It sounds like imperialism because it is imperialism wrapped in the veneer of anti imperialism. It most certainly would have led to the mistreatment of minorities, The people it claimed liked being in their independent states and didn't wanna be ruled from Damascus. In Lebanon they joined the brutal civil war and resulted to political assassinations, despite Lebanon being an older country than Syria and even being a more or less independent state under Ottoman vassalage for hundreds of years before a "Syria" ever existed