Syria

In this section I will post materials about the political history of Syria with an emphasis on the civil war; the foundations of the Assad regime, sectarianism, relations with Lebanon and Israel.

State and Sectarianism in Syria: The Current Crisis and its Background

Published April 15, 2012

The Syrian crisis , erupting in March 2011 is a multi-faceted problem. Its timing is clearly connected to the eruption of the so-called ‘’Arab Spring”, but its fundamental causes, as well as its course and possible implications are uniquely bound with the political development of the Syrian state from its very inception.

On 31 January 2011, Bashar Assad granted an interview to the Wall Street Journal,in which he pontificated to Western governments , as well as to the Arab leaders, on the reasons why the Middle East had become restive to the point of implosion, as seen in Tunisia and Egypt, and why it could not happen in Syria where the people liked him because of his anti-US and anti-Israel stance. A few weeks later, the Syrian uprising started bringing to the fore problems which for decades had been dormant.

THE SYRIAN STATE UNTIL 1970-THE” SICK MAN OF THE MIDDLE EAST”

Since its independence in 1946, and until the rise of the Assad regime in 1970, Syria was the model country of chronic instability in the Middle East. It became independent while lacking a coherent society united by a system of common values. The population was divided between many rival religious and ethnic groups and Arab Sunnis , the largest group, constituting of only 55% of the population. Another problem was the existence of two historically competing centers of power: one in Damascus and the other in Aleppo, the two largest cities. Under these circumstances, the new state became the playground of pan-Arab rivalries, and the inability to maintain a united state finally led to the ill-fated , short-lived union with Egypt from February 1958 to September 1961.

Restoration of independence did not bring about any fundamental change to this state of affairs, until the rise of Hafiz Al-Assad to full power in 1970 in the name of the Ba’ath party, a rule which brought stability acquired through the use of unprecedented state-sponsored violence.

THE ASSAD-BA’ATH REGIME; THE OPPRESSION OF THE SUNNI-ARAB MAJORITY

In the last four decades, it has been common knowledge that the Alawite community numbering about 15% of the population was the dominant force in Syria, due to its over-representation in the armed forces and the Ba’ath party. This was the result of developments dating from the French Mandatory regime in the Levant, which favored the non-Sunni minorities and encouraged their enlistment to the armed forces. The French may bear some responsibility for the perpetuation of the sectarian divide , but they brought it about simply because they were aware of the strong, historically –held feelings of resentment between the Sunni Arab majority and the non-Sunni minorities. Thus, under French supervision, military service became the ladder by which the minorities could climb the socio-political ladder. The Ba’ath party was another such means, offering members of the minority communities the opportunity to get away from the religious ghetto enforced upon them by the Sunni Arab majority. In Iraq, another country where the Pan-Arab Ba’ath party rose to prominence, it derived most of its support from Sunni Arabs, but here again, this was a minority, since in Iraq the majority religious community are Sh’iite Arabs. So, paradoxically, the party claiming to be the best representative of Arab nationalism turned into the representative of minority interests and aspirations.

To understand fully what it meant to be an Alawite in pre-Ba’ath Syria, let us recall a British consular report from the 1870’s , ‘’they hate each other…Sunnis boycott the Shi’ites…both resent the druze…all despise the Alawites…”. This attitude was so deeply ingrained in the minds of so many Sunnis, from the time of the famous Fatwa[religious ruling], issued by the Damascene Sunni Alim[religious leader], Ibn Tayimiyya, in the late Fourteenth Century, forbidding his followers from marrying Alawites, as they are worse than the infidels.

On occasions, such as the Hammah events of 1964/5, the riots before the June 1967 war, the violence from 1976 to 1982, following Hafiz Assad decision to intervene in the Lebanese civil war against the Sunnis there, the great Hammah massacre of February-March 1982, in which thousands were slaughtered, and sporadic periods of violence since then, the Sunni –Arab majority exposed its deep-seated resistance to a regime which they considered illegitimate and which, for its part , proved its readiness to do whatever it took to remain in power.

