By: Dr. Adnan Bozan

The demonstrations sweeping across Syria today are not merely protests against rising fuel prices, nor simply a social explosion caused by a population exhausted by poverty, war, and economic collapse, even though hunger is the immediate fuel driving this wave. Politics, in countries undergoing a historical transition, does not always appear in the first slogans raised by the masses; it often hides behind the social moment, waiting for the appropriate opportunity to move from the streets into the structure of power itself. What is happening in Syria today should be read from precisely this perspective: are we witnessing a popular protest against rising living costs, or the beginning of a broader political process aimed at reshaping the Syrian power structure, bringing the Ahmed al-Sharaa era to an end, and paving the way for a new phase being prepared within intertwined regional and international circles?

Syrians have taken to the streets because fuel prices have risen, because prices are consuming what remains of their incomes, and because a country exhausted by poverty can no longer bear additional burdens. Yet transforming an economic protest into a demand for the overthrow of the new authority opens the door to an entirely different question from that of hunger: has the livelihood crisis become an entry point into a crisis of governance? And what we are witnessing—is it merely a spontaneous social explosion, or have domestic and foreign forces begun to view this explosion as an opportunity to reshape the structure of power in Damascus?

Hunger is a reality, popular anger is a reality, and economic collapse is a reality; but social realities do not eliminate politics. Rather, at a certain moment, they may become its most effective instrument. The hungry take to the streets in search of bread and fuel, while political forces search within those same streets for an opportunity for change. Hence, the most important question is not: Why did Syrians become angry? It is: Why did this anger move so rapidly from protests over prices to demands for the overthrow of the new authority? And why is this happening at this particular moment?

The authority that came to Damascus after the fall of Bashar al-Assad did not inherit a stable state. It inherited a fragmented geography, exhausted institutions, a devastated economy, a society burdened by weapons and divisions, borders exposed to regional conflicts, a south in which Israel is active, and a north and east where the Kurdish question remains one of the most complex issues confronting the Syrian state, in addition to a network of international and regional interests dealing with Syria as part of the broader reshaping of the entire Middle East.

For this reason, Ahmed al-Sharaa was not merely a transitional president who arrived at the presidential palace in a political vacuum; he was the head of a phase that had its own function, limits, and conditions. This makes the question more profound: Has Ahmed al-Sharaa’s political function begun to come to an end before the transitional phase he came to lead has itself ended?

This may be the point from which an analysis of what is happening should begin.

The person who reaches power at the moment a regime is overthrown is not necessarily the person a state needs during the phase of reconstruction, the reorganization of international relations, and the consolidation of regional balances. There is a difference between the man of the regime-overthrow phase and the man of the phase of rebuilding the political order. Between these two phases, changing the head of power can become part of a broader recalibration of the entire political landscape, rather than merely the replacement of one individual with another.

This is where the real political reading of the protests begins. The protest itself may not be what creates the change on its own; rather, the political change that may be forthcoming may have found its social entry point in the protest.

If the fuel crisis turns into a crisis of confidence, and the crisis of confidence into a crisis of legitimacy, and the crisis of legitimacy into a slogan calling for the overthrow of the authority, then the issue will no longer be about diesel and gasoline. At that point, the real question becomes: Who has the right to manage the next phase of Syria?

And at that point, Ahmed al-Sharaa will no longer be the only figure concerned. Damascus itself becomes subject to renegotiation.

From al-Jolani to al-Shaibani: Changing the Function Before Changing the Name

If a transfer of power takes place, it may not come in the form of a military coup or a dramatic scene. It may come more quietly, through a redistribution of the functions of power itself, whereby the center of decision-making shifts from one figure to another under the heading of restructuring the transitional phase.

This is where the name of Asaad al-Shaibani emerges. Al-Shaibani is not a marginal figure within the current authority; he has become one of its most prominent political and diplomatic faces, particularly on sensitive regional and international files. If the first phase required a figure who emerged from war and seized the levers of power following the overthrow of the previous regime, the next phase may require a figure whose tools are different—one more closely associated with diplomacy and regional and international understandings, and more capable of managing the web of conflicting interests surrounding Syria.

