‘…And the borders might be more important than the political sociology. Also see the conspiracy theories, we’ve seen it more than in other cases, maybe because of its geography, or political geography. It reflected lots of divisions, not only in Syria, or the region, but internationally as well, in the two sides of the political map, whether on the right, or on the left.
After 12 years we can start examining some dynamics, that happened through the development of the conflict; or of the revolution at the beginning, then the war, then the series of military interventions. As you will see, the end result is today, a fragmented country, a destroyed country. We have records in terms of victims, in terms of internally displaced population, but also in terms of refugees.
When we were discussing the topic, I thought of impunity, because I think impunity has been, and continues to be, one of the most important and dangerous questions; in the whole Middle East, maybe also an international question.
But in the Middle East specifically, you do have a number of UN resolutions, a number of agreements, you have many things that were never respected, and none of those who did not respect them ever paid the price of that. So, this culture of impunity also allows criminality to develop, because those that commit crimes consider that they can always escape, after a period of time. Because they are protected by some superpower, because there are members in the Security Council backing them.
And the Middle East is the area where you have the highest number of vetoes. The United States used the veto 54 times, in relation to the Israeli question. Russia used it, in those 12 years, 14 times. China used it 13 times. So you have a concentration of what we call vetocracy in international relations, where we can sometimes not impose things, but we can definitely make things impossible or to happen; which allows impunity to continue to impose itself, and to modify lives of people and societies, and to contribute in a way to what we might call nihilism: this rejection, this anger, this frustration, against the whole world, since the whole world abandoned us, or is not seeing us as equals, or as if we are excluded from the international community, and international law was not designed to include us, to protect us, as it should protect other peoples.
So, what I will try to do, is first of all go through the phases of this Syrian struggle, of the Syrian revolution and war. What changed in six summers. It happened that these developments always took place in summers, and we’ll see how each summer, the configuration, the physiognomy of the conflict, was changing, and evolving, and other actors were projecting themselves into the Syrian scene. Then I’ll talk about some of what Syria revealed to us throughout the years.
So, for the chronology of events, in March 2011, many revolutions were already taking place. The whole movement started in Tunisia, then we had Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain. Then Syria surprised most people, because no one was expecting, in a country where you already have a régime that is not into just symbolic violence after imposing itself for years, or just using the police as in the case of Tunisia to control the society, or the army in the case of Egypt; leaving also some margin of freedom for some parties as long as they do not threaten the régime itself and the military; or as in Yemen due to the tribal structure, the political structure, some parties in the north or south.There were some spaces in which political activism can express itself , and then it threatens the existing régime, then there will definitely be violent repression.
In the case of Syria, we were already into permanent violence, a State of violence. This happened in the 70s. It happened in Hama in ’82, and it was kind of a lesson for the Syrian people, in the sense that what you will expect if you think of rebelling against the régime, if you think of challenging, of defying the régime, is what happened to Hama, and what will happen to you.
Hama ’82 is a trauma in Syria, because that city, in three weeks, was massacred, bombed. Thousands of people died, thousands disappeared, and maybe the Syrians thought in 2011, that this was possible, because no one documented what happened. Because no one covered what happened. There were no images. Victims were invisible. This whole orchestrated crime against the city happened without witnesses.
So, maybe in 2011, because of the mobile phones, because of the daily coverage, because of videos, because of documentation, because of media; the world will not allow Hama to be reproduced, once, twice, three times, four times, as things will happen later.
So Hama was a trauma, and many people after Hama thought it would take a long, long time before the Syrian people will try to challenge the régime again. And before Hama there was Palmyra or Tadmor, the famous prison in Syria, where torture was an industry, and where also hundreds of people died under torture.
You have many events in Syria’s modern history under Assad’s father from 1970-2000, then Assad Jr from 2000 until today in 2023, so we’re talking about 53 years of the Assads, and in 2011 it was already 41 years of the Assads. It was a surprise for many observers, to see demonstrations are taking place, but in this kind of situation, and with the régime that already saw what happened in Tunisia and Egypt, immediately the brutal violent repression will start, and will target demonstrators, and soon the country will go into an armed struggle, where either soldiers from the army left the troops, or young men took the weapons to defend themselves, to protect demonstrations.