THE CRISIS; IT IS A CIVIL WAR AND IT IS SECTARIAN -–AND THOSE WHO DENY IT

Political scientists and linguists can debate the exact meaning of the term, “civil war,” and so can diplomats and politicians, who argue that efforts to achieve a cease-fire in Syria are aimed at preventing a civil war, but the genie has long been out of the bottle, and its sectarian nature is obvious. The number of participants in the anti-regime demonstrations, the geographic spread of the violence, and the huge number of casualties [well over 10,000], all attest to this. A big debate is also taking place in the academic community, as to the role of sectarianism in the current uprising. Many experts, Arab and non-Arab, refer to the uprising as an expression of social grievances, protest against poverty and corruption and lack of democracy. In fact, all of the above has existed in Syria for many years. The neglect of water resources in the Sunni periphery led 2 million poor peasants to migrate to the big cities. The economy altogether was stagnant, and allegations about corruption were rampant. Corruption meant concentration of the dwindling resources of the state in the hands of the few, many from the minority sects, including Alawites and members of the Assad clan. To this extent, those arguing that the implosion had a socio-economic dimension are right. They have yet to explain why, in that case, the Alawite North-West, the Druze South[near Sunni Dara’a where it all began] the Salamiyya enclave of the Ismailli [near Sunni Homs, the so-called capital of the uprising ], and the Kurdish North-East are totally or relatively peaceful.

Some words about the Kurds are in place here. The Kurds were slow to react to the uprising, reminiscent of the passivity of Arab Sunnis to their oppression, particularly when in 1986 and 2004 the regime was engaged in brutal suppression of Kurdish resistance. So, while the Kurdish provinces are in a state of active agitation, their political leaders exhibit a lot of suspicion towards the Sunni-Arab leadership of the uprising.

The Assad regime itself has come up with a slogan ‘’TaifiSuri”, which means ‘’my community is Syrian”, as a counter-slogan to the sectarian abuse heaped on the Alawites by Sunnis in Syria and outside. Publications by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood emphasize the point by referring to the ‘’true” Muslims who rebel against the infidels, and by calling upon Alawites to dissociate themselves from Assad in order to prevent a full-scale Sunni revenge against them when the final collapse of the regime will occur. It is also important to refer to statements against the Alawites by prominent Sunni Ulama [religious leaders], outside of Syria, such as the Saudi Sheikh Al-Qarni and most significantly, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qardawi, the famous fiery preacher from Al-Jazeera, considered the mostadhered to Sunni leader in the Middle East.

Under these circumstances, it is somewhat out of context, to say the least, to read other Arab commentators, trying to disclaim the obvious sectarian natureof the struggle. WadahKhanfar, a Palestinian, until recently, the CEO of Al-Jazeera, published an op-ed in the Washington Post[18 March 2012], in which he claimed that”modern Syria has never witnessed primary religious conflict”! Well, with such weird statements, no wonder that the Sunni Qatari governmentfired him from his position. It is a wonder though, and maybe not, that the Washington Post published this article. Some call it Political Correctness.

THE FUTURE AND SECTARIANISM:

A Syrian opposition writer Mustafa Khalifa wrote in his essay, “What if Bashar Assad wins?”, that if that happens [which he doubts, and so does the author], ‘’the regime will try to reshape the Syrian society into one that would guarantee the permanence of the regime forever…the first phase depends on gradual reduction of the religious majority in the society, or reducing the number and proportion of the Sunni community”! The writer goes on to specifically mentioning ‘’genocide”, in that regard.

And what if Assad loses, as seems very likely, though not in the immediate future. Can we expect the Opposition to refrain from ‘’reducing” the number of members of the minority communities, especially the Alawites? This is an open question, but itsvery existence shows that in Syria sectarianism, was ,is and will continue to be the name of the game.

Olmert: Aleppo and the Future of Syria

Published August 3, 2012

The battle for Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, is not “the decisive last battle” of the Syrian civil war. The conflict is clearly leading to the removal of the current leadership from Damascus, as well as Aleppo, but not necessarily from Syria. The Assad-Alawite –Ba’th regime is preparing the mountainous Alawite region of North-West Syria to be their last bastion, and they can fortify themselves there for a while, even if, as seems inevitable, they will lose control of the main Sunni-dominated regions.