Accordingly, a shift in the center of gravity from Ahmed al-Sharaa to Asaad al-Shaibani, backed by Turkey, if it occurs, could be interpreted as a transition from the phase of establishing power to the phase of reorganizing power.

The first requires the man of war and the overthrow of the previous regime. The second requires the man of negotiation, communication, and the management of relations with Turkey, Israel, Russia, the United States, and the Arab capitals, at a moment when Syria is transforming from a battlefield into an arena of negotiations over influence and over the political shape of the state.

It is not a matter of two individuals; it is a matter of two different political functions.

The current protests may be part of the pressure that could be used to justify the transition from one function to another.

The street begins with the statement: We do not want high prices. Then the circle expands: We do not want the government. Then the demands evolve into: We do not want the authority.

And at the moment when the authority loses its ability to convince the street that it is capable of governing the country, the question becomes ready: if this authority has exhausted its phase, who is the alternative?

This is where names that once seemed distant from the center of the scene begin to move closer to it.

Manaf Tlass: A Return Through a Different Gate

If Syria is indeed heading toward a restructuring of its political authority, then Manaf Tlass becomes a politically significant name—not because he has been confirmed as a future president, but because his political and historical background makes him, by virtue of his position, potentially suited to a phase in which Syria may need a figure capable of bringing together contradictory parts of its history.

Manaf Tlass is the son of a former senior Syrian military officer and of Mustafa Tlass, one of the most prominent pillars of the state during the era of Hafez al-Assad. At the same time, he defected from Bashar al-Assad and left the regime years before its fall.

This intermediary position could, at a particular political moment, be transformed into political capital.

He is neither Bashar al-Assad nor one of the symbols of the new authority, nor is he a figure who came entirely from outside the Syrian state. Rather, he could be presented as a bridge between the old state and the new state, and between the military institution that once existed and the political order attempting to emerge.

This is precisely what makes his name capable of entering any serious discussion about the reconstruction of Syrian power.

But more important than Manaf Tlass himself is the question surrounding him:

Who can be acceptable in Ankara, Tel Aviv, and Damascus, while at the same time avoiding the opening of a new front with Israel?

Here, the Turkish-Israeli relationship becomes one of the keys to the coming phase.

Major understandings do not always begin with a publicly announced and signed agreement. They may begin by removing objections, opening channels, testing names, measuring reactions, and then creating the circumstances that ultimately make the name that has been tested appear as though it emerged in response to reality, rather than as the result of a decision that preceded reality.

And this is the most dangerous aspect of politics:

That a decision may be made before the public even knows that the decision has been made.

If Turkey is seeking a Syria that does not become a source of threat along its borders, Israel is seeking a Syria that does not become a military front against it, Russia is seeking to preserve its interests and position, and the United States is seeking a transition that does not create a new vacuum, then the convergence of these interests could, at a particular moment, produce a figure who is not solely the product of Syria's internal political competition, but rather the product of intersecting interests that have come to hold the keys to the Syrian game.

At that point, the question is no longer:

Who do the Syrians want?

It becomes:

Who can the influential powers agree to accept?

Mazloum Abdi at the Heart of the Equation

Any reading of Syria's future that ignores Mazloum Abdi remains incomplete, because the Kurdish question is no longer an issue that can simply be placed on the margins of the Syrian agenda. It has become part of the very structure of the new state.

Northern and eastern Syria are not facing merely an economic crisis. Questions of language, identity, political rights, the fate of Kurdish institutions, the future of Kurdish forces, and their relationship with Damascus intersect there. Therefore, the protests in these areas cannot be separated from the larger question: What kind of Syria will emerge after this phase?

Here, Mazloum Abdi must be understood within a different context. If the coming phase is to move toward rebuilding the Syrian army, then incorporating the Kurdish force into the military institution is not merely an administrative detail; it is part of redefining the state itself.

For this reason, placing Mazloum Abdi in the position of Minister of Defense, as this perspective assumes, would not simply mean appointing a Kurdish figure to a sovereign position; it would signal a new formula for the state, or an attempt to incorporate Kurdish power into the structure of the state without leaving it as a force separate from the state.

