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Decade of Despair
Strategic Vision, Special Issue (Summer, 2021) Decade of Despair
A retrospective of Syria’s decade-long conflict shows little signs of closure
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Marwan Kabalan
A Kurdish YPG fighter. Several Western sources have described the YPG as the most effective force in fighting ISIL in Syria.
photo: Kurdishstruggle
In March 2021, the Syrian crisis reached its tenth year, with no end in sight. All parties to the conflict appear to be stuck in a vicious cycle as they continue to make the wrong decisions since the early days of the crisis. At the beginning of the Arab Spring, the Syrian regime thought that it was immune to revolution. A mere six weeks before the crisis, President Bashar al-Assad explained in an interview with the Wall Street Journal why his country was unlikely to go through the turmoil that hit Tunisia and Egypt. “Unlike Egypt and Tunisia, the foreign policy of my government enjoys tremendous support amongst Syrians,” he said. The opposition, on the other hand, thought that a Libya-like scenario could be repeated in Syria, and hopes for foreign intervention to help overthrow the regime persisted. Yet, when foreign intervention occurred, it came in favor of the regime. Eventually, the conflict drew in fighters from all corners of the world and dozens of countries got involved, turning it into a region-wide sectarian and geopolitical confrontation.
The early insurgency phase of the Syrian civil war was marked by the formation of the Free Syrian Army in July 2011 by a group of disaffected army officers. Angered by a government crackdown against largely peaceful protesters, these officers mounted a rebellion against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. An Arab League mission was sent in December 2011 to monitor the situation and bring about a peaceful solution to the crisis. The mission was abruptly ended shortly afterwards as fighting continued across the country.
In April 2012, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was designated as the UN-Arab League joint Special Representative for Syria. He was entrusted with the task of finding a solution to the conflict. A six-point peace plan was agreed upon by the United Nations Security Council but never implemented. On June 30, 2012, the Geneva communiqué was issued after a meeting of the UN-backed Action Group for Syria. It included a roadmap to solve the conflict. Fighting continued and escalated nonetheless.
The use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict was first reported on March 19, 2013, in the town of Khan al-Assal, northeast of Aleppo. A much larger-scale chemical attack occurred in the suburbs of Damascus on August 21, 2013. The Ghouta chemical attack was deemed the deadliest use of chemical weapons since the Iran-Iraq war, with estimated casualties of more than 800. The Syrian regime agreed to surrender its arsenal of chemical weapons afterwards, in compliance with a US-Russian agreement, to avoid a military strike by US forces.
Signs of radicalization
The Syrian opposition started to show signs of radicalization in early 2012 with the formation of the al-Nusra Front, an Al-Qaeda affiliated group. The surge in sectarian politics in Syria and Iraq led to the rise of a more radical group: the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). ISIL presented itself as the champion of Sunni Muslims against the rise of Shia power and Iran’s expansionist policies. Considering itself as the only representative of orthodox Islam, ISIL waged Jihad against almost everybody else and fought for control of territories with al-Nusra, the Syrian opposition factions, and indeed the Syrian regime. To counteract ISIL and what it perceived as
Sunni rebellions in Syria and in Iraq, Iran established Shia militias. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states supported the Sunni groups, and a war by proxy ensued, with Syria serving as the main battleground.
Under US President Barack Obama, the United States tried to keep its intervention in the Syrian conflict to a minimum. In June 2014, however, ISIL launched a major attack from its bases in east and northeast Syria. This sent shockwaves across the region when it defeated the US-trained Iraqi army and captured Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. On June 30, 2014, from al-Nuri Mosque in Mosul, the ISIL leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared the Islamic Caliphate. The fall of Mosul, the defeat of the Iraqi army, and the seizure of US-made equipment including 2,300 Humvee armored vehicles, was a major blow to the Obama administration. Faced by the resounding defeat of the Iraqi army, a reluctant Obama dispatched US troops back to Iraq to fight ISIL. A USled international coalition to destroy ISIL was formed in September 2014. To the chagrin of Turkey, the US turned to Syrian Kurds to help eliminate ISIL. It established, trained, and armed the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), the backbone of which is the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG).
By June 2015, Moscow had grown extremely concerned about the ability of the Syrian regime to survive as the Turkey-backed opposition forces came
very close to the heartland of the Assad regime. The July 2015 US-Turkish agreement to establish an ISIL-free zone in the northwest of Syria must have also troubled Moscow. Having clinched a nuclear deal with Iran, Moscow feared, Obama might grant Turkey a free hand in the Syrian conflict without having to worry about Iran’s response. The Iran nuclear deal in itself may have also contributed to Moscow’s
Free Syrian Army rebels fighting against Assad militias on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Maarat al-Numan in Idlib, Syria.
photo: Freedom House
US Army soldiers on patrol in Raqqa, Syria
photo: Delil Souleiman
decision to intervene in Syria. Moscow feared a possible US-Iran understanding on Syria that would not necessarily respect its own interests. The Russians also sought to secure a foothold on the shores of the Mediterranean by taking the Syrian port of Tartus. Having all that in mind, Russia decided to take the initiative, go on the offensive, and lead a direct military intervention in the Syrian conflict.
Taking sides
For many years, Russia, Iran, and Turkey have been bitter rivals in the Syrian civil war, supporting different sides in the conflict. Russia and Iran backed the Syrian regime, providing military, financial, and political support. Turkey supported the Syrian opposition and provided a safe haven for its political and military leadership. The relationship between Turkey and Russia in particular reached its lowest ebb in November 2015 when Turkey shot down a Russia fighter jet near its border with Syria. Relations improved afterwards, however, when both Iran and Russia condemned the July 2016 failed military coup in Turkey, expressing sympathy with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This rapprochement with Russia enabled Turkey to launch its first large-scale military operation inside Syria, Operation Euphrates Shield, in August 2016, wherein Turkish troops and Turkey-backed Syrian opposition factions recovered more than 2,000 square kilometers from ISIL and the Kurdish YPG fighters on the western bank of the Euphrates. The battle of Aleppo in December 2016 allowed Russia and Turkey to identify common interests in Syria. This led to the launching of the Astana process, which Iran joined later.
In January 2018, and with the help of Turkey, Russia hosted the Syrian Congress of National Dialogue in Sochi. The Congress brought together representatives from the Syrian regime and elements of the Turkey-based opposition. Its main objective was to set the stage for the launching of the constitutional committee. Former UN special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, also attended the meeting wherein an agreement was charted between him and the Russians to form a constitutional committee to rewrite the Syrian constitution as the basis for ending the conflict. After almost two years of negotiations and consultations, the committee was established in September 2019. It held its first meeting in Geneva on October 30, 2019. Since then, the committee has held several more meetings, but so far, little progress has been made.
American withdrawal
In February 2019, then-US President Donald Trump declared that ISIL had been 100% defeated in Syria and that he was ready to leave the Syrian territories east of the Euphrates River. To avoid creating a power vacuum and to silence critics who charged that the US was repeating its mistakes in Iraq (wherein a premature departure in 2011 allowed al-Qaeda to thrive and eventually become ISIL), Trump accepted an offer made during a phone call on October 6, 2019, with Turkish president Erdogan to take over the ISIL battle in Syria. The agreement with Turkey triggered a wave of anger in the United States. The president was attacked by both sides of the aisle for “selling out” his Kurdish allies (especially the YPG), who had fought in the war against ISIL.
Turkey’s paramount concern in Syria has always been the Kurdish question: It is Ankara’s ultimate objective to eliminate the threat posed by the YPG, which Turkey considers to be the Syrian branch of the PKK, and hence a terror group. Therefore, when Trump decided to withdraw, Turkey seized on the opportunity and launched its third military operation inside Syria to eliminate the YPG.
