Syria Is Again a Victim of Its Geography

Now that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has emerged as the victors of the Syrian civil war, it’s tempting to imagine the country restored to some semblance of stability. In truth, there is no stability to restore. As much as the civil war was a sectarian and ideological conflict, it was also always a war created and fueled by the country’s fundamental geography. The end of this chapter of war likely means the beginning of the next chapter of conflict.

Geography has always punished Syria. The country lacks significant natural barriers, both within its territory and along its borders. To the west lies the Mediterranean, a route for trade—and thus for military invasions. To the east lies the Euphrates River Valley. The south is bordered by desert and the north by the plains at the southern foothills of the Taurus Mountains. In essence, Syria’s geography offers neither external defenses to deter invasions nor internal strongholds as a last line of defense. Most of modern Syria’s borders are artificial rather than natural. The southern border is a straight line, and the eastern border is similarly arbitrary. This has resulted in fragile boundaries, contributing to Syria’s historical lack of independence and a weak national identity.

The country’s fragmented geography has divided the territory into six separate parts: an oasis in the southwest, a gateway in the north, a coastal strip in the west, a rugged plateau in the south, a north-south corridor, and flat, barren land in the east.

Behind the mountains of Lebanon lies an oasis bordered by mountains on one side and desert on the other. Damascus is situated at its center, functioning much like a small fortress. Although Damascus is located in the heart of the Levant, access routes to the rest of the country are sparse and rare. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the ruler of Damascus requires a militarized government with an iron fist to govern the entirety of this fragmented nation.

In the north lies Aleppo, a natural trade gateway between Asia Minor to the north and Mesopotamia to the east, connecting with the Levant. The rulers of Asia Minor—Romans, then the Ottomans, and now modern-day Turkey—have always cast covetous eyes on this densely populated commercial hub. Aleppo’s vulnerability to the powers of Asia Minor, coupled with its confidence derived from its strategic trade position, has consistently made it the most significant rival to Damascus in Syria. Therefore, controlling this economic center is the most critical step for the ruler of Damascus.

To the west, a narrow and low mountain range overlooks the Mediterranean, forming a long but thin coastal strip that has historically been a refuge for religious minorities such as Alawites and Christians. These minorities have consistently faced pressure from Sunni rulers based farther afield, whether at the mouth of the Nile or along the shores of the Sea of Marmara. Latakia and Tartus are located here, providing crucial access to the outside world. It is no wonder that alliances with distant foreign powers—first France and now Russia—have been forged through this coastline. Controlling this coastal region is essential to maintaining ties with external allies, which together forms the foundation of the ruler of Damascus’s power in this frontier land.

Between these two regions lies a corridor parallel to the Orontes River, connecting the oasis of Damascus to Aleppo’s trade gateway. The cities of Homs and Hama are situated along this corridor. On one hand, maintaining control over Aleppo is only possible through this passage; on the other hand, rebellion against Damascus often involves disrupting the security of this corridor. In other words, the Damascus-Aleppo route serves simultaneously as a corridor of control and a corridor of revolt. It is no coincidence that the Orontes River is also known as the “Rebel River.”

To the east is the Euphrates River Valley and a vast expanse of flat but barren land, which forms part of the Jazira region. Jazira spans northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, and northeastern Syria, encompassing three major cities: Mosul, Amid (now Diyarbakir), and Raqqa. These areas were historically home to three Arab-speaking tribes: Rabia, Bakr, and Mudar. Unlike Diyarbakir, the other two regions are predominantly Arab-speaking and serve as strongholds for nomadic tribes with high mobility. The land is uniform, and the people share similar religious and linguistic characteristics, stretching from Mosul to Raqqa. Throughout history, these two areas have been closely linked, such that the ruler of Mosul, rather than the ruler of Damascus, has often governed Raqqa—and vice versa. Geography has thus laid the foundation for the potential emergence of an independent realm stretching from the Tigris to the Euphrates in northern Mesopotamia.

