The Syrian Civil War has been one of the best recorded, as well as one of the most brutal wars. This episode tracks the events that led to the civil war, from decolonization to dictatorships to religious and ethnic struggle. It explains the combatants on the multi-sided war and the outside players such as The USA, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, who struggle to find a side to support. The brutality ramps up when eventually the chaos leads to a new front in the war, when The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria emerges.
The Syrian Civil War has been one of the best recorded, as well as one of the most brutal wars. This episode tracks the events that led to the civil war, from decolonization to dictatorships to religious and ethnic struggle. It explains the combatants on the multi-sided war and the outside players such as The USA, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, who struggle to find a side to support. The brutality ramps up when eventually the chaos leads to a new front in the war, when The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria emerges.
Syrian Civil war 13
Revolution in SYRIA
Mouawiya Syasneh was only 14 years old in early 2011, he and his 3 friends decided to spray paint some graffiti outside of their school in Daraa, Syria. They did this to protest the corrupt police of their country, who had repeatedly harassed them and their friends.
In the months prior to this act of vandalism the neighboring Arab countries of Syria had been engulfed in a series of protests known as the Arab spring protests and after hearing about the fate of the dictators in Egypt and Tunisia (who had recently stepped down after the revolutions in their countries.)
The children spray painted –
“Next it’s your turn, doctor!”
A Reference to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, who was previously a British-trained Ophthalmologist
The Mukhabarat or secret police, arrested the four graffiti artists, and refused to tell their parents where they were. The police tortured the children.
“They tortured us,” Syasneh said. “But they released us after people began pouring into the streets when the anti-regime demonstrations began.” ‘
Its always a difficult thing to determine when massive protests turn into a civil war. For Syria the date has been narrowed down to March 15th 2011, also known as The Syrian Day of Rage. This was the day protestors began marching in mass numbers on the streets of Damascus and Aleppo, Syria’s two largest cities, demanding democratic reforms, the release of political prisoners and an end to the martial law declared by the current president Bashar Al-Assad’s father Hafez al-Assad
One of the most dangerous and violent times to be alive was Europe in the 16th century. After the invention of the printing press made books widely available, literacy rates skyrocketed all over Europe. Europe experienced one of the most dangerous transformations; that of an educated populace. Following its invention in 1440 Europe went through the protestant reformation and the religious wars, where untold acts of brutality occurred. The protestant reformation began On October 31, 1517, when German scholar Martin Luther nailed his complaints against the catholic church outside a church door in Wittenberg.
5 years later Martin Luther translated the bible from Hebrew and ancient Greek to a language that peasants and the lower classes could understand; German. With information spreading throughout Europe, unrest occurred in every corner.
490 years after Martin Luther nailed his complaints on that church another equally important event occurred… The first Iphone was released. Besides being awesome and giving us access to the internet at all times the Iphone came with a decent quality camera inside of it which allowed people to record and post information on social media with ease.
In the words of a Syrian friend of mine who previously lived under the Assad regime.
“Under Assad It's a hierarchical system based on bullying”
A few months before Mouawiya Syasneh and his friends were arrested, ON December 17th 2010 in another Arabic country, Tunisia, A street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi was continually getting harassed by the local police. He reached a breaking point when a 45-year-old female officer Faida Hamdi slapped him in the face, spat at him, confiscated his electronic weighing scales and tossed aside his produce cart.
Bouazizi was born into poverty and had to take up the vendor job as a way to support his large family. He had to go on credit to get the produce. This wasn’t the first time the police had confiscated his goods.
Bouazizi, angered by the confrontation, went to the governor's office to complainand to ask for his scales back. The governor refused to see or listen to him, even after Bouazizi was quoted as saying, "If you don't see me, I'll burn myself." Bouazizi then acquired a can of gasoline from a nearby gas station and returned to the governor's office. While standing in the middle of traffic, he shouted, "How do you expect me to make a living?" He then doused himself with the fuel, and set himself alight with a match at 11:30 A.M. local time, less than an hour after the altercation.
