Understanding the World’s Conflagrations: Syria
The melodramatic ending to 13 years of a horrific civil war in Syria had an additional drama. Muhammad al-Jawlani, who served five years in a U.S. prison in Iraq for terrorist activities, and was noted as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under U.S. Department of State Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, led the National Salvation Front that achieved the victory.
Muhammad al-Jawlani, as a reformed al-Nusra Front leader, may be an issue, but he is not the principal issue; his shadowy figure illuminates the principal issue — contradictions, dubious reports, manufactured facts, selective fancies, and fitting truths to agendas guide U.S. foreign policies influence public opinion, and make it impossible to know who Muhammad al-Jawlani is and what the **!!++// is going on. The real issues that confront Syria and the real reasons for a civil war that left an elevated estimate of 620 thousand deaths, more than six million internally displaced, and about five million refugees, have been obscured. Natural disasters accompanied the human disaster and are also responsible for the catastrophe. Statements and decisions have been inconsistent with reality.
The American Revolution has characteristics that guide an understanding of the Syrian insurrection. In both situations, ardent and semi-popular groups rebelled against injustices and hoped to create new regimes. In both situations, foreign powers, France and Spain in the American Revolution, Russia, Iran, United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other nations in the Syrian revolution, stoked the violence, commanded the direction, and shaped the rebellions. Portrayed as revolutions, the American and Syrian rebellions are more accurately described as battlegrounds for conflicting geo-politics.
By working together to defeat their British enemy and coordinating the supply of weapons and logistics to the colonists, France and Spain enabled the American Revolution to succeed. To obtain assistance, the foreign powers obliged the colonists to obtain sovereignty, declare themselves an independent nation, and provide a unified command so the two European nations could deal directly with an established government. Insistence by the two foreign powers that arms could only be supplied to a sovereign government provoked the issuance of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
In Syria, foreign supporters of the insurgents did not cooperate and were unable to supply weapons and logistic support to a unified command. For these reasons, the insurgency did not succeed. Each day of armed struggle increased the killings of Syrians; another, we had to kill them to save them.
Before the massive insurrection, Syria was a nation with free health care and almost universal education, with capability to supply adequate food, clothing, and housing to its population. Syrians did not breathe the air of freedom, but they inhaled the air of Syria, the oxygen of thousands of years of remembrances, peoples loosely bound together by history, culture, and civilization.
The post-World War I French mandate composed Syria of two states ─ Damascus and Aleppo. The western part became Lebanon and Latakia; the latter mostly aligned with Damascus. The northern part contained the Kurdish region, along the border with Turkey.
In 1936, Syrian nationalists gained Syrian independence in the Franco-Syrian Treaty. After 1970, the Baathist government forged a Syrian identity and guaranteed religious and ethnic freedom to all its citizens. All of that is slowly fading. Even if there is a new Syrian government, will there be a Syrian people, and a Syrian nation?
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The map shows Syria’s real problem ─ its divisions. Inability of intelligence agencies to gather the facts, and for competing nations to face the facts, brought the Syrian war to its punishing situation. Can the National Salvation Front gain unique authority? Can an established governing body gain universal approval?
A new government cannot easily resolve Syria’s condition; the catastrophes have been more than man-made. In addition to the religious and social divisions, Syria suffers from an urban/rural divide, ethnic antagonisms, and natural calamities, which have exaggerated the conflict and need immediate attention. From the onset of the civil demonstrations, which began in March 2011 in the city of Dara’a, near the Jordanian border, agricultural unemployment, crowding of urban areas, dislocations, and possible food shortages occupied the time and energy of the Syrian government.
Natural Calamities
A body of social scientists and international political observers concluded that severe drought, during the early part of the 21st century forced 1.5 million Syrian farmers to migrate to urban areas and this added to social stresses that eventually resulted in the uprising during March 2011. An article, The Ominous Story of Syria’s Climate Refugees, Scientific American, December 17, 2015, starts with the following:
Drought, which is being exacerbated by climate change and bad government policies, has forced more than a million Syrian farmers to move to overcrowded cities. Water shortages, ruined land and corruption, they say, fomented revolution.
John Wendle, the article’s author, talked with Mustafa Abdul Hamid, a 30-year-old farmer from Azaz, near Aleppo.
“The war and the drought, they are the same thing,” says Mustafa Abdul Hamid, a 30-year-old farmer from Azaz, near Aleppo. “The start of the revolution was water and land,” Hamid says.
Life was good before the drought, Hamid recalls. Back home in Syria, he and his family farmed three hectares of topsoil so rich it was the color of henna. They grew wheat, fava beans, tomatoes, and potatoes. Hamid says he used to harvest three quarters of a metric ton of wheat per hectare in the years before the drought. Then the rains failed, and his yields plunged to barely half that amount. “All I needed was water,” he says. “And I didn’t have water. So things got very bad. The government wouldn’t allow us to drill for water. You’d go to prison.”
