The evolving map of territorial control of Al-Sharaa’s interim authority (government and aligned groups), from its takeover of large swathes of Syria’s northeast to its agreed demilitarised economic zone with Israel in the south, could be argued as delivering short-term stabilisation. In the long term, stabilisation remains subject to a broader reality: Al-Sharaa’s interim government drive to centralise and capture the state is challenged by its refusal to accede to local demands for power-sharing and by external intervention.
President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s administration has limited legitimacy among non-Sunni communities, who regard power-sharing as a central demand to protect their rights and interests. Among the Druze, an Etana survey reports that over 90 per cent are dissatisfied with their rights, security, services and freedoms, and 98 per cent consider the government unrepresentative and opaque. Sweida governorate highlights the structural limitations of the interim administration’s illiberal peace. This approach promises stabilisation without transformation, overlooking rights, comprehensive transitional justice, meaningful participation and genuine inclusion.
In Syria, power-sharing via decentralisation could offer a pathway to more sustainable peace and state-building, but only if it is undertaken with local communities rather than imposed solely through governing elites at the centre or periphery. This would require the decentralisation of authority, not the reconstitution of a highly centralised political system. Decentralisation is not solely an administrative process. It should be viewed as a relational process that starts with local communities, and enables inclusion through representative unions, grassroots civil society networks, councils and parties that redistribute power to local communities.
The Sweida bottleneck in a shifting geopolitical context
The Druze mountains have historically maintained an uneasy relationship with the central state from the Ottoman and French colonial periods through to post-independence Syria, often demanding recognition of their distinctiveness and a share of governance and resources. Indeed, Sweida governorate has been largely self-governed since its anti-Assad uprising in 2023. The Druze community rose up after years of threats and economic hardships reached a tipping point, including Islamic State attacks, corruption, forced conscription, failures to provide protection and the assassination in 2015 of Sheikh al-Bal’ous, head of the Rijal al-Karama Druze militia. A shift within the Aql Sheikhdom, that reflects the Druze religious authority structure that can become intertwined with political and social affairs, from limited to full resistance to the Assad regime – notably under Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, galvanised the uprising.
While Sweida’s tension with the centre is not new, the context and stakes differ today and mirror dynamics elsewhere in Syria. Upon taking power, the interim authority sought to assert sovereignty over non-state-governed territories. However, governing sects in these areas resisted, unwilling to relinquish the autonomy they had gained and fearful of the authorities’ record of sectarian violence. In response, Damascus sought to impose its rule through loyal and sectarian-aligned forces. Reports of sectarian war crimes and extrajudicial executions in the Syrian coastal and western- central region, followed by similar patterns of violence in Sweida in July 2025 that continue to lack accountability, eroded trust among non-Sunni communities, many of which now view the interim authority as an existential threat.
Israel’s invasion of Syrian territory prevented the interim authority from fully asserting control over Sweida, even if the authority appeared to believe it had tacit approval to dispatch forces. The result has been a frozen conflict between the interim authority and Sweida’s local representatives: a nominal ceasefire punctured by violations, leaving Sweida cut off from the state and its population caught between interim forces, local militias and outside powers.
Local militias and intervening states continue to pursue their own security and political interests, irrespective of territorial control. Local activists report that militias allied with Al-Hijri exert control over everyday life, from access to aid and livelihoods to movement in and out of Sweida.[1] Human Rights Watch has also documented Israel’s efforts to advance the demilitarisation of southern Syria, alongside its occupation and depopulation of nearby areas. Civilians bear the brunt. Around 187,000 internally displaced Syrians are currently struggling in Sweida amid fuel shortages, poverty, housing and food insecurity.
Within this complex geopolitical context – also evident in Kurdish and Alawite majority areas – the key question for the interim authority is whether it can deliver the stabilisation that the international order prizes without reproducing the violent, exclusionary politics that hollowed out the Syrian state under the former regime.
Events to date in Sweida are not encouraging. Promises of security, prosperity and a citizen-state have given way to sectarian coercion and violence, followed by external security and economic deals that do not necessarily reflect long-term local needs, underscoring the brittle foundations of an illiberal transition.