But the issue is deeper than a position or a ministerial portfolio. Integrating weapons is far easier than integrating the question itself. Military power can be integrated by a decision, whereas a national question cannot be integrated by decree. Political rights cannot be accommodated within the state by eliminating those who hold them; rather, they must be addressed by recognizing them as partners in defining the state itself.

Hence, the real question becomes:

Will Damascus accept a multi-national Syria, or will it seek to incorporate the Kurds into the state without incorporating their political and national rights with them?

Because if the Kurdish question does not find a political solution, it will continue to generate security and political crises, regardless of how governments and presidents may change.

Israel: The President Who Does Not Confront It

From here, the importance of Israel in any future Syrian political arrangement can be understood.

Israel does not view Syria solely through the name of its president, but rather through the structure of the state, the army, the borders, the south, and the balance of power. Since the fall of the previous regime, Syrian-Israeli relations have entered a new phase based on security and political contacts and efforts to prevent Syria from becoming a new arena of confrontation.

Here, the identity of the next president becomes exceptionally important.

Israel does not necessarily need a president who is subordinate to it; what it needs, according to the logic of its security interests, is a president who will not turn Syria into a platform for a direct military threat against it.

Turkey does not want a Syria that is hostile to it, nor an independent Kurdish force on its borders. Russia wants to preserve its positions and interests. The United States wants to prevent Iran from returning to its previous position and to prevent Syria from descending once again into chaos. As for the Arab powers, they have their own calculations regarding the future Syrian state.

Thus, when these interests intersect, each state does not necessarily seek the same individual; rather, each seeks a Syria that does not threaten its interests.

From this perspective, the next Syrian president could become the product of a balance of regional and international interests more than the result of traditional domestic political competition.

Russia and the Younger Assad: The Return of the Past from the Future

Here we arrive at the most provocative and dangerous hypothesis: Hafez Bashar al-Assad.

The idea of the return of a member of the Assad family to power after the fall of Bashar al-Assad may seem like political fantasy, but the political history of the region knows no impossibilities when alternatives collapse.

If Syria reaches a stage of poverty, collapse, and fragmentation in which citizens become willing to accept any formula that restores security, bread, electricity, and fuel, then the most dangerous thing that could happen is not that Syrians begin to love the past, but that they begin comparing it with the future.

This is where the process of rehabilitating the past begins.

The Assad family would not necessarily return because the Syrian people decided to bring them back; they might return because the alternative failed.

And this is one of the most dangerous mechanisms that can operate in politics. When an entire country is placed under enormous economic pressure, when crises follow one another, when security becomes fragile, when the transitional authority fails to build genuine national institutions, and when citizens feel that the revolution has given them nothing more than a change of faces, an old question begins to return:

Was the past better?

And this question, however painful it may be, could become one of the most dangerous political cards in Syria's future.

Hence the hypothesis that Russia, Israel, and Turkey, despite their differing interests, might at a certain stage be prepared to deal with Hafez Bashar al-Assad as one of the possible options, if Syria reaches a point at which the people themselves begin searching for “stability at any cost.”

This does not mean that there is an announced agreement on his return; rather, it means that recycling the old regime with a new face remains a possible scenario in the game of reshaping Syrian power.

Politics does not restore the past exactly as it was; it reproduces it when it needs it, giving it a new name, a new face, and new conditions.

Who Will Bring Down al-Jolani?

For this reason, the question surrounding the current protests should not stop at fuel prices.

The real question is:

Who benefits from turning the economic crisis into a crisis of governance?

If the protests remain confined to rising prices, the authorities can reverse some decisions and absorb the anger. But if they turn into a slogan calling for “the overthrow of the new regime,” the situation changes fundamentally. At that point, the street itself becomes part of the process of reshaping power.

The objective may not be to remove al-Sharaa in order to hand power directly to al-Shaibani; the matter may be considerably more complicated.

Al-Shaibani may be an intermediary phase. Manaf Tlass may represent the phase that follows. Mazloum Abdi may become part of a new military formula.