The Scientific American article concluded:
Syria’s water crisis is largely of its own making. Back in the 1970s, the military regime led by President Hafez al-Assad launched an ill-conceived drive for agricultural self-sufficiency. No one seemed to consider whether Syria had sufficient groundwater and rainfall to raise those crops. Farmers made up for water shortages by drilling wells to tap the country’s underground water reserves. When water tables retreated, people dug deeper. In 2005 the regime of Assad’s son and successor, President Bashar al-Assad, made it illegal to dig new wells without a license issued personally, for a fee, by an official, but it was mostly ignored, out of necessity.
The Rural and Urban Conflict
Economic, social, health, and intellectual disparities between urban and rural life have plagued most nations and played a leading role in civil disturbances. China’s 1960s Cultural Revolution and Cambodia’s Pol Pot emptying of the cities during the late 1970s were futile and disastrous attempts by totalitarian governments to resolve the urban/rural divide. China still struggles with the problem and is slowly moving rural dwellers to huge apartment complexes in mega-cities. Syria’s displaced remain displaced because they have no viable place to go. The disparities have continually surfaced and will disturb the new regime
Ethnic and Tribal Differences
Forged from European secret agreements, which created artificial nations without regard to ethnic differences, the Middle East nations struggle to give a unique identity to disparate faces. By populating Kurdish urban areas with Arab Iraqis, Saddam Hussein tried to reduce Kurdish nationalism and turn Kurds into pure Iraqis. Moammar Gaddafi pacified the Libyan tribes but could not reduce antagonisms between the eastern and western provinces ─Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. Syria is a bundle of tribal conflicts, and the Baathist government waltzed through them by applying a strong and authoritarian rule.
Fitting facts to agendas
A one-sided look at the Syrian government was compounded by one-sided reporting.
Back in 2011, at the start of the civil war, police arrested and pommeled several high school students for painting anti-government graffiti on a wall. Considered the spark that lit the flame, the arrests of the children in the southern city of Dara’a triggered a march for political rights and an end to corruption. Syrian police reportedly countered with water cannons and gunfire, and killed three protesters. According to the Syrian government news agency, “infiltrators among the marchers smashed cars, destroyed other property, and attacked police, causing chaos and riots.” And so, it goes – rebel forces accuse and the government excuses. Who should be trusted in the era of ‘false news?’ One problem is that conventional media reports were always slanted against Assad. Other reports often tell a different story.
Jonathan Marshall, ConsortiumNews.com, July 20, 2015 provides an alternative interpretation.
… in an uncharacteristic gesture intended to ease tensions the government offered to release the detained students, but seven police officers were killed, and the Baath Party Headquarters and courthouse were torched, in renewed violence. Around the beginning of April, according to another account, gunmen set a sophisticated ambush, killing perhaps two dozen government troops headed for Dara’a.
President Assad tried to calm the situation by sending senior government officials with family roots in the city to emphasize his personal commitment to prosecute those responsible for shooting protesters. He fired the provincial governor and a general in the political security force for their role. The government also released the children whose arrest had triggered the protests in the first place.
Assad also announced several national reforms. As summarized by the UN’s independent commission of inquiry on Syria, “These steps included the formation of a new Government, the lifting of the state of emergency, the abolition of the Supreme State Security Court, the granting of general amnesties and new regulations on the right of citizens to participate in peaceful demonstrations.” His response failed to satisfy protesters who took to the streets and declared the city a “liberated zone.” As political scientist Charles Tripp has observed, “This was too great a challenge to the authorities, and at the end of April, a military operation was put in motion with the aim of reasserting government control, whatever the cost in human life.”
Described by the United States as an insurrection against the Assad regime in an attempt to achieve freedom and democracy, the conflict in Syria emerged with a different context. Groups of Syrians who want democratic action and freedom existed, but they did not demonstrate great strength and were usurped by better-organized groups — ISIS and Al-Nusra — who eschewed democracy and freedom. The result of the initial battle for Raqqa, where different rebel forces — Free Syrian Army and Islamic brigades — engaged and defeated the Syrian army, validate this statement. Who emerged as victor and in complete control of the city? It was ISIS. Raqqa’s population, swollen in size by hundreds of thousands of Syrians displaced by the battles, did not support any side. Mostly Sunnis, they remained neutral or gravitated toward ISIS, uncaring about expressions of liberty, democracy, and freedom.
Attacking the Assad regime and reinforcing the rebellion encouraged the inevitable ─ the destruction of Syria. A great part of its population is in exile; other than Damascus, its major cities are in shambles; its ancient heritage sites are ruins; its infrastructure is wrecked. The shared history, pride in continuity from the start of civilization in the Fertile Crescent, and ability to enable diverse ethnicities and religions to work together, which characterized Syrians, have been smothered. By addressing the causes of the problems of Middle East nations as slogans — lack of democracy and freedom — the United States assured there would be no democracy and freedom. By destroying Syrian sovereignty, the United States elevated ISIS’ claims to sovereignty.