Within hours of his self immolation, protests sprung up all over the country, meant to protest widespread corruption prevalent throughout Tunisia and less than a month later the dictator of Tunisia fled the country.
Within a month of the Tunisian revolution, revolution had spread all over the Arabic world. Started by people living in the same conditions as Mohamed Bouazizi, Mouawiya Syasneh and my Syrian friend.
The reason it spread so fast was because of cell phone footage and social media. News agencies could barely keep up with the posting of videos online and on the ground accounts.
Colonialism and Baathism
“One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.”– Otto von Bismarck (1888)
The Arab world is a diverse collection of states located in the middle east. The middle east is one of the most complex places to study,
The reason for this complexity is in the middle east there is such a wide range of religions, cultures, languages etc. Imagine the Balkans on steroids, which within the last 30 years and located in Europe had a genocidal nightmare due to differing religious and ethnic tensions. The size of just the middle east (this is excluding the Arabic, or Islamic countries like Tunisia, Sudan, Morocco etc.. located outside of the traditional region) Is about the size of the united states, The Balkans is a little bit smaller than the US state Texas.
Another reason for this complexity, was the partitioning and colonization of the middle east by Britain and France at the end of that Great European War Bismarck spoke of.
Britain and France added to their colonial empires’ vast regions of the middle east taken from the defeated Ottoman Empire.
In these regions were a multitude of smaller religions languages and cultures. The British and French understood this, and they found a way to rule appropriately when Decolonization began after World War II. They often times would leave large minority ethnic groups in charge of a country, the borders of which the European powers had created. This was meant to keep the minority group dependent upon Britain and France. If they did not have European support, to buy weapons, for logistics etc. Tribalism would shed its ugly face; old hatreds would re-immerge and the middle east would have Turned into the genocidal nightmare that was the 90s Balkans.
From this situation arose the ideology of Ba’athism, As said by that same Syrian friend, I mentioned earlier….
“Baathism is like Nazism, you must praise it daily as a child” if not you get hit with sticks
Baathism – is an ideology born out of the suffering and trauma inflicted by western imperialism. The founder of Baathism Michel Aflaq (Syrian) believed Karl Marx’s Idea that the driving force in history was class struggle, however he viewed it from a middle eastern lens… He believed that the most important struggle was between Arabs and their European capitalistic colonial oppressors not the bourgeois and the proletariat.
Baathism preached nationalism but not in the same way an American, Australian or British person might. Baathism is about Pan-Arabic nationalism, the dream of a middle eastern state, an Arab state unified by culture, history, and language.
The Baath party slogan – Unity, Liberty, Socialism
Socialism in contrast to the Western view of socialism, where the means of production would be seized and shared equally among the working class was different in Baathism, Baathism saw it as the states place to control the means of production, the state being an elite few, who would distribute the resources and means of production among the Arabs.
History of modern Syria
Syria is a unitary republic consisting of 14 governorates and is the only country that politically espouses Ba'athism. Called a Ba’athist republic. Similar to North Korea and china, it is a one party state.
Modern Syria was first established in 1920 as the Arab Kingdom of Syria under King Faisal.
The state was planned to be a pan-Arabist nation not just a Syrian one. But fell under French colonial rule as a mandate rather than achieving self-independence
The colonial state was feudal in character with an oligarchic leadership in charge. It is estimated that 3,000 Syrian families owned half of the land in Syria.
In 1946 decolonization was taking place between the great powers of Europe and Britain offered France an ultimatum over the mandate. France accepted and the mandate was dissolved.
After the dissolution, the same elite that had governed remained in power,
The Syrians in the same year, along with other arab countries then declared war on the newly declared state Israel and invaded it to liberate the Arabic Palestinians. The Syrian president Shukri al-Quwwatli instructed his troops “to destroy the Zionists”.
If you are interested in this the history of the Arabs or Isreal I talk more about this in an episode I did previously called Suez Crisis. It’s a 3 part series on the Suez Crisis so go and check it out if you want.
To summarize the Arab-Israeli war, the Israelis won a stunning victory which shocked, destabilized and humiliated the Arab world.
