Haaretz.com | Akil Marceau

The word fauda, meaning "chaos" in Arabic, perfectly captures Syria's current condition; and no, I'm unfortunately not referring to a fifth season of the internationally acclaimed Israeli TV series by the same name.

This is a catastrophic scenario – one not scripted by any playwright – unfolding in post-Assad Syria, with a cast of bad actors and real terrorists from all sides rising to power. Some are seasoned fighters, others are mercenaries and some are simply useful idiots being manipulated. Foreign jihadists – including Uyghurs but also potentially Chechens and Afghans – may be granted Syrian citizenship and integrated into Damascus's new army, with the U.S. administration's blessing. The list is long, and the reality continues to outpace fiction.

In recent days, we've witnessed an assault by Damascus' troops who joined forces with local Bedouin tribes to seize control of the province of Sweida and disarm the Druze in its heartland.

It seems that if the Druze hadn't had their own weapons to defend themselves and Israel hadn't intervened by bombing Syrian troops, Syrian army headquarters and surrounding areas of Damascus' presidential palace, the result could have been larger-scale massacres. During their brief entry into the city, Damascus forces and affiliated militias killed dozens of civilians including women and children. Captured men had their culturally significant mustaches shaved in public humiliation. These scenes have been widely shared on social media.Haut du formulaire

Israeli army intervention drove Damascus' forces to retreat. A U.S.-sponsored negotiations allowed a limited number of security forces, in place of the so-called "army" to return into the province but not into the city of Sweida itself, which has remained under local Druze control.

The backers of these recycled neo-jihadists who now rule Damascus – following the fall of the Assad family's 50-year-long barbaric regime – must not give this transitional government a free pass to do as they wish. Those backing this new Syrian leadership must pressure the new government to be inclusive of the country's ethnic and religious diversity, which it presently is not.

The current trajectory, marked by mass killings, is not a reassuring sign for Syria's future. The short-term geopolitical thinking by the current U.S. administration is part of the problem. The appointment of U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack – himself a real estate tycoon like Trump and also ambassador to Ankara – doesn't help.

Though one might expect a U.S. envoy to understand the benefits of federalism, Barrack instead praises a "One State, One People, One Flag" approach – the exact slogan of the Ba'ath Party in Syria and Iraq under the Assad and Saddam regimes. We know where that ideology led, including the use of chemical weapons in both countries.

Just days ago, in an apparent bid to please Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Barrack publicly pressured Syria's Kurds to disarm and give up their demands for an autonomous region – despite the fact that they defeated ISIS and continue to fight as loyal allies alongside U.S. forces against remaining cells in the region.

The new strongman of Syria, President Ahmad Al-Sharaa was known in his jihadist days as Abu Muhammed al-Jolani but now appears in public wearing a suit and tie. Just recently, he wore a turban and Afghan-style robe. As the saying goes, "the cowl does not make the monk" – but surely fourteen years of one of the most brutal civil wars in modern history shouldn't just be repackaged in Western garb.

Jolani passed through Iraqi ISIS before founding his own Syrian franchise: the Nusra Front, which was once part of the Al-Qaida network. Following his jihadist apprenticeship, he launched Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, based in the Idlib region in northwest Syria. The swift, unopposed collapse of the Assad regime and Jolani's sudden rise to power remain a mystery to the public – though likely not to intelligence agencies and military powers present on the ground: the U.S., Russia, Turkey, Israel, and Iran.

It seems Jolani's real mentor is none other than Turkey's strongman, President Erdogan, who himself was imprisoned in 1998 for his Islamist activism. He was sentenced to ten months in prison for declaring: "The minarets are our bayonets, the domes our helmets, the mosques our barracks and the believers our soldiers." Since then, he too, has, so to speak, changed his attire for strategic reasons. Erdogan now sponsors and guarantees Jolani and his ilk as part of the broader Sunni political Islam project, in a world governed increasingly by transactional diplomacy and aggressive branding.

Last March, revenge massacres of Alawite civilians on the coast – carried out by the new Damascus army and allied militias – went unpunished. Their only "crime" was being from the same sect as the former dictator, Syrian President Bashar Assad.

And now, this regime, over the last week, has revealed its desire to disempower the Druze after the Alawites. Their next target will surely be the Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria. This region, accounting for about one-third of the country in geography and one-fifth in population, is home to Kurds as well as a mosaic of Arabs, Christians, Assyrian-Chaldeans, Armenians and Yazidis. It is among the only successful models of coexistence in the region in recent years. If the international coalition – mainly the U.S. and France on the ground – abandons their Kurdish allies in the global fight against terrorism, it would be both a military and moral failure.

Regional powers seem to show little regard for the rights of local minorities. But the word minority undermines these groups' importance to the region. For example, there are some 40 million Kurds living on their ancestral lands divided among Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, and their presence in the region predates the arrival of Arabs in the seventh century and Turks in the twelfth.

It is crucial not to fault local minorities for seeking support "even" from Israel. Their very survival is at stake. Most Syrian communities, including a segment of moderate Sunnis, would likely agree with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar's call for international protection for these minorities, making this issue a precondition for Damascus' reintegration into the international community.

To give Syria a genuine chance at a peaceful future, it must be supported in establishing a broadly decentralized system of governance. Most importantly, mechanisms must be implemented to achieve a fully demilitarized Syria. Weapons have only served to kill the "other" and deepen divisions.

Yes, the Middle East is complex – but not more so than other global regions. This land gave birth to the three monotheistic religions and to even older civilizations. Its history has shaped our ways of life and thinking – both in the East and West – for millennia. It deserves better than pie-in-the-sky plans to turn Gaza into the French Riviera. What's needed is real political will and true intellectual honesty to foster statesmen – not just estate agents.