What does it take to actually understand how power is rebuilt after a regime falls? For Dr. Rahaf Aldoughli (@r_aldoughli), the answer has been over a hundred interviews with Syrian fighters and commanders, conducted before and after Assad's collapse, including follow-up conversations after the coastal massacres and Suweida. In our conversation for The Syria Dispatch, she explains why she studies masculinity rather than treating gender as a "women's issue," why the same vocabulary of honor and sacrifice she found under Baathist rule reappeared, almost unchanged, among the men who overthrew it, and why she now describes Syria's religious revival as "saturation without consolidation"; everywhere in public life, but organized by no single doctrine. It's a conversation grounded in fieldwork rather than commentary, including a story from a commander who staged a press-friendly answer with a lawyer present, and one from a fighter whose wife shamed him into defecting from the regime's air force. Read the full interview: syriadispatch.com/p/rahaf-al…

I spoke to @arabnews and @AnanTello about how the fuel price hikes are pricing Syrian families out of makdous, the autumn preserve that used to carry the season's abundance into winter. arab.news/rzhv9 The piece covers a fresh, new angle, and also concrete example of what the broader macro debate often misses about the increase price of fuel products. Given that fuel is not one expense among others but runs through almost all of them, getting to work means paying more for petrol, heating a home means paying more for fuel, and buying bread means paying more, because bakeries run on fuel. Thus, when diesel jumps 40% overnight, the whole household budget moves with it. While I think that the direction of travel toward market pricing may be sensible in the long run, I also argue that between the situation today and that end goal, the government needs a clear plan to get there. That means phasing subsidies out gradually while expanding direct cash transfers and other social support, with international organisations and NGOs helping identify and reach the households that need it most. Otherwise, as the families in this piece show, the adjustment is paid makdous empty jars, and you will have in increasing number of families skipping meals.

I spoke to @The_NewArab and @CP__Ward, reporting from Damascus, about the fuel protests and what they reveal about the gap between Syria's recovery narrative and people's daily lives. newarab.com/analysis/syrias-… Correcting the Assad-era model of corruption, bureaucratic bloat, and inefficiency is necessary, but as I argued, "every lever to fix the economy has a first-order regressive impact." Prices have risen dramatically over the past two years while wages have not kept pace, and there is a growing sense that people are worse off than before the fall of Assad. Sanctions relief, foreign capital and a stable exchange rate make for a positive story, but none of it has translated into more disposable income. A widening gap exists between the recovery the government describes and what ordinary Syrians actually experience. That gap is not only economic, but also symbolic, which, in a sense, can be worse. Convoys of imported SUVs, refurbished ministries and five-star hotel projects "convert an economic grievance into a moral one about who this post-Assad transition is actually for." That moral dimension goes a long way toward explaining the intensity of the anger others have already reported. As for the government's revision on diesel: this is certainly not a U-turn given that aside from partial subsidies for agriculture, heating, and eligible households, fuel prices will still rise on average.

Good, short summary of price liberalization and the lifting of subsidies in Syria between 2005 and 2010, from Marwa Daoudy’s The Origins of the Syrian Conflict (2020). More relevant than ever today, given the context. We see the tension between poor policymaking (particularly the rapid and poorly sequenced lifting of subsidies), external actors such as the IMF and World Bank, which advocated subsidy reform but explicitly recommended a gradual approach, and the tensions within the Syrian establishment between “traditional reformers” and the emerging class of “new businessmen.”

In Qamishli, AFP reports that alcohol shops are running out of stock and prices have nearly doubled since Damascus took over the Semalka crossing. Damascus's rules arrived in the northeast overnight, with no time for traders to adjust and, as a result, what used to come through Semalka is now blocked or taxed so heavily that it's smuggled in instead, at higher prices. This reminds me of the Raqqa story I covered last month, when second-hand clothing traders protested outside the customs building after being fined for stock they had imported legally under the AANES. Local products are supposed to fill the gap, but traders say they can't compete on price or quality. The people paying the price are low-income families and small shopkeepers. In both cases, the rules aren't even clear... alcohol isn't officially banned, and used clothing sits on a "negative list" in the new tariff that nobody has defined. I wrote about the used-clothing ban for the August Syria Monthly Economic Digest: syriadispatch.com/p/second-h… AFP on alcohol: france24.com/en/live-news/20…

I spoke to @TheNationalNews' @MaucourantNada about the government's decision to reintroduce subsidised diesel, days after fuel protests spread across the country. thenationalnews.com/news/men… The key idea is that the politics of the move are easy to understand but the economics less so. As I argued, "fuel subsidies distort prices across the economy, encourage overconsumption and create incentives for smuggling." They are also regressive: whoever consumes the most fuel captures the most benefit, which is rarely the household the measure is meant to protect. Coupled with the fiscal question and a budget deficit above $1 billion (precisely the reason subsidies were being phased out in the first place), prices were also bound to go up. The idea of renewed partial subsidy raises questions because nobody outside government can say where the money will come from, or how long the measure is supposed to last. Allied countries could of course cover the bill... but that's dangerous and would tie domestic oil prices to another country's political calendar rather than to Syria's own revenue base. As for the protests themselves, fuel was indeed the trigger, but not the main cause. Grievances have been accumulating for months, particularly in rural areas and outside the main cities (as covered in with The Syria Dispatch). What makes this episode different is its breadth: fuel reaches transport, generators, bread, the cost of getting to work, heating a home.

