The Gaza ceasefire has been the culminating step in a dramatic reordering of the Middle East. With the crushing defeat of the Islamic State (IS) as a major political force in 2019, the major remaining threat has been Iran, with its regional proxy network fuelling wars in Syria, Yemen, and, from 2023, Gaza, supported by its nuclear programme, terrorist networks, and ballistic missile arsenal. But by mid-2025, this regional threat—at least for the moment, with all the elements of Iran’s power system with the exception of the Houthis—is seriously degraded. The result is a Middle East with no immediate regional threat at either the national or ideological levels for the first time since the immediate aftermath of Kuwait’s liberation. This opens the door to a transformation of not just regional politics, but the lives of hundreds of millions, as Trump laid out in his Riyadh, Jerusalem, and Sharm el-Sheikh speeches. The region’s future could thus resemble South America over the past 30 years, being largely free of state-to-state and ideological violence, with overall prosperity growing. Nevertheless, earlier moments of such hope in the region—after the 1973 War and Kuwait’s liberation—were followed by spasms of extremism and violence. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the unsettled situation in Syria are two areas where the potential for violent conflict sits at the surface. But with the first somewhat assuaged by the Gaza ceasefire, Syria could be the main obstacle to long-term regional stability. International observers, including senior American officials, thus have stressed the need to maintain the country’s unity as the precondition for long-term stability and reconstruction. But these same observers note the need to protect individual rights and the cultural traditions of minorities, and, to some degree, accept local governance and security in certain areas. Squaring this circle will not be easy, but it could possibly begin with the Kurdish-dominated northeast, where a unification agreement signed in March has produced negotiating rounds but little progress. The Kurds should jump-start the process with symbolic acceptance of Damascus sovereignty over their area, while continuing talks on more difficult issues such as local governance and integration of security forces. One example of the way forward is the Iraqi constitution and practice since 2005—not so much the special case of the Kurdistan region, as that model would not work in Syria, but the division between local and central government administration in the rest of Iraq, and tolerance of security forces loosely attached to the government.
Forging Syrian National Unity Is Key to Regional Peace | The Washington Institute