Atrocities
In all wars, combatants vie for public opinion by accusing the other side of atrocities, which are usually true, but exaggerated and hypocritical. No side owns atrocities.
Revelations of alleged gas attacks against populations, shelling and bombing of civilians in rebel-controlled areas, mass incarcerations, and atrocities against prisoners are the principal grievances of international opinion against the Assad regime. These charges may be valid, and cannot be excused, but they have a stimulus; they arise partially out of revenge for mass kidnappings by rebel forces of Assad supporters who are ordinary civilians, executions of captured Syrian soldiers in rebel held territories, and alleged gas and shelling attacks against civilians in government held areas. They are part of many “out of control” internecine wars. Examine the U.S. Civil War, the 1920 Russian Civil War, the 1937 Spanish Civil War, and 15 years of the Vietnam Civil War. Since Cain slew Abel, fraternal animosity is woven into humanity’s fabric.
This is not an attempt to minimize the atrocities and human rights violations committed by the Baathist regime; just the opposite, all atrocities and human rights violations must be exposed, but we should not permit those committed in Syria to divert attention from those committed in Saudi Arabia and its prisons, Israel and its prisons, and by U.S. authorities in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq during the Iraq War, at Guantanamo Bay, and at the CIA’s network of “black sites” around the world, where the agency kept rendered terror suspects for “enhanced interrogations.”
The hypocrisy of preaching law and order and paving a road to peaceful reconciliation appeared immediately after the National Salvation Front consolidated its authority. Israel, once again, thumbed its nose at the world community and received approval from the U.S. government for its hostile actions. After Israel violated international law by seizing additional Syrian territory adjacent to the occupied Golan Heights, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller retrieved the macro that stated, “Israel has right to defend itself and take actions against terrorist organizations.”
As a response to Israel’s 480 air force strikes on Syrian military bases and destruction of the Syrian fleet overnight, The Washington Post reported, “Washington had given its blessing years ago to Israeli freedom of action in Syria, including airstrikes, as a self-defense measure, and that it extended to the present.” Israel has the unique privilege of destroying the military potential of a sovereign nation and render that nation defenseless.
Lack of understanding of Syria’s many problems contributed to the lack of understanding of the nature of the rebellion. Did people rebel because Syria was too authoritarian, or was Syria too authoritarian because that was needed to resolve problems and squash rebellion? Will the new government be less authoritarian and more effective? Will the National Salvation Front allow itself to follow the U.S. and become a satrap for Israel?
Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, military leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Screengrab from CNN interview.
As the rebel forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Syria Liberation Committee) seized Damascus, Syria’s capital, on December 7, 2024, the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad boarded a flight to Moscow, Russia. It was the end of the rule of the Assad family that began when Hafez al-Assad (1930-2000) became president in 1971, and continued through his son Bashar from 2000—a 53-year period of rule. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which seized Damascus, was formed out of the remnants of the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra (Front for the Conquest of Syria) in 2017, and led by its emir Abu Jaber Shaykh and its military commander Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.
For the past seven years, HTS has been restrained in the city of Idlib, in Syria’s north. In 2014, a group of al-Qaeda veterans created the Khorasan network (led by Sami al-Uraydi, the religious leader), whose intent was to control the city and the Islamist movements. Over the next year, al-Nusra tried to form alliances with other Islamist forces, such as Ahrar al-Sham, particularly for the governance of the city. The Russian military intervention in 2015 damaged the ability of these groups to advance out of Idlib, which led to the formal break of many of the Islamists from al-Qaeda in 2016 and the creation of HTS in January 2017. Those who remained linked to al-Qaeda formed Hurras al-Din (or Guardians of the Religious Organization). By the end of the year, HTS had seized the initiative and become the major force inside Idlib, took over the local councils across the city and declared that it was the home of the Syrian Salvation Government. When the Syrian Arab Army, the government’s military force, moved toward Idlib in early 2020, Turkey invaded Syria’s north to defend the Islamists. This invasion resulted in the Russian-Turkish ceasefire in March 2020 that allowed the HTS and others to remain in Idlib unscathed. HTS rebuilt its ranks through alliances with Turkish-backed armed forces and with fighters from across Central Asia (including many Uyghur fighters from the Turkistan Islamic Party).
Operation Deterrence of Aggression, launched by HTS in November 2024 with Turkish and Israeli support, whipped down highway M5 from Aleppo to Damascus in about fourteen days. The Syrian Arab Army dissolved before them and the gates of Damascus opened without enormous bloodshed.
The Jihadi Blitzkrieg
The surprise victory of HTS had been predicted in November by Iranian officials, who informed Assad about the weakness of the state’s defenses because of the sustained Israeli attacks on Syrian army positions, of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and of the war in Ukraine. When Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi met with Assad in Damascus after Aleppo fell to the rebels, Assad told Araghchi that this was not a defeat but a “tactical retreat.” That was clearly illusionary. Araghchi, knowing this, told Assad that Iran simply did not have the capacity to send new troops to defend Damascus. It had also been made clear to the Assad government that the Russians did not have the surplus capacity to defend the government, not even the Russian naval base in Tartus. During the HTS drive against the Syrian army, the Russian presidential envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev said that he had been in touch with the incoming Trump administration to discuss a deal between “all parties” over the Syrian conflict. Neither Russia nor Iran believed that the Assad government would be able to unilaterally defeat the various rebels and remove the United States from its occupation of the eastern oil fields. A deal was the only way out, which meant that neither Iran nor Russia was willing to commit more troops to defend the Assad government.
