Introduction

Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik German Institute for International and Security Affairs

Syria’s Society Upended Societal Rifts Pose a Massive Challenge to Pursuit of a Political Solution

Khaled Yacoub Oweis SWP Comments

The has profoundly altered established business structures, a delicate balance of religious values, and long-standing ties between urban and rural areas. New networks, identities, and social hierarchies have emerged in connection with the war economy, the militarization of the public sphere, and signs of ethnic cleansing. Any formal end to the conflict is unlikely to halt the violent societal transformation. Co- existence will remain a major challenge due to the nature of the cleavages. However, an inclusive political system that ends the marginalization of the Sunni majority, accepts diversity, and protects minorities is a prerequisite for reducing the levels of profound mistrust between the different societal groups.

Virtually all Middle East regimes used divide- system – apart from the security apparatus – and-rule tactics to manage their societies were partnerships between the top Alawite prior to the “” revolts. Day-to- tier and Sunni merchants, mainly in Da- day, they employed tarheeb wa targheeb (ter- mascus and . The regime subjugated rorization and inducement) – their version the largely Sunni tribes, which, as a result, of the carrot-and-stick approach. Rulers of disintegrated over the decades. At the same republics coming from a religious minority, time, it gave them a role in communal such as was the case in and Iraq, tend- management. Peasants were subsidized ed to use a more brutal version because before the partial liberalization of the eco- they needed to domesticize the majority nomy in the mid-2000s, and the lifting of sect of the population, in whose eyes they subsidies contributed to socio-economic had little legitimacy – neither democratic, havoc. The Kurdish community was mal- “traditional,” nor religious. treated and disenfranchised, except for on- The fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and and-off regime backing of the Turkish Kur- the demise of Sunni minority rule in Bagh- distan Workers’ Party (PKK). dad did little to change the strategy of the As the first wave of the Arab Spring hit Alawite regime in . The Assad North Africa in late 2010, Bashar al-Assad clan seized upon chunks of the economy tried to preempt the Syrian revolt by mak- and awarded enormous privileges to other ing rhetorical commitments to improve the elites associated with it. Underpinning the lot of the regime’s non-Alawite base, but

Khaled Yacoub Oweis is a fellow in the project “Mapping Local Landscapes in the Syrian Conflict: Actors, Networks, and Structures,” SWP Comments 27 realized by the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) and funded by the ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) with a grant July 2017 from the German Foreign Office.

1 societal and economic rifts had grown too became big business. The new profiteers deep to be contained by the system that had sought to enhance their social stature. fostered them. For instance, the regime no Backed by their own private militias, they longer could manage the young jihadis and bullied former pillars of the business com- other Islamist actors who it had, in part, munity in order to take over their positions, nourished in order to present Assad as the as a more outwardly violent mode of doing only alternative to chaos and to pressure business developed after 2011. the West into ending periods of limited A main figure and typical representative isolation on the regime from 2005 to 2008. of this new business elite is Samer al-Foz. A previously unknown young figure in , Foz apparently bought assets in Social Impacts of the War Economy 2017 belonging to Imad Ghreiwati – one The dynamics of the civil war, which fol- of a generation of businessmen known lowed the crackdown on the 2011 revolt, as “friends of Bashar” before the revolt – produced massive social fragmentation. It with cash from war profiteering. Among broke down social, economic, and genera- Foz’s new reported assets is the Orient tional hierarchies, and it fueled new mili- Club, which is a fixture of the old Damas- tary-economic networks. The power balance cene elite. The purchase of the club signals between religious and ethnic groups was Foz’s success in entering the bourgeois altered. Social mobility no longer depended hierarchy in the capital. on having links to the regime; as a result, Former junior actors came to the fore the Assad clan’s control over a governing as well in opposition areas. In the suburbs system that fused cronyism and sectarian of Eastern Ghouta on the outskirts of Da- rule abated sharply. mascus, a long siege fueled a tunnel trade that resulted in traditional merchants giving way to a younger generation. The New Markets for Junior Actors “new capitalists” made their fortunes The progressive loss of central authority during sieges by sourcing basic supplies diluted the concentration of economic and goods and transporting them through spoils among the regime’s top tier. New or tunnels. They partnered with the rebels, bigger markets opened to previously junior and in many cases with the regime, and actors, typically in their 30s, in regime needed clerics for legitimacy. Many of the areas and in rebel territory. clerics maneuvered between the changing Among the loyalist ranks, loot and a social strata, earning figurehead member- slice of the black market were the main ship in various religious consultation and incentives for thousands recruited into the adjudication councils tied to rebel brigades. regime’s militias. Relatively low-ranking These councils legitimized the brigades’ personnel in the intelligence apparatus involvement in the war economy and war- who had lived off relatively petty bribes fare against other rebels, which in many enriched themselves by charging for infor- cases involved competition over resources mation of detained persons in the regime’s as well as religious ideology. jails and al-mukhabarat (intelligence) dun- The tunnels ran from Eastern Ghouta to geons. It has been common for families to rebel territory near the Damascus district sell all their assets for cash just to learn of al-Qaboun. However, under a surrender whether their sons are dead or alive. Others deal in the first half of 2017, the rebels were rose to the top of the extortion rackets of bussed out of the district to opposition the besieged areas. Fuel supplies to regime areas away from the capital. Most tunnels territory and energy dealings with areas closed after the rebels lost Qaboun, giving under the control of the so-called Islamic a former small trader called Mohieddine State (also derogatorily called Da’ish) Manfoush a virtual monopoly of supplying

