A New Corridor Emerges in the Middle East
For the first time in over half a century, a ‘Sunni Corridor' is uniting the region. Syria is the linchpin of this new order.
The Sunni Corridor
US President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement in Riyadh on the full cessation of sanctions on Syria has finally upended months of dithering in the western halls of power. These sanctions, imposed in various tranches against the Assad regime over the past 54 years, remained in place after the fall of said regime and have crippled Syria’s nascent state-building and economic reconstruction efforts. Following in Trump’s steps, the EU, having also dithered for months while waiting for the US, has now announced the full lifting of sanctions.
The very next day, Syria’s President Ahmad Al-Shara, who until December last year had a $10 million US bounty on his head, flew to Riyadh and met with Trump and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, thanking the former for his cessation of sanctions. “Young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter,” Trump later remarked to the media, describing Al-Shara.
In Syria, this news has been met with elation. Crowds formed in Syrian cities throughout the evening after Trump’s announcement, and Syria’s minister of economy was interviewed on television with tears in his eyes. These sanctions mired a majority of the Syrian people in absolute poverty, and their removal has lifted a psychological and material weight off their shoulders as they feel hope for the first time.
While these announcements formally commence the process for lifting sanctions on Syria, there are multiple, overlapping sets of sanctions imposed by various countries and international agencies, including the US, EU, and the UN Security Council. The most severe sanctions are expected to be repealed within weeks via executive decrees, which would allow for mostly normal diplomatic and trade relations between Syria and other states. There will be ongoing efforts meanwhile to remove older and more complex sanctions, which could take several months or years in some cases. The removal of sanctions should be welcomed, although it is evident that western powers will maintain the threat of their reimposition as leverage against the new government in Damascus.
Decision-makers in Washington, D.C. and Brussels did not decide on a full cessation of sanctions of their own accord. In his Riyadh speech, Trump verbally credited both Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MbS) of Saudi Arabia and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Türkiye for this major policy shift, signalling a remarkable alignment of interests between these erstwhile regional peer competitors.
Indeed, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Qatar have found themselves waging an intense joint lobbying effort over the past six months for the cessation of western sanctions on Syria. While their interests have varied in the region, and even in Syria until the fall of the Assad regime, the new Syrian government’s foreign policy blitz has positioned the desire for stability and recovery in Syria as a new incentive for regional alignment.
For the first time in half a century, a ‘Sunni Corridor’ has emerged in the Middle East, aligning regional capitals through Ankara, Damascus, Riyadh, and Doha, and creating a new axis of trade, diplomacy, and influence. Syria’s liberation from the Assad regime makes it the linchpin of this emerging regional alignment, and cultivating it into an enduring balance of power will be a key pillar of Syria’s statecraft.
For decades, the Assad regime’s strategy had been peace through fear at home and security through chaos abroad. Syria was a regional antagonist and sabotaged its neighbours to its gain. It launched a brutal occupation of Lebanon between 1976 and 2005, harboured the PKK in northern Syria as a bargaining chip against Türkiye, and had hostile relations with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, to which, after the American invasion in 2003, the Syrian government facilitated the transport of fighters. This strategy transformed Syria’s geostrategic position as a Middle Eastern crossroads into an isolated fortress of fear, torture, and hostility–all to ensure that Syria remained “Assad’s farm.”
The new Syrian government’s strategy completely inverts the Assad regime’s hostility and forced isolation of the Syrian people, instead positioning Syria to become a regional hub for trade and diplomacy. In this strategy, balancing Turkish and Saudi interests will be crucial to maintaining the delicate balance of power along this Sunni Corridor.
The Syrian Linchpin
Syria’s emergence as the linchpin of the Sunni Corridor is the product of a calculated diplomatic opening by the new government in Damascus, which is leveraging its geographic and strategic centrality to bind regional powers into a network of mutual dependency that supports Syrian stability and development. Positioned at the crossroads of the Levant, Mesopotamia, and the Mediterranean, Syria is no longer the isolated fortress of the Assad era. Instead, it is reimagining itself as a regional hub for trade and diplomacy.
The lifting of sanctions has unleashed a flurry of activity. Even as Trump announced the cessation of sanctions against Syria, Damascus was already negotiating and securing agreements with global logistics giants like CMA-CGM and DP World to modernise and manage ports in Latakia and Tartus. These projects, critical to reviving Syria’s maritime gateways, signal the government’s urgency to reintegrate into global supply chains. Parallel efforts, such as the “Silk Link” fibre-optic initiative recently announced by the Minister of Communications, aim to position Syria as a digital corridor linking Europe and Asia.
Decades of sanctions and war have left Syria’s economy starved of capital, which will compel the government to pursue creative financial solutions. Syria’s ongoing re-integration into the SWIFT banking network offers a lifeline, easing transactions, allowing for remittances, and attracting foreign investment. But true recovery hinges on Syria’s ability to scale its bureaucratic capacity, transforming its institutions into facilitators of regional commerce.