The unfolding Syrian situation reflects the specific demographic and political conditions in the country, which differ from those existing in any other Arab state. Aleppo with its diversified population and distinct political history is a good representative mirror of the Syrian state at large. Aleppo’s population has always been a mosaic of many religious and ethnic communities. The dominant element of the population are Arab Sunnis, but the city always had a sizable and influential Christian component, composed of Greek Orthodox, traditionally more supportive of Arab nationalism than other Christian communities.

Also, members of the various local Eastern Syriac-speaking communities were reinforced in the 1930’s by the influx of Assyrians and Chaldeans fleeing atrocities perpetrated by Sunni-dominated Iraq. Alongside them was a traditional and affluent Armenian community, whose ranks also swelled by those who managed to flee the Ottoman genocide of WW1.

To this day, the various Christian communities have played a major role in Aleppo’s economy. Traditionally, there was a competition between the commercial interests of Aleppo and the capital Damascus. The Aleppo elite was pro-Iraqi, with the old “People’s Party,” pushing a union with Iraq, where the “National Party,” based in Damascus opposed it.

Two other important communities exist in and around Aleppo — Kurds and Druze. Many of these groups immigrated to the south, all the way to Israel, where thousands of them live in the Druze town of Daliyya near Haifa.

Finally, Aleppo was a home to a big and influential Jewish community, which played a crucial role in the economic life of the city. On the eve of the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, a pogrom took place in Aleppo, and those Jews who still lived there left to join their compatriots in NY, Panama, Mexico, Sao-Paulo and Israel.

In the current conflict, Aleppo was quieter than other regions of Syria, at least in the early stages of the uprising. Some Syrian watchers made the point that Aleppo was the proof that the struggle in Syria was not a sectarian civil war between Alawites and their allies and the Arab–Sunni majority.

They were wrong. The current fighting is indicative, as the fighting is between the rebels in the Sunni neighborhoods and the Alawite-dominated military units and militias, because the Christians, much the same as in Damascus, are passive, as well as the Druze and Kurds.

These minority groups have historic reasons to fear the possibility of a Sunni-Arab victory. The struggle does have a clear-cut sectarian nature, as the various communities perform in tune with their communal interests based on a long historic legacy of fear, suspicion and mistrust. In a nut shell, this is a reflection of what is happening in other parts of Syria.

Another element of the situation in Aleppo is the issue of foreign intervention. Shi’ite dominated Iraq is no more the patron of the Sunni Arabs of Aleppo. To an extent, Turkey is trying to fulfill this role, and according to many reports, the Erdogan Government is giving significant financial support, as well as weapons and ammunition to the rebels, creating an actual — though undeclared — rebel “safe zone.” Clearly, in a future, post-Assad Syria, Turkey will have a very high-profile in Aleppo and its environs.

With all that happening, we see that the battle for Aleppo is clearly a significant event in the annals of the Syrian civil war, not the end of it, but rather another stepping-stone in the downfall of the current regime and the subsequent disintegration of the Syrian state.

(Josef Olmert received his PhD at the London School of Economics, and is an adjunct professor at the University of South Carolina. He has published extensively on the Middle East, and participated in Israeli-Syrian peace talks)

Aleppo Is Burning And Who Cares?

This blog consistently warned, that the battle for Aleppo will resort to a blood-letting, one which will be prominent in its intensity, even when we bear in mind the horrors of the last six years in Syria.

By Josef Olmert - Published December 13, 2016

Aleppo is falling under the yoke of an international coalition of forces, led by Russia, with Iran and the Iraqi and Lebanese Shi'ites as second pedal, and yes, also the Syrian army of Bashar Assad is there, as a remote third pedal in the actual combat, but not in the atrocities, which according to many reports, are already taking place there. This blog consistently warned, that the battle for Aleppo will resort to a blood-letting, one which will be prominent in its intensity, even when we bear in mind the horrors of the last six years in Syria.

