanistan, European capitals are leaning toward pragmatism in Syria: they will settle for “good-enough” stabilisation if it reduces refugee flows, secures borders, and dampens cross-border insecurity. This realism creates opportunities for Damascus but also risks. If governments focus only on quick stability metrics (migration controls, local calm, and aid delivery) without insisting on deeper reforms, support may plateau, leaving Syria with a shallow stability but no resilient foundation.
Regional players are approaching Syria in a similarly pragmatic fashion. Neighbours want trade corridors reopened, borders secured, and militias contained. Their engagement could channel resources into reconstruction, but it also carries dangers. If different provinces or sectors become tied to competing patrons, Syria risks embedding fragmentation into its governance. Energy concessions, customs regimes, and security deals with rival sponsors may create long-term incoherence. Worse, the clash between Western conditionality and regional opportunism may tempt Damascus to arbitrage between them, securing short-term gains at the cost of long-term credibility.
State-Building Under Constraint
Even with international support, the core challenge is rebuilding a functioning state. There needs to be caution against assuming that the localised governance models that emerged during the war can simply be scaled up to the national level. What worked in improvised circumstances may collapse under the weight of an entire country’s administration. The new leadership faces a daunting task: assembling technocratic depth, delivering services, and maintaining legitimacy in the eyes of a population that has seen too many broken promises.
The balance between stabilisation and democratisation looms large here. Arguably the key is sequencing: Emergency fixes, such as paying salaries or restoring electricity, must not ossify into permanent workarounds. Transitional institutions need sunset clauses and accountability mechanisms, or they risk becoming the scaffolding for a new form of authoritarianism. If the state reverts to governing by decree and coercion, Syrians may conclude that nothing fundamental has changed, eroding confidence in the entire transition.
What Success Could Look Like
For Syria’s transition to succeed, it must deliver credibility. By the end of 2026, success would mean more than just avoiding collapse. It would look like electricity that runs reliably, water flowing in urban neighbourhoods, and public workers receiving their paychecks on time. It would mean provincial councils with broader representation, functioning budgets, and public participation. It would mean investment arriving under transparent contracts, free of sanctioned networks, and a credible roadmap to elections rooted in strong institutions.
The path to that future is narrow but real. International actors are willing to support Syria if they see integrity and improvement. Citizens are willing to be patient if they feel their lives improving. And regional players are willing to engage if it brings stability. The challenge is weaving these threads into a fabric of governance that holds.
Or What Failure Might Bring
The alternative is sobering. Failure would mean repeating the mistakes of the past: relying on coercion instead of inclusion, allowing new rents to capture capital, rushing elections that spark unrest, and tolerating local violence that metastasises into wider conflict. It would mean external partners settling for cosmetic stability while deeper fractures fester. In such a scenario, the fragile opening created in 2025 would narrow, and Syria would find itself once more in a cycle of unrest, repression, and stagnation.
The Road Ahead
Syria today stands at a rare crossroads. The fall of Assad opened a window, but not a wide one. The next year and a half will decide whether that window expands into a doorway toward stability or slams shut under the weight of old habits and new mistakes. The risks are daunting, but they are not destiny.
The path forward is written not in sweeping declarations but in small, tangible changes: lights that stay on, salaries that are paid, councils that include the excluded, contracts that are transparent, elections that are credible. In these everyday markers of credibility lies the difference between a Syria that finally steps out of its long war and one that remains trapped in its shadow.
