As Syria sinks deeper into political ambiguity under the de facto leadership of Ahmed al-Sharaa, widely known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the consequences are no longer confined within the borders of a collapsing state. The question regional capitals are now asking is no longer who governs Damascus, but whether the actor in power possesses the basic capacity to administrate and produce stability at all.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statements reflect this concern with striking clarity. His recent warning that developments in northern Syria may reshape the threat landscape along Israel’s northern frontier underscores a growing reality: Syria’s crisis of legitimacy has evolved into a regional security threat.
Syria’s borders have always been fragile; however, the elevation of a factional figure with no constitutional mandate has rendered them more vulnerable than at any point in the past decade. Netanyahu emphasized that an unstable and extralegal authority in Damascus translates immediately into compromised borders—whether on the Golan Heights, the Jordanian frontier, or the Turkish and Iraqi corridors.
When power is built on a faction rather than a state, border management becomes the domain of local militias, smuggling networks, and competing power centers rather than national institutions.
This structural collapse opens unprecedented operational space for non-state actors. When the leader of an armed faction is treated implicitly or explicitly as a political authority, the message to the wider region is clear: armed force can replace constitutional legitimacy. In a Middle East already saturated with militant groups seeking political recognition, the Syrian model risks normalizing the idea that holding territory is enough to claim political status.
The core problem, however, lies not in personalities but in the absence of a state. Syria today lacks the pillars of sovereign governance: a constitutional process, a unified military structure, a functioning administrative apparatus and leadership detached from extremist affiliations. A power center deriving its authority from force rather than law cannot police borders, secure internal stability, manage refugee return or build reliable relations with neighboring states. For Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon, this means the Syrian arena will remain unstable for years if the current trajectory continues.
The crisis is further compounded by the composition of the so-called “interim government,” which is filled with figures lacking political experience, diplomatic training or any background in managing state files. Most emerged from factional administrative structures, not from institutions of governance. Such a body is incapable of leading foreign policy, negotiating with regional powers or managing complex files such as borders, refugees, trade and security coordination.
A viable transitional path back to statehood requires more than security arrangements; it requires political and diplomatic credibility. This, in turn, demands the integration of Syrian figures with real experience engaging international institutions, regional capitals and the layered political dynamics of the Middle East figures who, since the early years of the uprising, developed concrete political projects for rebuilding the state, drafted proposals for restructuring the military institution, and prepared economic and administrative reform plans.
At the forefront of this group is Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlass, formerly of the Syrian Republican Guard, alongside diplomats and technocrats who have spent the past decade building networks, expertise and comprehensive transitional visions. This category of actors stands in sharp contrast to the current appointees; they understand the language of statecraft, not factional control, and can represent Syria with legitimate political grounding in regional and international arenas.
This raises the central question: If illegitimacy cannot produce stability, what can?
The only viable path to preventing further collapse is a transitional process led by a unified national institution—not by a faction—grounded in constitutional and institutional legitimacy. Such a process can rebuild a coherent security framework inside Syria, provide regional states with a reliable counterpart and prevent militias from evolving into substitutes for the state.
Netanyahu’s remarks highlight an emerging regional understanding: an illegitimate authority in Damascus weakens Syria’s borders; a faction-based leadership empowers armed groups; the collapse of state institutions unleashes instability beyond national boundaries; and a political structure without international experience cannot serve as a partner for any state in the region.
No country in the Middle East can afford a Syria governed by improvised, extra-legal structures.
Real stability will only emerge from a Syrian state rebuilt through law, institutions and the capacity to manage both internal and regional files led by figures who have had genuine, ready-to-deploy national projects since the beginning of the revolution, and who understand the meaning of a state, not the logic of a faction.
Until such a path materializes, Syria will remain a generator of instability shaping the security environment of the entire region, including Israel.