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2 Eastern Ghouta. Manfoush had built solid In contrast to the countryside and the slums, relations with – and a network of – inter- the military and the regime’s security mediaries with the regime as well as the tended to be more entrenched in the more rebels, enabling him to move goods openly well-off sectors in cities. The rebel capture overland. of territory, mostly on the periphery, re- The new hierarchies could be challenged inforced social demarcation lines, not only by political developments. Eastern Ghouta, between the countryside and the cities but a main target of a nerve gas attack that between richer and poorer districts in the killed hundreds of civilians in 2013, is sup- cities themselves. These lines had developed posed to be included in the planned “de- in large part because of the regime’s neglect escalation zones.” The zones were proposed of the rural poor and the development of in May 2017 by the three guarantors (Russia, patters of legal and illegal dwellings tied to Turkey, and Iran) of the Astana peace talks, corruption, zoning, and social engineering. which have been held in Kazakhstan since early 2017. With Moscow acting as the zones’ most ardent proponent, it is unlikely Old Rural Nobility Hit New Low that the zones will result in a West Berlin- The economic changes that accompanied style scenario, that is, an island surrounded the war have further diminished what is by “enemy” territory, but with relatively left of the old rural nobility, which had free access to the outside world. Delinea- survived waves of nationalization and tion and levels of access to the zones would socialist agrarian policies in the past. One likely again reshape local societal dynamics. such example is the town of Qalaat al-Madiq, in governorate. Here, rural social tensions have simmered since agrarian Revenge of the Rural Poor reform in the 1950s. It pitted former tenant The militarization of the revolt since the farmers who were awarded land against the second half of 2011 placed marginalized old nobility who had managed to retain Sunnis at the center of the armed resistance some of their original lands. During the to Assad. They comprised inhabitants of the civil war, Qalaat al-Madiq, which is situated countryside and those of rural origins who near the Roman ruins of Apamea on the lived in poorer districts of cities and nearby. edge of the Ghab Plain, lost its agricultural The military role provided them with the holdings. The loss was mostly due to regime power to redress the socio-economic im- shelling intended to prevent cultivation in balance in relation to the richer segments rebel areas. The former tenant farmers in of society allied with the Alawite elite. the town joined rebel brigades, in particu- After Assad’s grip lessened, social mobility lar Ahrar al-Sham, which is a large Salafist for many rural Sunnis became dependent group that controls a main crossing with on local parameters and communal dynam- Turkey. Geography and the link to Ahrar al- ics rather than links to regime elites. Griev- Sham helped transform Qalaat al-Madiq ances emerged, and many of the Sunni poor into a main conduit of Turkish goods and began calling themselves al-mustad’afoun fuel to rebel areas starting in 2012. The new (the oppressed), a term mentioned in the trading and smuggling rings displaced the Koran. The same term has been used to de- old landowning nobility at the top of the rive legitimacy for the political and social social pyramid. The growing commercial ascendency of the Shi’ites in Iraq and Leba- activity in the town helped compensate the non in the last 10 to 20 years. region for the lack of access to the provincial The Syrian regime viewed the rural capital of Hama, which the regime overran Sunnis, especially those who had rebelled with tanks in August 2011. against it in the 1980s in Hama and governorates, as “untrustworthy elements.”

