The rapid and complete capitulation of the Assad regime in Syria shows how quickly fragile political systems can transform.
Syrians have earned the right to celebrate the overthrow of this murderous regime, whose atrocities are still being uncovered. Syria is now in the midst of an uncertain transition, where there are far too many possible outcomes to make predictions with any level of confidence.
Politicians in the region and beyond have expressed their hopes for a new Syria, albeit expressing caution given the complexity of the situation. They have also offered up experiences from other conflict affected states as a cautionary tale.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, for instance, told Parliament on 9 December: ‘We do not want Syria to become like Libya… fractured and vulnerable to different terrorist groups’.
Greater challenges
In fact, the scale of the challenge facing Syria is greater than that which confronted Libya in 2011. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown after less than a year of conflict that cost thousands of lives. But on his death, much of the country’s infrastructure remained intact. Libyan rebels had exported oil even before his overthrow.
Syria’s revolution comes after more than a decade of brutal conflict, which has decimated much of the country’s infrastructure, created a massive refugee crisis and seen the death toll climb to over 600,000. Social divisions and communal rifts run significantly deeper in Syria in 2024 than they did in Libya in 2011.
Another major difference is the structure of Syria’s economy. Under heavy sanctions, Assad’s ‘useful Syria’ rump largely turned itself into a narco state through its production of amphetamines. Other areas of the country effectively operated as if there was a formal partition. Parts of northern Syria use the Turkish lira as their currency.
Syria’s oil infrastructure is concentrated in Kurdish controlled areas, but Syria is not a major exporter. This means that there is no broad, national infrastructure in which all parties have a shared economic interest. In Libya, by contrast, rival authorities knew their country’s economy depended on oil and gas infrastructure – a factor that encouraged some level of interdependence.
A fractured security landscape
Perhaps the clearest parallel between Libya and Syria is the security landscape. In both countries, a wide array of armed groups control territory. Much has been made of Haya’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the journey of its commander, Ahmed al-Sharaa, from al-Qaeda affiliate to de facto national leader.
But he must now contend with a range of armed factions with entrenched and conflicting interests, from the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army to the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces.
In Libya, efforts to bring the array of armed groups under the control of the ministry of defence and ministry of interior have failed.
Instead, what has happened has been largely the reverse: armed groups have exerted influence and control over state institutions, rather than the state institutions controlling them.
Almost all factions in Libya are affiliated with the state, making them – in theory at least – regular forces.
However, their original, rival command chains remain, and powerful commanders cooperate and compete with officials within a highly securitized environment. As a result, political rivals have effectively sought to appease armed groups by providing resources and developing informal alliances.
Sharaa’s recently declared intent to disband Syria’s armed factions and bring fighters under the ministry of defence has the potential to avoid such an outcome. But there are significant questions over how his goal might be achieved, particularly given the lack of consensus among the various rebel groups.
If events in Libya are anything to go by, such efforts will be highly challenging and could trigger conflict between rival factions.
External meddling
Sharaa’s leadership will also be heavily impacted by the posture of external states. In Libya, foreign actors have built partnerships with contenting factions, frustrating UN efforts to hold new elections and leading to the creation of rival centres of power.
Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan Arab Armed Forces – who had a wide-ranging relationship with the Assad regime – developed dominance in eastern and southern Libya through extensive support from states such as the UAE, Egypt, and in recent years Russia.
Haftar received this support despite being marginalized from a UN political deal in 2015, showing that external backers can revitalize the fortunes of local factions.
Meanwhile, factions in Western Libya have developed partnerships with Turkey. The only area where Western militaries have engaged is counter-terrorism, though that might be more problematic in the Syrian context given Sharaa’s background.