“The focus on ethnic or religious identity has surely undermined any prospect of a class-based politics developing . Civil society — once vibrant in the early days of the uprising — has been stifled by state violence, while political parties and trade unions have been dissolved in the name of national transition.” “ While the HTS leadership maintains strict control over many Sunni militias in Idlib, it must now negotiate with non-Sunni communities, such as the Druze and Kurds…” Here the writer is inaccurate. The Kurds are not a non-Sunni community; most if the Kurds are Sunni. According to some estimates, Kurdish forces lost an estimated 11,000 fighters in the battle against ISIS (a Sunni too), with over 22,000 wounded.
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51