Stratfor
International diplomats will gather Jan. 22 in the Swiss town of
Montreux to hammer out a settlement designed to end Syria's three-year civil
war. The conference, however, will be far removed from the reality on the
Syrian battleground. Only days before the conference was scheduled to begin, a
controversy threatened to engulf the proceedings after the United Nations
invited Iran to participate, and Syrian rebel representatives successfully
pushed for the offer to be rescinded. The inability to agree upon even who
would be attending the negotiations is an inauspicious sign for a diplomatic
effort that was never likely to prove very fruitful.
There are good reasons for deep skepticism. As Syrian President
Bashar al Assad's forces continue their fight to recover ground against the increasingly fratricidal rebel forces, there is
little incentive for the regime, heavily backed by Iran and Russia, to concede
power to its sectarian rivals at the behest of Washington, especially when the United States is already negotiating with Iran.
Ali Haidar, an old classmate of al Assad's from ophthalmology school and a
long-standing member of Syria's loyal opposition, now serving somewhat
fittingly as Syria's National Reconciliation Minister, captured the mood of the
days leading up to the conference in saying "Don't expect anything from
Geneva II. Neither Geneva II, not Geneva III nor Geneva X will solve the Syrian
crisis. The solution has begun and will continue through the military triumph
of the state."
Widespread pessimism over a functional power-sharing agreement to
end the fighting has led to dramatic speculation that Syria is doomed either to
break into sectarian statelets or, as Haidar articulated, revert to the status
quo, with the Alawites regaining full control and the Sunnis forced back into
submission. Both scenarios are flawed. Just as international mediators will
fail to produce a power-sharing agreement at this stage of the crisis, and just
as Syria's ruling Alawite minority will face extraordinary difficulty in gluing
the state back together, there is also no easy way to carve up Syria along
sectarian lines. A closer inspection of the land reveals why.
The Geopolitics of Syria
Before the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement traced out an awkward
assortment of nation-states in the Middle East, the name Syria was used by
merchants, politicians and warriors alike to describe a stretch of land
enclosed by the Taurus Mountains to the north, the Mediterranean to the west,
the Sinai Peninsula to the south and the desert to the east. If you were
sitting in 18th-century Paris contemplating the abundance of cotton and spices
on the other side of the Mediterranean, you would know this region as the
Levant -- its Latin root "levare" meaning "to raise," from
where the sun would rise in the east. If you were an Arab merchant traveling
the ancient caravan routes in the Hejaz, or modern-day Saudi Arabia, facing the
sunrise to the east, you would have referred to this territory in Arabic as
Bilad al-Sham, or the "land to the left" of Islam's holy sites on the
Arabian Peninsula.
Whether viewed from the east or the west, the north or the south,
Syria will always find itself in an unfortunate position surrounded
by much stronger powers. The rich, fertile lands straddling Asia Minor and
Europe around the Sea of Marmara to the north, the Nile River Valley to the
south and the land nestled between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers to the
east give rise to larger and more cohesive populations. When a power in control
of these lands went roaming for riches farther afield, they inevitably came
through Syria, where blood was spilled, races were intermixed, religions were
negotiated and goods were traded at a frenzied and violent pace.
Consequently,
only twice in Syria's pre-modern history could this region claim to be a
sovereign and independent state: during the Hellenistic Seleucid dynasty, based
out of Antioch (the city of Antakya in modern-day Turkey) from 301 to 141 B.C.,
and during the Umayyad Caliphate, based out of Damascus, from A.D. 661 to 749.
Syria was often divided or subsumed by its neighbors, too weak, internally
fragmented and geographically vulnerable to stand its own ground. Such is the
fate of a borderland.
Unlike
the Nile Valley, Syria's geography lacks a strong, natural binding element to
overcome its internal fissures. An aspiring Syrian state not only needs a
coastline to participate in sea trade and guard against sea powers, but also a
cohesive hinterland to provide food and security. Syria's rugged geography and
patchwork of minority sects have generally been a major hindrance to this
imperative.
Syria's
long and extremely narrow coastline abruptly transforms into a chain of
mountains and plateaus. Throughout this western belt, pockets of minorities,
including Alawites, Christians and Druze, have sequestered themselves, equally
distrustful of outsiders from the west as they are of local rulers to the east,
but ready to collaborate with whomever is most likely to guarantee their
survival. The long mountain barrier then descends into broad plains along the
Orontes River Valley and the Bekaa Valley before rising sharply once again
along the Anti-Lebanon range, the Hawran plateau and the Jabal al-Druze
mountains, providing more rugged terrain for persecuted sects to hunker down
and arm themselves.
Just west of the Anti-Lebanon mountains, the Barada river flows
eastward, giving rise to a desert oasis also known as Damascus.