The shock caused the military to seize power in Syria and the following years the military reformed the state taking power away from the oligarchic class and introducing the middle class to Syrian politics. This was the first military overthrow in the Arab world.
the next 20 years would be turbulent times for Syria, Syria seems to me like it was looking for strong leadership, a charismatic demagogue like the Egyptian Gamel Abdel Nasser. Eventually in 1956 (coinciding with Nassers defeat and downfall in the Suez Crisis) Syria would turn to the soviets for this security by signing a pact, the pact would give the soviets influence in the Syrian government and Syria would gain military weapons for defense against the newly backed Western Zionist state.
Nasser wasn’t down and out as in 1958 the Syrian president Al-Quwwatli and the Egyptian president Nasser announced a union, creating the United Arab Republic.
This worried the Ba’athist elements in Syria, you would think that under the Ba’athist pan Arabist state ideology it would be a great victory, well partisan politics are never that simple. and shortly after in 1963 a coup d’etat was staged by major Salad Jadid and Captain Hafez al-Assad
Jadid was the face of the revolution and Assad a major player. The coup led to a 7-year dictatorship under Jadid.
Jadid and Assad implemented Martial Law which was one of the cataclysms that led to the Syrian civil war nearly 50 years later. Under this Martial Law constitutional protections for citizens were suspended.
6 day war 1967
Strike the enemy’s settlements, turn them into dust, pave the Arab roads with the skulls of Jews.
-Hafez Al-Assad- on commanding the Syrian army, during the 6 day war 1967
Soldiers of Israel, we have no aims of conquest. Our purpose is to bring to naught the attempts of the Arab armies to conquer our land. -Moshe Dayan- Israeli Minister of Defense
"The Israelis know that if the Iraqi or the Iranian army came across the Jordan River, I would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch, and fight and die," Bill Clinton (who dodged the draft in Vietnam)
1,000 years ago and thousands of kilometers away the Feudal kings of Europe were risking their lives and the lives of their people to reclaim this area called the holy land. Little has changed in this time….
So much of the middle east has been dominated by the state of Isreal, although it is extremely small in land size and population compared to its neighbor states. Isreal has been the major determiner of events in the middle east since its creation in 1946. In the first half of Isreal’s creation it was the Arabs disdain for Zionism and for what they saw as a foreign invader in their land that created this influence. Not the Jewish states foreign policy…
The 6 day war fought in 1967 was another war where ISreal humiliated Syria and the Arabic world. Nasser the leader of the Arab world resigned in shame after this defeat.
The defeat led to massive destabilization in the neighboring Arabic countries involved. Syria was one of the countries who joined the war against Isreal, and lost the Golan heights (a region still contested to this day).
Jadid who was the leader of the civilian government and Al-Assad who was the leader of the military were both under massive scrutiny after the humiliating defeat. Jadid trusted Assad as he had never shown that he desired power. Although Jadid was slow to see Assad's threat, shortly after the war Assad began developing a network in the military and promoted friends and close relatives to high positions.
Assad believed that Syria's defeat in the Six-Day War was Jadid's fault, and the accusations against himself were unjust. The two began seeing differences in their political beliefs.
Jadid was a hardcore Ba’athist, who prioritized socialism and the “internal revolution” where Assad wanted the leadership to focus on foreign policy and the containment of Israel.
A few years later Hafez Al-Assad seized power in a bloodless coup, he ordered his loyalists to arrest Jadid and his followers. The coup was unknown to the outside world. the only evidence was the disappearance of newspapers, radio and television stations.
The new state formed a Cult of Personality around Al-Assad and he continued the Martial Law. He ruled for 30 years until his death in 2000.
His heir apparent in the 90s was his eldest son Bassel Al-Assad but when he tragically died in a car crash in 1994 Hafez recalled his 2nd eldest son Bashar from London to become his heir apparent…
Bashar was the 2nd son of the Al-Assad family, the surname meaning Lion in English. His paternal grandfather changed it once he achieved minor noble status. Bashar as a child, was quiet, reserved and lacked interest in politics or the military. The Assad children reportedly rarely saw their father,[43] and Bashar later stated that he only entered his father's office once while he was president.[44] He was described as "soft-spoken",[45] and according to a university friend, he was timid, avoided eye contact and spoke in a low voice. He was described as a "geeky I.T. guy" during his time in London.
