Washington is betting on the new Syrian government to unify the country by force.
Syria is undergoing the next phase of its rapid transformation since the collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024, raising new questions about the country’s future and the US role in it. In this context, the last major vestiges of its presence in Syria—namely, a few military bases and its local partner, the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF)—appear to be on their way out. The evolving situation raises valid concerns regarding Syria’s future stability as US officials attempt to wash their hands of their long-running involvement, even as Washington would be wise to end its military presence in the country.
Syria’s new developments stem from hostilities between the central government in Damascus, led by President Ahmed al-Shara, and the SDF, formerly based in northeast Syria and some parts of Aleppo Governorate. In early January, fighting broke out in Aleppo City’s Kurdish majority neighborhoods of Ashrafiya and Sheikh Maqsood in the city’s north, resulting in the withdrawal of the last remnants of the SDF in the city, local security forces known as the Asayish.
The fighting did not end, however, as the Syrian Army engaged the final SDF elements west of the Euphrates River in Aleppo Governorate’s Deir Hafir, forcing their withdrawal across the river. Increasingly, it appeared as if Damascus was preparing for a larger assault on northeast Syria, testing the limits of military action that the SDF’s primary backer—the United States—had blocked until recently.
With little apparent pushback from Washington, Damascus moved across the river, quickly utilizing long-planned Arab-community insurgencies via tribes that had long worked with the SDF against the group. As of this writing, a shaky ceasefire deal that addresses most of Damascus’s demands in unification talks remains on the table, and Washington is pushing to see it implemented.
The decision on the part of these Arab tribes proved to be the SDF’s primary undoing, from Aleppo City to the northeast governorates of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. Arab frustrations with the SDF, which long operated as a multi-ethnic force but with substantial Kurdish influence and control given its direct ties to the Democratic Union Party (PYD)—the Syrian arm of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that fought a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state —led to the military alliance’s undoing.
The central government hastened this development, utilizing its Sunni and Islamist roots to reconnect tribal networks long-divided along pro-regime and opposition lines, which geography played a substantial role in determining. Ultimately, that dynamic proved stronger than the SDF’s alliance of convenience in the fight against a now mostly defunct Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
More surprising is the US role—or lack thereof—in blocking the assault on its traditional counterterrorism partner in Syria. While neither iteration of the Trump administration ever demonstrated much affinity for the SDF or a broader Kurdish movement, the working assumption was that Washington preferred a political solution to unification efforts between the central government and SDF. That dynamic largely stemmed from the clear US interest in avoiding any Islamic State resurgence within Syria, given the myriad of prison camps holding tens of thousands of the group’s fighters.
Any conflict between Damascus and the SDF ran the risk of camp security largely collapsing, leading to escapes and a potential IS resurgence. That says nothing of broader concerns over a new Syrian civil war that would further destabilize the country, opening the space for the group while causing the same issues that persisted throughout the war under Assad’s rule—namely, a migration crisis, drug and arms smuggling, and widespread death and destruction. For Washington, there was always a fine line between attempting another likely-to-fail nation-building project and ensuring that the vaguely defined concepts of “stability” and “transition” are upheld.
Yet the Trump administration appears to be picking a winning side in the conflict, opting to allow Damascus’s military pressure against the SDF to move forward as a path for resolving the question of Syrian unification and, ultimately, accelerate efforts toward a US withdrawal.
The reasoning is obvious: Washington prefers strong central authorities aligned with its interests in the Middle East. Preferred partners would also harbor peaceful attitudes toward Israel and repressive stances toward both extremist groups and any other entities challenging the status quo. Traditionally, this view goes by the name of “autocratic stability theory,” the belief that authoritarianism is the best and only form of government suited to a region that cannot adopt genuine democracy.
This theory, however, has repeatedly proven to be fallacious. The Arab Spring movements of the last decade and a half demonstrate that autocracies inherently create conditions conducive to their downfall by fostering animosities between the state and its citizens. Past traumas do not go away—this is an enduring fact of any conflict-resolution effort achieved at the end of a barrel. That reality is why a political solution to the Damascus-SDF rift was always essential, especially after such a long period of brutal, total war that constituted one of the 21st century’s worst conflicts.
To be sure, the Trump administration is—at least publicly—stating that it still supports a political solution and an end to the fighting. It has worked to move thousands of IS fighters from Syria to Iraq to avoid any additional prison breaks. It has also released warnings against Damascus’s operations. All of this suggests that a political solution is still preferable in Washington.
However, it is through actions that one must gauge and verify policy. In the end, while it is not Washington’s responsibility, the United States could have stopped Damascus’s advance with relatively little diplomatic effort in support of its preferred policy outcome. It chose not to do so. Whether that is due to severe overreach across the globe by the Trump administration, distracting it from the field of play in Syria, or a conscious decision remains to be seen.
In this context, US special envoy Tom Barrack’s January 20 statement is the most telling of all the rhetoric of the last month out of Washington in relation to its general inaction, in which he says that the SDF’s role in fighting ISIS has “largely expired” amid the central government’s decision to join the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.
That component and the broader statement itself largely align with the long-running priorities of the US government in Syria: a political solution to the fighting and the sustainable defeat of the Islamic State. Even if the “political solution” is being achieved through force, Washington likely views the dynamic as a game of semantics, ultimately reaching the same desired outcome, especially concerning the SDF and its comfort level with its international sponsor, a comfort level that simply went too far.
This is where US officials appear to sit today, with one positive outcome being a withdrawal of the troops in the weeks and months ahead should a likely deal between Damascus and the SDF emerge as a result of the fighting.
About the Author: Alexander Langlois
Alexander Langlois is a foreign policy analyst, the senior editor at DAWN, and a contributing fellow at Defense Priorities. He is focused on the geopolitics of the Levant and the broader dynamics of West Asia. Langlois holds a Master of Arts degree in International Affairs from American University. He has written for various outlets, including The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Sada, the Atlantic Council’s MENASource, the Lowy Institute, the Gulf International Forum, the New Arab, the Nation, and Inkstick. Follow him on X: @langloisajl.
Image: Noam Galai / Shutterstock.com.
