The ongoing Syrian civil war is crucial not only to the Syrian and the Middle Eastern politics and security, but also has directly and indirectly influenced the landscape of the geopolitics and particularly the conventional trajectory of the nontraditional warfare that has been evolved since the 9/11.
This stance can be postulated owing to the convoluted nature of the conflict. Though prima facie it only reflects a conflict between an autocratic government and the resurgent powers rebelling to topple it down and/or a state government fighting against one of the most brutal terrorist organizations (though its power and strength is being dwindled), an in-depth look into the dynamics of the conflict reveal more complex political realities pertaining to domestic, regional and even international power concerns. The analysis, rather than giving an informed account on the conflict would more focus on the unveiling of these dynamics, coming to the conclusion that Syrian civil war and the terrorism bred in the Syrian soil forecasts the nature and complexities of the future civil conflicts with an internationalized strand.
The crucial point on Syria to make all the intricacies is that it does not have one particular battleground nor limited to two opposing conflicting parties. As Spyer notes a conflict which began from an uprising against a dictatorial into an ethnic-sectarian battle between forces representing Sunnis and Alawiites. Both Assad regime and the rebel forces and their respective international allies account for the multi-layered nature of the conflict in its entirety. It needs to be noted that inter alia, there also are the ISIS and other terrorist groups and their supporters. The allies of the parties being intermingled in the conflict directly with financial and military means to pursue their own agenda, has made the conflict which began rather as a civil rebel against a dictatorial regime into a proxy war in which foreign and international political and power conspiracies have become determinant factors. As for Assibong and Chukwueloke, this status quo has made Syria to become the epitome of political-ideological faultiness in the Middle East order.
They note that the conflict has rebalanced regional axes of power. The Syrian conflict have also entangled militias and state actors across the region, destabilizing neighboring countries like Lebanon and stirring up ethnic tensions in Turkey especially among the Kurds.
In brief, the Syrian conflict can be analyzed with five phases as to the evolution of its civil war.
- In March 2011, with the Arab Spring uprising, asymmetrical violence was erupted against the Assad regime. This was mostly a voice demanding civil and political rights.
- The government started to be threatened militarily with most of the protesters joining the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in the second half of 2011.
- The third phase is marked with the regime’s offensive strikes in the rebel held Homs. The governments used such force in the hope of terrorizing the Sunni Muslims which composed the majority of the protesters. The phase continued with the mutual attacks against each other, culminating with government’s air strikes on each other’s controlled areas.
- By 2013 the civil war enters into the stage of stalemate.
- Since late 2013 the conflict ceased to be a political conflict on sectarian lines and turned into a sectarian civil war on confessional lines but also with some secular combatants.
Although it is, in a rather generalized note, claimed that the conflict which led to the civil war becoming a safe haven for the ISIS thriving, was a sectarian issue, the secular nature of the Syrian state and the popularity that Bashar had even overshadowing that of Ba’ath, does not provide a reliable argument as to such claim alone. Assad’s reforms to the economic policy and the foreign policy did not get reflected in the internal political structure. There was always a democratic deficit with no political opposition to the Ba’ath party. Along with this political suppression, the economic reforms he introduced were not sustainable as the policies to strengthen the private sector resulted in unemployment and income concentration. Thus, political suppression and corruption which gradually prejudiced Ba’ath regime as privileging the Alawiites and the economic reforms can be identified as the main factors that triggered uprising catalyzed by the domino effect of the Arab Spring movements.
Syria’s pro- Palestinian stance and its role in Lebanon, close links with Iran and Russia with its support for and by Hezbollah made Syria to be antagonized with the West and its Gulf neighbors. Syria’s policies led for a sectarian friction with the Gulf neighbors. The USA always regarded Syria under the Ba’ath as ‘a thorn in the flesh’ for fifty years. The USA was always in fear that a de- stabilized Syria and/ or an anti US Syria has serious security implications for Israel and thus for the USA itself. This was mostly because of the geo strategic location of Syria and its cross border tribal linkages which make its uprising exceptionally crucial unlike those of Libya, Tunisia or Egypt. This kind of external dimension made the Syrian conflict to be escalated into a sort of breeding ground for a proxy war.
Thakur argues that the first Russian air strike in the support of Assad marked the breakaway of Moscow from the post-Cold War international order. The constant vetoes by Russia and China to pass a UNSC resolution to ensure Syrians’ protection against the atrocities of the Assad regime are claimed to have “strengthened impunity and encouraged the expansion of war crimes and crimes against humanity.” As Bellamy claims the IS’s birth in Syria could have been avoidable by a more determined international response to the civil war. Hence it can be contested that this deadlock in the UNSC was made the most of it by the al Qaeda afflicted ISI furthering itself as ISIS.
The conflict has now reached the stage that all parties; both internal and external have mutual interests in one another being engaged in the conflict and keeping it ‘going’. This is the intricacy of this conflict. Although by now the threat of ISIS terrorism is being checked, the myriad of issues underneath the conflict are still alarming to a peaceful Syria with lesser geopolitical and security challenges for the region and the world at large. Nevertheless, owing to the intricacies lying in both the internal and external aspects of the conflict, the convulsions of it are such that it cannot be distinctly understood as a war against terrorism and/or a war against the rebels.
The existence of such conflict is exploited by external parties to pursue their own interests as well. Hence, the conflict and its aftermath is a breeding ground for the violence spread by a government, Non State Armed Groups and even indirect violence perpetrated by external actors for their own motives. Understanding of these intricacies is essential for a peaceful resolution for the conflict.
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