Protected from the coast by two mountain chains and long stretches of
desert to the east, Damascus is essentially a fortress city and a
logical place to make the capital. But for this fortress to be a capital
worthy of regional respect, it needs a corridor running westward across
the mountains to Mediterranean ports along the ancient Phoenician (or
modern-day Lebanese) coast, as well as a northward route across the
semi-arid steppes, through Homs, Hama and Idlib, to Aleppo.
The saddle of land from Damascus to the north is relatively fluid
territory, making it an easier place for a homogenous population to
coalesce than the rugged and often recalcitrant coastline. Aleppo sits
alongside the mouth of the Fertile Crescent, a natural trade corridor
between Anatolia to the north, the Mediterranean (via the Homs Gap) to
the west and Damascus to the south. While Aleppo has historically been
vulnerable to dominant Anatolian powers and can use its relative
distance to rebel against Damascus from time to time, it remains a vital
economic hub for any Damascene power.
Finally, jutting east from the Damascus core lie vast stretches of
desert, forming a wasteland between Syria and Mesopotamia. This sparsely
populated route has long been traveled by small, nomadic bands of men
-- from caravan traders to Bedouin tribesmen to contemporary jihadists
-- with few attachments and big ambitions.
Demography by Design
The demographics of this land have fluctuated greatly, depending on
the prevailing power of the time. Christians, mostly Eastern Orthodox,
formed the majority in Byzantine Syria. The Muslim conquests that
followed led to a more diverse blend of religious sects, including a
substantial Shiite population. Over time, a series of Sunni dynasties
emanating from Mesopotamia, the Nile Valley and Asia Minor made Syria
the Sunni-majority region that it is today. While Sunnis came to heavily
populate the Arabian Desert and the saddle of land stretching from
Damascus to Aleppo, the more protective coastal mountains were meanwhile
peppered with a mosaic of minorities. The typically cult-like
minorities forged fickle alliances and were always on the lookout for a
more distant sea power they could align with to balance against the
dominant Sunni forces of the hinterland.
The French, who had the strongest colonial links to the Levant,
were masters of the minority manipulation strategy, but that approach also came
with severe consequences that endure to this day. In Lebanon, the French
favored Maronite Christians, who came to dominate Mediterranean sea trade out
of bustling port cities such as Beirut at the expense of poorer Sunni Damascene
merchants. France also plucked out a group known as the Nusayris living along
the rugged Syrian coast, rebranded them as Alawites to give them religious
credibility and stacked them in the Syrian military during the French mandate.
When the French mandate ended in 1943, the ingredients were
already in place for major demographic and sectarian upheaval, culminating
in the bloodless coup by Hafiz al Assad in 1970 that began the highly irregular
Alawite reign over Syria. With the sectarian balance now tilting toward Iran
and its sectarian allies, France's current policy of supporting the Sunnis alongside Saudi Arabia
against the mostly Alawite regime that the French helped create has a tinge of
irony to it, but it fits within a classic balance-of-power mentality toward the
region.
Setting Realistic
Expectations
The delegates discussing Syria this week in Switzerland face a
series of irreconcilable truths that stem from the geopolitics that have
governed this land since antiquity.
The anomaly of a powerful Alawite minority ruling Syria is
unlikely to be reversed anytime soon. Alawite forces are holding their ground
in Damascus and steadily regaining territory in the suburbs. Lebanese militant
group Hezbollah is meanwhile following its sectarian imperative to ensure the Alawites
hold onto power by defending the traditional route from Damascus through the
Bekaa Valley to the Lebanese coast, as well as the route through the Orontes
River Valley to the Alawite Syrian coast. So long as the Alawites can hold
Damascus, there is no chance of them sacrificing the economic heartland.
It is thus little wonder that Syrian forces loyal to al Assad
have been on a northward offensive to retake control of Aleppo. Realizing the
limits to their own military offensive, the regime will manipulate Western
appeals for localized cease-fires, using a respite in the fighting to conserve
its resources and make the delivery of food supplies to Aleppo contingent on
rebel cooperation with the regime. In the far north and east, Kurdish forces
are meanwhile busy trying to carve out their own autonomous zone against mounting
constraints, but the Alawite regime is quite comfortable knowing that Kurdish
separatism is more of a threat to Turkey than it is to
Damascus at this point.
The fate of Lebanon and Syria remain deeply intertwined. In the
mid-19th century, a bloody civil war between Druze and Maronites in the densely
populated coastal mountains rapidly spread from Mount Lebanon to Damascus. This
time around, the current is flowing in reverse, with the civil war in Syria now
flooding Lebanon. As the Alawites continue to gain ground in Syria with aid
from Iran and Hezbollah, a shadowy amalgam of Sunni jihadists backed by Saudi
Arabia will become more active in Lebanon, leading to a steady stream of Sunni-Shiite attacks that will
keep Mount Lebanon on edge.