Since 2011, Israel’s air force has struck several Syrian military bases, including bases that hosted Iranian troops. These strikes degraded Syrian military capacity by destroying ordinance and materiel. Since October 2023, Israel has increased its strikes within Syria, including hitting Iranian forces, Syrian air defenses, and Syrian arms production facilities. On December 4, the heads of the militaries of Iran (Chief of Staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri), Iraq (Major General Yahya Rasool), Russia (Defense Minister Andrey Belousov), and Syria (General Abdul Karim Mahmoud Ibrahim) met to assess the situation in Syria. They discussed the movement of HTS down from Aleppo and agreed that with the fragile ceasefire in Lebanon and the Syrian government’s weakened forces, this was a “dangerous scenario.” While they said that they would support the government in Damascus, there were no concrete steps taken by them. The Israeli attacks inside Syria meanwhile increased the demoralization within the Syrian army, which has not been properly reorganized after the stalemate began with the rebels in Idlib in 2017.
When Russia entered the conflict in Syria in 2015, the Russian military command insisted that the Syrian government no longer permit pro-government militia groups (such as the Kataeb al-Ba’ath and the Shabbiha) to operate independently. Instead, these groups were integrated into the Fourth and Fifth Corps under Russian command. Meanwhile, the Iranian officers organized their own battalions of Syrian soldiers. The soldiers’ declining economic standards combined with the foreign command accelerated the demoralization. Even the Republican Guard, tasked with defending Damascus and in particular the presidential palace, had lost much of its historical power.
At no point after 2011 was the Syrian government in control of the territory of the country. Already, since 1973, Israel had seized the Golan Heights. Then, during 2011, Turkey had eaten into the borderlands of northern Syria, while the Kurdish resistance forces (YPG and PKK) had formed a zone alongside the Syria-Turkey border. Northwestern Syria had been taken by the rebels, who included not only HTS but also a range of Turkish-backed militia groups. Northeastern Syria was occupied by the United States, which had taken charge of the oil fields. In this region, the US forces contested the Islamic State, which had been pushed out of both northern Iraq and northeastern Syria, but which continued to appear in spurts. Meanwhile, in southern Syria, the government had made a series of hasty agreements with the rebels to provide an appearance of peace. In cities such as Busra al-Sham, Daraa, Houran, and Tafas, the government could not send any of its officials; these, like Idlib, had come under rebel control. When HTS moved on Damascus, the rebels in the south rose up as did the rebels in the country’s eastern edge along the border with Iraq. The reality of Assad’s weakness became apparent.
Israel’s Advantage
As if in a coordinated fashion, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in 1973, and announced, “This is a historic day in the history of the Middle East.” He then said that his government had ordered the Israeli army to invade the UN buffer zone between the Israeli occupation of Golan and the Syrian army posts that had been established during the armistice of 1974. Israeli tanks moved into the countryside of Quneitra Governorate and took over the main town. The border between Israel and Syria has now been shaped by this invasion, since Israel has now moved several kilometers into Syria to seize almost the entire length of the border.
During the final days of the HTS advance to Damascus, the Israeli air force provided the rebels with air support. They bombed military bases and the headquarters of Syrian intelligence in the center of Damascus. With the excuse that they wanted to destroy weapons depots before the rebels seized them, the Israelis struck bases that housed Syrian troops and stockpiles of weapons that the Syrian army might have used to defend Damascus (this included the Mezzah Air Base). Israeli officials have said that they will continue these air strikes, but have not indicated whom they plan to target.
The Israeli assault on Syria deepened during the protest movement in 2011. As fighting between the rebels and the Syrian government spread across southern Syria, near the Israeli border, Israel began to fire across the border at Syrian forces. In March 2013, for instance, the Israelis fired missiles at Syrian military posts, weakening them and strengthening the rebels. At the end of 2013, Israel created Division 210, a special military command, to begin engagements along the Israel-Syrian armistice line. Importantly, when the HTS predecessor and al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra began to make gains along the Israeli line of control, Israel did not strike them. Instead, Israel hit the Syrian government through shooting down Syrian air force jets and assassinating senior Syrian allies (such as General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, an Iranian general, in January 2015, and Samir Kuntar, a Fatah leader, in late 2015). A former press officer in Damascus told me that the Israelis effectively provided air support for the HTS assault on the capital.
