Syria could descend into chaos. But early positive signs bring some cautious optimism
'We are entering uncharted territory,' says one analyst commenting on the transition to a new government
The ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has prompted concerns and warnings that the war-torn country may not be able to avoid the chaos that ensued among some of its regional neighbours when their governments were overthrown.
However, while still very early, some observers say there have been some positive signs, suggesting the country may not descend into a free-for-all domestic conflict similar to those that followed the toppling of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya or Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
"I think that the Syrian people have shown that they are careful enough about their own country that they do care about building a future, a better Syria," Qutaiba Idlbi, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs told CBCs Power & Politics.
"And that's why you haven't seen a lot of ... massive scenes of looting and destruction, which is a very positive sign for how Syria is going to deal with their future state," he said.
Assad fled to Moscow on the weekend and received asylum from his longtime ally hours after a stunning rebel advance seized control of Damascus and ended his family's 50 years of iron rule.
Yet not everyone is so optimistic about Syria's future. With multiple groups and external actors in Syria, the more likely scenario for Syria's future "unfortunately, is a culmination of the same societal and religious-ethnic cleavages that have been witnessed across the Middle East," wrote Daniel E. Mouton, a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council's Middle East Programs.
"Syria may follow the path of Libya and descend into chaos. Competition for power among Syria's different armed groups would create havoc for the Levant region," Moulton wrote on the Atlantic Council's website.
'A political vacuum'
Syria is a political vacuum with no clear roadmap of how it will develop post-Assad, Sajjan M. Gohel, international security director at the Asia-Pacific Foundation in London, said in an email to CBC News.
"All the different factions have competing agendas, interests and ideologies. There is no clarity over what a transition government looks like, how elections will be held. We are entering uncharted territory."
Syria is divided into various sects and ethnic groups, each with its own regional power base. It's home to a mult-ifaith and multi-ethnic population in which the country's Sunni Muslims, Shia Alawites, Christians and ethnic Kurds have often been pitted against each, whether by Assad's rule or a 14-year civil war.
The rebel alliance that is now in control of much of the country is led by Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the UN. Al-Golani is a former senior al-Qaeda militant who severed ties with the extremist group years ago and has promised representative government and religious tolerance.
Many of the rebel groups comprise a broad ideological spectrum, and each one is vying for supremacy, according to Abdelaziz al-Sager, director of the Gulf Research Center.
"Each one thinks they can be Bashar al-Assad, and each one has allegiance to a foreign party funding his group," he told Reuters. "They will clash unless there is an effort by the UN and some regional countries with influence to unify them."
Worry about revenge killings
Meanwhile, there are also some fears that lawlessness in Syria could allow the flourishing of extremist groups like Islamic State (IS), which in 2014 swept through large swathes of Syria and Iraq and established an Islamic caliphate before it was driven out by a U.S.-led coalition by 2019.
As well, some worry about revenge killings following the civil war, whether against former figures of Assad's state or whole communities seen as backing the old system.
"We saw what happened when Moammar Gadhafi was removed from power in Libya. It created a massive power vacuum," Gohel told CBC News Network. "Civil war, conflict. There was rampant human rights abuses, civil liberties being undermined. Misogyny, attacks on minorities. And one really does have to express those similar concerns about what may transpire in Syria."
There is a risk that internal fractures within the HTS-led umbrella movement may become more salient in the weeks and months to come, according to Burcu Ozcelik of the Royal United Services Institute think tank in the U.K., who told ABC News that could lead to discord and threaten Syrian stability.
"A new transitional Syrian administration will soon need to take on the task of state-building, including the rebuilding of a national Syrian security force and a constitution-building process, as the Syrian state has been painfully hallowed out by the Assad regime," Ozcelik said.
Still, allowing the incumbent Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi al-Jalali and his cabinet to continue governing is certainly a good sign, Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation of Defense Democracies, wrote on the organization's website.
Declared nightly curfew
Abdul-Hussain also pointed out that Syria's new rulers took over government buildings in an orderly manner, did not break or burn government facilities — such as the state-owned TV broadcaster — but rather rebranded them and used them to plead with Syrians not to loot state property.
They also declared a nightly curfew in Damascus, perhaps aware that security remains the cornerstone of any functioning state, he said.
"All these signs indicate that those who toppled Assad understand global fears, that the sudden disappearance of the ruling regime may lead to lawlessness," he wrote "Whether they will manage to maintain security, stability, and basic government — in the short and medium term — remains to be seen."
Some key government services had shut down on Monday after state workers ignored calls to go back to their jobs.
In an interview with CBC News, Abdul-Hussain said that one of the key differences between the situation in Iraq following the fall of Saddam and Syria today is that Iraq failed in part because Iran was empowered but is now weak.
The other big difference is that the rebels taking over seem aware of the mistakes and the pitfalls of the other change processes that occurred within countries like Libya, Iraq or Yemen, he said.
Rebels become more organized
"What you like to see now is that if the government keeps on running affairs, you will have minimum government services, which is essential to keep civil peace," Abdul-Hussain said.
Idlbi, from the Atlantic Council, said that the rebels have become more organized and, on a military and security level, are showing co-ordination and co-operation.
"We've seen a very high level of outreach to minority communities to ensure the protection of different ethnic and religious minority communities — Christians, Alawites, Shias and others — which is very hopeful, I think, for the future of Syria and the ability of those different groups to work together," he said.
But the problem, he added, is looking at what governing structure would be put in place and how inclusive it is.
"So there's definitely a question to look at what the conduct of HTS would be and how inclusive it is of everyone in Syria, not only the rebels themselves, but ... all the different ethnic, sectarian or religious groups all across Syria," Idlbi said.
For the next two years,"we should expect that there is a lot of organization that needs to be done just to figure out how to stabilize the situation in Syria," he said.
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With files from The Associated Press, Reuters