WHAT’S NEXT FOR SYRIA?
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
June 13 2013
by Robert Olson*
It now seems that the international conference organized largely
by the US and Russia to meet in Geneva at the end of June has been
postponed to the end of July, which means that it is likely that it
will not meet at all.
And if it were to meet, given the military gains that Syria has made
in the past month, the conference, at least on the part of the US and
the EU, would legitimize the Bashar al-Assad regime’s hold on power.
One could hardly imagine a stronger blow to the anti-Assad regime
coalition of the US, EU, Arab Gulf states and Turkey.
When the war began in earnest in March 2011, it was hard to imagine
that the powerful anti-Assad coalition would not be able to get the
best of the Syria, Russia, Iran and China alliance. One of the biggest
surprises has been the anti-Assad coalition’s underestimation of the
coalition to properly analyze the strengths of the Assad regime. More
than a third of all working age Syrians are employed by the regime,
while school and health care are free for the public. The big Sunni
bourgeoisie, enriched by the neo-liberal economic reforms of the
past 25 years, also support the regime. Even though 60 percent of
the armed forces are Sunni, the officer corps is largely Alawite,
as are other parts of the security and police forces. Russia and Iran
banked on the fact that Alawite dominance of the state’s apparatuses,
supported by the newly monied Sunni upper class, would allow them
to retain power unless militarily challenged by the US and/or EU
countries. As of yet that has not happened.
Given that the loss of life is now reported to be more than 80,000,
the substantial destruction of large areas of several cities and towns,
a reported 1.6 million refugees in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, and
3.6 million displaced within Syria itself, more than 20 percent of
the total population of Syria, and the instability being created in
adjoining countries, especially Lebanon, it seems to some that some
kind of resolution, even if by outside armed forces, is essential.
What is surprising to those who have been following the war is that
Syria’s two major foreign supporters, Iran and Russia, aided by
Hezbollah (Shiite) fighters have compelled the US and Europe to seek
a negotiated settlement to the war.
The major reason for the various Christian Arab, Armenians, Kurds
and Alawites, comprising nearly 40 percent of Syria’s population,
to support the Assad regime is their fear of a zealous and fanatical
anti-Christian Sunni Arab government coming to power containing strong
zealous and fanatical Salafists, Muslim Brothers and al-Qaeda elements.
Another complication of the war is that one of the main countries
that sought to topple the Assad regime after it realized that it would
receive little support from the US and Europe was Turkey, a major ally
of the US and EU, a member of NATO and an applicant to join the EU.
But after one year into the war, Turkey came to the conclusion that
it would not receive sufficient US and EU military support to topple
Assad.
By early 2012 Turkey was eager to topple Assad as his remaining
in power jeopardized Ankara’s desire to expand its booming economy
and trade with Syria in order to use it as a base to strengthen its
economic posture more strongly throughout the Middle East.
By early 2012 it was clear that Turkey, being the principal country
in the opposition, and sharing a 910-kilometer border with Syria
with several million ethnic Arab and Kurdish population on both sides
of the border, could be susceptible to increased tensions. And this
is what has happened. The ethnic tensions are particularly high in
Hatay province, which has an estimated ethnic Arab Alawite population
of 400,000-500,000, more than one-fourth of the population of the
province. Most of the Hatay Alawites support the Assad regime. Another
18-20 million Alevis, another non-Sunni Muslim minority in Turkey,
have sympathy with the Alawites of Syria because of shared religious
and cultural values.
The above demography and history was largely ignored by Turkey as
well as by the US and Europe. Neither Washington nor Ankara realized
that the Alawites, centuries-old victims of Arab Sunni discrimination
and biases, would fight to the bitter end if necessary to maintain
their power, society and culture. This was especially true when they
thought that the Assad regime would be replaced by an Arab Sunni
fanatical regime proclaiming its hatred of Alawites, Druze, Ismailis,
Christians and Kurds — backed by the US, Europe, Israel and Turkey.
*Robert Olson is a Middle East analyst. He is the author of “The
Ba’th and Syria: 1947-1982.”
From: A. Papazian
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-318166-whats-next-for-syriaby-robert-olson-.html