By Dr. Adnan Bouzan

I. The General Context
Since 2011, Syria has entered a stage of comprehensive structural collapse across its political, economic, and social institutions. The war that erupted under the banner of “freedom” turned into a multi-layered conflict — domestic, regional, and international. Today, after more than a decade, it can be said that the Syrian state, as we knew it before 2011, has practically ceased to exist. What remains is merely a “nominal geography” torn apart by de facto authorities and controlled by external powers competing for influence and interests.

Talking about Syria’s partition is no longer a matter of political fantasy or propagandist rhetoric; it has become a tangible possibility, a reality being drawn on the ground through lines of military, political, and economic control.

Since the fall of the Baath regime in Damascus and the flight of Bashar al-Assad to Russia, Syria has entered an unprecedented phase in its modern history — one that resembles, in many of its aspects, a “post-state” condition. There is no longer a unifying political center or functioning institutions capable of governing the territory or managing society. After more than a decade of civil war and foreign interventions, the country reached the utmost level of exhaustion, and what remained of the old regime’s pillars collapsed entirely. Syria slipped into a new stage of chaos — chaos masked by a fragile political façade.

Amid this vacuum, Ahmad al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammad al-Julani), the leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, emerged as the interim president of a transitional phase — one “supported” by a strange international arrangement of conflicting interests. His rise to power, even symbolically, came as a result of undeclared understandings between Moscow, Tel Aviv, and certain Western circles, which saw in him a temporary pragmatic option to manage the post-Assad stage and to regulate the rhythm of chaos within the country in ways that serve the major powers’ interests. Thus, Damascus turned into a symbolic capital of a new order — without real sovereignty — run by intelligence networks and dominated more by the power of money and arms than by institutions or laws.

Yet what began as a “transitional phase” quickly devolved into a bloody and anarchic rule. Under al-Julani’s authority, Syria became a closed farm divided among militias, where people were managed as though they were mere property.
In less than a year of his rule, a massive security breakdown unfolded: the administrative apparatus disintegrated, the country turned into an open field for looting, assassinations, and smuggling, and sectarian tensions erupted in their ugliest forms.

The most alarming development came with the attack on the Syrian coast, where extremist factions loyal to al-Julani committed a series of massacres against the Alawite community — scenes reminiscent of the early jihadist phase of the Syrian war. These acts were carried out under slogans such as “revenge for the past” and “divine justice”, but in essence, they reflected a vengeful impulse masked by religious extremism — an impulse that found in the absence of the state a perfect environment for settling historical scores.

Within months, the fighting spread southward to Sweida Province, where the same forces perpetrated horrific massacres against Druze civilians, seeking to dismantle what remained of cohesive social structures and to turn sectarian communities into fearful, hostile enclaves. These atrocities marked a clear declaration that Syria had turned into a state of organized terrorism — one nourished by hatred and uprooting, governed not by the logic of a modern state, but by the logic of political jihadism.

Al-Julani’s regime did not stop there. It began directing its attention toward the northeast, targeting Kurdish areas and the Autonomous Administration under the pretext of “national unification” and “fighting separatism.” Yet the real aim was to expand its sphere of influence and complete its project of domination through naked violence.
Thus, Syria entered a new and bloodier phase than the war itself — a phase of systematic massacres that transcended the logic of military conflict to embrace the logic of collective cleansing.

Under this hybrid regime, Syria has transformed into a terrorist state par excellence — not in the traditional sense associated only with extremist groups, but as a political entity founded upon terror as a governing tool. Security institutions, “Islamic police” militias, and field courts have become instruments of mass intimidation, while justice has vanished entirely.
The country is now run through a black economy built on smuggling, extortion, and the sale of influence. Foreign powers control decision-making through nominal Syrian fronts, while the people live amid fear, hunger, and displacement.

If the first Syrian war was fought under the slogan “Down with the regime,” then the post-Julani era can rightly be called “the war against society.” The conflict is no longer between two political camps but between power itself and the very fabric of society.
The massacres in the coast, the south, and the north are but manifestations of a stage where the concept of “the homeland” is eroding, replaced by the concept of “absolute power.” The state becomes reduced to the ruler and his clique, justice to vengeance, and citizenship to forced loyalty.

