Syria

Syria is an Arab republic in the Levant that emerged from thirteen years of civil war in December 2024, when Ahmad al-Sharaa led Hayat Tahrir al-Sham to topple Bashar al-Assad, ending five decades of Assad family rule. Al-Sharaa now serves as transitional President, governing directly without a Prime Minister under a constitutional declaration that concentrates executive power in the presidency. The economy remains roughly a third of its pre-2011 size, and millions of Syrians displaced during the civil war years remain abroad.

Assad's fall severed Iran's four-decade overland supply corridor to Hezbollah, and the transitional government has since kept that route closed through anti-smuggling operations and an anti-Hezbollah posture. That closure, more than any diplomatic choice, is the main lever Damascus holds over the wider regional conflict.

Three separate foreign military presences now sit on Syrian soil: Israeli forces across a southern buffer zone in Quneitra and Daraa, Turkish forces in the north working toward integrating SDF-held areas into national structures, and US forces in the northeast supporting the SDF. The transitional government, still consolidating authority nationwide, lacks the capacity to contest any of them, which shapes almost every external relationship it is building.