Syria’s Future
Assad left Syria without making any announcement. It is said by former government officials in Damascus that some senior leaders left with him or left for the Iraqi border before the fall of Damascus. The silence from Assad has bewildered many Syrians who had believed fundamentally that the state would protect them from the onslaught of groups such as HTS. It is a sign of the collapse of the Assad government that his Republican Guard did not try to defend the city and that he left without any words of encouragement to his people.
The country is polarized regarding the new government. Sections of the population that had seen their way of life degraded by the war and sanctions welcome the opening, and they have been on the streets celebrating the new situation. The larger context for the Middle East is not their immediate concern, although depending on Israel’s actions, this might change. A considerable section is concerned about the behavior of the Islamists, who use terms of disparagement against non-Sunni Muslims such as nusayriyya (for Alawites, the community of the al-Assad family) and rawafid (such as the large Shia population in Syria). Calling non-Sunni Muslims ahl al-batil or the “lost ones” and using strong Salafi language about apostasy and its punishment sets in motion fear amongst those who might be targets of attacks. Whether the new government will be able to control its forces motivated by this sectarian ideology remains to be seen.
Such sectarianism is only the opening of the contradictions that will emerge almost immediately. How will the new government deal with the Israeli, Turkish, and US incursions into Syrian territory? Will it seek to win back that land? What will be the relationship between the Syrian government and its neighbors, particularly Lebanon? Will the millions of Syrian refugees return to their home now that the basis for their migration has been removed, and if they return, what will be awaiting them inside Syria? And centrally, what will all this mean for the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians by the Israelis?
This article was produced by Globetrotter.
Syria at the Crossroads
Map of Northwestern Syria offensive (2024)
Syria, known throughout history as the “crossroads of civilization,” now finds itself at a crossroads of its own. After 54 years, the Assad family’s brutal dictatorship in Syria has finally ended.
“I never thought I’d live to see this day,” said my dad, who left Aleppo as a teenager. My parents grew up there.
After Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, elated Syrians rejoiced in the streets. Moving videos emerged of political prisoners being freed after enduring decades of torture in the regime’s notorious prisons. The whereabouts of many still remain unknown.
Assad’s fall is undeniably worth celebrating — it’s a rare unifying force for a deeply fractured country. But after decades of oppression and 14 years of war, it will take much more to heal these wounds and guarantee a new era of freedom, justice, prosperity, and reconciliation.
The popular uprising for Syrian dignity that ignited in March 2011 was violently crushed by Assad and morphed into several proxy wars involving Russia, Iran, Israel, the U.S., Turkey, and numerous armed groups, including Al Qaeda linked-terrorists.
Heinous war crimes and other human rights violations were committed by all parties throughout the war, which has killed over 350,000 people. In the world’s largest forced displacement crisis, over 13 million Syrians have either fled their country or have been displaced within its borders.
The war has damaged Syria’s infrastructure while Western sanctions have further shattered Syria’s economy. Poverty is widespread and more than half of the population currently grapples with food insecurity.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), once allied with Al Qaeda in Syria, was largely responsible for Assad’s overthrow on December 8. Designated by the U.S as a terrorist organization, HTS has its own track record of brutality in Syria. The rebel group’s leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, founded the Al Nusra Front, once had ties to ISIS, and still has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.
Jolani has since renounced his ties with Al Qaeda and recently said he supports religious pluralism in Syria. But it’s reasonable to be skeptical that HTS and its allies are now truly committed to freedom, justice, and human rights for all long-suffering Syrians.
Still, foreign occupation and intervention are antithetical to a sovereign and “free” Syria.
Following Assad’s fall, Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes and unlawfully seized more territory beyond its illegal, 57-year occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights. Whether Turkey gives up occupied land in northern Syria also remains to be seen, especially if Syrian Kurds end up forming an autonomous region within the country.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military still occupies part of Syria, including the oil fields in the northeast, and it’s unclear when the U.S. will withdraw its remaining 900 soldiers. In addition to respecting Syria’s territorial integrity and the aspirations of its people in a future government, the U.S. should immediately lift all sanctions on Syria to help with reconstruction and economic recovery.
As a Syrian American, I try to remain hopeful as I think about my relatives in Aleppo, friends in Damascus, and the generous strangers who’ve taken care of me as their own when I’ve visited. I look forward to returning to a Syria where people can finally breathe, rebuild, and live in dignity. But I also fear for the future.
Syrians have always taken pride in their rich ethnic and religious diversity. An inclusive and democratic government that guarantees the equal rights of all Syrians is essential to ensuring that the country stays unified and doesn’t plunge into sectarian chaos. It would be tragic if one authoritarian ruler is replaced by another or the country becomes balkanized into armed factions.
While much remains uncertain and immense challenges are ahead, prioritizing the immediate needs of Syrians is a logical first step. And, more than anything else, we must ensure that the Syrian people are the ones who steer the destiny of a peaceful, post-war Syria that reflects their remarkable resilience, courage, hopes, and dreams.
9 December, 2024 - Author: Simon Nelson
Map of Syria: vectorportal.com
More on Syria on this site.