The result is that Syria today — after the fall of the Baath and the rise of al-Julani — is no longer merely a failed state, but an anti-state entity, dominated simultaneously by subnational and supranational forces.
Indeed, what Syria is living through now represents the culmination of historical decline: a state without sovereignty, authority without legitimacy, and a society without safety.

II. Features of the De Facto Partition

1. The Syrian Coast: Toward an Alawite Independent Entity
With the collapse of central authority in Damascus and Bashar al-Assad’s flight to Russia, the Syrian coast — stretching from Latakia to Tartous — has emerged as the most cohesive region in terms of its social and sectarian structure, and the one most closely tied to the Russian project in terms of military and economic influence.
Since Russia’s intervention in 2015, Moscow has sought to make this area a permanent strategic stronghold in the eastern Mediterranean by consolidating its military presence at the Hmeimim airbase and Tartous naval base, while developing a network of local relations with Alawite and economic elites formerly loyal to the old regime.

With Damascus’s fall and the disappearance of a central government, Russia found itself compelled to reconfigure its influence within a stable, defensible entity that guarantees the continuity of its military and naval presence and serves as a launching point for its broader Middle Eastern strategy.
From this need, Moscow began working quietly to prepare the political and administrative groundwork for the establishment of a semi-independent coastal entity directly linked to it through long-term security and economic agreements — effectively a “special Russian zone of influence” within Syrian territory.

This potential Alawite entity — often referred to in political circles as “Useful Syria” — represents, in essence, an extension of a broader Russian project aimed at securing a permanent foothold in the eastern Mediterranean, ensuring military and naval supply routes, and achieving strategic balance with Western presence in the region.
Given the coastal area’s sectarian makeup, where Alawites form the dominant demographic, Moscow is betting on a degree of social stability that would allow the transformation of the region into a model of “guarded stability” — similar to the models Russia has fostered in Crimea, Abkhazia, and Donbas, albeit in a distinctly Syrian form.

In the midst of the chaos engulfing the rest of Syria, this region is expected to become Russia’s principal anchor point and a substitute center for the collapsed Syrian state. Moreover, this potential Alawite enclave may find itself driven to forge pragmatic relations with Israel on one hand and certain Western powers on the other to avoid political isolation or blockade — giving it a complex regional dimension that transcends purely sectarian considerations.

Should this entity take formal shape, it would not amount to legal independence but rather de facto autonomy — part of a broader partitioning project that cements the end of Syria’s centralized statehood and transforms its geography into zones of varying identities and allegiances.

What distinguishes the Syrian coast from other regions is that it is the only area with a strong and consistent external patron — Russia — capable of providing military and political protection and a minimum degree of economic and administrative stability. This makes it the most likely nucleus for any future “mini-Syrian state” within the emerging regional landscape.

2. Southern Syria: An Israeli Zone of Influence
Southern Syria — encompassing the provinces of Daraa, Quneitra, and Sweida — represents one of the most sensitive areas in the post-regime equation, given its proximity to the Palestinian border and its direct intersection with Israeli security interests.
Since the collapse of central authority in Damascus, the south has been mired in a state of security vacuum and political disorder. The capital can no longer project power or maintain local balances amid rising militia activity and the resurgence of tribal and sectarian loyalties.

Within this context, Israel has entered the scene — not through direct military intervention, but through the engineering of a new security reality designed to prevent the expansion of al-Julani’s militias toward the occupied Golan Heights.
Since Ahmad al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammad al-Julani) assumed power with Russian and Western backing — and began his bloody campaigns against Syrian communities and sects — Tel Aviv has approached the Syrian scene with a logic of “preventive control.” It has done so by establishing a de facto security buffer zone based on local alliances, particularly with the Druze community in Sweida province.

This approach intensified following the brutal attacks carried out by al-Julani’s forces in Sweida and the accompanying massacres of Druze civilians. In response, Israel expanded its covert support for the area through humanitarian, security, and logistical channels aimed at empowering local self-defense structures and preventing the spread of the “new jihadist authority” southward.
Numerous reports indicate that Tel Aviv, in indirect coordination with Washington, is working to build an independent local security framework in the south — one based on civilian self-administration, reinforced by Israeli intelligence capabilities and protected by American guarantees — to ensure border stability and prevent hostile incursions.