Then, if this formula fails, or if the international and regional powers require a broader recycling of the state and the political order, a member of the Assad family may return to the forefront.

In other words, we may be facing a sequence of successive phases, rather than a single president simply waiting for his turn.

Al-Jolani for the first phase.
Al-Shaibani for the second phase.
Manaf Tlass for the phase of restructuring the state.
Mazloum Abdi for redefining the Kurdish-Syrian relationship and the military institution.

Then, at the end of a possible trajectory, Hafez Bashar al-Assad could emerge as an attempt to reproduce the old state after the people's memory has been sufficiently exhausted.

This is not a list of appointments.

At its core, it is a reading of a possible trajectory for recycling Syrian power.

The Problem Is Not Who Governs Damascus... but Who Controls Damascus

Here we reach the heart of the matter.

Since the fall of the Assad regime, Syria has not become a state whose decisions are fully independent; rather, it has become an open arena for negotiations among multiple powers.

Turkey has its calculations. Israel has its calculations. Russia has its calculations. The United States has its calculations. Iran is attempting to recover whatever influence it can. Arab states are seeking their place in the new Syria. The Kurds are trying not to lose what they built during the years of war.

And the ordinary Syrian stands in the middle of all this, searching for bread, fuel, electricity, and security.

Here lies the Syrian tragedy:

All the powers speak about Syria's future, while the Syrian people themselves may not be the ones deciding that future.

Therefore, the most dangerous thing that could happen to Syria is not simply that the president changes, but that the presidency changes while the logic of manufacturing the president remains the same.

Bashar al-Assad falls, and al-Jolani comes. Then al-Jolani falls, and al-Shaibani comes. Then al-Shaibani changes, and Tlass comes. Then the Assad family is recycled.

And each time, Syrians are told:

This is the new phase.

But where is the new state?

Where is the new national social contract?

Where is genuine representation for the Kurds?

Where is decentralization?

Where are the political guarantees?

Where is the national army that does not belong to an individual, a party, or a faction?

And where is an independent Syrian decision?

These are the questions that will determine Syria's future—not the name of the man sitting in the People's Palace.

Hunger May Bring Down a Government... but It May Also Bring Back the Regime

For this reason, what is happening now is far more dangerous than a fuel crisis. It is a test of the new authority, but at the same time it is a test of all Syrian society.

If the authority succeeds in containing the crisis, the current phase may survive. But if the economic crisis turns into a political collapse, many doors could open simultaneously:

The door of al-Shaibani.
The door of Tlass.
The door of Abdi.
And the door of the Assad family—which may appear closed today, but in politics no door remains closed forever.

Syria may be facing a second transition—not a transition from Assad to al-Jolani, but a transition from al-Jolani toward a new formula whose contours have not yet become clear.

Here, the demonstrations should not be viewed merely as the cry of hungry people. At a particular historical moment, they may become the instrument used to announce the end of one phase and the beginning of another.

And the question that will remain open is not: Why did Syrians take to the streets?

They took to the streets because they are hungry.

The more dangerous question is:

Who will leave Damascus after these protests? Who will enter it? Who will choose the name? Who will determine the shape of the state? Who will guarantee Israel's security? Who will reassure Turkey? Who will preserve Russia's interests? Who will restructure the military institution? Who will determine the position of the Kurds? And who, in the end, will tell Syrians that this is “the new Syria”?

For the current struggle may not be a struggle over the price of diesel.

It may be a struggle over who has the right to write the next chapter of Syria's history.

And if the interpretation that Ahmed al-Sharaa's phase is approaching its end is correct, then what we are witnessing today is not merely a government crisis, nor simply a protest against rising prices, nor even merely a struggle for power; it may be the beginning of a far more complex struggle over the political order that will come after the current one.

At that point, it would be politically naïve to believe that the street alone writes the ending. The street may open the door, but those standing behind the door are often the ones who possess the keys to the next phase.

And this is precisely where the Syrian question lies:

It is not about who sits in Damascus, but about who has the power to decide that he should sit there—and who has the power to remove him when his mission is over.