Central to this vision is Syria’s role as a nexus of overlapping regional drivers. To the north, Türkiye’s industrial prowess and ambitions to project influence into the Arab world align with Gulf capital seeking strategic depth against Iran. They bring with them extended trade links through the Turkic world and the Indian Ocean to India, China, and beyond. These parallel trade routes can finally meet in Syria.
Wedged between the Euphrates and Tigris is Upper Mesopotamia, known locally as the Jazira, which has long been maligned as a region of war and poverty. This natural basin was split into three pieces after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, with Iraq, Syria, and Türkiye sharing roughly 1/3rd of the region, respectively. In all three countries, the Jazira is a breadbasket and a source of energy. In Syria, roughly half of its food and energy comes from the Jazira. In Türkiye, Gaziantep, one of the region’s largest cities, is also a manufacturing hub.
The Jazira has significant and uncultivated manufacturing, energy, and agricultural potential owing to decades of hostility and border disputes between the Assad regime and Türkiye. The new Syrian government could seek to unleash Mesopotamia’s true potential through deeper economic integration with Türkiye. Through regional cooperation on shared frameworks for security and trade, which leads to the creation of new markets and incentives, the Jazira could become a young (quite literally, as most of its population is under 30 years of age) and vital participant in regional markets and supply chains. This cooperation could also be extended to the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq, which is on friendly terms with the Turkish government, and will be a crucial partner for Syria.
Alongside the Jazira, inter-Levantine trade is another regional driver that has significant untapped potential. Both Jordan and Lebanon are small and fragile economies with limited trade routes and industries. If the Syrian government overturns decades of hostile and antagonistic policies implemented by the Assad regime against its Levantine neighbours, and instead emphasises win-win trade and shared markets, the rising tide will lift all boats and give a new lease of life to the region. Jordan and Syria are already closely cooperating on matters related to trade and security, having just established a supreme coordination council across all sectors and issues, and boosting exports.
But they should go a step further: taking inspiration from the Malaysian-Singaporean Johor free trade zone, the current free trade zone on the Syrian-Jordanian border should be re-imagined as a sandbox in which to design new frameworks for economic integration that could be scaled at a later point, or even joint investment into new industries and companies that benefit both countries. For example, Jordan’s facilities for phosphate extraction and production would benefit from Syria’s phosphate production, which will also benefit from Jordan’s well-established phosphate industries and international trade routes through the Aqaba port. Joint research institutes could be set up that partner Syrian and Jordanian engineers and researchers to work on a range of scientific research, such as agriscience, materials science, and pharmaceuticals.
Syria’s diplomatic offensive extends eastward, too. Delegations from China, Japan, and South Korea have descended on Damascus, drawn by the potential of a rehabilitated transit hub connecting Asia to Europe. Syria should economically orient itself to the manufacturing centre of the world in East Asia, benefiting from these nations’ expertise and potential investment opportunities. While these engagements remain nascent, they underscore Syria’s potential to diversify its partnerships and reduce reliance on any single regional power, especially as western powers retain the threat of sanctions to curb Damascus’s autonomy.
Meanwhile, Syria’s capacity to bridge the parallel Turkic, Indian Ocean, and Gulf trade routes between Asia and Europe further isolates Iran. The government recognises that Syria’s development lies in arbitrating these competing interests, and transforming dormant regional markets such as the Levant, Mesopotamia, and the Türkiye-Gulf corridor into active arenas for trade, and bridging parallel global trade routes– all into a unified economic engine with Damascus at its core.
This delicate balancing act requires unprecedented economic statecraft. Syria’s reconstruction demands a bureaucratic overhaul to manage competing projects and prevent corruption from stifling growth. And with no Marshall Plan in sight, Syria must broker a novel alignment: marrying Turkish industrial capacity with Gulf financing to fuel its reconstruction. Riyadh and Ankara, once regional rivals, now share a vested interest in stabilising Syria—the former to counter Iranian influence, the latter to secure a prosperous hinterland for its “zone of peace and trade.” For Damascus, this alignment is both an opportunity and a potential point of dispute. Türkiye’s ambitions could clash with Saudi priorities, particularly as Ankara seeks to extend its influence into the Arab world. If it positions itself as a mediator, Syria can ensure a balance of interests through the proper incentives and concessions to maintain a broader regional alignment between Türkiye and Saudi Arabia. If both countries have a significant stake in Syria, they are less likely to endanger those stakes. Early signs of success are visible. Turkish firms are already eyeing Syrian supply chains, while Gulf states are about to storm the gates with huge pools of capital ready for investment into tourism and energy projects.
