Barrack Signals Need for Decentralized Governance in Syria, Raising Hopes Among Indigenous Components

DARAMSUQ — When U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack recently suggested that the country may need to explore alternatives to an overly centralized state, his remarks reverberated beyond the halls of Daramsuq (Damascus). For Syria’s mosaic of religious communities and ethnic peoples — particularly the long-denied and disadvantaged Syriac (Assyrian–Chaldean–Aramean) people — the comments offered a rare acknowledgment of their decades-long calls for local self-governance and cultural protection. 

“Not a federation but something short of that,” Barrack told reporters last month, describing a political system that would allow communities “to keep their own integrity, their culture, their own language, and no threat of Islamism.”  

The statement came in the aftermath of brutal violence in Suwayda, a Druze-majority province, where more than 1,000 were killed in unrest that highlighted once again the vulnerability of Syria’s indigenous components.

Big change: Syria envoy Thomas Barrack appears to be moving closer to the SDF’s position, acknowledging after the bloodshed in Suwayda that alternatives to a highly centralized state should be considered. “Not a federation but something short of that, in which you allow everybody… pic.twitter.com/bG2Z7YSRAk

— Wladimir van Wilgenburg (@vvanwilgenburg) August 23, 2025

Centralization versus Decentralization 

President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, who took power in December 2024 after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, has pledged to unify the country through reconstruction and a renewed central state. Gulf allies have rallied to his side, and Washington until recently supported his approach. But growing unrest in regions with a large presence of indigenous components has exposed the fragility of that vision. 

Druze villagers in Arnah, speaking to the Washington Post, speak of fear and isolation. Talking to our SyriacPress reporter, Alawite families along the coast recount massacres at the hands of fighters aligned with the government itself. And in Syria’s northeast, the Democratic Autonomous Administration of the Region of North and East (DAARNES) is pressing for decentralization after years of controlling territory and defending it against Islamic State (ISIS) through its army, the Syrian Democratic Forces. 

Also Read: UN Syria Commission of Inquiry report finds Syrian coastal massacres amount to war crimes, urges justice for 1,400 killed 

Syriac leaders have joined that chorus. In Hasakah this month, a conference of minority communities included Syriac (Aramean-Chaldean-Assyrian) representatives, as a major component in DAARNES. The conference’s final statement called for decentralization. Daramsuq swiftly dismissed the gathering as illegitimate. 

The Syrian Government pushed back this week by excluding Dayro Zcuro (Deir ez-Zor), Raqqa, Hasakah, (in the Region of North and East Syria), and Suwayda, effectively sidelining entire segments of the Syrian population from the parliamentary elections on the pretext of “security concerns.” 

Christians and Syriacs 

The Syriacs’ concerns are not abstract. During the ISIS onslaught of 2014–15, dozens of Syriac-Assyrian villages in the Khabur River Valley were emptied, their churches desecrated, and their residents kidnapped or displaced. Thousands fled abroad, accelerating a century-long exodus that has reduced one of the region’s oldest Christian communities to a fraction of its former size. 

For Syria’s Christians and the Syriac (Assyrian-Chaldean-Aramean) people, concentrated in villages and towns stretching from Zalin (Qamishli) in the northeast, along the Khabur River, to the valleys of Hmoth (Homs), Sadad, Wadi Nasara (Valley of Christians), Holeb (Aleppo), and Hemto (Hama), and the cities and mountains of the coastal region, reaching Daramsuq (Damascus), Barrack’s words carried a deeper resonance. 

The upheavals of the last few months — many of them by Sunni extremists, including some linked to the current Syrian Government and some who previously belonged to the terrorist Islamic State who assaulted the Nineveh Plains and the Nusra Front who attacked the Khabur River Vally, to recent violence in Suwayda and the Alawite coastal heartland — have underscored how quickly Syria’s components can be thrown into existential crisis.  

For many Syriac (Chaldean-Assyrian-Aramean) people, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s insistence on a strong, centralized government recalls bitter memories of Arab nationalist policies that eroded their rights, suppressed their schools, denied recognition of their Syriac (Aramaic) language, and tried to reduce them to mere Christians. 

Bassam Ishak, President of Syriac National Council of Syria (SSNC) and member of the Presidential Council of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) Mission in Washington, D.C. wrote in this regard and in defense of the “Unity of Components” Conference that “…Syria’s stability, and the prevention of its relapse into authoritarianism or fragmentation, will only be achieved through a genuine decentralized governance system.” 

Shift in Tone 

Barrack’s remarks reflect a shift in Washington’s tone, but the path forward remains uncertain. Prasident al-Sharaa has dismissed talk of partition or cantons as impossible, while indigenous components themselves remain divided between those who fear fragmentation and those who see decentralization as the only viable safeguard. 

Still, among Syriac (Assyrian—Chaldean-Aramean), the sense of urgency is unmistakable. For now, Syria’s smaller components remain caught in a perilous limbo — torn between the promises of central authority and the pressing need for local autonomy. In that tension lies the future not just of the Syriacs, but of Syria itself.