Here is why it is happening; Assad simply does not have the manpower to control heavily populated Sunni Muslim areas, and Aleppo, while having many non-Sunni minorities in the city itself and in its environs, is basically a Sunni city, whose population was 5 to 6 million prior to the civil war. It is brutally simple, but Assad cannot control such heavily Sunni area, unless he changes its demographic composition, and ''changing demographic composition'' is a euphemism to ethnic cleansing. Aleppo will not have so many Sunnis anymore, and it is the foregone conclusion of the current events. Many fled already, many are trying to flee, many will be massacred and according to reports, random mass executions of Sunnis already started. While it is difficult to verify these reports, it is the case, that a very important actor in the unfolding drama believes them, and this is Turkey. The Turks officially condemned the alleged executions, and this is just the beginning. They will not just verbally condemn, as they already have troops in Syria, and Aleppo's environs are the homeground of hundreds of thousands of Turkomen, who will get Turkish patronage and actual umbrella of defense. The battle against the Sunni rebels and civilians in Aleppo may be over for now, but the battle against the Sunni Turkish state may be the next to come. Assad is in a trap here. He will have to have strong, large garrison staying in Aleppo and he does not have the men for the task, so more killings and continued outside Shi'ite support will be needed, and the consequence will be inevitable. The Syrian acute shortage of human power and its repercussions was just now dramatically on display in Tadmor. The ancient city was taken by ISIS, and few weeks ago was retaken by Assad following heavy and lethal Russian bombardment, but because of the need to send troops to Aleppo, Tadmor was again retaken by ISIS. There will be more changing hands situations there and in other parts of Syria, and the simple demographic fact, that 3 to 4 million Alawites cannot subjugate 12 million Sunnis [not inclusive of Sunni Kurds] will affect the situation there for long time to come. With millions of migrants from Syria who are mostly Sunnis, and large scale massacres of Sunnis in Syria, there is already now a changing demographic balance in the country. In fact, there were Sunni writers who warned exactly about that a few years ago, and they were not taken seriously. The reality of Syria therefore, by far surpasses even the wildest imagination.

With all that happening, an interesting and illuminating situation is developing in the American-Russian relationships. While the Obama administration does what it knows best, which is to pontificate and preach morality, but without any action on the ground, the Russians do what they know very well, which is to bomb mercilessly and then have their own hollow pontification to the U.S., calling upon it to stop "whining" about Aleppo, which is exactly what the current American administration is doing. What the Russians are doing and saying should be taken seriously due to the likelihood of a sea change in the relations with the U.S. under President Trump. So, the Obama administration is whining, the new administration will simply keep quiet, and Vladimir Putin will reap the fruits. One of the many unintended consequences of the Syrian civil war, which at its onset, was considered to be part of the Arab Spring. Go and talk about the Arab Spring in Aleppo.

THE REGIONAL PLAYGROUND-TURKEY’S ROLE

In light of the current Turkish involvement in Syria this article gives a full historic background

SYRIA-THE REGIONAL PLAYGROUND OF THE MIDDLE EAST -AGAIN;
IRAN /HIZBALLAH-SYRIA.

Of all the countries bordering Syria, Turkey seems to be the one which is most heavily involved in the conflict, and this is a multidimensional involvement, one with a long history coming as an added baggage on top of more recent developments. The historic baggage has to do with four centuries of Ottoman control and their implications, which are still being felt in Syria. It is something about the Middle East, which is not always understood outside of it, particularly in the US-the role of historic legacies. Turkish relations with Syria are therefore a combination of past and present circumstances, with obvious repercussions about the foreseeable future.

In March of 1941, then British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden visited the Middle East primarily in order to lay the groundwork for what would be Operation ‘’Exporter’’, the British invasion to Syria and Lebanon, then under the control of the collaborationist Vichy French regime. Ahead of the invasion, the British wanted to mobilize Turkey to their cause, offering them the city of Aleppo and the area around as a bribe. No, was the Turkish answer given by Foreign Minister Mehmet Şükrü Saracoglu, “we want nothing to do with the Syrians, as we have had a centuries-long experience with them’’.

