Hussein Omar
The dramatic transformations reshaping Syria today cannot be understood in isolation from the broader regional power struggle aimed at redefining the political function of the Syrian state in the post-collapse era. What is unfolding is not a simple change of leadership or the fall of a traditional regime, but a far-reaching process of dismantling and reconfiguration that extends beyond Syria’s borders and directly affects the balance of power across the Levant. Within this complex geopolitical landscape, Damascus has emerged as a central arena for settling scores and redrawing spheres of influence between competing regional powers.
From Israel’s perspective, the objective is clear: to turn Syria into a demilitarized buffer entity, stripped of strategic capabilities and rendered incapable of posing any future threat. Turkey, by contrast, seeks to entrench itself as an indispensable regional actor, leveraging military and ideological tools of exceptional sensitivity; most notably radical armed factions that have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to disrupt political and security equations at critical moments.
For years, Israel has relied on its “campaign between wars” strategy to systematically degrade Iranian and Hezbollah military infrastructure in Syria, paving the way for a broader structural collapse. Yet Israel’s endgame has never been a democratic Syria. Rather, it has aimed to engineer a moment of strategic vacuum that would allow it to impose stringent security conditions on any emerging authority. In this context, Syria’s interim president, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, and his government are viewed in Tel Aviv as an “ideal adversary”: militarily weak, internationally isolated, internally exhausted, and socially fragmented; making them highly vulnerable to political coercion in exchange for survival.
Israel’s ultimate goal is to push the new Syrian leadership toward signing a so-called “security agreement” that, in substance, amounts to a surrender of sovereignty. Such an arrangement would formalize border demarcations that legitimize Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, sever Damascus entirely from the Palestinian cause, and transform Syria from a historical political capital into little more than a border guard operating under Israeli and international supervision.
This Israeli trajectory, however, collides directly with Turkey’s project in Syria, which is built on different instruments and strategic calculations. Contrary to superficial analyses portraying Ankara as alarmed by the presence of radical factions along its borders, on-the-ground realities suggest that Turkey has successfully converted these groups – ranging from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham to factions such as the EU-sanctioned Amshat and Hamzat brigades – into functional proxies serving its national interests. For Turkish decision-makers, these forces are not liabilities but assets: a human reservoir and a coercive tool that secures Ankara a permanent seat at the table in any negotiations over Syria’s future.
Turkey’s sponsorship of these factions aims to cement an organic linkage between northern Syria and the Turkish strategic depth, ensuring that any political settlement in Damascus must pass through Ankara. This dynamic crystallizes the real struggle between Israel and Turkey; not over counterterrorism narratives, but over who ultimately holds decisive influence in Damascus. Ankara understands that any rush by the Al-Sharaa government to accept Israeli dictates or enter direct security arrangements with Tel Aviv would effectively strip Turkey of its most valuable strategic card.
Should Israel succeed in pulling Damascus into its exclusive security orbit, Turkey would lose the alternative Syrian order it has long sought to shape according to its own parameters. This explains the firm Turkish pressure currently exerted on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s leadership to prevent any rapid alignment with Israeli security proposals. Such a shift would erode Turkish influence and transform Damascus into a purely Israeli-Western sphere of control, threatening Ankara’s core interests from Aleppo to the Syrian capital.
What is unfolding behind the scenes is a classic geopolitical tug-of-war. Israel seeks a form of “functional peace” that isolates Damascus from its Arab and regional (resistance-aligned) environment, while Turkey pursues “structural influence” that integrates Syria into its broader sphere of strategic depth. Caught between these competing agendas, Syria’s new authority navigates a political minefield—balancing its desire for international legitimacy, potentially accessible through the Israeli gateway, against its reliance on Turkish logistical and military backing.
The danger of this moment lies in the steady erosion of Syrian sovereignty, as the state is reduced from a historical regional actor to a negotiable geographic space traded between rival powers seeking to optimize their positions in a shifting global order. The instrumentalization of radical factions further intensifies this risk. These groups, now embedded within the power structures of Damascus, face the challenge of transitioning from militias to state actors – a process driven less by internal reform than by the calculations of regional sponsors.
By entrenching factions such as the Amshat and Hamzat brigades within Syria’s emerging military framework, Turkey promotes a model of fragile stability that serves its long-term objectives: blocking Kurdish political gains on one hand and ensuring the subordination of Syria’s central authority on the other. Conversely, any successful Israeli breach of this Turkish barrier would likely reshuffle the battlefield and usher in a new phase of proxy confrontation on Syrian soil.
Ultimately, Syria stands at an existential crossroads. The transformation of Damascus from a historic capital of Arab political agency into a contested intermediary – pulled between Israeli security imperatives and Turkish ambitions – represents the core tragedy of this era. The “peace” promised through humiliating security arrangements or conditional regional sponsorship is a hollow one, aimed less at reconstruction or social healing than at institutionalizing dependency on external powers.
Restoring Syria’s independent national decision-making requires a fundamental rethinking of state-building itself, grounded in a civic consciousness that transcends sectarian, ethnic, and external allegiances. For now, however, such awareness remains elusive, as Syria continues to be reshaped by a carefully engineered collapse – one in which radical factionalism, foreign capital, and external patronage hold the upper hand, while the Syrian people await a historical moment that restores their right to self-determination beyond the illusions of “functional peace” and anxious proxyhood.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of +963.
