Mustafa Al-Miqdad – Progress Center for Policies, Damascus
Introduction:
During the first year of President Ahmad Al-Shar’a’s tenure, Syria witnessed a qualitative shift in its political, security, and economic structures after years of institutional collapse and geographic fragmentation. Al-Shar’a adopted an approach centered on stabilizing security, opening internal reconciliation tracks, and repositioning Syria regionally and internationally. But despite the progress achieved, the transitional phase remains constrained by structural challenges that require a careful balance between achievement and risk management.
Current Situation:
The country has entered a phase of state reformation based on a security–political framework aimed at restoring stability, integrating local actors, and opening channels with regional and international powers. Despite ongoing sanctions, the Syrian leadership has succeeded in halting institutional collapse and securing political recognition for its new role, while launching initial reforms. However, the economy remains fragile, administrative capacities are limited, and reconciliation pathways remain vulnerable to fluctuations.
Achievements:
-Strengthening the President’s domestic and international legitimacy.
-Initiating the restructuring of the security and defense sectors by unifying agencies, tightening border control, and reducing the influence of unregulated factions.
-Establishing more stable rules of engagement against Israeli strikes.
-Progress on the Kurdish track, particularly in integrating SDF structures into an administrative and security framework under a state-led decentralized model.
-Regionally, Damascus restored active communication channels with Gulf states and developed its relations with Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, while cooling tensions with Turkey.
-Economically, the financial collapse was halted, the government regained its ability to fund basic services, limited investments were opened in energy, phosphates, and transportation, and a preliminary reconstruction program was launched with UN and Gulf support.
Strategic Challenges:
Syria faces a set of structural, political, and economic challenges requiring precise management. These range from economic fragility and dependence on volatile external resources to the overlapping influences of Washington, Moscow, Ankara, Tehran, and Tel Aviv—factors that constrain the state’s ability to make fully sovereign decisions.
State-governance challenges remain among the most significant obstacles to institutional transformation. The legacy
of prioritizing loyalty over competence persists across key sectors:
Economy:
Economic institutions lack the professional expertise needed to formulate a stable economic policy. Loyalty-based appointments weaken oversight, fragment development planning, and perpetuate inefficiency.
Education and Health:
Investment in Syria’s education and health sectors faces multiple obstacles that limit the ability of domestic and foreign investors to enter these fields effectively, including:
Political and security instability reducing investor confidence and increasing long-term project risks.
Damaged infrastructure, with many schools and hospitals requiring full rehabilitation, inflating initial investment costs.
Weak legislative and regulatory environment, with outdated or unclear laws and slow bureaucratic processes.
Shortage of qualified personnel due to the migration of teachers and medical professionals.
Financing and transfer difficulties stemming from sanctions and banking restrictions.
Weak public–private partnership models, which limits collaborative investment in essential services.
These obstacles make investment challenging, but also underscore the urgent need for economic, legislative, and infrastructural reforms to make both sectors more attractive and viable.
Army and Security:
The military and security sectors face a core challenge: reliance on a wide array of groups that were integrated under the state’s umbrella in recent years but still maintain ideological, regional, and factional loyalties. Their varying levels of training, discipline, and doctrine hinder efforts to build a unified national institution.
This reality necessitates the launch of a comprehensive military and security rehabilitation program that rebuilds military doctrine on cohesive national foundations and establishes a professional army based on discipline, expertise, and exclusive loyalty to the state.
These challenges are compounded by resistance from old patronage networks, an outdated bureaucratic human-resource system, ongoing security risks in the Badia, south, and northeast, and the potential destabilizing impact of stalled Kurdish negotiations or increased Israeli pressure.
Expected Future Trajectories:
The future ranges from optimistic to pessimistic scenarios.
Positive scenario: Strengthening Al-Shar’a’s regional stabilization role, gradual integration of local forces, moderate economic improvement supported by Gulf funding, and reduced tension in the south.
Negative scenario: Obstruction of regaining control over the north due to U.S. and Turkish positions, escalation of Israeli attacks, social unrest driven by the absence of protective economic policies, and potential internal fissures caused by slow reforms.
Key Findings and Recommendations:
Launch a comprehensive military and security rehabilitation program
to integrate existing formations into a unified national army, standardize military doctrine, raise training and discipline levels, and build a modern security institution loyal solely to the state.
Consolidate the national integration of SDF
through a gradual (security–administrative–political) plan with clear U.S. guarantees, turning this file into a lever for unity and stability.
Rebuild state institutions on the basis of competence rather than loyalty
by reforming human-resource management, adopting professional appointment criteria, and attracting specialized expertise in the economy, education, and health.
Launch an urgent domestic stabilization package
including energy support, salary improvements, and expanded social-protection programs to reinforce popular legitimacy amid economic pressure.
Carefully manage the balance between Washington and Moscow
to preserve maneuverability in northern Syria, the Kurdish settlement, and reconstruction pathways.
Strengthen security control in the south
by integrating local forces and implementing targeted economic and administrative measures in Sweida and Daraa.
Prioritize anti-corruption as a sovereign national file
through dismantling entrenched economic–security networks, a prerequisite for any successful administrative or institutional reform.
Deepen international engagement strategies
especially with Gulf states and the United States, to convert political ties into economic and legal gains that reinforce internal stability.
Conclusion:
The “year of change” demonstrates that President Ahmad Al-Shar’a has succeeded in moving Syria from a phase of managing chaos to one of reconstruction, capitalizing on a political window that enabled stabilization and renewed legitimacy.
The success of the next phase will depend on the state’s ability to rebuild its security and military institutions on professional foundations, reinforce competence in civil governance, and translate political gains into tangible improvements in living conditions.
Despite the fragility of the moment, it represents a historic opportunity to lay the foundations for a more cohesive, effective, and sovereign Syrian state—provided it is guided by genuine will for reform and a clear strategic vision.