PRE CIVIL WAR 2000-2010
Bashar Al-Assad was actually a pioneer of bringing the Internet to Syria and it was widely thought that he would have been a reformer in his early years, many had high hopes and believed he would bring democratization to Syria
Although Assad allied with the West during the US’s war on Terror, Assad was and still is an outspoken critic of the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. He has actively aligned himself with Tehran who during the War on Terror President George W Bush labeled Iran a member of his “axis of Evil”
Syria went through Turbulent times during Assads early years, a drought brought on by global warming said to have been the worst ever recorded in Syrian history occurred 2006-2011.
Syria experienced an overflow of Refugees from nearby destabilized countries, Iraq and Lebanon. Totalling about 1.5 million. Many of these refugees were a direct result of the US’ War on Terror
Nepotism caused by the Assad family, where people connected with the government saw themselves grow richer and the people not connected saw their wealth not increase at all was especially bad compared to neighboring countries. (syrias GDp in 2010 was only 2,834$ comparable to many sub-saharan African nations).
Corruption and torture still remained widespread
Bashar Al-Assad is very charismatic, he speaks English and often gives interviews to the western press. In these interviews he is calm and comes off as honest, he does not shy away from calling out the hypocrisies of the west and America but he doesn’t do so directly in an offensive way. If you read the YouTube comments under his interviews, you can get an idea of his charisma. More often then not he has people praising him in the comments section while showing disdain for the seemingly arrogant journalists.
1:00 – 2:20
My Syrian friends call him a son of a bitch, many of whom have had family members tortured or killed by his secret police the Mukhabarat. They are controlled directly by Assad himself and due to the Martial Law and corruption are known to commit torture and crimes against humanity.
CONTINUE CIVIL WAR STORY
2011-2012
March 15th beginning
On December 14th 2011 US President Barack Obama spent the evening paying tribute to the troops who served in Iraq at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina. The following day he would end the 7-year occupation started by his predecessor George w Bush. He said the United Sates was leaving behind a “Sovereign, stable and self-reliant” Iraq. The next day an American Military ceremony was held in Baghdad putting a formal end to the US mission in Iraq and the last 500 soldiers left the morning of the 18th.
The day before the final American soldiers left Iraq Mohammad Bouazizi committed suicide by self immolation and just weeks after the US withdrawal, the middle east was in flames…
The Syrian Day of Rage quickly turned Violent as thousands marched on Damascus and Aleppo demanding democratic reforms and a release of political prisoners. police fired on protestors killing many. In response the protestors burned down a Ba’ath party headquarters among many other buildings
President Bashar al-Assad blamed "foreign conspirators" pushing Israeli propaganda for the protests.
After the violent response from President Assad demands of the protestors turned from democratization to an overthrow of the Assad regime.
Assad gave in to some demands, allowing multi-party elections to be had (on the condition that his party the Baath party hand chose the candidates)
He also ended the 1963 state of Emergency that led to the Mukhabarat having unlimited power.
It wasn’t enough however and In the town of Homs (located in central Syria) protestors began sleeping overnight to protest the Assad Regime, on April 18th at dawn security forces began an onslaught, killing dozens
Homs became known as the “capital of the revolution”
This sparked violence all over the country
By the end of May 2011, 1,000 civilians[16] and 150 soldiers and policemen[17] had been killed and thousands detained;[18] among the arrested were many students, liberal activists and human rights advocates.
a portion of the security forces in Jisr al-Shugur defected after secret police and intelligence officers executed soldiers who had refused to fire on civilians. They broke off from Assad and formed the Free Syrian Army or FSA
At this point the UN officially declared the situation in Syria no longer an uprising but a civil war.
The FSA is an umbrella term for the rebel militias and factions fighting in the Syrian Civil war.
They consist of many different groups ranging from pro-democratic to fundamental Sunni islamists, with only the overthrow of the Assad regime in common with each other. The FSA has never had unification and often times fight each other as much as they do with Assads forces.