Given current developments, the coming phase will likely witness the announcement of a local security entity in southern Syria — effectively an undeclared autonomous region under joint Israeli-American tutelage.
While this entity may not proclaim formal independence, it will in practice be detached from Damascus’s authority — managing its own security, external relations, and resource distribution — while maintaining symbolic channels to avoid direct international recognition of its separation.

This emerging reality turns southern Syria into an unmistakable Israeli sphere of influence, operating within a delicate geopolitical equation:
Israel secures its northern borders; the United States oversees the balance of power vis-à-vis Russia’s coastal influence; and local forces manage daily affairs amid the total absence of central Syrian authority.

Thus, the south transforms from “the flank of the Syrian state” into a permanent frontline between Israel’s security project and Syria’s disintegration — a vivid embodiment of how Syrian geography has shifted from political division to security partition shaped by foreign interests.

3. Northeastern Syria: Toward an Independent Kurdish Federal Entity
The region east of the Euphrates — governed by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (Rojava) — stands as the clearest embodiment of Syria’s de facto partition.
Unlike other regions suffering from security chaos and institutional collapse, the Autonomous Administration has, since its inception, built a coherent political and administrative structure comprising civil councils, executive bodies, and organized regular forces represented by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). This has endowed the region with the attributes of an “emerging state” within a collapsed one.

The region enjoys direct support from the United States, which views it as a strategic cornerstone of its Middle Eastern policy — particularly in balancing Russian and Turkish influence.
Geopolitically, the east of the Euphrates constitutes Washington’s vital zone inside Syria, hosting military bases, oil and gas depots, and intelligence cooperation networks with local forces. As a result, the area operates under Western protection that ensures the continuity of its institutions and the autonomy of its administrative and military decisions.

Under these circumstances, the outlines of a broader federal project have begun to take shape — one extending beyond Syria’s borders toward the envisioned “Kurdish Federal Union” expected to materialize around 2030, according to regional Kurdish political trends.
Rojava is viewed as the geographic and political cornerstone of this prospective union, alongside Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, with potential symbolic or political extensions into Kurdish areas of Turkey and Iran should regional conditions permit.

Current political and field data suggest that the formal declaration of some kind of official federal status or expanded self-administration in northern and eastern Syria has become a matter of time — likely within the next two years — as part of a negotiated settlement balancing Washington’s interests and the remnants of Damascus’s authority to avoid direct confrontation.
At the same time, the Autonomous Administration seems intent on keeping diplomatic channels open with the capital to secure gradual political recognition of its reality and to avoid potential international isolation, while continuing to emphasize that its project is federal, not separatist, rooted in the principle of a “democratic unity of Syria” that transcends the old centralized model.

Thus, in eastern Syria, a clearly structured political entity is taking definitive shape — with stable institutions, a functioning executive authority, and solid external alliances — making it closer to an actual state than to a temporary local administration.
With ongoing U.S. support and relative security stability, the Syrian Kurdish federation has become one of the new geopolitical constants of the post-Baath landscape — an integral part of the deeper regional transformations redrawing the Middle East along both national and democratic lines.

4. Damascus and Central Regions: The Exhausted Umayyad State
Damascus today is no longer the capital of a unified nation but a symbolic center of a crumbling authority, ruling limited territories in central Syria under suffocating economic and political isolation.
The new power in Damascus relies heavily on Turkish, Saudi, and Gulf support — actors who view it more as a temporary bulwark against spreading chaos than as a legitimate government.

What threatens this fragile structure is not only economic collapse or isolation but also the deepening intra-Sunni fragmentation, pitting rival Islamist factions against one another — from Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham in the north to southern militias and remnants of the Turkish-backed National Army. This internal rivalry, fueled by competing regional agendas and conflicting foreign aid, foreshadows an impending intra-Islamist war over who will fill the power vacuum in Damascus.

The figure of Abu Mohammad al-Julani (Ahmad al-Sharaa) — who rose to prominence as the interim president of the so-called “Damascene State” — embodies the paradox of the current era: a man emerging from the womb of jihadist organizations, attempting to wear the guise of a civilian politician, yet in reality symbolizing the transformation of the Syrian conflict from a revolution against the regime into a struggle among Syria’s own social components and the forces of political Islam.