The toppling of the Assad regime was swift in the end, and one of the least violent episodes since the popular revolt in Syria started in 2011, to be followed by a bitter civil war. The human cost of that war has been immense. Half of Syria’s population is displaced; anywhere from 300,000 to 600,000 people have died. Maybe 100,000 people have disappeared, been imprisoned or remain missing since the regime started its brutal crackdown on the anti-government protests in 2011. There are millions of refugees. Syria has been ruined, and its population is hungry and poverty-stricken.
The emptying of Assad's prisons – especially Sednaya Prison, the "human slaughterhouse" - has revealed horrifying stories. Some people had been locked up for so long that they remember nothing about Bashar Assad's rule, having been imprisoned by Assad’s father, Hafez, in the 1980s. There are stories of families who were made to torture each other to prevent execution and of whole networks of secret prison cells, deep underground, that civilians are still trying to free people from.
What comes next is unpredictable, but the recent history of dictators being toppled in Libya, Egypt, Iraq and Iran tells us to have no trust that whatever provisional regime is formed by the Islamists of HTS and their various allies-for-now will be other than repressive. There may or may not be space in which some workers' and democratic organisations can emerge "from below". We should support them as much as we can if they do emerge. But such organisations will face a very uphill battle.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the most prominent force, has changed from an international jihadist organisation to a Syrian-nationalist Islamist organisation, now closer to Hamas than Al Qaeda. That does not make it a benign force for ordinary Syrians, least of all for women and religious or national minorities.
While the Sednaya prisoners were being liberated, protests by families calling for their sons to be released were ongoing outside prisons in Idlib, the one area run by HTS for a considerable time.
HTS has emerged as the strongest of the rebel groups which have allied to overthrow Assad following the weakening of his allies, Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia, by their respective wars with Israel and Ukraine. For now, Syria is divided among different armed groups. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the northeast were a key part of the US-backed destruction of Daesh (ISIS) territory in 2017; they now control strategically important oilfields. They find themselves under attack from the Syrian National Army (SNA), a Turkish-backed force, a proxy for Erdogan, a successor to the Free Syrian Army. From its foundation, the FSA rejected working with most Kurdish forces. Erdogan views those Kurdish forces as a Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and a source of support for the oppressed Kurdish minority in Turkey.
The FSA was, from the outset, an Arab-chauvinist organisation. That chauvinism meant that the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed People’s Protection Units (YPG) were drawn away from confrontation with Assad and were drawn into conflict with the FSA and other Islamist rebels.
Erdogan wants to drive the Kurdish forces out of the border region with Turkey. The refusal of Assad to work with him to create a buffer zone helped lead the way for the rebel advance across the country. Erdogan has had an uneasy but stable truce with Assad since 2019, primarily directing the SNA to fight the SDF rather than the regime. Still, when Assad refused to back the buffer zone, Erdogan pulled the SNA into fighting the government to further his aims of pushing back the Kurds.
The SNA forces may be on the verge of taking Manbij in SDF-controlled Rojava. Arab villages in the Deir ez-Zor governorate in eastern Syria are reported to be declaring allegiance to the SNA or HTS and trying to push Kurdish forces out. We have reports from Kurdish areas in Aleppo of power outages, cutting off water, and harassment by the new rulers.
Erdogan’s backing for the anti-Assad forces is contingent on them making inroads into the Kurdish-held territories.
The SDF may well lose US support come January, with Trump indicating he wants the US to stay out of Syria. HTS had said they would not attack SDF-held areas, but this looks like it is breaking down. The Kurds have faced repression from the regime since Hafez al-Assad seized power more than 50 years ago; since 2011, they have fought anti-regime rebels and Daesh. Self-determination for the Kurds is a necessary part of any democratic transition for Syria, but HTS, SNA, and Erdogan look unwilling to grant it.
Since 2023, there were signs that the Assad regime was facing renewed pressure from across Syria’s ethnic and religious groups. Assad had been able to promote his regime as a protector of minorities – Syria is, or was until the mass flight of refugees, some 13% non-Sunni (Alawi, Ismaili, or Shia) Muslim, maybe 10% Christian (Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholics, and others), and 3% Druze, but that ploy was breaking down.
The intensity and the largely bloodless toppling of the government shows how unpopular it was and how shallow some of the supposed deep-rooted support, even among Alawites, the minority Shia sect that Assad belonged to and who enjoyed a privileged position under his rule.
Optimists could now deduce that the HTS-led overthrow could be a victory for something like the early democratic and secular ideals of the revolt against Assad from 2011, complete with guarantees to protect Christians and other minorities. However, no mechanisms are in place to hold the new transitional government to any promises it now makes on that score.
As he supports the moves towards a transitional government, HTS leader Julani (or Ahmed al-Shar'a, now that he has dropped his nom de guerre) has preached tolerance and spoken against reprisals. But he has notably not mentioned if that includes formerly regime-loyal Alawites. And the record of HTS and SNA in Idlib cannot be ignored.
