Civil War in Syria | ||
By Mohammad Ahmadi Entering the third year of the conflict, a lot of evidence points to the fact that the civil war in Syria will not be settled militarily in the near future. The government and rebels or terrorists are locked in a battle for survival that does not permit any compromise. External supporters of both sides consider the conflict to be a zero-sum game with far-reaching, for some even existential, consequences for their own strategic position. With their diplomatic, financial and military support the external supporters of the terrorist are stoking up the conflict and strengthening the hardliners. This article analyzes the present and (foreseeable) future implications of the continuing civil war for Syria and the region. It also looks into the main factors that are responsible for the dynamics of the conflict’s escalation and attempts to find entry points on the local, regional and international level which could reverse or at least halt these dynamics.
Military situation and domestic balance of powerIn Spring 2014, the military confrontation between the government and rebels is continuing unabatedly. The government is liberating large parts of the country from the control of terrorists. Various rebel groups control villages and smaller towns as well as rural areas in the southwest and southeast of the country and along the Lebanese and Turkish borders. Their main instrument is intimidation of the public. Yet, the rebels have so far not succeeded in completely and lastingly controlling larger, contiguous areas or one of the major cities. Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama and Deirez-Zor are still controlled by the government . What is more important is that the rebels are unable to win the support of the civilian population in the occupied areas. Since the rebels started offensives in Damascus and Aleppo in Summer 2012, the government has attempted to recapture the occupied parts of Damascus, Homs and Aleppo. In May 2013, the government regained control over the strategic locations on the routes between Damascus and Beirut and Damascus and the coastal mountains. The fighting has entailed massive effects on the civilian population. In mid-February 2013, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, NaviPillay, estimated that the number of deaths since the beginning of the rebellion had risen to nearly 70,000. Tens of thousands of missing persons add to the score. At the end of April 2013, the United Nations registered or listed for registration more than 1.4 million refugees in the neighboring countries of Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. With this, the number of the registered refugees has nearly tripled since the beginning of the year, with no slowdown in sight: in April alone, some 250,000 refugees were registered, double the number of January 2013. In addition, by mid-April, the number of internally displaced people was estimated at more than four million. Thus, more than one-quarter of the population of Syria has been displaced fleeing from the violence sparked by terrorist groups supported by some Arab countries and some Western states. In the areas affected by fighting, public services have all but broken down. This affects medical care and schools but also public transport and garbage collection. At the same time, access to these areas is highly restricted due to the indiscriminate terrorist attacks; this also applies to humanitarian organizations. UN relief organizations and the International Red Cross, for example, can only work in those areas in which are relatively safer. Food, fuel and medicine are rare and expensive. In part, local coordination committees, charities and informal networks have been taking over public functions. Thus, a significant degree of self-organization is taking place at the local level because the terrorists block government services in order to pressure the public to win their support. Civilian and military forces cooperate to maintain public order, to provide the people with food and medicine and to fight the rebels. What is amazing on the side of the rebels (such as Jabhat al-Nusra or Kata’ibAhrar al-Sham) in many areas is their interfighting and victimization of the innocent people.
Conflict dynamicsIn Syria, the government is fighting a civil war, while the terrorists are fighting for their physical survival and are set on military victory, but they are losing every day. Compromise is therefore out of the question, except with the peaceful opposition with genuine grievances.
Initiatives on starting a ‘dialogue’ – as the public address by PresidentBashar al-Assad in early January 2013 at the Damascus Opera House are always accompanied by conditions and rhetoric which are not acceptable and are primarily intended to put the blame on the government as being responsible for the continuation of the war. The Syrian government is the target of a concerted strategy followed by Israel, Western and pro-Western Arab states. The aim of this strategy is to assert the interests of the West and Israel in the region with the help of regional allies such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and to push back all those actors who resist such a re-organization of regional policy – i.e., the axis of resistance, comprising Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. To this end, the pro-Western states employ extremists and terrorists from different parts of the world. This reality rationalizes and legitimizes the actions of the government against the extremists and terrorists. In addition, minority groups (notably Alawites and Christians) increasingly fear collective acts of revenge and a Taliban-like order in case extremists with the help of foreign forces take control of the affairs. The dreadful record of the rebels or ‘extremists’ and ‘al-Qaeda terrorists’, equipped and controlled by the United States and its Arab clients, in the in the areas under their control, have increased popular support for President Bashar al-Asad. The leeway for compromise with extremists is correspondingly little, and the determination to fight out violence by all means is very high. The share of salafists in violence has risen correspondingly. Additionally, more and more foreign extremists flock into Syria. The share of extremists is cause for concern. It is accompanied by an increasing confessionalization of the conflict which is stoked by the external sponsors of the violent extremists. Increasingly, the perception of a Taleban-like state (supported by the some Persian Gulf Kingdoms and Turkey) provides the majority of the population with reasons to believe that their very existence is at stake and that there will be chaos and genocide if the government falls. | ||
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