An illiberal ‘transition’
The interim authority’s steps towards inclusivity – such as the national dialogue, government formation, and parliamentary elections – have been largely performative. Rushed and controlled, these processes excluded key civic and governance actors while distributing power within networks loyal to al-Sharaa. The sweeping powers granted to al-Sharaa in his role as interim president have further raised concerns about authoritarian consolidation. By prioritising short-term stabilisation over long-term transformation, the international system has nevertheless moved to legitimise the interim government.
In Sweida, these dynamics are stark. A Syria-Jordan-US tripartite meeting produced a roadmap focusing on restoring security and services as preconditions for stability, and addressing justice, representation, trust, reconciliation and accountability. However, like the US-backed Syria-Israel agreement for a demilitarised economic zone that followed it, this process is a failure by design because it is top-down, brokered by the interim authority and shaped by US and Israeli interests rather than genuine local and national dialogue. Local representatives and community channels – many of which have called for self-determination and rejected the authority’s role as both investigator and guarantor – have been sidelined.
This reflects a broader global pattern of illiberal peacebuilding in which transitional governance is shaped through elite bargains and security-led stabilisation, while local actors are treated as irrelevant. As illiberal actors entrench control, international actors that frame themselves as liberal often reinforce these dynamics by accepting tokenistic reforms. From London or Brussels, such an approach may appear progressive; on the ground, it does little to advance rights, justice or sustainable peace.
Why short-term ‘stabilisation’ risks further failure
Sweida crystallises four interrelated dynamics that international actors face when designing interventions aimed at sustainable peace.
First, based on their respective track records, both al-Hijri’s forces and the interim authority are likely to capitalise on the same violent, exclusive, sectarian and clientelist relations that have long shaped the formation of the Syrian state. Similar patterns have been used by state and non-state actors alike to consolidate control, perpetuating conflict.
Second, the interim authority’s emphasis on external rather than internal legitimacy risks undermining the transition. While external legitimacy unlocks aid and investment, it cannot substitute local trust and buy-in. Sweida illustrates the consequences of its absence.
Third, international actors’ focus on narrow stabilisation, rather than justice or inclusion, privileges elite-driven mechanisms over local needs and processes. While this approach may deliver short-term gains, in the long term it risks displacing conflict rather than resolving it.
Fourth, despite these challenges, promising but under-supported civic alternatives persist. Programmes such as the National Salvation Initiative show that inclusive political imaginaries remain viable, yet they operate with minimal funding, security, diplomatic recognition or policy engagement.
What should be done differently
These dynamics point to the importance of a bottom-up component in Syria’s transition that starts with local communities. Peace is more likely to endure when it serves local communities and allows diverse identities and needs to coexist without being forced into a single political script.
Consequently, the international community should not treat intervening states, militias and interim authorities as the only actors in Syria’s political landscape. The stability they may help to deliver should be understood as a means to foster peace, not an end in itself.
In practice, this means investing first in local communal agency, supporting meaningful local participation and genuine inclusion, alongside a form of decentralisation defined by local communities rather than shaped by elite capture of power. Resourcing civic alternatives can help serve as connective tissue and a collective counterweight to elite domination.
In Sweida, this could involve establishing inclusive local councils that bring together independent figures, community representatives and civil society actors, alongside measures to protect the councils from state and non-state violence. Engagement with the interim authority and al-Hijri’s militias could then be channelled through such structures.
Syria’s transition is not centred in Damascus. It extends across diverse regions and communities seeking a voice in shaping Syria. Ignoring those voices risks entrenching a current illiberal peace that could give way to new waves of conflict. A more inclusive trajectory is possible. The pressing question is whose vision of peace to back and on what terms.
[1] Author’s online interview with an activist in Damascus on 9 October 2025.
Image description: Wall Graffiti “who librates, decides” reflects the ethos of the illiberal peace in Syria.
Source: Taken by the author (Rana Khalaf) in Homs city, Syria, on 10/01/2025