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3 Hinterlands Become Centers side. Known as Hajji Marea, Saleh led the Along with changes of economic structures Islamist Tawhid brigades. He represented due to the regime’s control of traditional a layer of lower-class or socially obscure centers of commerce, societies in the hinter- Sunnis, who tended to be more conserva- lands changed as a result of the large num- tive and lacked the links urban business- bers and diversity of refugees who fled there. men had with the regime. Their base dis- With rebel-held cut off trusted the Sunni bourgeois. from Aleppo, the small town of Sarmada Before a regime strike killed Saleh in turned into a hub for foreign currency and Aleppo in 2013, Tawhid led a rebel capture money transfers, and services replaced agri- of the eastern sector of the city. Compared culture as the town’s economic mainstay. to the more affluent western Aleppo, its Across Idlib, young entrepreneurs compet- inhabitants mostly comprised fairly recent ed vigorously among each other to provide migrants from the countryside of Aleppo services. They set up local communication and Idlib governorates and from more arid towers that enabled residents of rebel areas regions in eastern Syria. Residents of al- to buy internet usage and communicate Sakhour, one of Aleppo’s bigger neighbor- through voice and messaging applications. hoods, made livings as underpaid industrial The swelling of the population across workers or in quarries and cotton mills. Idlib as a result of refugees made it more Dwellings in eastern Aleppo were known as difficult for various jihadist and hardline ashwaeiyat (random), because they were Salafist brigades that had captured most of built without permits and had no titles or Idlib to enforce their religious codes, such recognition in official records. More than as the wearing of the niqab (full-face cover) half of all urban dwellings in Syria before or bans on smoking, although the niqab was 2011 were estimated to fall into the fairly common in Syria’s Sunni countryside ashwaeiyat category. In contrast, properties before the revolt. In some instances, social were officially registered and delineated mores were adapted to suit businesses. For in the western neighborhoods of Aleppo, example, the town of al-Dana in Idlib was which brought them roads and services. able to attract business by adopting a less The housing market and property registra- strict social attitude toward the masses of tions have been the main tools in the displaced persons. The original inhabitants regime’s cooptation arsenal. Still today in of Dana, who numbered around 30,000 Aleppo and other regime areas, home before the revolt, were influenced by the ownership is largely dependent on so-called 70,000 more socially relaxed refugees from housing associations, comprised of groups other parts of Syria who had made Dana of would-be owners who qualify for loans their new home. The social leeway in Dana from state banks to build residential build- enticed displaced families and even women ings according to their loyalties to the living alone to rent property in the town. regime. Once the building is completed, One woman who fled Aleppo and who did several apartments are reserved for free for not wear the full-face veil rented a house officials or intelligence operatives to sell, and lived by herself in Dana for months. live in, or give to their cronies or as bribes, No questions were asked. including to judges and other officials who facilitate their business. In an outpouring of resentment against Class Clashes in Aleppo Aleppo’s elite, the looting of factories had One of the main figures who conveyed the marked the fall of the eastern sector to the cause of rural Sunnis into an instrument of rebels. Their owners were seen as regime power after 2011 was Abdul Qader Saleh, a lackeys. However, the relationship was more merchant turned rebel commander from nuanced. Many among the well-off in west- the town of Marea in the Aleppo country- ern Aleppo had seen little choice other than

