Wednesday
February 19, 2025

Crisis in Syria

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By: Paarvana Sree, Research Analyst, GSDN

Syria: source Internet

The crisis in Syria is the outcome of the Arab Spring which started in Tunisia and reached many parts of the world. Around the world ‘change’ and people revolt began receding with the support of regional and international actors, but what makes it different in Syria is that the change is being forced with a limited strike which even has the risk of a regional or a global war. The local dynamics of Syria were transformed into regional rivalry and global threat. The military and ideological competition for regional hegemony by competing States swallowed up the entire region. The Arab spring in Syria experienced divided loyalties. In Syria, people were either Pro-Assad or Anti-Assad thus complicating the situation and ending up in the civil war. This civil war resulted in almost 100,000 deaths and created more than 2 million refugees which resulted in another social catastrophe in the region. The influx of terrorist elements and non-state actors into Syria by the regional actors has further intensified the civil war.

Theoretical Context

The Syrian Crisis can be best explained through the Regional Security Complex (RSC) theory propounded by Barry Buzan and Ole Weaver. According to this theory every region is placed in a security complex being accompanied by a downward sub-regional security and super-security complex at the global level. These security complexes are basically interlinked and can affect each other. As per this security complex must have a) boundary, which separates RSC from its neighbours b) an anarchic structure, composed of two or more autonomous units c) polarity, in order to cover the distribution of power among the units d) social construct to cover up the pattern of enmity and amity among the units. The RSC basically aims at three main configurations maintenance of status quo, external transformation and internal involvement of more regional and extra regional actors and to have internal transformation within the region. Crisis in Syria is a sub-regional security complex of Levant region present in the wider Middle Eastern regional security complex and larger super security complex. The Levant sub-regional security context is mainly contested between Syria and Israel with non-state actors like Hezbollah and Hamas. In the wider Middle Eastern security complex the competition between conventional rivals, Tribes and Arabs on one side and Iran and Arabs on the other side is further complicated by the rivalry between Israel and Iran. Also there is a global level contest taking place between France, US and Britain against Russia and China. All of the security complexes actively interact with each other. Syria is given support by Iran and Hezbollah at regional level and by China and Russia at global level. The Syrian rebels were equipped, supported and trained by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar at the regional level and Britain and France at global level.

Historical Perspectives

Syria has a great history of civilization. It remained as an independent state. The ruling authority of Hafez Al Assad was unchallenged. Assad tried to convert Syria into a major regional power by influencing events in Lebanon and Israeli occupied Palestinian territories. It then soon established a strategic dialogue with the revolutionary Iran, which strongly opposed the US dominance and the hegemony of Israel which supported the Iran sponsored Hezbollah in Lebanon. The US provided Assad with US$ 6 million and free hand in Lebanon in return for his full support against Saddam Hussein during the Iraq crisis over the Kuwait in 1990-91 periods. By his death in 2000, his son Bashar Al Assad was chosen as his successor.  Initially he seemed to be liberal and moderate leader soon he turned his strategy into military power politics and the Baathist regime his father once pursued. When the Arab spring spread in the neighbouring Arab States, Bashar Al Assad was relatively comfortable. However soon he was confronted with strong and well-built western backed opposition. The confrontation in no time turned into a civil war when the protestors started clashing with his supporters. Syria’s social, economic and political disparities based on its tribal, factional, ethnic and sectarian differences make it a heterogeneous society. The population comprises about 74% of Sunnis, 16% of Alawites and Druze and 10% of Christians. There is also a small proportion of the Jewish population.  Since 1970 the country has been ruled by the Alewives minority.

Conflicting Groups in the Syrian Crisis

The Syrian civil war is considered as one of the most vulnerable crises in the contemporary era in terms of its destructiveness and impacts of international politics. The major groups involved in Syrian civil war can be categorised as –