In late 2011, it was considered the main Syrian military defectors group.[24][25] It had success against vastly better armed government forces. From July 2012 onward, ill-discipline, infighting and lack of funding weakened the FSA, while Islamist groups became dominant within the armed opposition.
The FSA uses predominantly geurilla tactics but have at different points in the war held some larger cities. Aleppo the 2nd largest city was their stronghold for most of the war.
The FSA has been supported by the USA, and the west to varying degrees, and the Sunni states of Turkey and the Gulf States.
Assad realizing the hypocrisy of the west supporting Islamist fundamentalists released some Islamist fundamentalists out of prison and allowed some Jihadists into the region to join the FSA. Adding fuel to the fire.
Eventually By January of 2012 Al Queda forms a new branch in Syria called Al-Nusra Front
RELIGION AND SECTARIANISM
Another complexity to the middle east revolves around religion. In the words of Bashar Al-Assad
On December 2011 Interview with Assad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s8UrZhkJRQ
“50 – 1:00
There are 2 major branches of Islam the dominant religion of the middle east, Sunni and Shia. The two have fought each other for control of the Muslim world since Muhammad ascended to heaven. The followers of Sunni islam followed the prophet’s closest companion (Abu Bakr) and the Shia follow the Prophets cousin and Son-in-law (Ali)
In the past century a cold war has sprung up in the middle east with the the Sunnis represented by Saudia Arabia, Shias by Iran. They fight proxy wars all over the middle east. Today the most famous proxy war is the War in Yemen.
Bashar Al-Assad is an Alawite.. A sect of Shia Islam that makes up the 2nd largest ethnic group in Syria, 11% to the 74% Sunni population. The Alawites are a mysterious group who kept their religion a secret from outsiders… leading to much speculation from the Muslim world. They believe in Reincarnation as well as drinking wine in moderation, in contrast to the dogmatic Sunni majority that makes up the country.
Before the Syrian civil war; there was a decades long civil war in neighboring Lebanon. Lebanon has been called the sister country of Syria and many Syrians consider the two the same country. During the Lebanese Civil war Syria occupied Lebanon for 29 years and supported and strengthened Hezbollah during this time.
Hezbollah is a Shia militia formed out of the Lebanese political faction. Hezbollah has so much grown in strength that it is said to be stronger than the nation of Lebanon’s army. Some of these people fought in the aforementioned Balkan wars to defend European Muslims. Hezbollah has been described as a "state within a state" and has been listed as a terrorist organization by many countries.
They around this time entered the war in Syria in support of Assad.
1st peace attempt 2012 april
By April 2012 the sitation in Syria was dire and the UN stepped in led by Kofi Annan attempting to broker a ceasefire. The rebels and Syrian Army kept fighting even as attempts at peace were being made. Peace attempts kept breaking down and Annan desperately turned to Iran to help mediate. The peace plan practically collapsed by early June and the UN mission was withdrawn from Syria. Annan officially resigned in frustration on 2 August 2012
The Houla massacre May 25, 2012
some witnesses and survivors stated that the massacre was committed by the pro-government militia Shabiha. In English the translation is (Ghosts)
The Syrian government alleged that Al-Qaeda terrorist groups were responsible for the killings, and that Houla residents were warned not to speak publicly by opposition forces
The fifteen nations of the U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned the Syrian government for firing heavy weapons at civilians.[1] The U.S., U.K., and eleven other nations jointly expelled Syrian ambassadors and diplomats from their territories.
In the same year The Battle of Aleppo began, called Syria’s Stalingrad. The battle was marked by widespread violence against civilians and frequent war crimes. Hundreds of thousands have been displaces by the fighting. Aleppo would see some of the fiercest fighting of the war. On 6 September Kurdish activists reported that 21 civilians were killed in the Kurdish neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsud in Aleppo, when the Syrian Army shelled the local mosque and its surroundings.
Shortly after the Kurds formed an independent state in the Northwestern regions of Syria in order to protect Kurdish civilians.