Shar’a has already faced down protests regarding the behaviour of his National Salvation Government. He has pledged that a local force will govern Aleppo, and not HTS, he is the de-facto ruler of Syria. Western governments are now planning to remove HTS from their list of terrorist groups. They intend to recognise him as the legitimate current head of the Syrian state.
For decades, the Syrian state, and for many years now, most of the forces fighting it, have prevented the organisation of political parties, independent trade unions, and newspapers. The civil war destroyed the neighbourhood committees and organisations of Syrian civil society that played a key role in the early uprising. Weapons and the still-functioning parts of the state are in the control of HTS, SNA, the SDF and their allies, or the remnants of the old regime now collaborating with them.
If there is space for secular, democratic activists to organise and play a role in post-Assad Syria, they will have to assert themselves quickly. We should not give up hope, but no sizeable secular democratic movement exists, even in exile. We cannot trust a transitional government led by Islamists to respect the population or the rights of women and minorities.
Syria's economy has been mostly destroyed by the war, making workplace-based organisation more difficult than it was in Egypt or Tunisia in 2011 or even in Iran in 1979. Prospects for ordinary Syrians remain limited. Genuine freedom in Syria for workers and the oppressed to organise, including freedom of assembly, remains a fight yet to be won. A constituent assembly is needed, but can offer actual democratic openings only if space is opened for political organisations to be set up and to organise free from harassment, religious edict and censorship.
Syria needs at least £200bn for its reconstruction. Turkey and the Arab monarchies will be keen to provide some reconstruction on their terms. The Gulf states will want to assert themselves quickly. They had recently welcomed Assad back into the Arab League and will now want good relations with whatever replaces him. They won't want to lose face again.
There are significant knock-on effects for others due to Assad’s removal. Russia, his major backer, has been severely weakened as a major player in the conflict. Assad relied on their logistical and air support. Despite bombing Idlib and Aleppo as the rebels advanced, calling on Assad to restore order, Russia has had to make a hasty retreat. HTS has said it will not attack the two strategic Russian naval bases in Syria, but Russia will not trust that promise.
The effect on Iran and Hezbollah of Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon and the degrading of both militaries' capacity has weakened the so-called “axis of resistance”. Iran has been routed, unable to respond to Israeli strikes with any real force, and pushed back from providing the support for Hamas it would have needed to turn the tide against Israel in Gaza. Iran's involvement in Syria is immensely unpopular with a population that holds the Iranian regime in contempt, as the people of Syria resented Assad. Renewed protest and action against the Iranian theocracy is possible.
Hezbollah and its Iraqi-based, Iranian-funded Shia militias are in trouble. Pushed back in Lebanon and unable to bolster Assad’s forces, who gave up rather than fighting back, Hezbollah has also suffered from the ongoing weakening of the Iranian state as a regional imperialism in the region.
While Israel’s main regional enemies backed Assad, Israel itself was relatively content with the status quo of a divided, weak, and seemingly stable Syria. Now, Israel sees potential for an Islamist government on its border. It has entered the buffer zone in the Golan Heights and increased its bombing campaign against weapon stores it fears could be used against it by whichever forces gain access to them. It looks more likely than ever to launch a new bombing campaign against Iran.
US President Biden has cautiously welcomed the defeat of Assad, and some of the Stalinist-inflected left portrays the fall of Assad as a US plot. But the US, too, faces headaches. It may be caught between continuing to back the SDF and risking escalation with Nato ally Turkey or trying to get the best deal it can with an HTS-led transitional government and Turkey.
WORKERS LIBERTY
In a dizzying turn of events, the Assad dynasty that has presided over 53 years of brutal dictatorship in Syria has fallen. Around the world people watched in shock last night as the regime’s network of prisons - where tens of thousands of people have been detained, tortured or executed without fair trial - were dismantled.
The progress of the rebel offensive was measured prison by prison, and overwhelming footage released to the world: of a small child imprisoned, of a detainee seemingly unable to explain who he was, of others making their first phone calls to their mothers to tell them they were alive. It was reported that some detainees believed that Bashar al-Assad’s father Hafez, who died in 2000, was still in power, and they imagined they were being liberated by the army of Saddam Hussain. This culminated in a several-hour operation to break into the dungeons of Saydnaya, one of Damascus’s infamous prisons and a symbol of the regime.
This is first and foremost a momentous day for Syrian people and for human freedom. Many Syrians celebrating are also cautious and apprehensive about the future, given that the 11-day offensive that overthrew the government was spearheaded by the Islamist faction Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which has committed its own abuses.
The leftist dissident Yassin al-Haj Saleh, for instance, who himself spent 16 years imprisoned as a member of one of Syrian’s communist opposition parties, advised last week:
“We can’t embrace HTS’ military effectiveness against the regime while ignoring its ideology; nor fixate on its ideology and overlook its key role in resisting a regime that’s been killing Syrians non-stop for years. We need a strong social and political coalition mobilizing across society. Millions of politically active Syrians are the best safeguard against extremist hijacking of the revolution.”
