This article was completed on the 11th of December and may not match current events in the region.
“It’s your turn, Doctor,” read the words sketched onto a wall by a teenager in Dara’a, a town in southern Syria. Nobody thought those words would cause a multifaceted conflict spanning nearly fourteen years. Throughout the Arab World, civilians rebelled against their rulers. Beginning in 2011, when a man committed suicide via self-immolation protesting President Ben Ali of Tunisia, the Arab Spring would soon usher in a period of revolutionary fervor. The passionate protests culminated in the overthrow of various leaders, namely Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Gaddafi, and Ali Abdullah Saleh, from Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, respectively. The leaders of these nations would be deposed, and transitional governments would be instituted. Unfortunately, all three revolutions would turn sour.
In 2013, Egyptians took to the streets, protesting President Mohammed Morsi, who was sworn in just a year before. Morsi is commonly associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Islamist organization labeled as a terrorist organization by six nations. Closely following the events unfolding in the country, the Egyptian Armed Forces led by General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, deposed Morsi and established an effective military dictatorship in the country. Likewise, in both Libya and Yemen, the transitional governments devolved into fighting between member organizations and parties, culminating in second civil wars that still divide both countries today. The counter-revolutions in these countries are a part of the larger “Arab Winter,” the authoritarian reaction against the revolutions in Arab nations. As the revolutionary climate froze throughout the Arab world, the Syrian revolution’s flame kept burning.
Whereas it took other Arab nations less than a year to depose their leaders, the Syrian opposition only entered Damascus just last week on December 8 after nearly fourteen years of brutal fighting. Nevertheless, the opposition that defeated the Ba’athist Assad regime was not the same opposition that began the fight against him. From the beginning of the conflict, two main ideological groups opposed the Assad regime. The factions were pro-democracy and islamists groups, although most protesters supported the transition into a democratic regime. Dangerous fundamentalist groups have taken over the largely grassroots and pro-democracy campaign by common civilians of Syria. In the wake of the war in 2012, the largest grouping of rebel groups was the Free Syrian Army, or FSA. In a signed statement, the group pledged itself to maintain democratic ideals and a secular state, nearly the antipode of the militia labeled in 2013 as the most effective in Syria, the Nusra Front. The Nusra Front was a jihadi Islamist organization that operated between the years 2012 and 2017 and was dedicated to overthrowing the Ba’ath Assad regime and replacing it with a modern Caliphate (Jabhat). Many soldiers and commanders originally fighting in the secular FSA defected to the Nusra Front, displaying the victory of Islamist organizations over the FSA in leading the opposition against the Ba’ath regime. The Nusra Front was officially associated with Al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization that engineered the September 11 attacks. In 2017, the group dissolved and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, formed a new group named Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS. HTS has spearheaded the recent offensive by the opposition which toppled the Assad regime. The group seems to have become the largest opposition group in the country, occupying major cities such as Homs, Hama, Idlib, and significant portions of Damascus. It will most likely shape Syria’s transition towards new governance.
The situation on the ground in Syria is painfully similar to the state that Libya and Yemen were in after their respective revolutions. However, the curse of the Arab Winter will strike Syria much later than in other nations. Despite the collapse of the Ba’athist government in Damascus, the conflict in the region has not halted. Opposition forces initially attempted to invade the autonomous Kurdish region in northwestern Syria, although a US-mediated ceasefire has halted the advance. Israel has invaded Syria from the occupied Golan Heights and seeks to establish a buffer zone, causing further conflict in the region. The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has revoked the previous border agreement with Syria that lasted since 1974 and ordered the IDF to seize a buffer zone in Syria, despite no aggression from the Syrian opposition. Since the fall of the Assad regime on December 8th, Israel has struck Syria over 480 times. There is no indication that the conflict will end peacefully, and Syria seems to be going down the same path as the other Arab nations of Libya, Yemen, and Sudan.
Although I am not Syrian, I am Sudanese. In 2019, all over the world, millions of Sudanese, including me, protested against President Omar al-Bashir, who became president after a coup d’etat deposed the democratically elected government in 1989. Demonstrations from London to Berlin, Cairo, and San Antonio would call for the president to step down. The Sudanese people were fed up with the horrific corruption and genocide in Darfur committed by the Bashir regime. Although the revolution would culminate in the removal and incarceration of Omar al-Bashir, the transitional government set up by protesters and the Sudanese Armed Forces would collapse just four years later when, on April 15, 2023, the Rapid Support Forces—a paramilitary organization—would attack the Sudanese Armed Forces’ bases, resulting in a destructive civil war that lasts to this day. The current conflict has displaced over eleven million people and caused immense famine and loss of life. Although not a part of the larger Arab Spring protests, the Arab Winter effect still occurred.
This is the result I fear in the war in Syria. Main powers failed to prevent the collapse of revolutionary transitional governments throughout the Middle East, and if the world ignores the situation in Syria, the same events will play out. International players should aid in the transitional process in Syria, learning from mistakes made in Libya, Yemen, and other nations gripped by conflict. The next few weeks, months, and years will be crucial to building lasting stability in Syria, the Middle East, and the world as a whole.
References
A Strategic Briefing. (n.d.). https://web.archive.org/web/20140722191931/http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/publications/free/jabhat-al-nusra-a-strategic-briefing.pdf
Cafarella, J. (n.d.). Institute for the Study of War. Institute for the Study of War. https://www.understandingwar.org/report/jabhat-al-nusra-syria
Free Syrian Army: Statement of Principles – مركز كارنيغي للشرق الأوسط – مؤسسة كارنيغي للسلام الدولي. (2022, December 31). Web.archive.org. https://web.archive.org/web/20221231214112/https://carnegie-mec.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=50243
Mahmoud, M., & Black, I. (2013, May 8). Free Syrian Army rebels defect to Islamist group Jabhat al-Nusra. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/08/free-syrian-army-rebels-defect-islamist-group
Syria. (2022). United States Department of State. https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-report-on-international-religious-freedom/syria/
