It is now the turn of Syria’s Druze population to face the danger of standing up to tyranny. But to understand what is happening in Syria, beyond more hideous death and destruction by terrorists of all stripes – and aid and protection provided only by Israel and the IDF – it helps to take a circuitous route.
First, we must understand this: There are people in this world who not only do not agree with the general, liberal, Western view that all sorts of people can live together, but also don’t even want to live together with anyone who doesn’t share their values. Their preferred approach is to conquer and beat them into submission, not to accept them in the hopes of winning them over with rational debate. We know this because proudly illiberal, even tyrannically-minded people consistently take advantage of the generosity and naivete of the liberal West. And the most amazing thing about that is that the illiberal people have been proving their intentions by word and deed for decades.
Iran declared war on Israel and the United States in 1979 and it is not looking for nuclear energy. It lied before, during and after the JCPOA negotiation – wanting the protection of nuclear weapons – or the threat of them – to forestall the fate of Iraq, Libya, and Ukraine, all of which were stripped of their programs and fell. In pursuit of victory against the West, Iran also armed, trained, and funded Houthis, as well as Hamas, PIJ, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiite militias, and ISIS.
At home, Iranian women have been hung for not wearing a hijab or wearing it incorrectly. The government hung at least 901 people in 2024, up 6 percent from 2023, and 230 people, including women, in the first three month of 2025. Multiply by four. The legal age of marriage for a girl in Iran to an adult male is 15. But, according to the Statistics Center for Iran, “it is acceptable for children younger to be married with a father’s permission.”
All Western programs that fill Iran’s financial coffers finance terror at home and abroad, as well as nuclear capability.
The Taliban lied when it said it would allow Afghan women to attend school. Not only do women NOT go to school, they are confined to their homes, their voices are banned in the streets and even in segregated prayer, windows are banned from places women inside their homes can be seen. And a religious leader announced in March that women would only be allowed to see out of one eye – the burka has to cover the other. Young girls are often married off as a way of reducing expenses to their families.
Oh, and by the way, the Taliban admits that half the weapons the US abandoned in 2021 cannot be accounted for. A source told BBC that the Houthis were recipients of US/Taliban/Biden administration largesse.
Yasser Arafat lied when he “accepted” the Oslo Accords. Mahmoud Abbas lied when he said he would end “Pay for Slay,” and the Biden administration lied when it signed The Taylor Force Act prohibiting payment to the Palestinian Authority in the amounts Abbas paid to terrorists.
Hamas lied and Hezbollah lied this year and every year past each time they “accepted” a ceasefire. Or maybe not – a ceasefire only means ceasing firing, it doesn’t imply permanence.
Qatar lied when it claimed to be an honest broker in those ceasefire talks. A former US intelligence officer reported that Qatar told Hamas “not to release the hostages.” And Hamas didn’t.
Now, back to the Druze.
The heterodox Shiite Asad government in Damascus was overthrown in December by HTS leading a multinational terror army; it appears to be in charge. HTS is Sunni, ISIS-adjacent, Al Qaeda-adjacent, and armed by and aligned with Turkey. It evolved from Jabhat al-Nusrah, or “Nusrah Front,” Al-Qaeda’s former branch in Syria, which was designated a terror organization by the US in 2012.
HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is an international jihadist. He broke with Ayman al-Zawahiri — the leader of Al-Qaeda — in 2016, and HTS received its own terror designation from the US in 2018. He has no loyalty, moving from an alliance with Al-Qaeda in Iraq to the Islamic State in Iraq, to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria, to Al-Qaeda in Syria, to his own brand.
Al-Sharaa has been talking a fairly moderate game – see NBC News, the BBC, NPR, and more – to convince the world that he’s a good guy. Aside from Turkey, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have recognized his government. Russia, Britain, and Iraq are considering it. The US has hedged, saying there is no government in Damascus that it will recognize. The policy wonk community in Washington is pushing US accommodation.
But the horrendous massacres of Alawites in Latakia in March should have been a tip-off about the intentions of al-Sharaa and HTS. Now there are the Druze, a religious group spread primarily across Syria, Lebanon and Israel, experiencing the hammer of what claims to be the Syrian government.
How many different ways can you say that there are people – particularly, but not only, in the Middle East – who are never going to be liberal, multicultural neighbors to varied ethnic, religious, or political groups?
And when they tell you they will, they lie.