THE KURDS
In the mountainous regions of the middle east live a people known as the Kurds. Who famously didn’t support the Americans at the Naval landings of Normandy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHkd4t8or9w
-TRUMP NORMANDY KURDS-
Between 25 and 35 million Kurds inhabit a mountainous region straddling the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia. They make up the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East, but they have never obtained a permanent nation state.
Due to this lack of a nation state their language has never solidified. There are 3 branches of the Kurdish language and it is not mutually intelligible. Leading to more disunity among the worlds largest ethnic group without a home state.
across the border in Syria sprung out of the Syrian civil war in 2012 a Kurdish state called Rojava.
when the civil war started Assad pulled his troops out of the rural mostly Kurdish areas of northeastern Syria to defend the more populated Urban cities of the west. This left a power vacuum along the Turkish border and the Kurds rose up to create the state they called Rojava.
Many Kurdish soldiers in both the Government and FSA armies defected in order to defend the new Kurdish state.
The state pushed for democracy and Womens rights and promised protection and equality for all ethnic groups, (arabs Assyrians, Not just Kurds) (ARTICLE 28 ALL WOMEN AND MEN ARE EQUAL IN THE LAW) Women even fought alongside men in their unit the YPJ Womens protection Units (Peoples protection units YPG -regular soldiers)
As the war intensified and chaos erupted at all ends of Syria Outside players began getting involved. The Sunni Gulf states and Turkey began funneling weapons into Syria to support the rebels. In response to this Iran began sending weapons and officers and Hezbollah took an active role to support Assad the Syrian government.
By 2013 Acts of Brutality were common
On 26 March 2013, a rebel commander Khaled al Hamad who commanded a brigade known as Farooq al-Mustakilla. ate the heart and liver of a dead soldier and said "I swear to God, you soldiers of Bashar, you dogs, we will eat from your hearts and livers! O heroes of Bab Amr, you slaughter the Alawites and take out their hearts to eat them!" in an apparent attempt to increase sectarianism.[86][87] Video of the event emerged two months later and resulted in considerable outrage, especially from Human Rights Watch which classified the incident as a war crime. According to the BBC, it was one of the most gruesome videos to emerge from the conflict to-date.
The Obama administration horrified by the escalation and mounting death toll signed a secret order to train Syrian rebels, but the plan stalls. The USA has a difficult time finding someone to support in the region.
All 3 factions were known to fight each other the Government forces, FSA and Kurds. And often times the rebels would fight other rebels.
By this time in mid 2013 The Kurds controlled the northern regions connected to Turkey. The FSA also controlled northern regions as well as pockets of resistance around the west and North east of Syria.
GAS ATTACK
On August 21st 2013 Chemical weapons were launched into suburbs of the town of Ghouta. Estimates of the casualties range from 300-2,000, many of whom were civilians, women and children. UN investigators called a 2 day ceasefire to investigate and discovered the use of illegal Sarin gas, Violating the Geneva convention and Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
The FSA, European Union and Arab League blamed Pro-Assad forces for the attacks and pro-government forces and The Russians government blamed the rebels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFpanWNgfQY
2:55 – OBAMA SPEAKS ABOUT GAS ATTACKS
Russia steps in and convinces the USA to allow Syria to turn over its chemical weapons. The USA backs down. However chemical weapons were not turned over.
What this did is cement the Proxy war as now a proxy war between the great powers. Russia and the USA. China also aids Assad and Russia, in blocking UN support.
While outside powers squabbled among each other over what should be done in Syria a new threat arises In nearby Iraq.
A bookish scholar named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who leads a small splinter-group from Al-Qaeda in Iraq called ISI - The Islamic State Iraq. Decides to take advantage of the weakened state in Syria by around late 2013. He spends the rest of the year absorbing jihadists from prisons all over Iraq strengthening his army. He disavows orders from his higher ups and sends his force into Syria to invade, with the purpose of carving out an Islamic caliphate meant to usher in Judgement day.
Strengthening his army with Jihadists from all over the world,
Baghdadi forms a new and terrifying opponent in the war The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIS.