Sameer Khan for BeyondHeadlines
The Syrian conflict when it first erupted after the Arab spring was the most surprising and unexpected protests in the Arab world. Even the best of the Arab or Middle East experts had not predicted that the people of Syria would dare to speak out or protest against the absolute dominance and Iron curtain of Bashar Al-Assad.
Few had any doubts about the simmering anger and resentment of Syrian people towards the authoritarian regime and police state of Hafez- al- Assad whose legacy was continued by his son Bashar Al Assad. The regime is totalitarian and shadows the Syrian people with secret police who have infiltrated every section of the society to keep watch on any flutter of dissidence. Thus, it came as a surprise to many when a section of the Syrian people dared to demand democracy and protested against the Syrian regime in 2011.
When the protest first started it was largely a peaceful but leaderless protest, and the protesters or the opposition was a large number of pro democracy activists that demanded democracy and came out to protest in the suburbs of Damascus and other cities. Actually, initially the protests demanded political liberalization, or a more open and inclusive political system and process, rather than regime change. Once the security forces used horrific brutality against them, the protests expanded to include calls for regime change. Also, the early protests began in Der’a, a small town at the Syrian-Jordanian border; it’s in southern Syria. That’s where a group of teenagers that wrote graffiti on the walls criticizing the Assad regime were arrested and tortured. The protest movement was extremely angry and the it expanded, and then eventually demonstrations broke out in other major cities, but not Damascus. It didn’t reach Damascus until about mid- to late-2012.
The massive demonstrations were was brutally crushed by the Syrian regime with all its might and unfortunately for the people of Syria the International community was too busy dealing with another regime, that of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya.
The Gaddafi’s regime would have also managed to hold onto power, and in fact would have been able to crush its Benghazi opposition and had deadened the opposition insurgency easily, had it not been the quick arming of its rebels by the international community and the no-fly zone and air support given to its rebels by the west.
Coming back to Syria, It was almost a year that the peaceful protests had lasted and were being crushed in the most brutal manner in crackdown by the Assad regime. The opposition were completely thrown to the wolves at this point of time. Almost a year after the first protests started did the Free Syrian Army (FSA) emerge as a form of armed opposition group. Free Syrian Army was the first form of organized opposition to the Syrian regime. It is primarily made up of Sunni renegade soldiers that defected from the Alawite-dominated Syrian Army.
There was a brief period when Free Syrian Army was on a roll and gaining ground and it appeared that they would soon turn into a massive opposition that would overrun the Syrian regime like Libya, but here again the game changer was the reluctance of the West to get involved in the conflict. This gave the much needed breather for the Syrian regime to arm itself. The Free Syrian Army had the motivation but lacked the superiority in arms and air power, and as a result the Syrian regime used its superiority in heavy weaponry and air dominance to keep the FSA from turning the tide or giving any decisive blow.
As a result, the Free Syrian Army soon started losing morale and ground in the battle, and this only got compounded by the lack of good leadership at the helm of FSA or any unified command or charismatic leader to keep up the strong opposition. The Islamist militias, some affiliated with Al Qaeda in form of Al Nusra Front and others, jumped into the conflict on the side of the Sunnis. Even up to this point the conflict was not defined as civil war or a Shia-Sunni conflict. The Syrian regime and Syrian army are Alwaite dominated, which is an offshoot sect of Shia Islam, yet there was nothing to openly suggest it was a Shia-Sunni conflict except for Al-Qaida and hard-line Sunni jihadists jumping into the battle, who expressly declare their intentions to topple the Assad regime and replace it with a strict Sharia-based Sunni Islamic state in Syria.
The battle lines were clearly defined; it was clearly a pro-Shia Alawite minority army vs. a Sunni majority conflict. Al Qaeda has no qualms about declaring Syrian regime as a pro-Shia / pro-Iran and anti-Sunni regime. And likewise with Al-Qaida having a Wahhabi ideology, the Syrian Alawite regime too openly sought Hezbollah’s support, which it probably already had but did not declare it openly and it turned into a Sunni versus Alawite pro-Shia civil war.
Hezbollah had clearly been supporting the Syrian regime as they share historical, religious, political, financial, military, and ideological reasons to do so. With Al-Qaida coming out in open support for the Syrian opposition, Hezbollah jumped in to safeguard the regime, which on its own clearly does not have the numbers to take on a motivated Sunni rebel force. Hezbollah not only joined the war to protect Assad’s interests, but also Iran, which it considers its strongest ally and its stanch supporter and supplier.
Syria and Damascus has a special place in history and ideology of Shia Islam, which Iran clearly sees itself as the flag bearer. Yazid who was responsible for the slaying of Husain was the Caliph/king of Syria and ruled from Damascus. One of the holiest shrines of Shia Islam, the Sayeda Zainab Mosque, which contains the tomb of Husain’s daughter and the granddaughter of Prophet Mohammad, is in a Damascus suburb. The religious site is major center of Shia religious studies and is an important destination of mass pilgrimage for Shias across the world.
With the overthrow of Sunni dictator Saddam Husain in Iraq who ruled the Shia majority, Iraq came strongly into the Shia fold with a clearly pro-Iranian leadership with Prime Minister Maliki at the helm. The Shias from Iran and worldwide got unfettered access to Shia holy sites of Karbala and Najaf which under the rule of Saddam was restricted, but on the other hand for Iran, Syria was a reverse case where its pro-Shia and pro-Iran dictator ruled a Sunni Majority. Hence, the fall of Syrian regime would mean the waning influence of Iran politically and geographically and relative to religious sites in Syria, thus the country is pivotal to Iran’s strategic, religious and political influence and reach in the region.
Most importantly the international community missed bus when immediately after the start of Arab Spring and pro democracy protests in Syria broke out it dragged its feet in its support for the Syrian opposition because of various geopolitical and other reasons. They could have tightened the screws on the Assad regime, declaring a no-fly zone and arming the Free Syrian Army, which was primarily a secular force at the time, to overthrow the Syrian regime.
This lapse allowed the Assad regime to convince its Alawite minority demographic in the country that survival of the regime was equal to their survival as whole, which may not have been true at that moment, but is certainly true to some degree today after so much bad blood and skyrocketing death toll continue to intensify in this conflict.
The lack of action by the international community also allowed Sunni fighters to enter the Syrian conflict, as they felt they were thrown to the wolves to fend for themselves, and some of them at least saw Al-Qaida as heroes and saviors. This unfortunately allowed Al Qaida to claim legitimacy to a cause which otherwise clearly has anti-West agendas.
The only winners in the Syrian conflict clearly seem to be the Syrian Kurds who are closer than ever to establishing Kurdistan, which, by providence and some kind of poetic justice, is getting closer by the day to this reality.
(The Author is Pune based Free Lance writer, Playwright and theater actor, He has keen interest in History and Arts. The author can be reached at myselfsameerkhan@gmail.com)