This was not a totally genuine answer, as the Turks were afraid to break their neutrality in the war by alienating Nazi Germany, which seemed such a dominant force at the time. Also, just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, Turkey completed the annexation of the region of Alexandretta, henceforth known as Hatai, the current name of a province of Turkey. Situated along the Mediterranean in the Northwestern corner of Syria, the province was populated by Sunni Arabs, Alawites, Turks and Armenian Christians who came as refugees after the genocide against them by the Ottoman Empire. Turkey demanded the territory, as of the mid-1930s claiming the right of self-determination of the ethnic Turks in the region. France, the custodian of the entire Syrian territory on behalf of the League of Nations, handed over the territory to Turkey in 1939. Clearly, the bells of war in Europe were uppermost on the minds of the French, and the British who supported the move. Big, independent, strategically-located Turkey was the big winner, not the weak, mandatory-controlled Syria.

From a Syrian perspective, the loss of Alexandretta added up to the overall sense prevailing there that its territorial integrity was violated due to Western imperialist machinations. But, while not accepting the annexation, successive Syrian regimes accepted this reality as a fait accompli. Still, the Syrians had a foothold there with hundreds of thousands of Alawites (the exact numbers are hard to calculate, as the Turks are not so keen on releasing this information, living on the other side of the border cutting themselves off from the main body of the Syrian Alawite community. An Alawite from Hatay, Zaki Arsuzi, was one of the historic founders of the Syrian Ba’th party. Relations between the two countries did not improve also after the Ba’th Party took over the reins of power in 1963. After the start of the Syrian civil war, Michael B.Bishku referred to’ ‘the checkered history’’ between the two countries. [Michael B.Bishku, Turkish-Syrian Relations;A Checkered History, Middle East Policy, vol xix , no.3, Fall 2012]. This history which was characterized by tensions during the Cold War, when Syria viewed the Baghdad Pact (1955), which the West wanted to establish with Turkish participation, as a threat to its very independent existence.. One crisis in particular, comes to mind as an example of the latent tension in the relationships, especially alluding to Turkey’s attitude of suspicion and fundamental mistrust towards Syria. This was the crisis of 1998, when the Turkish army concentrated troops along the Syrian border, threatening to invade Syria in retaliation for Syrian support of the Kurdish terror P.K.K organization. The crisis was resolved when the late Hafiz Assad’s intelligence chief was sent to Adana in South Turkey with the mandate to simply capitulate to all Turkish demands. Hence, sometime later [not just by coincidence], Abdallah Ocalan, the leader of P.K.K was thrown out of Syria, which had given him shelter for years, and soon afterward found himself in a Turkish jail, where he is still being held. This incident happened at the height of the Turkish-Israeli military/strategic cooperation and the Turks knew full well that, as they were about to attack Syria from the North, their Israeli ally would do what was necessary to pressure Syria from the South, with obvious strategic implications. Under these circumstances, the surrender of Hafiz Assad makes sense, indicating the dictator’s careful approach to regional crises, which was primarily informed by his desire not to jeopardize the very existence of his regime.

The AKP government in Turkey, led by Prime Minister and later President Recep Tayyip Erdogan adopted as of his inception in 2002, a more active regional Middle East policy. That was a policy designed by Ahmet Davutoglu, who was Erdogan chief diplomatic adviser, and as of 2009 [until they fell out] his Foreign Minister and PM. The policy conformed with the overall Islamic vision of Erdogan himself which assigned Turkey an active role in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean affairs, as well as in other neighboring regions while at the same time seeking membership in the European Union. In the case of Syria, during the early years of Erdogan in office, the relations improved dramatically. In 2004, Bashar Al Assad visited Turkey, an unprecedented visit for a Syrian president, and the relations extended to the economic sphere, with a free trade zone agreement signed in 2004, and with an interesting Turkish effort to mediate between Israel and Syria.

