The world is a busy place. In fact, you might consider it one of the largest and most complex systems imaginable. Understandably, it can become difficult to keep properly informed on all the events that are happening around the globe. This column is here to help ease this burden of ignorance from your shoulders by explaining these extended issues in brief, while remaining as thorough as possible.
To start, this week we will be tackling the very complex and tense situation in Syria that has risen to the spotlight in the realm of international news. With all of the daily updates on the matter, it can be difficult to understand what spawned the original conflict, and why it has grown into such a large, international mess.
The best place to start understanding the complexity of the conflict is to gain an idea of the diversity of the Syrian population. Sunni Muslims account for a significant majority of the population – around 60% – while other religious groups are in the significant minority. Most important of these religious minorities are the Alawites, a subsection of the Shia Islam faith, who comprise approximately 12% of the Syrian population. Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims typically hold each other in very negative lights, due to historic disputes that lead to the original division of their faith.
This becomes a very key point to keep in mind when we consider that the vast majority of governmental powers in Syria are Alawites, including the current President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad. Unfortunately, the Assad government does not take the equality of all religions in mind, giving Alawites privileges and trusting positions of power in the country only to other Alawites, along with several other corrupt actions.
Syria is not the only country to have experienced an unjust government; various other Arab nations have been under oppressive regimes and, starting in late 2010, began a massive wave of revolutionary protests that we now know as the Arab Spring. Perhaps inspired by some of these actions, Syrian protestors began their own demonstrations against Assad in early 2011.
Despite the protests being rather small and peaceful in nature, the Syrian government was unforgiving in their response to the actions, and the military crackdown was swift and brutal with large-volume arrests, explicit torture of activists, and the use of lethal force against any opposition; many of the large-scale conflicts resulted in the deaths of civilians. This violent reaction only stirred more hatred for the government, prompting more and more unrest, eventually to the point where the Assad government deemed it necessary to use military force.
The peaceful nature of the protests quickly vanished, along with any hope of a civil resolution. Some officers from the Syrian Army defected from the government (reports stated that soldiers who refused to open fire on civilians were subject to summary execution). They joined armed civilians in the formation of the Free Syrian Army, with an aim to usurp the Assad regime. This marked the point in time when the conflict in Syria reached the status of a full-out civil war.
The situation is far more complex than a set of ‘good’ rebels seeking to overthrow a ‘bad’ government, though. The affiliations and political beliefs of those seeking to change the government are vast and varied– in reality, the only real factor that ties the rebels together is that they despise the current government more than anything else. Unfortunately, many experts speculate that this could mean a recipe for disaster when Assad almost inevitably falls, as the appointment of a new leader could then spark another bloody struggle between different groups within the rebels themselves. The opposition is not morally clean, either– members of the Free Syrian Army have captured civilian villages and taken the inhabitants as hostages. All in the aid of tactics like cutting off supply routes and preventing the arrival of reinforcements to ongoing clashes between rebels and the Syrian Army.
Things then get even messier when we take a step outside of Syria, to look for external factors in the issue. Both Russia and China have strong ties with Syria, and have used their own vetoing power to halt any possible UN interference in the Syrian conflict. The nuances of these relations alone are incredibly difficult surmise, but in short the alliances are based with the idea that keeping the current Assad government is in the best interests of the respective countries.
Matters have gotten even worse with the recent introduction of chemical weapons into the fray, the pro-Assad forces using Sarin gas (a nerve agent which inhibits a synaptic transmission terminating enzyme, leading eventually to fatal lung muscle paralysis) killing over 1400 people at the end of this past August. The Geneva Protocol that was signed back in 1925 served as a ‘norm’ for warfare around the globe to prohibit the use of such weapons as a means of settling conflicts, based around the fact that, rather unlike ‘traditional’ means of warfare, these kinds of weapons kill vast numbers of people indiscriminately. Combatant and non-combatants alike are wiped out, and with little to no damage to the infrastructure– forces employing chemical weapons could capture entire cities without damaging any of the precious power supplies or facilities that would result from an area or carpet bombing with the same number of opposition casualties.
The United States is put into a very difficult position with Assad’s breaking of this protocol. President Obama has made it clear that he cannot allow for the act to go unpunished, especially if Assad continually refuses to cooperate — after all, what good is a world-wide standard against such weaponry if it is not enforced? But in order for the US to make any sort of militant action, it would have to ignore the decision of the United Nations, and make incredibly risky moves within the morally complex strife. Either action will be met with controversy, and either action will come with its own consequences.
Out of all the Arab Spring uprisings, Syria has by far been the bloodiest, accounting for three-quarters of all casualties in all of the protests throughout the Arab Spring. While the multiple layers of intricate issues that envelop the entire situation muddle out the details, a bleak prediction has been accepted by most analyses of the situation: Assad is not likely to fall quickly, and the bloodshed will not come to an immediate halt when he does. The conflict is far from over.
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