I spoke to @RFI about Syria's fuel crisis, as part of a wider look at how diesel and heating-oil prices are driving unrest from French fishermen to Bolivian farmers. rfi.fr/fr/économie/20260916-… For Syria, this is a break with an entire economic model. The government is now in complete rupture with the heavily subsidised petroleum pricing of the Baathist era, and Syrians are simply not used to prices at this level, or to changes this abrupt. I don't dispute the direction of travel, because with empty state coffers and global crude near $106, there was never a version of this where prices stayed where they were. But there were ways of getting there more gradually, and of preparing people for it. The communication failure is the part I keep coming back to. Saying "we follow international oil prices" is not sufficient on its own, especially when the same government has spent months announcing that it has recovered control of the country's oilfields. Syrians hear both messages and reasonably expect fuel to get cheaper. Exactly the opposite happened. The energy minister's parliamentary hearing, postponed to tomorrow, will be worth watching.

I spoke to @lemondefr, and to Nissim Gasteli @nissssim reporting from Al-Tall, Maarat Al-Nouman and Idlib, about the protests that followed the 40% fuel price increase, the first serious social test for the new authorities. lemonde.fr/international/art… As I explained, a government that wants to liberalise prices has no alternative to applying market prices. That part is not really in dispute. But it had the option of doing it gradually over a few years, rather than overnight via a WhatsApp message from the state distribution company.

Forget institutional reform benchmarks, my leading indicator for state capacity is whether Commercial Bank of Syria’s branches at the Damascus/Aleppo airport can spell my name. -Q2 I entered as BENJSMIN. -Q3 I was BENJEMIN then BENIAMIN. -Q4 I’m finally BENJAMIN. Bullish.

I spoke to @newlinesmag about Syria’s fuel price protests and what they reveal about the challenges of moving away from the country’s heavily subsidized economic model. As I argued, Syria simply cannot sustain a large subsidy system given the state of its public finances. But reform also needs to be communicated clearly, phased where possible, and accompanied by measures to protect the poorest. “The government could be clearer in explaining that they are moving towards a new economy and liberalizing, so that Syrians can understand what is going on.” Read the full piece: newlinesmag.com/spotlight/sy…

This is how Syria's 🇸🇾 fuel prices compare to Jordan 🇯🇴 and Lebanon 🇱🇧. Prices are administered in all three. Syria's are no longer cheaper. After 13 September, Benzine/Octane 90 is within 2 cents of Jordan's taxed pump price, and mazout is 11% below Lebanese diesel, down from a 25–30% discount all summer.

Visualization of the price increase across Syrian fuels. Mazout, the fuel that heats homes, runs generators, and moves freight, took the steepest hike at 40%. Subsidies were never going to survive the fiscal squeeze, but the question is what replaces them, and for whom.

Very happy to have had the opportunity to interview, or rather, discuss, masculinity, sectarianism, and what has and hasn't changed since Assad's fall with Dr. Rahaf Aldoughli. Far from being a political discussion or an assessment of the current authorities, this is a look at the deeper social and cultural structures shaping Syria's transition. A rich, wide-ranging conversation on fighters, faith, and power in the new Syria. syriadispatch.com/p/rahaf-al…

New interview on The Syria Dispatch: Dr. Rahaf Aldoughli (@r_aldoughli) on masculinity, sectarianism, and Syria's transition. syriadispatch.com/p/rahaf-al… Dr. Aldoughli's 2024 book argued that masculinity under the Assad regime wasn't incidental to authoritarian rule but, rather, that it was one of its instruments. Eighteen months after the regime's collapse, we asked her what she'd revise. Her answer? Not the core argument, but its scope. As we see today, the "political culture" she describes as being made up of honor, moral injury, recognition, and sacrifice didn't belong only to the regime. In fact, the opposition that fought it "inherited the political culture it was fighting." We also discuss: → Her new concept of "transitional masculinities" and why some fighters hardened after the coastal massacres and Suweida while others defected → Why she reads Syria's Sunni revival as "saturation without consolidation" rather than a coherent Islamist project → What's changed, and hasn't, for women navigating power, from cabinet appointments to daily negotiations "at the door, in the corridor, at the desk" → Why speaking out now carries a different, more diffuse risk than it did under Assad Read the full interview: syriadispatch.com/p/rahaf-al…

Syrian Energy Minister Mohammad al-Bashir has been summoned before Parliament for questioning, as much of northern Syria vigorously protests the recent fuel price hike. I'd rather see this, a push for communication and a rational explanation (maybe an apology and some backtracking), than see than a sacrificial resignation, as many are calling for at this moment. The government has to take accountability for its decisions, and ministers shouldn't be relief valves for the executive. The problem started upstream anyway: a price hike this consequential was decided without consultation and with no attempt to explain it. That's not how policy is built. It's also the first serious test for the new MPs: whether they use the session to actually press the executive on how the decision was made.