In 2008, there were clouds already hovering over the Turkish-Israeli relations, with AKP in power and the distinct Islamist tendency of the new government. No more military-strategic alliance, but still a healthy trade and overall diplomatic relations. So much so, that then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was ready to accept PM Erdogan’s offer of mediation between Israel and Syria, and in a dramatic meeting between the two leaders in Ankara, there was a third party on the telephone line: Bashar Assad from Damascus. Amazing situation, especially as it was Turkey, not the US, which was the third party. The famous telephone discussion was preceded by some direct Israeli-Syrian contacts. Reportedly, one of the envoys sent by Prime Minister Olmert to Assad returned with a pack of the finest Syrian hummus, a gift of the Syrian leader to his Israeli counterpart. Hummus notwithstanding, the talks failed, as a few days later, Israel conducted a military operation against Hamas in Gaza, and Islamist PM Erdogan strongly opposed it. The countdown to the great crisis between Israel and Turkey had begun, but the truth is, that Assad rejected the very generous Israeli offer, as he was not ready to sacrifice in return his relations with Iran, which is what the Israelis expected as a Quid Pro Quo. Not too much time passed, and in March 2011, the Syrian civil war started, and the Iranian came to the Syrian regime’s help. Bashar Assad had reaped the fruits of his loyalty to Iran.

The Turkish role though was not so obvious in the early stages of the conflict. On May 29, 2011, FM Davutoglu of Turkey praised Assad in these words; “His Excellency President Bashar Al Assad is very popular and a beloved president by Syrian people’’. Four years later, on March 17, 2015, Davutoglu had totally different words to describe the ’’beloved’’ Assad; ’’Despite all these massacres, despite the use of chemical weapons, if you still shake the hand of Assad, that handshake will be remembered throughout history… there is no difference between shaking hands with Assad, or with Hitler, Saddam, Karadzic, Milosevic’’.

So what happened in between?

It is a combination of various factors, but two seem to be of paramount importance. First, the sectarian nature of the conflict, pitting Sunnis against Alawites. Second it was the Kurdish factor. A Sunni-Alawite civil war on the other side of the border was something that Erdogan could not watch passively. Here was Erdogan’s God-given opportunity to position himself as the new leader of the Sunni world. The deterioration of the relations between Turkey and Israel, especially following the Mavi Marmara incident, did not increase Turkey’s popularity in the region as the Arab world did not champion Turkey’s cause. Nor did the events in Egypt, even after the accession to power of the Muslim Brotherhood following the election of President Mohammed Morsi. Erdogan visited Egypt in September 2011, and for a short while, it seemed that he was becoming the modern-day Islamic leader of the region, but also this proved to be short-lived, as a e military takeover in Egypt deposed Morsi and proceeded to suppress the Islamists. Without a joint border with Egypt, all that Erdogan could do was to scream anti-Egyptian slogans, but no more. It was clear, that Erdogan’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood was a major reason as to why countries like Saudi Arabia viewed him with so much suspicion. For them, the Muslim Brotherhood was a subversive element, and Erdogan seemed to pose a challenge to their central role in the Sunni Muslim world. Syria however was another story, for both the Sunni countries as well as for Erdogan and the AKP.

The sectarian nature of the conflict, Alawites versus Sunnis and Iran supporting Assad, immediately lit all the red lights in Riyadh, where the Saudis felt, that they had to support the Sunni rebels. What they could do though was by far less than what the Turks could do. Having a joint border with Syria meant so much, but also the demography of Syria on its border with Turkey. Not much was known about one group of people in Syria prior to the civil war, and these are the Turkmen of northwest Syria. In Syria of the Ba’th party, any census revealing the ethnic diversity of the country pretending to be ‘’the heart of Arabism’’, was, of course out of the question, but all this changed after 2011. The disintegration of the central government in Syria gave vent to the grievances of the different ethnic and religious communities which were suppressed until then, and so Syrian Turkmen came into play as well. These Turkish speaking people are not related to the Turkmen of Central Asia, rather they are descendants of the Ottoman Turks who invaded Syria and conquered it in 1516. While most of them have maintained their traditional, rural, tribal way of life, residing along the Syrian-Turkish border as drawn after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, others settled in the big Syrian cities and mingled with the local, Arab Sunni population. Members of some of these families played enormously important roles in the history of Syria, under the Ottomans and also later on in the newly established Syrian state. Families like Barakat, Mardm, Asm, Al-Azma, Qabbani, Atassi, Tlass and Turkmani. The civil war is the time when this minority got its chance to play a meaningful role in Syrian politics. Numbers of Turkmen in Syria are hard to come by, and the estimates reflect the political agenda of those who use them, and they range from 200,000 [L.Clarke, Turkmen Reference Grammar, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, p.11] to 1.5 million [E.J.Pardo and M.Jacobi, Syrian National Identity; Reformulating School Textbooks During The Civil War, Institute for monitoring peace and cultural tolerance in school education, 2018, p.42.]Their main population concentrations are in the Aleppo, Homs, Hamah, Latakiyya and Idlib governances, but a large number, perhaps a majority around the Northern Euphrates.