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4 to work with the system or leave Syria. They Taking the stakes a significant notch blamed the regime for the demise of Aleppo higher, the regime facilitated recruitment as a cosmopolitan hub, the flight of its mi- of jihadists to undermine the US presence nority populations, and for the stifling of in Iraq from 2003 onwards, contributing to free enterprise. On the other hand, some the spread of Salafism, mainly in rural re- touted their connections with the regime. gions and poor urban outskirts. Confident One industrialist opened a factory in Jordan in its ability to choreograph even the jihad- after his factory in Aleppo, which employed ists, in 2006 the regime brought radicalized 700 workers and relied on export business, slum dwellers to the center of the capital. was looted. Speaking next to a framed photo It allowed thousands into the diplomatic of Assad at his office in Amman, he com- district of Damascus to demonstrate against plained that costs in Jordan were too high the publishing of Danish cartoons that de- because, unlike Syria, he could not bribe picted the prophet. The protesters – fired his way out of paying workers’ insurance. up by regime-appointed clerical outfits – torched the Danish and Norwegian em- bassies. European diplomats stationed in Sufis versus Salafists Damascus saw the episode as the product Almost no one dared complain publicly of the “invisible hand” of the regime. At the about the sectarian cronyism practiced by time, it was a thinly veiled warning that the the regime in the pre-2011 era, but it was regime could let the genie of radical Islam a main source of underlying Sunni resent- it had nurtured out of the bottle unless the ment. Dissidents, who included , West ended the isolation imposed on the regarded the system as unsustainable and Syrian government after the 2005 assassina- championed democratic transformation as tion of Lebanese statesman Rafik al-Hariri. the alternative to any sectarian retribution. The societal divides – ethnic and reli- Among Syria’s Sunnis, different strands gious – carried little political significance linked to Salafism and Sufism competed at the start of the protests in 2011. Several quietly for influence while an equilibrium high-profile Alawites, such as actors and that had been developed over centuries kept filmmakers, supported the revolt. The pro- tensions in check. Most Sunnis tended to democracy demonstrations broadly engulfed be socially conservative, falling somewhere the countryside and the cities, as well as between Salafism and Sufism. Neither made urban districts with different income levels inroads in Syria on a mass scale as an and religious leanings. In the ensuing war, ideology per se. besieged rebel regions embraced religion However, from the early 2000s onward, more strongly, partly as a way to deal with the regime began to mess with this fragile the suffering from the indiscriminate re- balance to suit its political purposes, arbi- gime and Russian bombings. Salafism out- trarily enhancing the Sunni ideological gap paced moderating Sufi influences, and ideo- by giving certain groups freedom to pros- logical polarization enhanced the levels of elytize while denying it to others. Two ex- bitterness toward the cities, which were amples on the Sufi side stand out. The first enjoying relative safety, and the suspicions is the Sheikh Ahmad Kuftaru Foundation, that their Sunni inhabitants had “sold out” whose top management the authorities al- to the regime. Damascus, in particular, be- lowed to establish contact with Western em- came increasingly seen as lacking religious bassies as representatives of a moderate face credentials because the capital had been of regime-backed Islam in Syria. The second influenced by Sufism, whose adherents are is the al-Qubaisiyyat, a women-only group considered apostates by more doctrinaire that flourished, mostly in Damascus, around Islamists. 2006, to the indignation of conservative By mid-2017 the regime had captured Sunnis, who saw the Qubaisiyyat as a cult. through siege warfare most districts it had

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5 lost to rebels in the capital and on the out- The effects of the war varied according to skirts, except for Eastern Ghouta. Salafism the outside powers present in the respective had roots in the area, which were rekindled area. Tribes that had remained on the side before the revolt by the regime’s tacit sup- of the regime tended to gain influence and port for jihadists. Eastern Ghouta merchants expanded their social networks. For instance, tended to view themselves as “close to the Bani Izza, a branch of the Mawali tribe north people,” as opposed to the more aloof Da- of Hama, was one of the pro-regime forma- mascenes associated with Sufism, and gener- tions that emerged with enhanced status. ally backed the revolt. One Eastern Ghouta Ahmad Mubarak Darwish, head of Bani merchant went as far back as to blame the Izza, was similar to other tribal figures be- Damascenes for the death of Ibn Taimiyyah, fore the revolt. He was awarded for his loy- a Levantine theologian who inspired mod- alty with a seat in the rubber stamp parlia- ern Salafist movements and died while ment elected in 2003 and claimed more imprisoned at the Damascus citadel during prestige by adjudicating local disputes. The rule in 1328. regime ignored the smuggling in the area, Damascus residents, however, have had which turned during the war into a conduit little room to show or act on any sympathies between the regime, the Islamic State, and with their Sunni co-religionists because of rebel territory. Darwish carved out a mid- the abundance of security in Assad’s seat of dleman role between all three. Sunni mer- power. A 2012 strike organized by Damas- chants who had fled Hama to Turkey would cene merchants to protest the massacre of contact him to send Turkish goods to their more than 100 Sunni civilians in old networks in the city. Fuel from Islamic governorate was swiftly quelled. After the State areas would pass through him to vari- rise of jihadists, a sentiment might have ous regions. prevailed among those merchants who had Outside regime areas, particularly in not fled the country that Syria, under Assad, eastern Syria, a struggle for resources pro- was still preferable to the Islamic State or duced tribal rifts, widening divisions in Taliban-style rule. Among those who re- local societies that were fragmented by the mained, many stayed – not out of support regime’s divide-and-rule policy in the pre- for the regime but because they feared that vious decades. In the eastern governorates if they left, the various pro-regime Shi’ite of , Deir al-Zor, and Hasakah to the militia recruited from inside and outside east, various tribes fought among them- Syria would take over their properties. Al- selves for oil and gas until the Islamic State though the militias’ presence is reportedly took control of much of the region in 2013. visible in the Old City, home to some of the Senior tribesmen who had enjoyed relative busiest markets, the regime sought to keep independence were placed on a short leash, the conservative shopkeepers in Damascus with the local emirs from the Islamic State as a façade of “normal” economic activity reigning supreme. during the war.

