Syria
An Analysis of the
Players,
At the end of which
you will understand why a resolution of the conflict is damn near impossible
Ground Central: Syria, a nation ruled
by a brutal dictator who used chemical weapons against his own people. He’s not
stepping down until he is forced out. When the Arab Spring started,
demonstrators began demanding political reforms. He used force to suppress
them. Then Syrian women went into the streets, believing that a centuries-old
tradition that forbid violence against women speaking out would be upheld. It
was not. When the dictator used violence against them, rebel groups formed and
the civil war began. At first, the rebel groups worked together, but their
differences soon separated them into ‘moderates,’ by which we must presume that
their political motivation is secular rather than religious, and the ‘extremists,’
who would gel into what we call Daesh. (I will not use the terms ISIS or ISIL,
which implies that they are a state. They are a rogue force wreaking havoc, an
organized criminal syndicate.)
The problem
is as old as the Shi’ite/Sunni split in the religion of Islam. In Syria, we
have the extra twist that the Assad family are Alawites, a controversial
(within Shi’ite Islam) sect within a sect. Assad retains support from Alawites
in the nation because they are a minority among a Sunni majority. At its most
basic level, Syria is a battleground for the millennial conflict.
This is not your father’s Arabic Middle
East. In the previous generations, each Arab nation fastidiously refused to
interfere or comment upon the doings of another nation, more importantly, its
rulers. This has changed as the new generation of rulers competes against the
threats they believe others present to them. This change goes back to the
Iranian Revolution of 1979, when Iran came under the rule of Shi’ite clergy,
who conflated the rule of government and the rule of religion into one and
showed their determination to influence and direct the entire Islamic region.
Sunnis, led
by Saudi Arabia, and Shi’ites, led by Iran, are competing for dominance of the
entire Middle East.
Turkey: Since the days of Ataturk, the
founder of modern-day Turkey, the Turks have looked for integration into
Europe. That has changed and they are seeking to expand their influence in the
Islamic world. They look south these days.
The Turkish
government has two goals prompting their involvement in the Syrian war: one,
continue suppressing the Kurdish revolutionaries who seek to secede not only
from Turkey, but also Iraq and Iran, to form an independent Kurdistan; two, to
protect ethnic Turks who live in Syria, who are participating in the revolt
against Assad’s government.
Turkey
action against Daesh seems to be directed against the PKK (Kurdistan Workers
Party). The Turks are using the excuse of intervention against Daesh to target
another enemy of theirs.
They also
hope that the ‘moderates’ will ultimately win the Syrian conflict and that will
give them more influence in the region. Perhaps they still dream of the Ottoman
Empire and hope to reassemble it. The irony of the conflict between Turkey and
Russia is rich as both nations invoke the same justifications for their
actions: protecting their ethnic members, regaining lost territory that broke
away.
Iran: The self-appointed leaders of the
Shi’ites and striving for regional dominance, yet members of the minority sect,
Iran has but one ally: the Syrian government of Bashir Assad. Iran seeks to
maintain Assad in power. However, they have challenges of their own that limit
their involvement: the Iraq mess, in which the country is on the edge of coming
apart. Ever since the U.S. deposing of Saddam Hussein put Shi’ites in power,
Iran has tried to support, influence, and control what could be an important
ally. Certainly it is important to Iran to keep a friendly, or at worst
neutral, government in Iraq. The Iranians have not forgotten the menace that
Saddam Hussein posed to them when he initiated the border war of the 1980s.
They have also not forgotten the fascism of Hussein’s government, in which he
fantasized about being the second coming of Nebuchadnezzar and ruling over an
empire worthy of the ancient Babylonians.
The Turks
and Iranians have conflicting interests in the Syrian war and in the region.
Also, the
overrunning of Iraq territory by Daesh threatens Iranian security as Daesh
seeks to rule the entire 10-40 window from Morocco to Indonesia.
Daesh: The successors to Al-Qaeda in
Iraq, the brutal terrorists whose signature move was to cut off heads with
knives, Daesh was a minor player until the former Ba’athists army officers of
Saddam Hussein got tired of living under Al-Malaki, the discriminatory and
persecuting Prime Minister of Iraq from 2006 – 2014, and joined them to form a
disciplined army that they deployed in the field. Daesh quickly overran remote
areas of Syria and moved through Iraq, taking some of the most important
cities. If you were wondering how they did it, it was through radicalizing and
incorporating these experienced military officers.
Daesh dreams
of a new caliphate that unites all Islamic countries and moves to complete the
work of conquering Europe that was stopped first by Charles Martel in 732 and
then at the gates of Vienna in 1683. After a swift conquest during the summer
of 2014 reminiscent of the German blitzkriegs of World War Two, they came to a
standstill as opposition solidified and put up a fight.