To contain the storm, Trump sent his vice president to Ankara to negotiate an end to the Turkish operation. On October 17, 2019, the United States and Turkey reached an agreement wherein Turkey, agreed “to pause its offensive for 120 hours to allow the United States to facilitate the withdrawal of the YPG forces from the Turkish-controlled safe zone.” It was striking that the ISIL leader, Al-Baghdadi, was located and killed in northwest Syria near the Turkish border just ten days after the inking of the US-Turkey pact. It also came a week after the October 22 Erdogan-Putin summit in Sochi, wherein
Russian soldiers clear mines near the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo.
photo: Russian Ministry of Defense
A shop in the weapons market in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan
photo: Eugene Khor
the two leaders agreed to push back Kurdish fighters from a safe zone along the Turkey-Syria border. Turkey and Russia may have played a key role in locating Baghdadi and in sharing intelligence with the United States in order to help president Trump justify his decision to withdraw from Syria. For completely different reasons, both countries have a vested interest in a US pull-out from Syria. Under pressure, however, Trump agreed to keep a few hundred US soldiers east of the Euphrates to control Syria’s oil and gas fields and prevent Iran from establishing a land corridor between Iraq and Lebanon through Syrian territory.
Solidifying power
Having regained almost 70 percent of Syrian territories, the Assad regime is likely to remain in power for the foreseeable future. Assad will seek to reclaim and solidify power in all major urban centers of the country. However, Damascus is likely to face increasing economic difficulties, as the United States continues to maximize pressure through the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act. The US sanctions stipulated in the Act are aimed at preventing the regime from declaring victory and forcing it to accept a negotiated solution to the crisis. Nevertheless, many fear that ordinary Syrians will suffer the most from the US sanctions, with Iraq’s notorious food-for-oil program
still very much alive in people’s memory.
Emboldened by US support, the SDF will further consolidate their position in the eastern part of the country and slowly begin to establish their own autonomous institutions. This could lead to a backlash from the area’s Arab majority, since Iran, Russia, and Turkey are all trying to woo the Arab tribes in the region to help expel US forces and suppress independence aspirations by the Kurds. Turkey will retain control of the 30km-deep safe-zone it claims as a buffer against the SDF. Russia will continue to patrol the safe zone, and in so doing aid in further entrenching the Syrian regime’s presence in the northeast of the country.
Prolonged US presence
With the complete loss of its territories, the threat of ISIL has been greatly reduced, though it is not completely eliminated. After the partial withdrawal of the US forces from the east of Syria in October 2019, attacks by ISIL sleeper cells increased. The Pentagon, which opposed former president Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria, will likely use this under US President Joe Biden as a pretext to justify a prolonged military presence in the eastern provinces of the country.
The Syrian regime will attempt to create an economically viable zone in the parts of the country it controls, predominantly in the west. The government will face a huge challenge, however, in trying to control the deteriorating economic situation. There is little clarity on how the government plans to deal with rampant inflation, US sanctions, and fuel shortages, especially given the poor economic conditions of its two main allies: Russia and Iran. With the lack of outside aid, the regime might end up ruling over a failed state.
Given the intransigence of the regime’s delegation during the meetings of the constitutional committee, and the voting rules within the committee, a political solution remains only a distant possibility. However, even if the remote eventuality of an agreement materializes, it is hard to see how fair and transparent elections can be held as long as the regime keeps control of the army and the security forces. Breaking this deadlock will require co-operation between the five big powers in the Syrian conflict: the United States, Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. The necessary conditions for any such cooperation are as yet non-existent.
When official security forces failed to defend the Yazidi population of Sinjar against ISIL purges in 2014, the Sinjar Resistance Unit (YBS) was set up.
photo: Kurdishstruggle
Dr. Marwan Kabalan is the head of the Diplomatic Studies Programme at the Doha Institute for Post-GraduateStudies. He can be reached at marwan.kabalan@dohainstitute.org