So an armed struggle went in parallel with the demonstrations until 2012. So the first shift, or the first change, was the militarization of the revolution, as of August 2011, after a series of defections in the army, leading to the creation in June 2011, of the Free Syrian Army.
The second crucial development was in 2012. In the summer as well, when the Assad régime used for the first time its air force, bombing the areas that went out of its control; used the ballistic missiles, Scud missiles, sending them from southern Syria to the north.
And also in 2012, we have the Iranian involvement, in support of the régime, that became clear. It was in the beginning, maybe the first year, technical advisers, political advisers. Now we have more and more Iranian officers in Syria. And in that same summer of 2012, the first funeral of a Hezbollah fighter happened in Lebanon, showing that Hezbollah is involved, based on Iranian demands, in the Syrian war, that is now more and more a war.
This is an intervention that is clear now, the Iranian and the allies of Iran, but this is also the summer when the first elements of what we can call jihadism appear in Syria.
Let me just in a few words, distinguish between what we will call, and we will use that term later, jihadism, and what is kind of classical political Islam that already existed in Syria. The Muslim Brotherhood are a powerful group in Syria. Some other salafi groups also were present. What I mean by jihadists are not only those who are not Syrians, or coming from outside Syria, either from Iraq, or through the Turkish borders coming from Europe or sometimes from North Africa or from other places, with this idea of a jihad in Syria. What we mean by that is that they are not usually concerned with the territoriality of the conflict, or the political temporality of the conflict. They go wherever the conditions of jihad, according to the fatwa they receive, wherever those conditions are gathered, or they can prove them or find them or justify them. So they considered Syria a land of jihad, after considering Iraq a land of jihad, after being, or some of them at least or a previous generation, considering Afghanistan a land of jihad. Then Libya became a land of jihad, then Mali.
So they are not into the territoriality, or the temporality, of the political cause. They started arriving in Syria, proclaiming that they are going to build an Islamic motherland, they would fight the enemies of Islam in Syria; and the early elements, or let’s say those that arrived first in 2012, either came from Iraq, where they were already fighting the Americans, and the pro-American and pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, or probably the Turkish services allowed them to enter Syria, because they thought they can instrumentalise them against the Kurds. You know, that Turkey immediately after the revolution, had the Turkish obsession, if we can put it like that, with the Kurdish issue. So, to keep an eye on the Kurds, and to have a powerful group that might fight them if they will expand in their territorial control.
So there are a series of events in 2012, which will definitely modify the whole situation. And in summer 2013, a turning point with the chemical weapons. After a very sad statement made by Obama. Until now, no one knows if he was advised, and he said it after getting the advice of people around him, or it was just a statement made following a question by a journalist, “What is the red line in Syria?” That was the question. We have already thousands of people killed, tens of thousands wounded, many who disappeared, already stories about torture in jail are everywhere, rape is being used as a political instrument, we have displacement, refugees are arriving in Turkey and Jordan and in Lebanon, the neighbouring countries; and Obama was asked, what is the red line?
He said the only red line is chemical weapons. Meaning the régime should not use the chemical weapons. Now, of course, we can interpret later you it was understood by Assad; as long as you say there is only one red line, that is chemical weapons, it means we can keep killing people without chemical weapons. Except that, and this is related to impunity, Assad wanted to show, to the Syrians, his social bases or those who support him, and those who are opposed to him, that even that red line, he can cross it, and nothing will happen.
And though he was advised on that by Russians, there are already some debates about whether the Iranians wanted it or not, whether the Russians said we will test the American will, especially that Obama at the same time was negotiating the nuclear deal with Iran. And people around him were saying, we can’t negotiate with Iran, and then fight them in Syria. Others would add to this, that after the Libyan disaster as it was called in the American administration, following the UN resolution and the intervention against Gadaffi, the Americans didn’t want to intervene again in the region. He was promising he would withdraw from Iraq, and he withdrew in 2011 massively from Iraq. The American public opinion was opposed to any involvement.
We can talk about lots of considerations and factors, parameters that are legitimate, they can be discussed. But that statement, about the red lines, was very strange in its timing. And Assad tested it.