From the beginning of the civil war, Turkmen, though not all, showed their opposition to the Assad regime, and clearly, Turkish assistance from the other side of the border, with arms and military instructors came their way. They formed themselves in militias and political organizations, a Turkmen Assembly was established, and the overall direction was to side with the Sunni Arab militias, many of which have become Turkish-led front organizations. Some Turkmen though sided with their Kurdish neighbors, organizing the Seljuk Brigade. The overall presence of Turkmen along the border and their political awakening have provided the Erdogan government with a good excuse to justify its growing intervention in the Syrian civil war.

Another, probably more significant one, is the Kurdish dimension of the civil war. In fact, while for some time, the Erdogan government used ISIS and its activities as a reason for its involvement, it has always been the Kurdish question which has been the most important factor in the Turkish calculus about Syria.

As I pointed out on part one of this series on Syria, fundamental misunderstandings about Syria, its society, demographic composition, and cultural and political history, led so many real and presumed experts in this country to grant Bashar Assad the certificate of reformer, nation-builder and stable ruler. A huge mistake, as was described and analyzed in part one. Same mistaken assumptions lead basically the same experts to another erroneous conclusion-the civil war is over. Bashar Assad won. Wrong. Too early to come to that conclusion, and surely it is a vital question to analyze – what is a win in a civil war as Syria’s is, and how can it be measured? As it is the case in any other issue of international relations and political science, there is more than one modality by which we can refer to the questions of civil wars, their origins, possible solutions, and regional and global implications. Here I will deal with the question of results of civil war and how to define them.

James D. Fearon, a distinguished scholar and fellow of the American Academy, argues that, ‘’the spread of civil war and state collapse to the Middle East and North Africa region in the last fifteen years has posed one set of problems that the current policy repertoire cannot address well’’ [James D.Fearon, Civil war & the Current International System, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2017, p.18]. This may be so, due to the particular character of some of these conflicts, including Syria, where, due to many reasons, the conflict can be in line with what Azzar and Haddad referred to, as ‘’extremely a case of protracted political and social conflict’’. They wrote about Lebanon, but it is as relevant also with regard to Syria. [E.E.Azzar & R.F. Haddad, Lebanon; An Anomalous Conflict?’’, Third World Quarterly, 8, no.4, October 1986, pp.1337-1350. Henceforth, relating to the question of the results of the Syrian civil war requires an emphasis on the concrete conditions in Syria as they are now on the ground. First and foremost, we have to describe the situation in different regions of Syria, as we are in the midst of the eighth year of the conflict.
As things are in the time of writing this piece [Late May 2019], Bashar Assad is still the nominal President of Syria. He is hardly seen in public, and when he does, the events are well-orchestrated by the government, intended to show popular support to him personally and to his regime. Damascus, the Capital is firmly under his control, and pockets of rebels’ resistance, while there, are not capable of large-scale organized fighting, but definitely are capable of mounting terror attacks. South of Damascus, the regime is in tenuous control of the border area with Jordan and Israel. This is mostly Sunni area, where the rebellion started in 2011. The Assad regime re-erected a sculpture of Hafiz Assad in Der’a, where it all started, but this is just an indication of how it all is so fragile. One sculpture was demolished, another can be. Sculptures are a symbol, but symbols are temporary. The regime is only nominally in control of the Druze Mountains [Jabal Druze], where there is opposition to the regime, resistance to send youngsters to the Syrian army and altogether undeclared local self-rule.

