Who will rule Syria now the Assad regime has been toppled?

ON THE ROADHTSHTSUNHTSUN to Damascus from Syria’s border with Lebanon on December 8th, Syrian army posts lay deserted. The asphalt was littered with uniforms left behind by Bashar al-Assad’s forces, who had swiftly changed into civilian clothes and fled from advancing rebels. Posters with the former dictator’s face had been . Less than two weeks after rebels , the regime had fallen and Mr Assad had fled to Moscow. In Damascus and across the country, Syrians were cheering a fresh start and a reboot of their relations with the world.What kind of fresh start will they get? Much depends on whether Syria’s multi-pronged opposition, suddenly bereft of its common enemy, will band together to form a pluralist, federal civilian government over all of Syria, or descend into infighting that plunges the country into a new civil war.The early signs have been encouraging, though it is far too soon to be sure of anything. The rebels, foremost among them Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (), a former al-Qaeda affiliate that has ruled a slice of north-western Syria for the past few years, say they have learnt the lessons of past regime changes in the Arab world. Unlike in Iraq and Libya, the transition is being managed locally, rather than by foreign powers and returning exiles. Russia and Iran, previously Mr Assad’s main backers, have retreated into the shadows.The rebels have appealed to the police and civilian authorities to remain in their posts pending the announcement of a unity government. They have imposed a curfew, which by the evening of December 8th appeared mostly to have stopped looting in the capital (the pilfering of crockery from the presidential palace aside). And though most of the rebels are from the Sunni majority that was particularly terrorised by the Alawite Assads, they have toned down their sectarian triumphalism and have promised to protect Syria’s many minorities.But things in Syria have a habit of getting complicated. The de facto partitioning of Syria that took place under Mr Assad has intensified since his fall. Rebels from the north, east and south of the country co-ordinated their takeover with remarkable discipline in recent days. Yet because Mr Assad’s regime collapsed far faster than they expected, they have not had time to plan for the day after. Each of the four main factions—Turkish-backed Sunni rebels in the north-west, Kurds in the north and east, Jordanian-backed rebels in the south, and the remaining loyalists from Mr Assad’s Alawite sect in the west—has its own army. All of them have been bolstered by the weapons, land and economic holdings seized from the Assads in recent days. Each group will want its share of the spoils and a slice of whatever package is arranged to reconstruct the devastated country, with needs estimated to cost some $200bn.Within hours of Mr Assad’s fall, the fragile truce between the different groups had begun to break down as fighting flared at Manbij, on the line dividing Turkish-backed Arabs in the north-west from the Kurds in the north-east. Syrians have not forgotten that the toppling of Iraq’s and Libya’s strongmen triggered a decade of civil war between their would-be successors. Nor are they unaware how tricky it will be to manage relations with their neighbours. At a five-star hotel in Damascus on the evening of December 8th, the smooth jazz accompanying dinner service was occasionally interrupted by the sound of Israeli air strikes on a nearby military base.The strongest contender to rule Syria is Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, the 42-year-old head of , which launched the rebel offensive from its seat in Idlib in north-western Syria only 11 days ago, on November 27th. Mr Jolani (pictured) has ditched his Islamic nom de guerre (his Telegram channels now refer to him as “President Ahmed al-Shara”), and assured Christians and women that he has no plans to impose strict Islamic codes. On the evening of December 8th he delivered a sermon in the Umayad mosque in Damascus; Syrian state television broadcast a statement in which he claimed that “the future is ours”. He is said to like comparisons to Saudi Arabia’s Muhammad bin Salman, another young Sunni strongman.But Mr Jolani’s past as al-Qaeda’s leader in Syria and his brutal suppression of rivals makes others wary. Getting other rebels to accept his leadership will be his hardest task. For years he fought them more than he did Mr Assad. A few hundred former rebels in the south beat Mr Jolani to Damascus. They marched on the presidential palace and detained the prime minister, Mohammad Ghazi Al-Jalali, not only to pursue Mr Assad’s loyalists but to prevent Mr Jolani from getting there first.That America, Russia and the all regard Mr Jolani as a terrorist and as a terrorist organisation could also complicate things if he does indeed take charge. His close ties with Turkey and Qatar irk Arab powers who want to limit their zone of influence. Some opposition figures talk ominously about how convenient his assassination would be. “We’re afraid he could spin into another Assad,” says an analyst with close ties to his rivals. Many Syrians worry that they could end up replacing one dictator with another, this time an Islamist one.Whoever takes charge in Damascus will have trouble controlling all of Syria. In the north-east, the Kurds will look to the few hundred American troops stationed there to thwart efforts to bring the lucrative oilfields, Syria’s breadbasket and the Arab cities they rule back under central control. In Manbij and Raqqa, they are already fighting Turkish-backed forces to preserve the autonomy they carved out under Mr Assad. Huddled in mountain villages above the Mediterranean coast, Mr Assad’s sect, the Alawites, will similarly have to decide whether to fight or accept Sunni-majority rule. In addition to the heavy weapons salvaged from the regime’s rout, they may also look to protection from Russia, which still keeps a naval and airbase there that it may hang on to, subject to negotiation with Turkey and Syria’s new rulers.Civilians in the exiled political opposition in Istanbul, in Turkey, seem to have been sidelined for now. According to a roadmap agreed in 2015, the Syrian Negotiation Commission is supposed to oversee the opposition’s role in Syria’s transition. It is mandated to help draw up a new constitution, prepare for elections in 18 months and integrate Syria’s many militias into an army reflecting the country’s ethnic and religious groups. But the forces on the ground appear in no hurry to step aside.Some hope foreign powers could help the rebels cobble together political and military councils or even a unity government and pave the way for a power-sharing transition. America, though, will probably do little to help. “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT,” Donald Trump wrote in capitals on his social-media account. “LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!” After 13 years of civil war and penury, an exhausted population is praying for a peaceful handover that has proved vanishingly rare in the Arab world. With so much division inside and outside Syria, consensus will be hard to find.