Once Upon a Time in Syria; Analysis on Syrian Conflict.

The human civilization was never free of problems and chaos in which war and destruction was common. In human history, there is no point in time which was free from conflicts and warfare. In the last century, the world was plagued with two world wars, struggles for independence, cold war which was fought as a set of proxy wars and countless other internal and external conflicts. In the turn of this century, a new form of war; international terrorism has emerged. The newest ongoing conflict is the conflict between the government of Syria and its opposition groups. Although it can be categorized as a civil war its effects are anything but confined to Syria. It is now evolved in to a regional conflict and who knows; it can be the spark for the World War 3. Most of the public got to know about the Syrian conflict because of the involvement of opposition group, ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) or commonly known as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) and their actions such as kidnapping, beheading, burning and drowning but, there is far more to the Syrian conflict than ISIL thus it is important to go into the  root of this conflict to get a clear idea of why Syrians had turned against their ruler and why factions such as ISIL are so successful. As the ISIL had wowed to carry on their struggle to control much of the middle-east and a substantial portion of Europe and Asia, it is for everyone’s benefit to understand what had happened in Syria and the neighboring Arab world.

This all started with the Arab Spring, the popular uprisings against leaders in the Arab World. Started in Tunisia, it swept across a good portion of the middle-east. It starts with small protests in the name of democracy and usually escalates in to armed conflicts between the government forces and the opposition groups and eventually leads to the downfall of the government and leaders. The outcome of the subsequent power vacuum is different from country to country. Having overthrown so called oppressive dictator was no guarantee for democracy or stable government. Only a handful of countries had transformed in to the state that the protesters hoped for while the majority slid in to chaos and anarchy. Libya, Yemen and Egypt are examples.

Like the other Arab Spring affected countries, in Syria, the opposition backed by Syrian opposition started as a wave of protests against the President Bashar Al Assad. It soon escalated in to an armed conflict where countless rebel factions (both pro-Assad and anti-Assad) fighting each other only to further erupt in to a regional conflict where even the world’s superpowers involve.

Syria is now a melting pot of different rival factions fighting each other for achieving their respective goal broadly categorized in to pro-Assad, anti-Assad and Kurdish. The anti-Assad can further be categorized into secular/democratic and religious ideology.

Even though we tend to look for the starting point for the civil war in Arab spring, the root is not there but further back in time for more than a two millennia. This whole area of middle-east containing Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Israel/Palestine is unique. It was influenced by Islam (both Sunni and Shiite), Christianity and Judaism. Moreover due to its changing hands several times starting from Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, and Franco –British to Baathist, Secularist and Islamic forces.

Originally occupied by the nomadic Bedouin people, Islam had swept across the region and managed to unite majority under a one religious ideology, but this is not without problems. Ideological sectarian tensions between Sunni, Shiite and Alawite were common throughout the middle-east. It had multiplied in the second half of the 20^th century. There is a particular reason; almost all of the countries in this region were claimed from the Ottomans after World War 1 by either French or British. When those countries became Independent, the ruling elite of those countries were the minority in most of the cases. Absolute monarchies in some of those countries were abolished either by armed conflicts or leftist revolutions lead by the minority communities. This was apparent in Iraq where Saddam Husain who was a Sunni took control of the Shiite majority Iraq and where the President Bashar Al Assad who is an Alawite Muslim controls Sunni Majority in Syria. This had happened in Libya (tribalism took hold there, not sectarianism). In Lebanon, after the independence from the British, the rule went to Christians who were the minority in a Sunni and Shite majority state resulted in a bloody civil war in 70s and 80s costing thousands of lives and brought the country to an irrecoverable anarchy which still plagues the country. Not to mention Israel where the Jews who were the refugees consisting only about half a million where given the best portion of the land of Palestine from the partition plan of 1948 leading to the biggest crisis the middle-east.

The occupying Franco-British colonials had done an irreparable mistake of alienating the rule from the Majority and giving privileged positions to the minority communities. It seems that this had happened in most of the countries under French or British colonial occupation. If that occupied country couldn’t build a nation state after independence due to various reasons including the divergent ethno-religious factions, soon the majority discontent on the governing minority emerge. This has to do with economic factors also. The ruling minority groups will get wealthy while depriving the majority with economic opportunities. Above situation is no other than a ticking time bomb.

Since this region is once belong to the Ottoman Empire and was a melting pot of different ethnicities and religious groups. Those differences were highlighted when the French and British took control and more prominently after independence. Creation of modern nation states from the former Ottoman Empire was mostly under the British and French discretion making the European colonials, the architects of the middle-east. The problem was that the Europeans had hardly any idea of the Ethnic composition and culture of the people when creating new states. One of the best examples was creating Kuwait from the historical Iraqi territory. They might have done that considering its massive oil wealth and it was easier to manage and make post-independent relations with a small country with virtually homogeneous population. Iraq always claims Kuwait as their territory. This led to the first gulf war in 1991.

