By situating Syria’s current transition alongside Libya and Sudan, the analysis shows that reframing operates as a recurring international strategy.
How did international discourse reorganise inadequate or illegitimate actors as legitimate representatives of their states, and with what consequences? Examining how the international community framed Libya’s NTC and Sudan’s TSC can offer lessons for Syria by directly comparing each case’s progresses and outcomes.
Filling political voids in Libya and Sudan
In 2011, the Libyan President Ghaddafi was ousted. In 2019, following months of protests, the Sudanese Army removed President al-Bashir. Both countries faced political vacuums, leading to the formation of interim governments: Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) and Sudan’s Transitional Military Council (TMC).
In Libya, the NTC was a prominent coalition even before the fall of Ghaddafi in October 2011 and had represented the political face of the revolution within and outside the country since February of the same year. Several international institutions and states had started to recognize, legitimize, and formally negotiate with it. During summer, the NTC was appointed as the formal representative of Libya by the Contact Group (later called “Friends of Libya”), an international alliance to support Libya’s transition. The transitional government proposed deliberative democracy, free elections, and a new constitution and Arab and NATO states, with representatives from the UN, discursively framed it as the democratic face of the revolution.
In Sudan, the TMC formed after the military coup but faced opposition from civil society and political parties. Subsequently, power was shifted to the Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC). The international community, including the UN, USA, and EU, supported the civilian interim government and its initiatives. The Sudanese transition project was a joint civil-military governing body and, consequently, it was pragmatically – more than ideologically – recognised on international framing.
The Syrian case and the recurring pattern
At the end of 2024, the rebel organisation Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered Damascus, and the Bashar al-Assad regime fell after 24 years and more than 10 years of civil war. HTS had been one of the last opposition groups active in Syria after 2017, mainly established in the Idlib Governorate. Because of its roots in al-Qaeda, HTS and its leader al-Jolani had been labelled as terrorists. However, after the fall of al-Assad in 2024, Ahmad al-Sharaa – the original name of al-Jolani – has been recognised as the leader of the transitional government in Syria. Al-Sharaa’s plan for Syria is ambitious: he recalls inclusive and democratic reforms while strengthening investments for reconstruction. The Arab Ministerial Contact Committee, the Paris Conference on Syria, and the declaration of the US President on sanctions relief pragmatically and discursively recognize al-Sharaa as legitimate. In parallel, several regional and international countries have re-started to deal with Syria for investments.
While all three interim governments emerged from crisis, Libya’s and Sudan’s were quickly supported through formal recognition declarations and multilateral endorsement (de iure). By contrast, al-Sharaa’s recognition lacks such explicit formality, being more a pragmatic engagement (de facto). Nevertheless, the international community displays a recurring approach to regime change in the region: legitimize transitional forces to avoid power vacuums, temporary stability in the region, natural resources (such as oil or gold), and alliances with “democratic forces” to enhance strategic partnerships. The Syrian Interim President’s rebranding follows a similar international pattern as was for its precursors.
Facing inconsistency in Libya and Sudan
Despite the international recognition, both Libyan and Sudanese transitional governments were far from being internally legitimate. The discursive frame drew quickly the NTC as the legitimate representative despite its weak governance. It had an extended territorial control but lacked the ability to manage the spreading of militias and services, leading to a security and welfare vacuum. The NTC transferred its power to the General National Congress in August 2012, which failed to draft a Constitution and hold elections. In 2014, starting from Haftar’s initiatives, Islamist and secular militias started to clash in Benghazi, and a renewed conflict began, resulting in two separate authorities in the country. The following UN attempts to establish a Unity Government failed, and Libya remains the terrain of an infinite guerrilla war. Within this context, international support for the transitional government decreased and partially transferred to the representatives of the secular and moderate section of the ex-GNC, which were unable to find a terrain between Islamists and Haftar’s forces.