First in Jobar, which is a neighbourhood very close to Damascus, where it was used against fighters the first time. A French journalist brought samples from the hair and from the sand to prove it, that was what the laboratories wanted. And there was proof that sarin gas was used for the first time.
Before, they used a few substances in Homs, where the Red Cross said that some of the people who were burned, they couldn’t deal with their injuries. Was it chemical or not chemical? There was a debate about it. But in May 2013, clearly it was used in small doses in Jobar; before the 21st of August when the massive attack with sarin gas targeted the two Ghouta of Damascus, the two large neighbourhoods not far from the capital, where more than 1400 people died in a few hours during that attack.
So here it was clear that the red line was crossed on purpose, to test the US will or the Western will, during a moment of tension with Russia. Russia is supporting the régime, for different reasons, but is not yet involved directly.
And what happened after it, the red line was crossed? Nothing, in fact, once again. There will be a statement by Kerry, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in which he said, following a meeting with Lavrov, that if the Syrian régime accepts to destroy, or to abandon its stock of chemical weapons to give it to a UN inspection mission, we’re fine with that. So it appeared as if once again, if I kill someone, and then I give you the gun, I’m fine.
These kind of messages are extremely dangerous when it comes to impunity, because the régime and the Russians understood through that offer, that there is no will in the US to go into an intervention against Assad, following the crossing the red line. They knew they cannot go to the UN of course, there would be a Russian veto. But in the American constitution, the President, as long as the military operation would not require deployment on the ground, as long as it is less than 60 (I think) days; the President can order a military operation, which did not happen.
In Britain, also, they voted in the Parliament, against it. In France, they were very hesitant about it. And then finally, the agreement was a UN resolution, that will impose on the régime, to abandon its chemical programme, and the stocks should be gathered by the UN inspection mission; and negotiations started about that. But the régime did prove, to its social bases, as well as to the Syrians and to those who are fighting him, I can even use chemical weapons, I can even cross the only red line that is set, and nothing will happen.
And that was a game-changer in the case of Syria, because it’s not a coincidence that following August 2013, Daesh (or ISIS) will start its rise. At the time, we are still in a moment where al-Qaeda in Iraq is itself in Syria. Nusra is part of it, but not very happy with it, so you have within the jihadist map rivalries and different interpretations of who should take the lead, and Baghdadi is still in Iraq. And after 2013, with a certain consensus maybe among the Syrians, that no one is going to intervene to save them from Assad; this is the beginning of the rise of the two nihilist groups, of the two jihadist groups, Nusra and ISIS. ISIS is not always the exact translation, because it’s the Levant or al-Sham at the end.
But this is a crucial moment in that sense, and this is also the beginning of the massive departure from Syria. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians reached Turkey and Jordan and Lebanon, because once again, they felt totally abandoned and vulnerable and no one is going to intervene, whatever would happen, and whatever kind of weapons would be used against them.
And this is the fourth summer the summer of 2014. Baghdadi declares officially that he is now the Caliphate, and the Caliph, and the Caliphate is there, between parts of Iraq and Syria. He’s fighting mainly other jihadists, but also Islamist Syrian groups, because the extension of ISIS throughout the Syrian territory did not clash with the Syrian régime. They took over Deir Ezzor, then they took over Raqqa, all of the east of Syria that was already under the control of the Syrian opposition. So the expansion of Daesh weakened and fragilised the Syrian opposition, before clashing with the régime. And definitely the régime and the Iranians who were setting the strategy, were not unhappy with it. Because now the formula, and the equation, that Assad kept using in its propaganda, that against me we only have jihadists, we only have al-Qaeda, we only have Islamists who want to overthrow a secular progressive régime; all of that now, for Assad it’s a kind of prophecy that its propaganda used, and now he’s not far from realizing it, and talking more and more about it, which again is something that will change lots of approaches towards the Syrian situation.
US intervention against ISIS, exclusively against ISIS, started following that rise, because they killed American, and I think a British as well, humanitarian aid workers in Syria. So Obama declared war on ISIS. And this is the beginning of the US intervention.’
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