By weaving together Turkish industrial capacity, Gulf capital, and unlocking regional drivers like the wider Jazira and Levantine markets, Damascus aims to resurrect its historic role as the Middle East’s crossroads. Success would not only secure Syria’s revival but redefine regional power dynamics, marginalising Iran, sidelining Israel, and cementing the Sunni Corridor as the Middle East’s new axis of influence.
Potential Spoilers
Iran and Israel are the two regional powers that risk being sidelined by the emergence of the Sunni Corridor, as regional integration between these powers leaves them completely sidelined, both within and beyond the Middle East. To that end, they have attempted to destabilise Syria through insurgencies, aerial bombings, and territorial occupation.
Iran has the most to lose from the rise of the Sunni Corridor. For decades, they cultivated a network of proxy state militias across the Middle East, starting with Hezbollah in Lebanon, moving into the vacuum in Iraq after 2003, and finally securing the crown jewel of its burgeoning regional empire, Syria, after 2011, and becoming the main pillar of support to the Assad regime. This ‘Shi’ite Crescent’ punched a hole through the Middle East in the form of a land-and-air bridge maintained by a network of Shi’ite militias from Tehran to Beirut on the Mediterranean. Yet it collapsed in 12 days with the overthrow of the Assad regime, expelling Iranian influence from Damascus, and fatally weakening it in Beirut.
Iran is now on the back foot and seeks to further destabilise Syria through its routine strategy of deploying militias, assassinations, and bombings to cause violence and instability. Iran is funding and arming Assadist remnants predominantly embedded in Alawite communities in western Syria, and IRGC-affiliated tribes in Deir Ezzour in eastern Syria, to accomplish this. The most serious attempt came in March with an attempted Assadist insurgency on the coast, with significant evidence for Iran’s complicity in funding, arming, and coordinating with these insurgents.
Syria’s success outside of Iran’s orbit also poses another threat: Iran’s hostility towards its neighbours and the global system has compelled the Gulf and Turkic states to route trade and energy routes around Iran, and connect Europe and Asia for trade, energy, and capital. Until Syria’s liberation, those routes ran parallel to each other. Syria can now connect these two routes as a bridge between the northern Turkic route and the southern Gulf-Indian Ocean route, further isolating Iran as a geopolitical power.
Israel finds itself in surprising alignment with Iran in their position towards the new government in Syria. Iran’s influence in the wider Levant is diminishing, and as Iran’s threat to Israel recedes, the rise of the Sunni Corridor bypasses both Iran and Israel, with the latter’s genocide in Gaza having ended hopes for Israel’s ‘integration’ into the region through normalisation via the Abraham Accords. Saudi Arabia, which is now the Arab world’s premier political power, is instead seeking to leverage the fall of the Assad regime in Syria to form its own corridor of power that bypasses both Iran and Israel.
Maintaining leverage is therefore crucial for Israel to avoid strategic isolation, leading to the current Israeli invasion that has resulted in both territorial occupation in south Syria and numerous aerial bombing campaigns, the latest of which targeted the grounds of the presidential palace in Damascus as a threat to Syria’s government. Israel has also sought to use the ‘alliance of minorities’ rhetoric to divide Syria, threatening Damascus over issues with the Druze community in Suweyda, aiming to extend Israel’s influence from the occupied Golan Heights across Daraa to join up with Suweyda, thus ensuring southern Syria is under Israel’s de facto control. Daraa is the narrow artery through which the Sunni Corridor passes to Jordan and beyond, the Gulf states.
Israel has long maintained a strategy of ensuring permanent division in the region, such as with the strategic occupation of the Negev desert that divides Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous (and formerly premier) state, from the Middle East. Daraa in South Syria is another regional chokepoint, wedged between Israeli forces in the occupied Golan Heights and the majority Druze province of Suweyda, with whom Israel hopes to form an alliance and therefore leverage control over Daraa. Thus, Israel poses the biggest threat to the emerging Sunni Corridor in the region that bypasses and minimises both Israeli and Iranian influence.
The fate of Daraa is also the fate of the Syrian government’s strategy to become the linchpin of the Sunni Corridor. Whether it is deeper economic integration among the three Levantine states: Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria; in Mesopotamia to unlock its latent energy, agricultural, and manufacturing potential; connecting the Turkish and Gulf markets; and connecting the hitherto parallel trade routes running through the Turkic world and the Indian Ocean between Europe and Asia, Syria could drive its economic development by becoming the region’s premier trade hub.
This will depend on whether states like Türkiye and Saudi Arabia can sustain their new alignment through supporting Syria’s stability and reconstruction, and if states like Israel and Iran can be prevented from destabilising Syria and hindering regional integration. Ultimately, Syria’s government must also create the proper state capacity in the form of a competent economic and diplomatic cadre that acts on and combines these regional drivers into one engine: Damascus. If so, Syria becomes the heart of a new Middle East, and a crucial node in global supply chains stretching between Europe and Asia.