Let’s turn our attention to Syria once more. Minority Alawite faction is controlling the state and economy. Assad, like many other Arab nationalistic leaders tried infrastructure development and religious tolerance. It is the only secular state in Arab world. Christians in Syria felt relatively safe. Assad has a strong eastern bloc inclination like Gamal Abdul Nassar in Egypt. When the Arab Spring started, from the beginning Syria was a targeting point. People driven by economic and social inequality was to riot against the regime. Demonstrations were about to happen but, what wasn’t expected is this kind of full time armed insurgence but either a peaceful transition like in Tunisia, riots and violent civil uprising not amounting to armed conflict like in Egypt or a small scale insurgence only by the opposition within that country like in Libya. None of that happened in Syria but a civil war dragging sovereign countries, opposition groups, international terrorist organization and home-grown militias. USA and its allies want Assad to go while Russia wants Assad to prevail. Kurds in Iraq and specially Syria want to win autonomy from Syrian regime. Meanwhile the ISIL want everyone to lose and to establish an Islamic Caliphate spanning from Syria and Iraq into global domination. It is natural that in Arab Spring many rival factions clash to grab power but in Syria, the outside influence from USA and its allies in the name of ‘humanitarian aid to restore democracy’ has led to the escalation of this problem. Russian president Vladimir Putin accused USA directly for creating ISIL, it might not be so but a failed US foreign policy surely helped the ISIL to gain lot of support from neighboring countries. Even though USA didn’t directly supply ISIL any aid, the factions who got US support granted or sold provisions to ISIL. Since ISIL controls a considerable amount of oil production throughout their territory, those petro-dollars can surely be a steady income. USA had and still has an unsuccessful foreign policy in the middle-east. They fund a faction to grab power in a region then those who gained US support double-cross them every time. This had happened with the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan.

Whenever USA directly support a government in the middle-east regardless of how oppressive or how blackened its human rights record or how undemocratic it is, USA stays in the winning side. Best example is Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar. Whenever they support the opposition, they tend to lose. It cannot be said that the USA didn’t anticipate the consequences for backing an opposition who surely turned in themselves in to oppressors and fanatics more fearsome than the previous regime in terms of religious tolerance and democracy.  They took a risk in supporting the Syrian opposition because, Assad is a close ally of Russia and Russia has assets in Syrian. Toppling Assad would surely weaken the Russian presence in the middle-east greatly. That would have been the US plan but now it had backfired. Russia is now determined to keep the opposition at bay from toppling Assad and with the recent air strikes possible ‘boots-on-the-ground’, they will surely succeed. The difference between Russian and US decision making is that the boldness in Russian decisions. USA has much to lose in taking rash and unpopular decisions than Russia. USA is a democracy after all!!!

However, what was done has been done. Syria was in turmoil. Half of the Syrian population is either internally or externally displaced. Mass immigration resulted in the worse refugee crisis in Europe after World War II; not to mention the incoming long-term demographic changes and cultural imbalance in the European Union. ISIL will continue to gain support unless they are defeated once in for all. Even Assad took control of Syria eventually, ISIL threat will not pass. They’ll operate as a global terror force much fearful than even the Al-Qaeda. They will gain supporters worldwide including countless followers in the western world.

Now it is too little too late! If USA stayed out of the trouble in Syria, none of this would have happened. The opposition might topple Assad eventually. ISIL would not have born even if they, they will be a mere shadow of the power they are now. The resulting government would be religious fundamentalist like the succeeded government after Egypt’s Mubarak but it would never have escalated in to the brink of World War III.

Now, it is not sure where the Syrian conflict is heading. USA will now stay out of the trouble after all they have done to ignite the kindle. ISIL should be prevented from pouring in to Lebanon or Jordan at all cost. With the incoming US Presidential Election, Syrian policy of major candidates both Republican and Democratic should be closely scrutinized. One of the possible candidates in US election, business magnet Donald Trump expressed Assad is a person with whom they can ‘do business with’.

                                

Middle-east was and always will be a violent and volatile place. With its oil, its influence is crucial in global politics. The best strategy for middle-east is dealing with the legitimate governments regardless of how oppressive, undemocratic and religious extremist they are. Let the people of middle-east handle their own problems. The only thing the rest of the world can do is to contain the spread of fanaticism is to keep a close watch and help the governments who keep the terrorists at bay and to resist all temptations for a regime change regardless of how profitable for western foreign policy is, given that helping the opposition will always be counter-productive for the west in the long run.