Syria after 2025 and the Rojava Test in the Struggle to Re-engineer the State
Sherzad MamSani
President of the Israel–Kurdistan Alliance Network, EastMed Strategic Studies Institute contributor
The Middle East is no longer an arena of conventional conflicts between clearly sovereign states. It has become an open space for the violent re-engineering of political maps, where wars are waged under new names and hegemonic projects are wrapped in moral or ideological rhetoric.
At the heart of this landscape stands Syria, particularly its north and east, as a decisive testing ground for the future of the Kurdish question and for the Kurds’ ability to move from a functional role in other peoples’ conflicts to a sovereign political actor.
What has unfolded since late 2025 and early 2026 cannot be read as isolated security incidents, but rather as part of a deeper process aimed at re-imposing the Syrian central state and preventing the emergence of any new entity that could alter regional balances, foremost among them a potential Kurdish state.
Syria after 2025: State Restoration or the Reproduction of Violence?
During January 2026, steps accelerated toward what was described as the reintegration of northern and eastern Syria into the central authority in Damascus.
This process unfolded through limited military confrontations, followed by ceasefire arrangements, and then security and administrative integration tracks targeting the Syrian Democratic Forces and the institutions of the Autonomous Administration.
Superficially, this trajectory was presented as the restoration of state unity.
In practice, however, it represents an attempt to reproduce central authority without a new social contract and without binding international guarantees, making this integration closer to coercive containment than to a genuine political partnership.
The persistent fragility of ceasefires and recurring field clashes confirm that what is taking place does not end the conflict, but postpones it and transforms it into a less visible and more dangerous form.
Ahmad al-Sharaa between Rights Discourse and Centralist Logic
President Ahmad al-Sharaa seeks to combine a discourse recognizing certain linguistic and civil rights for Kurds with political and security practices aimed at restoring the full authority of the central state.
This structural contradiction renders any political promises vulnerable to collapse at the first shift in the balance of power.
Guarantees that are not constitutionally or internationally protected, in a country emerging from a prolonged war, cannot form a secure foundation for sustainable partnership—particularly given al-Sharaa’s leadership background forged in jihadist and armed environments.
The Role of the PKK and Öcalan: Protecting States at the Expense of the Nation
At the core of this landscape, the destructive role played by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and its leader Abdullah Öcalan in obstructing any genuine Kurdish sovereign trajectory cannot be ignored.
For decades, this current has presented itself as a liberation project, while in practice transforming into a functional tool serving a clear regional objective: preventing the fragmentation of Turkey and the disintegration of Syria, even at the cost of liquidating the Kurdish national project.
Öcalan, in his documented writings and statements, does not conceal his hostility toward the idea of a Kurdish state and presents himself as a partner in protecting the Turkish state from any existential threat.
This discourse has not remained theoretical; it has been translated on the ground through the behavior of the PKK in Syria, where Rojava was stripped of its national substance and transformed into an ideological laboratory serving the concept of (the non-state)—a concept that aligns most closely with the interests of Ankara, Tehran, and Damascus.
In this sense, the PKK does not operate against the partition of existing states, but against the birth of a Kurdish state, performing the role of an ideological mercenary that disciplines the Kurdish street and prevents its transformation into an independent sovereign force.