Sudan’s provisional government had real control of the capital, Khartoum, while the peripheral areas of the country were de facto controlled by independent military associations. At the same time, the military opposed the administrative and institutional reform attempts by the TSC. Given the unsuccessful progress of the TSC, in 2021, the Chairman of the Council, al-Burhan, organized a new coup and reformed the membership as a solo military junta. However, it remains the representative of Sudan. In 2023, the official army led by Burhan and the Paramilitary Support Forces clashed and started a civil war, which is still unsolved. The compromise on discursively legitimizing the TSC was made on too short-term considerations and failed to recognize military dominance on the ground.
Expecting recurring consequences
The Syrian landscape within the international frame presents some similarities with its precursors. Of course, the cases are not fully analogous: external intervention in Libya, negotiated transition in Sudan, and insurgent-led interim government in Syria represent different routes. Treating them as equivalents risks levelling international responses.
Al-Sharaa represents the most suitable and pragmatic substitute for al-Assad. After the fall of the regime, the international community has acknowledged the double nature of HTS: a militia derived from Islamic extremism and then a group which has broad governance capabilities in its areas of influence, with a high legitimacy rate among its affiliates. Moreover, recognition follows the geostrategic relevance of Syria within the region and the international economic interests. Consequently, several countries are looking for investments in it and the international community needs to emphasise enthusiasm and promises of the new administration, given that it seeks a good interlocutor for mutual affairs. International discourse is actively softening and polishing al-Sharaa’s past to reframe him as a political leader. If truth be told, interim actors often take steps to make themselves more acceptable. It is the case of al-Sharaa, who has started transitioning its image from a military commandant to a political and civilian leader. For instance, al-Sharaa is reverting his battle name (Abu Mohammad al-Jolani) in favour of his first name, he is attending international meetings like the UN General Assembly – that Syria has missed since the 60s – and he is meeting journalists and researchers.
Notwithstanding these reciprocal efforts, reality is more complex. Syria is facing extensive infrastructural and economic damages and the fragmentation among political factions and ethnic groups is still wide-ranging. Moreover, militias are still active while raids and battles are ongoing in different areas of the country.
Those facts are relevant and must be considered while legitimizing a new power. The risks for Syria are mainly three:
- Socio-political fragmentation. As in Libya, failing to consider Syrian multilayered factions and communities could fuel severe identity and/or political disagreement. International recognition must therefore be coupled with broad-based inclusion and reconciliation processes.
- Militias. Sudan and Libya demonstrate the danger of neglecting militia structures. Underestimating these issues, security and humanitarian fields deal with consequences: internal or transnational forces can renew conflicts while worsen humanitarian situation, fostering grievances increase. The risk is to have a conflict relapse if there are not parallel investments in SSR and DDR.
- Narrative versus governance. Positive international framing can obscure grievances and asymmetrical economic plans that eventually undermine the hybrid governance on the ground. For instance, some researchers and analysts have already denounced the continuity within decision-making and policy-making between al-Assad and al-Sharaa. External actors should resist treating reframing as sufficient, and instead link economic policies to local ownership and participation. At the same time is necessary to develop long-term plans based on more than geostrategic and investment-oriented approach as was in Libya and Sudan.
In conclusion, international reframing played a role amplifying actors that were inadequate for the role they embraced. Of course, frame’s influences cannot be separated from other drivers – NATO intervention in Libya, Sudan’s reliance on patronage, and Syria’s networks with regional powers – while evaluating multilayered factors avoids that the claim of a recurring pattern is standardised.
The lesson is not that reframing is necessarily damaging but it has to be informed by wide analyses and researches. The recommendation is to analyse beyond the international narrative frame. Since this framework is pervasive through media and dominant discourses, it is crucial to be highly critical and to create specialized team-works to avoid reproducing these limits. Frames merely based on ideological, liberal economical and contingent evaluations cannot substitute inclusive governance, security reform, and economic arrangements that benefit local populations. Without these, the pattern seen in Libya and Sudan is likely to repeat in Syria – exposing a legitimized structure which glorious international image quickly collapses facing the reality of unsolved conflict.