But they
govern a territory with important assets such as oil wells that give them the
means to carry on and menace the world. They have the means to acquire what
they need to carry on the war. They are also showing a capacity to strike
across the world that we have not seen since the United States led the effort
to demolish Al-Qaeda’s financial network.
Daesh
maintains itself through convincing propaganda distributed through social
networks that attract young persons around the world to travel to Syria and
join them, sales and purchases of oil, arms, and explosives through the black
markets of the Middle East, and terror of a sort that surpasses the worst of
the French Reign of Terror during the 1790s.
Their dreams
of dominating the world would be quickly crushed, but they are able to exploit
the rivalries of the powers that oppose them.
Iraq: Iraq has been comprised of three
groups since its borders were determined at the end of World War 1: Kurds,
Sunnis, Shias. These groups have no historical, ethnic, or religious basis for
unity. The country has been held together only under the domination of a
dictator. Since the U.S. invasion and establishment of a democratic process,
the Shi’ites have dominated and the others have sought to leave. Iraq now
perpetually stands on the edge of dissolution.
Further,
since the professional army of Saddam Hussein was dissolved, the new Iraqi army
has existed of persons who enlisted to have a source of income. They are not
disciplined as was proven by their abandoning their superior position, equipment,
and numbers when Daesh first attacked them.
The
government seeks to maintain the country’s territorial integrity, but lacks the
will of its military to fight in order to do so.
Nevertheless,
through the assistance of Shi’ite militia and covert Iranian forces, Iraq has
stopped the Daesh advance and is slowly turning back their conquest. Their
efforts would be futile but for the Kurds.
Kurdistan: The Kurds have dreamed of
independence for generations after being split among the Turks, the Iraqis, and
the Iranians. Given the geopolitical rivalries of the Great Powers of Europe,
then the Cold War, and now the splintering of boundaries, they have never found
a backer for their independence. Yet they are useful pawns and the nations have
made use of them. Ironically, when the Iraqi Kurds gained their semi-autonomous
zone, they had to share power among their factions and forged a decent
democratic process.
They fight
because they must. Given weapons of sufficient firepower, they have been effective
in pushing Daesh out of their cities. But their dreams of independence are
doomed.
That would
be quite enough to demonstrate how the conflicting interests of the competing regional
powers will perpetuate this conflict into future generations. But now we have
to consider the world powers that have involved themselves.
The United States of America: In the
days of the Cold War, the USA competed with Russia for influence in the region.
It was one of several arenas in which the two superpowers sought to defeat the
other without the direct involvement of their military power. As the
competition advanced through the 1970s, the U.S. slowly but steadily boxed the
Soviet Union out of the Middle East until the only ally Russia had left was
Syria.
That left
the U.S. with a victory but also a burden of leadership that it has not been
able to meet. In truth, it is not possible that any nation could meet it.
The U.S. has
found itself in a state of futility as it has tried to lead a peace process in
the Middle East between the Israelis and Palestinians. With an assist from
Anwar Sadat, who made peace with Israel because it helped Egypt, the fear of
states like Jordan, who fought a ferocious battle in the early 1970s to kick
the PLO out because the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization, led by Yasir
Arafat) was destabilizing the country, the U.S. pushed Russia out of the Middle
East, but learned that the goal of peace was elusive.
While the
U.S. would like to continue as the Grand Master, weak leadership on the part of
its presidents has allowed others to re-enter the game. (I choose the word
deliberately. Great Powers vie with one another as if they were playing a war
game produced by Avalon-Hill, forgetting the devastation and loss that ordinary
people suffer because war is not a parlor game played with plastic pieces and
cards.)
Having
initiated the Iraq War that deposed Saddam Hussein, struggling against an
insurgency that it did not expect, coming up with a winning solution in the ‘Surge’
of David Petraeus, but then abruptly pulling out when there was a change in
administration, the U.S. seeks to extend its legacy and influence in Iraq by
supporting the government.
In Syria,
the U.S. has long designated the country as a supporter of terrorism. It wants
the Assad regime replaced. Therefore, it supports the rebels.
But the
current mood in the U.S. is that two wars are enough. While the U.S. is happy
to fly overhead and drop bombs, it will not land troops. It is capable of
putting a third ‘Desert Storm’ into Syria and taking out Daesh. But perhaps the
bitter experience of its other two wars has taught the U.S. that winning
battles is not enough. A superpower must consider what it will leave behind
when it departs.