Kurds Rise As Societal Actors New Tribal Landscape The Islamic State’s capture of the east In relative terms, the most powerful among increased support among Syrian Kurds for the traditional Sunni components of the the US-backed People’s Protection Units regime have been the Arab tribes. Their (YPG) militia, a subsidiary of the PKK. The knowledge and rooting in the large land- YPG’s advances against the Islamic State, scape they inhabit east of Aleppo, Hama, starting in late 2014, altered again the and Homs to the Iraqi border made them societal landscape in the region and em- indispensable to the different powers that powered YPG diehards, who became the captured the region after 2011. new powerbrokers.

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6 The YPG has cooperated with Assad since Shi’ite Militias in Charge the beginning of the revolt, violently sup- From 2012 to 2013 onward, ethnic cleansing pressing anti-Assad protests and acting as has become a weapon of the war – directed a supply conduit to the regime’s military. most prominently against the Sunni popu- With the consent of the regime, the YPG lation in rebel areas – and been used by dif- area expanded to comprise both Kurdish ferent military actors. In these rebel areas, and Arab regions. It has been divided since various Shi’ite militia, backed by Iran, have 2014 into three so-called cantons: al-Jazeera become the new masters of many of the in the eastern Hasakah governorate, Afrin communities, whose members were largely near Aleppo, and Kobanê, which is situated uprooted and have fled to neighboring between the other two. After the YPG con- countries or to Europe in large numbers. solidated its power, middlemen linked to The population transfers have centered the YPG emerged to sell wheat crops to the on Damascus and its surroundings, and the regime, such as in the Ras al-Ain region on adjacent governorate of Homs – areas com- the border with Turkey, and to handle oil prised mostly of Sunnis that had acted as produced in Hasakah’s Rumeilan, one of the main centers for skilled labor for Syria Syria’s largest oil fields. Local figures in and beyond. Two loyalist towns inhabited Kurdish cities and towns yielded to armed by Shi’ites in northern Syria were also YPG cadres, who violently suppressed dis- largely emptied of their inhabitants in 2017 sent. The YPG not only demanded loyalty as part of a deal negotiated by Qatar. The from the local Kurdish community figures. deal involved the emptying of two other They had to be “Apogis,” or ideologically Sunni towns near Damascus and was met fervent believers, in the personality cult of with little international objection. Abdullah Öcalan to win any favor with the Fragmentation and internal contradic- YPG. Many among the educated Kurds sub- tions among the various Shi’ite militia, how- sequently left their hometowns, resulting ever, have reflected on the functioning of in a reported shortage of qualified workers societies in the areas of Syria the militias across the Kurdish areas of Syria. Others left had captured, even after they drove out the merely to escape conscription into the YPG. Sunnis. Among them, Hezbollah remains The fragmentation among the Arab the most powerful and has the slickest tribes played into the hands of the YPG as propaganda operation. However, its author- it captured traditional Arab areas from the ity has been undermined by working in Islamic State. The YPG set up units such as Syria with less disciplined allies comprised military councils and local administrations, of Shi’ite militia from Syria, Iraq, and Af- in which Arab tribal figures would receive ghanistan, as well as local Alawite militia positions with lofty titles. The Democratic more focused on loot than ideology. Union Party (PYD), the YPG’s political divi- Syrian Shi’ites, who had played second sion, has also been an actor that has created fiddle as a small pro-regime social group, a myriad of councils and organized the buy- were elevated militarily and financially by in of certain local Arab tribes. However, any support from Iran. By mid-2017 strategic significant decision-making has remained parts of Syria along the Lebanese border implicitly with the YPG militia actors. Under from al-Qusair to al-Zabadani had fallen to them, the social contract appears similar Hezbollah and a variety of Iranian-backed to previous Assad regime structures, under militia from Syria and elsewhere. United in which the de facto viceroy was often the subduing the Sunni populations that had Alawite security agent behind the scenes, risen against Assad, they apparently have not the “popular democracy” structures not managed to set up a coherent admin- erected to give the appearance of offering istration. One resident of the al-Qalamoun a say to the local populations. region described that approvals issued by Hezbollah to move around or its orders to