Progressives around the world seeking to show solidarity with the Syrian people, however, would do well to remember four things:
1. This is not just a victory for HTS
Fundamentally this is a victory for the Syrian people, who first rose up in 2011 when children in Deraa were arrested for anti-government graffiti and a 13-year-old boy, Hamza al Khateeb, was mutilated and killed in custody. Peaceful protests and strikes were met with violent repression by government forces.
Syrians recognise that this victory is for all those who have organised and demonstrated against the regime and the citizen journalists who have tirelessly documented its abuses, for those killed for their heroic efforts and for others who survived and did not lose hope.
Leftists such as Saleh have long argued that the liberatory, democratic mass movement that launched the revolution still exists and there is abundant evidence for this from last night. The advance of HTS was welcomed or accompanied by local uprisings - including among minority Druze and Ismaili communities. Revolutionaries in exile are already planning their return, and revolutionaries who have spent years in prison - as well as likely many socialists and trade unionists detained before the revolution - have finally found freedom from Assad’s slaughterhouses.
Syrians have long been the victims of opposing imperialist projects and their lives discussed only in terms of global and regional geopolitics. They are rightly pointing out the significance that the toppling of the regime was achieved by Syrians against their own regime, largely without interference from international forces.
2. Assad was no protector of minorities
Assad has often presented his regime as the protector of minority rights against religious extremism, and hailed his ally Putin as the “sole defender of Christian civilization.” Yet the Syrian revolution defied this sectarian rhetoric, ever since the Daraya churches rang their bells in solidarity with the protesters during the revolution’s first demonstrations, and opened their doors to shelter people fleeing Assad’s military police.
HTS has in recent years and during this offensive pledged to respect the rights of minorities, perhaps seeking international legitimacy. Aleppo’s lead bishop remained cautiously optimistic after the city was liberated from the regime. Russian warplanes, meanwhile, had already targeted Aleppo’s Christian neighbourhood of Sulaymaniyah in support of Assad, alongside the city’s hospitals.
Ultimately it is for Syrian democrats and revolutionaries to hold HTS to account, and for their allies abroad to support them in this.
3. Syrians understand the dangers posed by militant Islamism
Syrians have long had to contend with both the repressive regime and hardline Islamist factions, ever since Assad released jihadists from prison to undermine their revolution. Saleh, for example, is married to the revolutionary activist Samira Khalil. Khalil was abducted along with the other three members of the Douma Four in 2013, likely by the Islamist militia Jaysh al-Islam that was headed by one of the jihadists released by Assad, Zahran Alloush. Yet when Alloush was killed in a Russian airstrike, Saleh did not celebrate, explaining that Russian support of Assad was a greater threat to his country. Syrians do not need lecturing on this.
Progressives must be careful to avoid any Islamophobia in their analysis of events in Syria. The majority of Syrians are religious and life is often discussed in religious terms, referring to fallen revolutionaries as “martyrs,” for example. This is not the same as the Islamic fundamentalism of HTS and should not be conflated with it. It was the propaganda of the (ostensibly secular) regime to argue that all its opponents were Islamic fundamentalists, and many Syrians suspect that their revolution did not receive support or respect internationally in part because this Assadist talking point found fertile ground in widespread Islamophobia abroad.
4. While dark days may lie ahead, dark days most certainly lie behind
Observers might been quick to warn Syrians that their government may be replaced by another repressive regime. For many Syrians, this minimises the unique and immense suffering the Assad government has unleashed: 600,000 dead, 14 million displaced, unknown numbers drowned at sea seeking safety, years of starvation sieges, dozens of hospitals, markets and schools bombed and over a thousand people killed with chemical weapons.
It also risks ignoring the brutality of the life that Syrians were being asked to accept order to stave off the spectre of militant Islam.
Now is the time to remember the ideals of the revolution and its heroes. The blog 100 Faces of the Revolution is a good place to start.. let us remember Raed Fares, perhaps Syria’s best-known revolutionary. Fares was famous for the stylish and witty banners he produced each Friday, and for fearless criticism of both the Assad regime and HTS on his community radio station Radio Fresh FM. He survived an assassination attempt by ISIS-linked militants before eventually being killed alongside fellow activist Hammoud al-Juneid six years ago this month. Many believe HTS to be behind their murder.
Let us remember Razan Zeitouneh, who co-founded the network of revolutionary committees that helped co-ordinate non-violent resistance to the regime. She is one the Douma Four – alongside Samira Khalil, Wael Hamada, and Nazem Hammadi – who were abducted in 2013 and whose whereabouts are still unknown. Many hold Jaysh al-Islam responsible, a local Islamist headed at the time by Zahran Alloush, one of the militants released by Assad in 2011.
Let us remember Omar Aziz, Ghiath Matar, Bassel Shahadeh and so many more. Socialists around the world must show solidarity with Syrians seeking to fulfil the promise of the revolution and the haunting premonition Fares made before his assassination: “I won’t see the end, but I’ve seen the beginning. There will be many problems, but Syria will be free!”