The rugged terrain of Jabal al-Druze and the Hauran Plateau in the south, near the Jordanian border, constitutes yet another region of the country. This area has provided a safe haven for persecuted sects such as the Druze. Unlike most of the country, which is predominantly Sunni Muslim, the southern mountains and especially the coastal strip are notable for their diversity of religious and sectarian minorities. However, this diversity has not produced unity. It is unsurprising that these minorities, incapable of forming stable coalitions against the Sunni majority, have often looked to maritime powers in distant lands to balance the internal Sunni dominance.

Thus, geography has fragmented Syria: Damascus, the besieged capital, has limited access to other regions; Aleppo has been under the influence of Constantinople-Istanbul; the insecure corridor of Homs-Hama-Idlib connects the political center to the commercial gateway. Mosul has always been under the control of a unified power. The narrow Mediterranean coastal strip and Jabal al-Druze are entirely separate regions. Damascus, the country’s capital, had never held sway over Aleppo and Raqqa before the creation of modern Syria.

One of the most significant roots of the absence of a strong national authority lies in the fragmented geography of this country. In the absence of national sovereignty, the country’s national identity has also remained weak. As a result, Syria has become a target for attacks and conspiracies by other regional and international powers. More importantly, viable and accessible alternatives can disrupt its territorial integrity. For this reason, governments have resorted to iron-fisted repression to prevent potential internal collapse.

Military campaigns, trade exchanges, and religious interactions have all contributed to the historical fragmentation and instability of Syria, a land inhabited by people of diverse ethnicities, languages, and religions. Amid persistent internal tensions among these heterogeneous populations in a land with millennia of history, the establishment of a unified, independent national government has proved extraordinarily challenging. Not surprisingly, Syria fell entirely under the dominion of great empires (the Assyrians, the Achaemenid Persians, the Arabs, and the Ottomans). At other times, it became the contested frontier between two major powers (Rome and Parthia, Byzantium and the Sasanians, the Ilkhanate and the Mamluks). In short, Syria epitomizes a “borderland” in West Asia.

Independent Syria, however, faced numerous challenges: the lack of a strong national identity and the fragility of its government. Its defeat in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War not only further destabilized Syria’s fledgling republic but also amplified the ideology of Pan-Arabism to such an extent that Syria, along with Egypt and later North Yemen as the United Arab States, established the United Arab Republic (UAR) under Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s leadership. The collapse of the UAR and even the disastrous defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War did not diminish the power of this ideology. With Hafez al-Assad’s coup and the rise of Baathist rule in 1970, Syria achieved apparent political stability—though through an iron-fisted regime. In short, the early years of independence, marked by short-lived governments and the absence of a stable political system, turned Syria into fertile ground for radical ideologies such as Pan-Arabism and later Islamic fundamentalism. Yet the Baathist regime appeared to resolve the issue of political fragility.

Nevertheless, the waves of the Arab Spring reached Syria’s gates, sparking a civil war fueled by foreign Salafi militias and exacerbated by extreme violence from Syrian forces. This war resulted in mass displacement and the destruction of the country’s infrastructure. Once again, geography played a decisive role in Syria’s destructive civil war. The Islamic State took control of Raqqa and dominated Mosul. Damascus maintained its hold over the Mediterranean coast, ensuring support from its distant ally Russia, while opposition forces, backed by Turkey, controlled Aleppo. The majority of battles centered on the corridor linking Damascus through Homs and Hama to Aleppo’s trade gateway. The first phase of the civil war ended with Assad and his Russian-Iranian allies’ victory, as they secured control of the corridor.

The geographical logic has always dictated that whoever held the Homs-Hama corridor would emerge as the decisive victor in Syria. Assad’s fall became inevitable when the rebels gained control over that stretch of land. Those same rebels, having now taken over Damascus, might believe the fate of Syria is now in their hands. They will soon learn, however, that they will never be able to dominate the country’s geography.