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7 release detainees were not necessarily . The YPG’s strength might prove to honored by the other Iranian-backed war- be ultimately dependent on US support. lords in the area. Without it, the Arab inhabitants of rural and tribal Syria are likely to look with less deference at the YPG and the “democratic” Long-term Transformation structures it has set up. The social change unleashed during the con- In rebel areas more in the interior of flict is set to play out, regardless of whether Syria, rural Sunnis have, in some cases, the regime consolidates, remains weak, or tasted social mobility without dependence – however unlikely at this current stage – on the social arrangements related to the falls. Among the millions who fled Syria to regime. They developed their own mustad‘ neighboring countries and to Europe, the afoun (the oppressed) narrative with the upending of social strata is likely to be even help of the various religious ideologues more profound and diverse. from inside and outside Syria who began

© Stiftung Wissenschaft und The Assad regime has sought to present operating freely for the first time in the Politik, 2017 itself as the only civil war player that could country as large parts of the countryside All rights reserved put the society back together. However, it fell to the rebels. The narrative could be These Comments reflect has lost control of the forces it has unleash- a main tool for continuous social mobiliza- the author’s views. ed, throwing society into new levels of cul- tion, which, similar to the suffering of SWP tural, ideological, and economic disarray. the Shi’ites of Iraq under Saddam, would Stiftung Wissenschaft und Not least, the regime faces societal chal- remain latent even if the Syrian revolt is Politik German Institute for lenges from its own ranks. Its approach be- annihilated. The rural population, however, International and fore the revolt in dealing with elements has seen many of the various rebel factions Security Affairs that grew too powerful was to dispose of control their towns and villages and act Ludwigkirchplatz 3­4 them or cut them down to size. The threat as warlords. A proportion might prefer to 10719 Berlin of violence was key to the takeover by return to the regime, especially if the re- Telephone +49 30 880 07-0 Fax +49 30 880 07-100 Assad’s immediate relatives – mainly his gime gathers enough resources to bring www.swp-berlin.org brother and cousins – of a large proportion back huge crop and fuel subsidies it had [email protected] of the economy and illicit activities, as cut before the revolt. ISSN 1861-1761 well as government procurement. They will The upheavals dealt to the societal struc- have to contend with the new war rich to tures since the revolt and the amount of maintain their dominance. Newly empow- trust lost between the different and frag- ered actors are unlikely to accept a return mented components of society highlight to the status quo ante once the common the need for an inclusive and democratic foe disappears. In an indication of brewing solution to the civil war. Such an approach tensions, several incidents of gang-style is in many cases anathema to the outside violence have been reported since 2012 powers that are busy with finding geopoliti- between Assad family members and other cal arrangements they believe would end Alawites. the conflict to their interests. It is likely to If the international maneuvering results take decades to heal the wounds within in a deal that facelifts the current regime Syrian society – from the civil war as well and allows it to try to again broaden its as the social engineering and sectarian rule cooptation strategies, the regime could still since the Assad clan took power in 1970 – find it difficult to pacify the rural Sunnis. and rebuild levels of trust between social The YPG, which has taken rural Sunni areas groups that will allow for co-existence. But east of Aleppo from the Islamic State, could without addressing issues of justice, govern- face the same problem. Although the YPG ance, judicial reform, pervasive corruption, has adopted a governing model similar to and an enforceable anti-trust system, exist- that of the regime, land and other disputes ing cleavages would deepen and new ones still mar the ties between the Kurds and would appear.

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