The opinion piece titled “A roadmap for a new Syria” was published in Arabian Gulf Business Insight (AGBI) on 7th January 2025.

A version of this article, titled “Whither the new Syria?“, was published in Afkar (managed by the Middle East Council on Global Affairs).

A roadmap for a new Syria

The challenges are daunting and the stakes are high

History was made in Syria last month, and seismic shocks are reverberating across the region.

First, we are witnessing the final convulsion after almost 110 years of the Sykes-Picot treaty, the secret agreement between Great Britain and France in 1916 that divided the post-First World War Ottoman Empire into “spheres of influence”, the “peace to end all peace”, as the historian David Fromkin called it.

It is ironic that the modern representatives of those bygone treaty powers, Great Britain and France, have just attended a meeting with Turkey (itself the heir of the dismembered Ottoman Empire) along with the US, Germany and Arab countries to decide on the future of Syria and a new regional map.

Second, the “Axis of Resistance”, encompassing Iranian ambitions and attempted extension of power, which has resulted in an economic and financial disaster for all the countries involved, is waning.

Third, the collapse of the Bashar Al-Assad regime ends the last vestige of socialist, controlled-economy models in the Arab world. These have failed to generate economic growth and development and have created fragile, vulnerable countries.

Fourth, the Assads’ despotic regime violently suppressed political reform at the onset of the Arab Spring. Instead, a cycle of violence and destruction was unleashed, institutions were destroyed, corruption and extremism became pervasive, and another failed state on the Mediterranean was created.

Can a new Syria emerge from the ashes of collapse? The challenges are daunting.

Over the period 2010 to 2023, Syria’s real GDP contracted by an impoverishing 84 percent across all sectors, the World Bank’s Syria Economic Monitor shows.

This was caused by the destruction of infrastructure, drought, population displacement, macroeconomic instability, collapse of investment and trade – exports fell to $1 billion in 2023 from $8.8 billion in 2010 – and growing international isolation.

By 2023 the Syrian pound had collapsed 300-fold in 12 years, plunging from SYP47 to the dollar in 2011 to more than SYP14,000 per greenback.

The sharp contraction of GDP during the civil war accelerated after the imposition of the Caesar Act, through which the US imposed sanctions on the Assad regime in 2019. International sanctions and currency depreciation followed, causing inflation to surge to 115 percent in 2023.

With growing isolation and an absence of political and economic reform, Syria became increasingly dependent on Iran.

An expanding informal economy, driven by smuggling and the drug trade, primarily fenethylline, the amphetamine-like illegal stimulant better known as Captagon, generated an estimated $10 billion annually, mostly controlled by the security services and Assad allies.

How to build a new Syria

Where are the building blocks for a new Syria? An integrated transition is required.

First, a cessation of violence and restoration of security must ensure Syria’s territorial integrity and guarantee political pluralism including all ethnic and religious groups. These are critical elements in a transition to democratic governance, grounded in structural political, economic and social reform.

This requires a new constitution, elections and a new government to sweep away Baath Party institutions and heal the wounds of the nation through a “truth and reconciliation” body.

Second, humanitarian aid is a priority, along with the set-up of a fund to enable the return and resettlement of the 7.2 million internally-displaced people and the more than 6 million refugees.

Third, estimates of the cost of Syria’s reconstruction and redevelopment range from $400 billion to $600 billion. This is needed to rebuild infrastructure, given the destruction of much of Syria’s health, education, water, transport and energy systems.

Syria’s cities, including Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Daraya, and Deir El Zor, have been subject to systematic urbicide. An international reconstruction and redevelopment package of aid and grants will be required.

Debt accumulated by the Assad regime should be written off and international sanctions removed. Syria’s substantial natural resources in oil and gas, and phosphates, and the pipeline infrastructure linking Syria to the GCC can be harnessed to attract reconstruction finance.

Private sector

Fourth, building a modern Syria means dismantling the control economy along with corrupt, politically controlled, state-owned enterprises and government-related entities, allowing a resurgence of the private sector.

This will require a restructuring of institutions, with reform of economic and social policies to attract domestic and foreign – including expatriate – capital.

Fifth, reconstruction and redevelopment will require the reintegration of Syria into the GCC, the Arab world and the international economy.

A new Syria will have to be rebuilt from its foundations to undo 61 years of destruction, de-development, despotic rule, endemic corruption, and misgovernment.

Failure to ensure an integrated transition encompassing the political, security, social and economic dimensions of a new Syria has the potential to destabilise the whole region. The stakes go beyond Syria.