The Druze were an integral part of the original minority coalition which constituted the Neo -Ba’th as of 1963[with the exception of the short-lived Salim Hatum rebellion of October 1966], but the circumstances of the civil war as of 2011, created major cracks in the relationships with the Alawites, something which will have major effects on any attempt to re-establish a stable regime in Syria, and will be analyzed in another piece in this series. In the Center of Syria, the Homs-Hammah area is largely, but not fully under Assad control, and in particular, the rural and desert regions North and East of Homs are out of the control of the regime. Clearly, the vast area of the Syrian Desert, which traditionally was not easily governed, is these days actually completely out of control. In Hammah, the traditional center of Islamic opposition to the Alawite regime, there are lots of incidents concerning terror activities. Then we come to the Alawite heartland in the North West, with Kardaha, the Assad family home village, and Tartus and Latakiyya on the Mediterranean coast as the focal points of the region. This is the one region, where the hold of the regime is firm, and that is no surprise-the Alawite community is the backbone of the regime, but even there we are receiving reports about rocket attacks by rebels from outside of the region. That leads us to the Aleppo and Idlib regions, where one third of the entire Sunni population of Syria reside, and where they form a vast majority of the overall population [with the exception of dwindling, but still significant Christian communities, Armenians mostly, in the Aleppo city and province, and a small Druze enclave in the mountains surrounding Aleppo]. Aleppo was taken over by the regime after long and atrocious fighting, but here again, the hold of Assad is precarious at best, and it faces a major challenge in the adjacent Idlib province, which is still under rebel control with about 4 million Sunnis living there.

The North East of Syria, west, and east of the Euphrates is mostly Kurdish, and while the majority of the Kurds are not cooperating with the Sunni rebels, their support of and loyalty to the Assad regime is questionable at best. The history of Kurdish-Arab relations in Syria, while less publicized than that in Iraq, is not really different in terms of the overall legacy of ethnic tensions. Again, a point of importance in terms of discussion about the future.
It is not so easy, therefore, as we see the situation in Syria according to regions and sectarian affiliations, to give a specific figure in answering questions like how much land is totally under Assad control as well as how much of the population, as opposed to partial control. It is a reasonable estimate, that the regime controls no more than half of the land, and surely less than half of the overall population of Syria as it was prior to 2011. Here is the key question relating to the discussion over victory of Assad in Syria. What Syria?

Syria before 2011 had a population of 22 million, whereas the current population may be only 15-16 million, with 5-7 million Syrians out of the country, in neighboring Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan as well as far away European countries such as Germany. 600,000 have been killed in Syria, many hundreds of thousands injured, maimed and crippled, and tens of thousands, perhaps in excess of 100,000 are supposedly held in regime jails, most likely people who will never see sunlight anymore. Add up to that, the economic damage estimated in hundreds of billions of dollars, the infrastructure devastation, and we can safely say, that Syria of 2019 remotely resembles Syria of 2011, and make no mistake-Syria of 2011 was also a poor, semi-developed country. It is not an exaggeration, therefore, to refer to Syria today as a disaster zone of major proportions, and with that in mind, the question of who won in the conflict, or has won until now, is not a question of definitions or modalities of political science, it is a question of realities on the ground. Syria may retain the formal attributes of a state, but in actual terms, it is a model of a failing state. Bashar Assad was in 2000 until 2011 the unchallenged ruler of a unitary, functioning state. He is anything but that these days, and what makes it such a clear-cut case, is also the fact, that Syria has become and still is, the regional, up to a point, also the global playground of quite a few external actors. So, until Hafiz Assad became the undisputed leader, Syria was the sick man of the Middle East, which it is exactly again. Bashar Assad, therefore, is not the winner, not as yet, probably not anymore. In the next piece, I will dwell on the significance of the demographic, economic, political disaster described above and the connection between the internal forces at play and the external actors involved.

This article was written against conventional wisdonm that Assad won the civil war in Syria. I thought otherwise and more on the current situation will appear soon.

Eight Years Later: Lessons and Implications of the Syrian Civil War, Part two DID ASSAD WIN?

June 5, 2019