An interview with Prof. Joshua Landis addressed some important questions about Syria’s future. Read the interview if you want to see how Landis views where things are headed. I just wanted to flag some questions it left me pondering:
Does the Kurdish region of Syria remain autonomous or even become independent? Does the US use that region as a military ally and base, in part to be less dependent on Turkey (Erdogan) and Iraq (too close with Iran)? Does Turkey eventually accept – rather than oppose – an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria, as it eventually did with the Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq?
How long will Jordan, the US, and Saudi Arabia seek to maintain a pocket of supportive militias in the southern Daraa province as a source of leverage versus the Assad government? Will the US require some concessions (what?) vis a vis Iran and Hezbollah’s presence in Syria before relenting for fear that Hezbollah could use control of southern Syria to get closer to border with Israel, its adversary?
Can Alawite-led Syrian (secular) nationalism maintain supremacy over “a very powerful Sunni national spirit” whose organizational manifestations – ISIS, AQ, other Islamists – mostly have been defeated in the civil war? Will that Sunni spirit rise again to challenge the Syrian state? Is it just a question of when, not if, that happens?
Can the Assad state re-establish itself as a strong state in the territory it controls? Or is it more likely to remain weak and rely on greater de-centralization than pre-2011 in terms of things like the provision of social welfare and state services, tax collection, and the control of security personnel?