The flux of
the U.S. between speaking softly and swatting a big stick has eroded the
confidence of the world in its leadership. The world has learned not to trust
in the U.S., but to take the measure of each new president and figure out what
that means. In the current case, weakness and an amazing ability not to perceive
how the world is laughing at him.
Air strikes
mean little in terms of winning a battle, how much less a war. The U.S. has
tried limiting itself to air strikes over the past 25 years. While great damage
results, it does not break an enemy’s resolve, it reinforces it. The ‘Shock and
Awe’ opening of the first Gulf War showed that the pyrotechnics mean little.
Then there are
the drone strikes, a policy of assassination that the U.S. has not tolerated
since the Nixon administration. Except that drone strikes rarely make the news
and the killing of innocents from these strikes never make the news. People are
unaware. What is the cost-benefit ratio of taking out one terrorist at the cost
of killing dozens of innocents, which turns the local populations against the
United States?
The U.S.
pursues a losing strategy and everyone knows it. But it persists because …
well, leadership. And Russians. And autopilot.
France: Somewhat sitting on the
sidelines, France now finds itself the object of an organized terrorism
campaign that began with the Charlie Hebdo attack last January. France has long
been eclipsed by Britain as the preeminent European power and has sought to
regain its influence and dominance it last enjoyed when Talleyrand was foreign
minister for its king (that gives you an indication we are talking centuries
here), but a direct attack brings about a response worthy of Napoleon or the Franks.
France wants
to destroy Daesh for more than its internal security. Its ideals that it
inherited from its revolution are under assault. France has cast aside its
reservations about borders and whatever else. It is going after Daesh in the
same way that the public immolation of a captured pilot galvanized Jordan.
Russia: As mentioned earlier, Russia
seeks to preserve its only ally in the Middle East: Assad. Its goal conflicts
with the U.S. goal to replace Assad. Russia has military bases in Syria that it
does not want to lose and believes Assad is its best bet to keep them.
Therefore,
when Russia feared that Assad was about to be swept away, it moved in. In a big
way: air power and now, if reports are believed, 150,000 troops.
Russia first
went after the ‘moderates’ backed by the U.S. and its western allies. That
pushed the rebels back who might have gotten Assad since Western air power was concentrated
on Daesh.
The West
complained but Russia continued on. And now we must take a detour into the
Peace of Westphalia and the Great Powers Doctrine, because that is what we see
taking place in the actions of world powers in Syria.
The Peace of Westphalia concluded Europe’s
religious wars and the attempts of one person to achieve hegemony over the
others on behalf of the Holy Roman Empire and the Pope. What replaced empire
establishment was recognition of national sovereignty. Did that mean that the
nations of Europe stopped trying to expand at the cost of the others? No, but
it meant that whenever one power gained dominance, the other powers aligned
against it to limit its expansion.
We see that
at play today. In Europe, Russia is the power that the others are trying to
limit. Thus, Britain, Germany, and France are working to halt Russia’s
influence in Eastern Europe, Ukraine, and the Baltic states. Now that Russia
has intervened in Syria, the other powers are also active (except Germany, who
does not act outside its borders as a result of its consecutive losses in the
last century’s European wars) in trying to limit Russia’s activities.
Thus the
West supports the ‘moderate’ rebels. Russia works to stop them. Because the
world powers are not united against the threat of Daesh, Daesh exploits the
opportunities.
Russia seeks
to undermine the U.S. and its European alliances by reaching out to France
after the November 13 attacks. The puppy? And Hollande jets to Moscow for
discussions? Say what you want about Putin, the man is a genius at realpolitik and exploiting differences,
not to mention reading into other world power’s leaders characters and finding
their weaknesses.
Everyone
wants to crush Daesh, but only after ensuring it will give them an advantage in
the global competition amongst the Great Powers.
Britain: Fashionably late to the party,
I would like to believe Britain when it says it has the bases (proximity) and
munitions (accuracy) that no one else has and it can do the job the Americans
and French cannot.
More likely,
Britain is reacting to two things: one, reports that it is the next target for
a sustained campaign of terrorism that France has seen over this year of 2015.
Also, Great
Powers. Britain feels the need to intervene to oppose Russian activity. 150,000
troops, if true, means that Russia is impatient and will move to crush all
opposition to Assad swiftly, moderate rebels, Daesh, and anyone else. Britain
needs to get into the game.
This is why
this conflict will not wrap up anytime soon. Everyone shares the objective, but
only works to achieve it at the expense of others. That means rather than being
focused on the objective, they are focused on their position vis-à-vis the
others.
I offer this
to you for your consideration, debate, comment, and rebuttal. Understand only
one thing, that in discussing the various players, I am not biased in favor of
any particular one, even my own country, except that the evil of Daesh must be
dealt with and eliminated.
