Sobering look at the Syrian situation, especially given the state of our foreign policies....
with Mike Walker, Col USMC (retired)
Syria Update
The Syrian civil war has entered a new phase following the resurgence of the Assad regime, as just a few months ago it appeared that the resistance movement was on the path to victory. For the resistance, that window of opportunity is shut for now and it begs the question: What has happened to change the situation?
The first important change was the rise of radical Islamist groups fighting with the resistance. When the troubles began back in March of 2011, the progressive pro-democracy groups dominated the movement. As is their want, these groups do best in a relatively peaceful arena where change is possible either through the ballot box or by non-violent civil disobedience. As it became clear that the issue would be decided through the barrel of a gun, the stakes for and commitment of the opposition changed. War is always an extreme option and the decision to kill or be killed proved to be a crystalizing event in Syria.
This led to three immediate results. First, once large numbers of people began to die, the possibility of a peaceful transition vanished. Second, many of the progressives we unable or unfit to make war, which left the battlefield to the most dedicated believers and that led to a disproportional increase in the numbers of radicalized Sunni Islamists in the ranks. Third, the future leaders of Syria are now going to come from the men leading the fight, either Assad and his commanders or the resistance commanders. Any resistance “leadership” sitting outside the war zone will be brushed aside once the war is decided.
The rise of the radical Sunni Islamist resistance groups (Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahram al-Sham, for example) was predictable, as was the infusion of foreign jihadists. During the height of the 2003-2011 War in Iraq, we saw roughly 200 foreign fighters per month enter Iraq across the Syrian border and most had Syrian documents, regardless of nationality. This jihadist pipeline that Assad permitted in the last decade has come to haunt him as it now is being used to topple his regime.
The radicalization of the resistance movement has proven to be a two-edged sword, however. While it provides fresh fighters for the resistance it also alienates the sizeable minorities. The non-Sunni Arabs had originally been divided: they either remained neutral or joined one of the two sides. As the resistance came to be dominated, not by Free Syrian Army (FSA), but by Sunni Islamist radicals, the minority populations – such as the Shi’a, Alawites, Druze, Syriac Christians, Turkmen and Kurds – became fearful and began moving into the Assad camp in late 2012.
This fresh infusion of supporters for the Assad regime helped to stabilize it in 2013. The earlier setbacks on the battlefield also forced the regime to formulate a new strategy. The original Assad policy had been to treat the uprising as a police action: go to the centers of resistance and restore order by any means possible. This passive-reactive approach proved unsuccessful and, as the situation became grim for Assad in late 2012, he finally was able to envision an effective plan: abandon the “police action” policy and focus on maintaining a continuous line of communication between his strongholds on the Mediterranean coast and Damascus. If successful, this will give him a secure base area to launch successive “pacification” operations to regain control over the country. The recent arrival of large numbers of Lebanese Hezbollah fighters has only improved the odds of success for Assad.
Because the original democracy movement did not succeed, we in the West are now faced with a grim future. We can try to resurrect an inclusive pro-democracy/FSA alliance along with other like-minded groups and hope they can win. If that proves impossible, a likely outcome, we will be forced to deal with either a radical Sunni Islamist regime or an embittered and battle-ready Assad regime.
A radical Sunni Islamist state will have a destabilizing effect on Iraq and Lebanon, if not Jordan and Turkey, to say nothing of the border with Israel. An extreme Salafi Sunni radical regime, however, will only lead to bloody chaos as these fanatics have proven incapable of effectively governing (look to the resentment and opposition towards the Taliban in Afghanistan today and the Sunni Awakening in Iraq). Finally, a victory by Assad will leave Syria with an anti-Western government that is not just beholden to Russia, but more significantly, to Iran and Hezbollah. That will certainly destabilize Lebanon and may heighten the chances of renewed attacks on Israel if Iran and Hezbollah demand Syrian support.
Semper Fi,
Mike
