Autore: Alessandro Sansoni – 24/07/2025
SOUTHERN SYRIA: THE FUTURE OF THE MIDDLE EAST IS AT STAKE
Although extremely fragile, the ceasefire promoted by U.S. Special Envoy Thomas Barrack in the southern Syrian province of As-Suwayda appears to be holding after nearly a week of violence, which, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, has claimed the lives of over a thousand people.
The truce agreement consists of three phases: after the cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of fighters, humanitarian aid and prisoner exchanges are to take place within 48 hours. The third phase, still under preparation, calls for the full deployment of Syrian security forces throughout the province, partially integrating local militias into the national army.
It is an ambitious goal: the new government led by Ahmad al-Sharaa (the former jihadist leader known as Abu Muhammad al-Julani) seems far from able to pacify and take full control of the country—especially in the South.
Behind the July 13 attack by Bedouin armed groups (linked to fundamentalist militias and the Damascus government) against the Druze population (supported by Israel, which now occupies not only the Golan Heights but a larger area, with the frontline reportedly just 40 km from Damascus), lies far more than just the sectarian tensions that followed Assad’s fall.
After assisting al-Sharaa in overthrowing the Baathist regime, Israel wasted no time in weakening him, bombing military and logistical targets and fueling factional rivalries. This aligns with its long-standing strategic doctrine, codified in the 1980s in the famous Yinon Plan, which posits that the security of the Jewish State can only be ensured by dismantling Arab states and replacing them with fragile sectarian mini-states. This vision is actively pursued by ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, leaders of two ultra-Orthodox parties that are crucial to the Netanyahu government—whose coalition is now in the minority in the Knesset.
Meanwhile, as parliament prepares to resume in October, and with uncertainty over whether Netanyahu will retain a majority, Israeli policy in Syria is not only driven by distrust of al-Sharaa and alliance with the Druze, nor merely by Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s messianic aspiration to realize Eretz Israel—“Greater Israel” stretching to the Euphrates. A fragmented Syria is a necessary precondition for the implementation of the so-called “David Corridor”: a logistical route linking the Golan Heights and Druze southern Syria (thus, Israel) to the north of the country, controlled by pro-American Kurdish militias. The corridor would run along Syria’s eastern border, passing through the U.S. base at Al-Tanf, located at the intersection of the Syrian, Jordanian, and Iraqi borders.
It’s a grand project. Not only would it extend Israel’s offensive reach near Iraq and close to its arch-enemy Iran, but it would also provide the strategic depth that has long been its Achilles’ heel.
But there’s more. The Druze religious leadership has offered a guiding signal: while the battle raged in the streets, they issued a strongly worded statement rejecting the use of their region as a bridge for foreign agendas that ignore their sovereignty or existence: “Whoever bets on violating Suwayda,” the statement reads, “will lose. The fate of the mountain will be decided by the mountain itself.”
Indeed, Assad’s fall not only broke the so-called “Axis of Resistance” linking Hezbollah to Tehran via Damascus and Shiite-majority Iraq, but also turned Syria into a battleground for rival regional projects. Two conflicting visions have emerged: Turkey’s “Development Road,” a proposed transport corridor linking Basra to Anatolia and then to Europe; and Israel’s “Peace Line,” aiming to connect the Persian Gulf—via Jordan—to the port of Haifa on the Mediterranean.
These infrastructural corridors are not merely economic initiatives; they are the battlegrounds of a new regional order. Suwayda, long considered peripheral, has become a key node in this logistical war—a potential gateway for trade and transport routes. It could either serve as a vital artery for Ankara’s ambitions in Syria or a choke point threatening Tel Aviv’s attempts to bypass Turkish and Iranian territories.
In the background also looms Saudi Arabia’s ambitious NEOM project, the futuristic city planned for the Tabuk province, envisioned as a global logistical hub connecting the economies of the Gulf’s Sunni petro-monarchies with the eastern Mediterranean coasts—bypassing, through inland routes, the chokepoints of the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb. The corridor connecting India, the Middle East, and Europe (IMEC)—the so-called “Cotton Road” alternative to China’s Belt and Road—would also pass through this route, a path on which Italy too is placing many of its hopes.
The incompatibility of Ankara’s and Tel Aviv’s interests is therefore evident: the former seeks to preserve Syrian integrity under al-Sharaa’s control; the latter needs to undermine it by supporting Druze separatism.
Washington watches the competition between its two regional allies, but for now, refrains from taking a side—at most, it plays the role of mediator.
The original version of this article was published in the Naples newspaper “Il Mattino” on July, 24 2025 We thank the Author for allowing its translation and publication on the Vision & Global Trends website.