BEIRUT — Syria, shattered by more than a decade of civil war, is now presenting itself as a rare corridor of calm and commerce at the center of a widening regional war, the Associated Press reported Friday. With the Strait of Hormuz blocked by Iran and missiles streaking over Gulf states, the new government in Damascus is urging the world to see the country not as a battlefield but as a “bridge to security” and an alternate export artery for oil that can no longer move by sea.
Ahed Badawi lived in Bahrain for more than ten years with her sister and elderly mother, a safe distance from the Syrian conflict. “Nothing at all ever happened there,” she said. “I mean, the Bahrainis don’t even know what war is.” But after the U.S. and Israel struck Iran and Iran retaliated with missile salvos against Gulf countries hosting American bases, the family fled back to their home in Aleppo, a city that once epitomized the carnage of Syria’s civil war and now offered a refuge.
Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa made the pivot explicit last week at a meeting of European leaders in Cyprus. “Syria, which was once an arena for others’ conflicts, has today chosen, through the will of its people and institutions, to be a bridge to security and a fundamental pillar of the solution,” he said. He touted his country as “the alternative and secure artery connecting Central Asia and the Gulf to the heart of the European continent.” The speech coincided with the reopening of a border crossing between northern Iraq and Syria that had been shuttered for more than a decade, a step officials described as an additional overland channel for energy exports heading to European markets via the Syrian port of Baniyas.
Obayda Ghadban, an official with the Syrian Foreign Ministry, said the country had no interest in aligning with either side. “The parties participating in it are strategic enemies of Syria, whether we talk about Iran and its affiliates, or if we talk about Israel and its aggressive expansionist policy in Syria,” he told the AP. “Both parties have an interest in weakening Syria.” Iran was a key backer of ousted President Bashar Assad and sent allied militias into Syria during the civil war, while Israel has been suspicious of the Islamist-led authorities now in power and has occupied a buffer zone along the Syrian border since Assad’s fall.
Noah Bonsey, senior adviser on Syria with the International Crisis Group, said that while Damascus had clearly signaled its desire to stay out of the war, fortune also played a role. By the time the U.S.-Iran conflict erupted, the United States had already drawn down its troop presence in eastern Syria, a mission that had been focused on preventing a resurgence of the Islamic State. “Because the withdrawal had gone so far by the time the war started, there were very few U.S. assets and personnel still in the country” that could have attracted Iranian strikes, Bonsey explained.
The neutrality has allowed Syria to cast itself as the workaround for a global oil chokepoint. Tankers that normally transit the Strait of Hormuz have been replaced by truck convoys hauling Iraqi crude across the desert into Syria, an overland route that is less efficient and more expensive but offers a lifeline while Iran maintains its stranglehold on the waterway. The reopened crossing with Iraq’s Kurdistan region is being promoted as a fresh artery for European-bound energy shipments, even if infrastructure projects such as proposed rail lines and gas pipelines that could truly transform Syria’s role remain years away, if they materialize at all.
Despite the political opportunities, Bonsey warned that Syria will not escape economic pain. The wealthy Gulf countries that Damascus had hoped would bankroll postwar reconstruction are now pouring resources into their own missile defenses and economic recovery, leaving less bandwidth for lower-priority investments. “Syria may benefit in the long term from infrastructure that links the Gulf to Turkey and Europe, but that’s a project of years, not months,” he said.
Inside Syria, the government is already facing mounting discontent over a flagging economy. Yet for Badawi, the return home has brought a personal relief that overrides the daily hardships. “There’s nothing like being in your own country,” she said. “When you’re in your own country, you feel a different kind of security.”