1) Pro Assad groups

Hafez Al Assad came to power in 1963 through a military coup and then became the President of Syria in 1970. He ruled Syria for about 30 years. Later his son Bashar Al Assad succeeded him. He belongs to the Alawite community and the majority of the population in Syria belonged to Sunni community. They both belonged to the Ba’ath party. The ideology of the party cantered around 3 main objectives namely secularism, socialism and Arab unity. Hafez Al Assad tried the best to maintain the agenda of Pan Arabism and Arab unity during his presidency. But his son failed to contain that influence because of the limited public support. Initially during his period he tried to win popular support by new political and economic reforms. But in a sense he never tried to initiate such reforms. During the 2006- 2010 Syrian draught there increased large problems of the Syrian regime. There were peasant movements and popular uprisings against the increase in employment and inflation. By that time demonstrations in the Middle East created a ray of hope for the Syrian population and they started a protest against the Assad regime in late December 2010. The government tried to suppress the movement by armed forces which resulted in the death of many people and many were injured. Thus the demonstration turned into a civil war. This consequently resulted in the division of the Syrian republic into pro-government and anti-government and also Assad groups were also divided. This division highly affected the whole country and the support of the Ba’ath party and Alawite supported Assad who was a minority while the rivals constituted the majority. Also the emergence of other militant organisations and Al-Qaeda further increased the distress. The main agenda of the Assad government was to suppress the insurgency and to maintain the pre-democracy status quo of the Assad government.

2) Anti Assad Groups

The Anti-Assad group comprised of numerous small groups with different objectives and narratives but a single Agenda of regime change. These groups were commonly called the ‘Syrian National Coalition’ (SNC). This group contains the Free Syrian Army (FSA) the first recognised military against the Assad regime, the jihadist group which was against the Assad regime on a sectarian basis. The third major group was the Islamic Jihadist group. The Islamic State (IS) and Nursa Front (NF) were prominent Jihadist groups since the civil war. Later in 2015 Jaish Al-Fatah was created by anti-Assad government states like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. The main objective of this group was the replacement of the Assad government, dismantling of security forces, unifying and supporting FSA, no dialogue with the Assad government and holding accountability of those responsible for civil war and other crises.

3) Kurdish National Council

Another significant group in Syrian civil war is Kurds whose main motive was different from other groups. They are indigenous people of the Mesopotamian region and they are residing in south eastern Turkey, north-eastern Syria, northern Iraq, and south western Armenia. Their language and culture is different and they do not have a common dialect. More than 15% of Kurdish people were stateless in Syria and they were treated in legal vacuum and they are even deprived of the fundamental rights.  The Kurds saw Syrian civil war as a means to acquire their status and fundamental rights.

Kurds officially entered civil war in mid-2014 when Islamic State captured Syria’s northern part. They flew towards the Turkey border, but later began their fighting under the Syrian Democratic Force (SDF). They introduced various fighter groups to protect themselves from civil war such as the People’s Protection Unite – the army wing of the Syrian Kurdish democratic union party. They were officially backed by the US led coalition with weapons and airstrikes. They successfully recaptured the major part of Northern Syria from Islamic State under the SDF banner.  The main objectives of Kurds under the Kurdish Supreme Committee were full citizenship and rights, full representation in the Syrian National Council and other basic rights.

Onset of the Civil War

In Syria, in early 2011 there was an emergence of peace protests for political reforms and increased freedoms. These rallies are basically influenced by Arab spring events in nearby countries. In March 2011, in the city of Derra, there began pro-democracy demonstrations, demanding the release of people in detentions who painted revolutionary messages on the school wall. The suppression of protests resulted in the death of several people. The severe repression by the Assad regime, which includes detentions and suppression of demonstrations aggravated the situation and triggered an armed uprising which resulted in a large scale civil war. The complexity of the conflict became intense when international and regional entities provided aid and support to different sides.

Finally the opposition supporters resorted to armed resistance initially for self-defence and later on as a means to drive out security troops from localities. The scale of violence increased, resulting in the country being engulfed in civil war. The conflict soon spread to the capital city of Damascus in 2012. The crisis transcended a mere dichotomy between the supporters and opponents of Assad. This also took sectarian dimensions, where the Sunni majority of the country fought against the Alawite minority. Also the emergence of the extremist group of Islamic State made an additional aspect. The Syrian government was supported by Russia and Iran while the anti-government rebel organisations were supported by the US and its military allies. The three campaigns that mainly drove the conflict were: 1) the coalition endeavours to vanish the IS 2) the hostilities among Syrian government and rebels 3) military offensives conducted by Turkish forces against Syrian Kurds.

Syrian territory was beginning to be acquired by Islamic State in 2013. As a response to this the US, UK and France with assistance from Saudi, Turkey and other Arab allies extended their air campaign in Iraq to also cover Syria. The US-led coalition has conducted more than 11,000 aerial assaults against the IS targets in Syria while Turkish forces have been in conflict against Islamic State since 2016. With the help of Russia and Iran in 2016, the Syrian government recaptured land from opposition troops including the city of Aleppo which the opposition considered as their stronghold. There were numerous attempts to have a diplomatic settlement but none of them became fruitful. The Geneva peace negotiations on Syria and peace talks started by Russia in Astana, Kazakhstan managed to secure a cease fire agreement and the creation of four de- escalation zones.

