Some Thoughts on the Recent Coup in Syria

One of the most interesting events in past few days has been the apparently sudden collapse of the Syrian government. While almost everyone on social media is claiming that it was ‘unexpected, a sign of Russian/ Iranian weakness or proof of the success of American economic sanctions on Syria- the reality is different. So here is an extremely brief summary of everything that went wrong, starting with the origins of the modern Syrian state in aftermath of WW1. It all started with a secret pact between England and France in 1916 on how to divide the peripheral areas of the Ottoman Empire after the allies won the war. The thing is.. when drawing borders for new countries such as Syria, Jordan and Iraq- they accidentally or deliberately, created nations filled with multiple religious and ethnic groups who did not like each other. In the case of Syria, this resulted in groups such as the Alawites, Christians, Armenians, Turkomans, Sunnis, Shias and Kurds ending up in the same nation state- and the results were predictable.

The short version of this story is that between the end of WW1 and late 1960s, Syria went from one revolt, uprising and coup to another. While this made for some very colorful history, it had a negative effect on nation building. Things quietened down only after Hafiz al-Assad came to power in a coup in 1970 and began a fairly effective, if brutal, reign till his death in 2000. He was succeeded by his son, Bashar al-Assad, a spare heir who trained as a ophthalmologist before having to take up the family business when his older brother, Bassel, died in a predictable car accident in 1994. While this brief history might not seem that relevant to the current situation, it is deeply linked to what happened a few days ago. Let us begin by acknowledging that modern Syria was always an inherently unstable nation state full of people who deeply disliked each other- which is why only a ruthless dictator such as Hafiz al-Assad could keep it united- similar to Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

So what were the systemic issues which made Syria ungovernable by anyone who was not a secular tyrant? Well.. it had the same problems as Saddam-era Iraq. For starters, the upper echelons of armed forces were dominated by co-ethnics of Assad family. The mistrust of non-Alawites (especially Kurds and Turkomans) and dominance of armed forces in civilian life (similar to Pakistan) meant that being an Alawite in good graces of al-Assad clan was the ticket to material riches. The armed forces, of course, had to recruit for many other groups but it was clear to everyone who was in charge and had a bright future. To be clear, this is no different from what can be seen in the armed forces of many other Arab countries (Egypt, Jordan, Iraq etc). But this combination of a unbridgeable distance between the officer core and others, in addition to the armed forces being mostly for suppressing internal dissent meant that that Syrian state was always fragile. This is also why the Syrian armed forces were never that effective in a real war against other countries, such as Israel, even though they were well equipped and trained by USSR and then Russia. Outside certain parts of that country, they were seen as an occupying force and acted as one.

At this point some of you might think that ethnic favoritism, high levels of corruption, poor investment in local economy and running a repressive government was the biggest cause of their recent downfall. However, these conditions are present in every single government in that part of the world. So, while they are contributing factors to the final outcome, it was not what caused the recent fall of al-Assad dynasty. The conventional view is that external interference in Syria starting in 2010-2011 was the real cause of the current situation, and that is sorta correct- but not in the way you might think. Nobody is denying that the Gulf Arab states, Turkey, USA and Israel poured billions and ungodly amounts of weapons into Syria starting sometime in 2011, however the effects of all this money and weapons cannot be fully understood unless you realize that well over half the population (especially in interior areas) had hated the government in Damascus for many decades.

External money and weapons caused the civil war only because there was a large and critical mass of people who wanted to overthrow the government. Any functional country with a mostly satisfied population would have been able to easily seal its borders and arrest/ kill external infiltrators or local agitators. The very fact that they were not able to effectively stop or interdict external combatants and weapons tells you a lot about its limited reach. The resultant civil war came close to causing the Syrian government to collapse in 2015. It was only the armed intervention by a combination of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah which allowed the government to retake most of the country by 2017. And this brings us to an obvious question. Why was the Assad government unable to convince most of the country to stop fighting by any means other than force? In my opinion, it comes down to two interlinked reasons. First, almost nobody believed that the Assad government would ever forgive them for rebelling- for very good reasons. Secondly, nobody of any significance in the Assad government wanted to share power.

In other words, a peaceful resolution to the Syrian war was not possible as long as that current system was in power. While USA and Israel continued to meddle in Syria after 2017, let us be honest about something- their presence in that country was tiny. A handful of illegal bases with a few hundred people each would be ineffectual unless they had solid support from the local population. But what about those economic sanctions and USA occupying parts of Syria with oil and wheat? Let us talk about the economic sanctions first. The thing is, both Russia and China had offered the Assad government large multi-billion dollar loans (on generous terms) and other help for rebuilding the country and this would have gone though regardless of any tantrum thrown by USA. However the Assad government refused such offers because those loans would have adversely affected the power dynamics of existing military elites with respect to rest of population. Elites in a failing system will always choose to run things into the ground than accept any solution which might reduce their current level of power in hierarchy. The Assad government could only exist in a closed society under tight control by existing bunch of elites.

That is why they repeatedly refused lifelines which could have kept them afloat or even allowed some sort of log-term reconciliation with some of the rebelling groups. The final straw in this litany of mistakes was the Assad government trying to reconcile with West and Gulf Arab states from a position of weakness. Maybe he saw Syrians, such as himself, as ‘honorary whites’.. who knows? The result of this rather Arab style of behavior was that he slowly antagonized countries such as Russia and Iran, while gaining nothing other than empty words and handshakes from his sworn enemies. This also why Russia and Iran encouraged him accept the so-called Astana agreement in 2017. There was no point in fighting for someone who is not interested in doing it for themselves. It was, therefore, a combination of war fatigue, inability of government to accept some change, deliberate acceptance of economic immiseration and trying to double cross long-term allies which finally caused the ‘sudden’ collapse of the Assad government. At this point, some might ask if there was another way to handle this situation? Well.. there was one unorthodox solution.

Given that the Assad government never really regained control of the Kurdish areas near Turkey and northern Iraq after early 2010s, a devious person would have let them form their own nation and officially recognizing it as Kurdistan. This would take the problem off his plate and put it on Turkey’s head. Once the various Kurdish factions started fighting with each other and Turkey, he could have gone after the Islamists in Idlib, who had already antagonized the local population. After that, he could provide more armed assistance to the newly established country of Kurdistan to fight Turkey. While this might seem like an uneven fight in favor of Turkey, the fact that Erdogan is not liked by USA would have resulted in western help for this new country. In any case, this part of Syria and its natural resources were already lost to the government in Damascus. Sticking Turkey with a nasty war/ insurgency on its eastern borders would have been genius- but the Syrian government was never known for creative thinking.

In the next post, I will try to make some predictions about the downstream effects of this recent coup in Syria.

What do you think? Comments?