The Sunni Vise: The Druze Solution

A Syrian Partition is the only way Forward

It is not only President Trump who moves quickly, the entire middle east seems to have been awakened from a slumber over the last year and a half and more specifically over the last 6 months. Syria is the main theatre now where all the players are seeking to consolidate their power. Al-Julani, the al-Qaeda terrorist turned tie wearing President of Syria is trying to form an army uniting all the opposition forces that helped depose Assad. This includes the most extreme Islamists as well as a more moderate Syrian opposition. The Alawites in the northwest of the country are gaining military recruits, too in defense of the ongoing revenge tactics of the new government’s army against Assad’s co-religionists and backers. The Allawites cheered on Israeli air strikes against Syrian military installations in the Allawi coastal region.

The Turks continue fighting the Kurds in the north and are consolidating their positions in the country.

The most interesting move seems to be coming from the Druze in the South. We have written about Gebel Druze which borders Jordan and the Druze area close to the Israeli Golan Heights but the Druze in Southern Syria are looking to expand their control over the entire area south of Damascus and East of Israel including the mostly Druze town of As-Suwayda. It seems that they put an Israeli flag up in the center of town and the non-Druze residents tore it down and burnt it. Israel has announced that it will protect the Druze in southern Syria including the village of Jaramana, a suburb southeast of Damascus. The Druze have setup roadblocks there, trying to keep Al-Julani’s army out of the entire area. Al-Julani’s forces are opposing them so Israeli support is important. He is not yet ready to fight Israel and has no real air-force so his forces will be defenseless against Israeli air-raids if it comes to that.

However, there are reports out of Turkey that their F-16’s have intercepted Israeli aircraft although it does not say there was a hot confrontation. Turkey is looking to build an air force base in Syria in order to expand its power. Israel continues to bomb Syrian installations on the border between Lebanon and Syria – as well as along the coast north of Lebanon, as we mentioned above. But it is in the south that events are getting interesting.

The question is – what are the plans of the Druze community there? One group has spoken of becoming part of Israel, another is trying to “calm the situation” and not make any radical move and a third is looking to take the entire area south of Damascus and create a Druze Autonomous Zone – and maybe even a full independent Druze state. The area in the map below (Courtesy of 301 Ha’olam Ha’aravi) , bordered in green is majority Druze and Christian and if this area were really to be a state would be only the second non-Moslem state in the middle east (besides Israel).

The opportunities to re-draw the border and to have this region of what has been Syria since the French created it after WWI will not come again and Israel needs to work quickly and efficiently to make it happen. Interestingly, Jordan has not publicly opposed any Israeli moves as the Hashemites fear an Islamist state as much as they feared the Shiite crescent that Israel has helped do away with. An Israeli backed Druze buffer on much of the Jordanian border would do King Abdullah well.

As for the United States, the current foreign policy seems to be based on powers and their spheres of influence. That would be as true for the US and China globally as for Israel regionally. In a way it is the mirror image of the Obama-Biden Mideast policy which was willing – was eager – to extend the Iranian sphere of influence from their eastern most border to the Mediterranean. Israeli control, de facto or de jure of southern Syria, would provide the territorial depth that Israel lacks on the rest of its borders.

But the Islamist Syrian government is not about to give up one-third of what they consider their country, especially the part that borders on Israel. The Moslem Brotherhood and their followers are patient and are willing to build up their forces before they attack their main enemy – Israel. Just look at Hamas which was able to build up its offensive and defensive forces for over a decade under the very nose of Israeli military intelligence. The current Syrian government will be no friendlier to Israel than the previous one and a Druze State or an extension of Israel’s border will provide Israel with a necessary buffer. An additional 300,000 Druze and Christian citizens would also be welcome.

Is this at all related to what is going on in Russia-Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific? The way things have gone Trump might, as the WSJ editorialized, be looking to restore the “old world order” allowing the US and China (and Russia?) to divide up the world.

We see it differently. We see the Trump foreign policy as a way for the US to maintain global superiority without having to spend the money and risk lives in order to guarantee the peace in every strategic region on the world. We see this less as admitting American decline and more an acceptance that the cost of policing the world has gone up dramatically – in money, material and lives. In the Mideast that means Israel as the main ally, along with the financial might of Saudi Arabia looking after American interests – with diplomatic cover and military cooperation of the United States.

Breaking up Syria may sound radical, but like Gaza, may be the only solution in a country that won’t give up its radical theological militarism. The fall of Assad presents the world with a new opportunity to erase the colonialist borders.

A Druze Republic in southern Syria? Israeli control of the entirety of the Golan Heights? A Druze Zone as part of Israel? These are less dangerous outcomes than any of the alternatives.