The continued economic decline and erosion of central authority will ultimately lead to the fragmentation of the Sunni political structure and plunge Damascus into open conflicts between radical and moderate currents — until a new balance of power imposes a de facto authority unlike either the old state or the revolution that overthrew it.

III. Regional Interconnection – Turkey and Iraq

1. Turkey: From Economic Crisis to Political Fragmentation
Turkey today is facing one of the most sensitive and critical phases since the founding of its modern republic. The escalating economic crisis — characterized by hyperinflation, currency collapse, rising external debt, and the erosion of confidence in monetary policy — now threatens domestic stability and undermines the foundation of the ruling power.

Politically, tension is mounting between the government and the opposition amid deep societal polarization among nationalist, Islamist, and secular currents. This polarization is creating an increasingly volatile environment that could erupt at any moment. With growing public frustration and the decline of purchasing power, fears are rising of large-scale social unrest that could severely shake Turkey’s internal cohesion.

If the crisis continues to deepen, Turkey may witness fundamental transformations in its political structure — or even actual fragmentation between the central authority and provinces with distinctive ethnic or religious identities, particularly the southeastern regions with their Kurdish majority. In these areas, federalist or separatist tendencies are gradually growing under the pressure of accumulating crises.

Any major economic or political collapse in Turkey would not remain confined within its borders; its effects would immediately spill over into the Syrian scene — especially in the territories under Turkish influence in the north: Idlib, Afrin, Jarablus, Tell Abyad, and Ras al-Ain. Should the government in Ankara falter or shift its priorities, it may withdraw protection from these areas, opening the door for a rapid redrawing of the military and political map in northern Syria.

2. Iraq: Between Sectarian Explosion and Kurdish Independence
Iraq today represents the second link in the chain of regional disintegration sweeping through the Middle East. Despite its formal institutional appearance, the Iraqi state suffers from deep structural fragility manifested in sectarian and political divisions, as well as conflicting centers of power between Baghdad, Najaf, and Tehran. With worsening corruption and eroding public trust, the post-2003 political system is losing its ability to maintain balance among the country’s sectarian and ethnic components.

In contrast, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has emerged as a quasi-independent entity possessing all the attributes of a modern state: an elected parliament, an executive government, regular armed forces (the Peshmerga), and a relatively independent foreign policy. With ongoing disputes over oil, budget allocations, and administrative borders, a growing current within Erbil now views full independence as a realistic political option — especially if unrest in Baghdad intensifies or another security collapse occurs due to intra-Shiite conflict at the center.

Whenever the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan is officially declared, it will not be a local event, but rather a major regional turning point. It would serve as a direct catalyst for the establishment of an official Kurdish entity in northern and eastern Syria, paving the way toward a confederal integration phase among Kurdish regions in Iraq, Syria, and potentially parts of Turkey and Iran — within the broader framework of the projected “Federal Greater Kurdistan” expected to take shape by 2030.

Conclusion
Syria today is heading toward a stage of map redrawing, not reconstruction. Partition is no longer a theoretical possibility or a passing political notion; it has become a gradual process solidified by the geographic, military, and political realities that have taken shape on the ground over more than a decade of conflict.

The active international and regional powers — from Russia and the United States to Israel and Turkey — are racing to secure permanent footholds in “post-Assad Syria”, either through local proxies or field arrangements that guarantee their sustained influence within the new geography. Yet post-partition Syria will not mean stability; rather, it will usher in a more complex phase of identity-based conflicts, as each sectarian or ethnic group seeks to establish its own political entity — leading to a fragmentation of the Levant into de facto micro-states.

We stand at the threshold of the end of the classical Syrian state that was founded after independence, and the beginning of a new Middle East whose borders are redrawn according to the balance of power and international interests, not historical maps or national identities.
The coming five years (2025–2030) will be decisive in shaping the contours of this profound geopolitical transformation: the form of the new entities, the nature of emerging alliances, and the trajectories through which the concepts of statehood and identity will be redefined across the entire Arab East.