Current Situation in Syria

The crisis in Syria which began in 2011, had completed a decade as per the reports of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Syria is facing one of the biggest refugee crises. About 14 million people have been forced to evacuate their residence since 2011 for the sake of Security.  About 7.2 million people are still displaced within their nation with 70% of the population requiring humanitarian assistance. About 90% of people are living below the poverty threshold. About 5.5 million refugees are living in the border countries of Syria namely Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey and Iraq. Germany is the largest host country accommodating for about 850,000 refugees.

In addition to this, on February 06, 2023 Syria was hit by a pair of formidable earthquakes, particularly in the south eastern region of Turkey and northern part of Syria, which resulted in the loss of numerous lives and devastation of the houses and infrastructure throughout the area. This in turn affected the internally displaced Syrians and Syrian refugees. As per March 2024, about 8.8 million people were affected by earthquakes, displacing tens of thousands including many who were already displaced. The earthquake took 60,000 lives and tens of thousands sustaining injuries and many of the neighbourhood households were destroyed. Syria produced the largest number of refugees in the world due to the civil war. As per the reports of UNHCR, About 70% of Syrian refugees are still facing adversity, especially limited access to essential services, education and career opportunities and having poor prospects of returning to their own country. 

In addition to this there is a price hike resulting in inflation and approximately 12.9 million people are facing food insecurity. Refugees have been deprived of basic amenities like obtaining potable water, power, nourishment, medication and rent expenses. There are also other forms of social exploitation including underage labour, gender based abuse and early marriage. About 65,000 children in Syria are forced to be under nutrition which puts them in danger of permanent physical and psychological harm. The country is facing a significant education crisis; approximately 47% of Syrian refugees in the region are below the age of eighteen and over one third of children lack schooling. Over 2.4 million children in Syria are not attending school and 1.6 million youngsters are in danger of leaving school.

Syria after Assad

The Russian foreign ministry on December 08, 2024 announced that Bashar Al Assad who had ruled Syria since 2000 has resigned from the role of president in Syria and he had been offered asylum in Russia. The collapse of the Assad regime was in the wake of an offensive from Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) and other opposition groups including the Syrian National Army (SNA) which was backed by Turkey, which was launched in November 2024 and resulted in the culmination of the capture of Damascus. What will happen in Syria in the coming years is still uncertain.

HTS has recently announced a transitional government and a general amnesty for the Syrian people who have been conscripted into the Assad regime. As per the opinion of the UN envoy for Syria “the conflict in the region has not ended yet”. Opposition groups are still continuing to compete for control over the territories with HTS and SNA taking control over the areas backed by US led Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces. In addition to this Israel also conducted military action against Syrian military and chemical weapons which facilitates the previously held Assad government and says it has temporarily occupied the Syria-Israel buffer zone. The prime minister appointed by Assad still remained in the Syrian capital and handed over the administration control on December 10, 2024 which was led by the past leaders of the HTS administration in Idlib where HTS was officially based. This administration will remain till March 01, 2025. The opposition forces continue to be ununited and the country still remains divided. The most likely beneficiary of the Assad regime is Turkey because Turkey had failed in negotiations with Assad for normalising the relations in 2023 and 2024 with the motive of return of refugees from Turkey. As per the reports of UNHCR, Turkey hosts about 2.9 million refugees of Syria. For Lebanon and Iran, the fall of Assad regime is a strategic defeat for ‘axis of resistance’ . This is a network of terrorist groups that Iran has developed which includes Iraqi Militia, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Assad in Syria , Hamas in Gaza and Houthis in Yemen in order to counter and threaten the Israel attack.

Conclusion

The continuity of the Syrian crisis since 2011 is a live example of failure of the present-day global system. Syria is ranked third on the International Rescue Committee’s watch list for nations because of the large scale humanitarian crises taking place in Syria. The global powers including inter-governmental organizations and self-proclaimed champions of world peace failed to achieve a consensus on the Syrian issue . There should be a fresh and innovative approach towards the crisis and major powers including US and Europe should adopt a novel strategy that effectively tackles the present issues. Mediators in the issue should be cautious of evolving multi-dimensional security landscapes in the present day conflicts. The conflict resolution strategies should be decentralised and inter-governmental organisations should make an effort to adapt to that. The Syrian crisis necessities the importance for a strong and peaceful conflict resolution not only Syria but for the entire Middle Eastern region.

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