The United States may be leading the ill-fated peace conference to
reconstruct Syria, but it doesn't really have any strong interests there. The
depravity of the civil war itself compels the United States to show that it is
doing something constructive, but Washington's core interest for the region at
the moment is to preserve and advance a negotiation with Iran.
This goal sits at odds with a publicly stated U.S. goal to ensure al Assad is
not part of a Syrian transition, and this point may well be one of many pieces
in the developing bargain between Washington and Tehran. However, al Assad
holds greater leverage so long as his main patron is in talks with the United
States, the only sea power currently capable of projecting significant force in
the eastern Mediterranean.
Egypt, the Nile Valley power to the south, is wholly ensnared in
its own internal problems. So is Turkey, the main power to the north, which is
now gripped in a public and vicious power struggle that leaves little room for Turkish adventurism in
the Arab world. That leaves Saudi Arabia and Iran as the main regional powers
able to directly manipulate the Syrian sectarian battleground. Iran, along with
Russia, which shares an interest in preserving relations with the Alawites and
thus its access to the Mediterranean, will hold the upper hand in this
conflict, but the desert wasteland linking Syria to Mesopotamia is filled with bands of Sunni militants eager for Saudi
backing to tie down their sectarian rivals.
And so the fighting will go on. Neither side of the sectarian
divide is capable of overwhelming the other on the battlefield and both have
regional backers that will fuel the fight. Iran will try to use its relative
advantage to draw the Saudi royals into a negotiation, but a deeply unnerved
Saudi Arabia will continue to resist as long as Sunni rebels still have enough
fight in them to keep going. Fighters on the ground will regularly manipulate
appeals for cease-fires spearheaded by largely disinterested outsiders, all
while the war spreads deeper into Lebanon. The Syrian state will neither fragment
and formalize into sectarian statelets nor reunify into a single nation under a
political settlement imposed by a conference in Geneva. A mosaic of clan
loyalties and the imperative to keep Damascus linked to its coastline and
economic heartland -- no matter what type of regime is in power in Syria --
will hold this seething borderland together, however tenuously.
--------------------------------------------------------------
My Comments:
Meanwhile, Barack Hussein Obama continues to support
Al Qaeda inside of Syria as the Dur al-Sham Brigade, Asimat Al-Ghouta Brigade,
Nur Al-Ghouta Brigade, and many fighters from the Junud ar-Rahman Brigade
(currently assaulting Damascus) gave their pledges of allegiance to Al Qaeda
inside of Syria. AL Nusrah / Al Qaeda of
Iraq in Syria, now boasts it has just added 4 companies they term as 4 brigades
of new fighters, totaling 500 inside Syria as to have just been added to their
ranks over the month prior from January 13, 2014.
Pledges of allegiance by imported French and United
States foreign Islamist jihadi fighters are being issued by Suqur al-Izza, which itself has
some 500 members and calls themselves as the new Mujahadeen engaged in what
they believe is holy war.
And in case you want to know who Obama is giving material aid and comfort to, it is a group which uses cannabalism of the non-Al Qaeda adversaries as a ritualism of manhood and acceptance.
The following video contains disturbing images of that famous video Obama supported Al Nusrah fighter chawing off a Syrian soldier's internal organ, and the video itself is from back in June 2013 was featured as an alarming concern by the moderate Libertarian Glenn Beck on his daily program back then.
Obama has committed Treason against the Constitution of the United States by aiding and abetting these terrorists with whom the United States is at war with in Afghanistan, and whom we have fought against in Iraq, and who also aided in the killing of a U.S. Ambassador and 3 other U.S. Citizens in Ben Ghazi, Libya. The U.S. Constitution specifies Impeachment as a viable option for those too chicken to follow the Constitution of the United States and Marbury v. Madison 5 U.S. 137 (1803) @ 180, in which we void out all laws made contrary to the Constitution, which means every single law and rule and regulation Obama signed or authorized or was authorized during his illegal occupation of the Presidency, all of them, need to be voided out as poison fruit of the poisonous tree. Barack Hussein Obama II is poison, not because of his skin color, but because of the nefarious content of his character and his illegal standing under the very clearly specified Legal Intent of the Constitution of the United States, which itself is supposed to be the Supreme Law of the Land here in the United States, but finds itself fallen in the street.
Isaiah 59:14-16a (King James Version)
14 And judgment is turned
away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the
street, and equity cannot enter.
15 Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth
from evil maketh himself a prey: and the Lord saw it, and it
displeased him that there was no judgment.
16 And he saw that there was no man, and
wondered that there was no intercessor….
Would that we could be a nation of effective, rather than ineffective, legal and peaceful intercessors in this evil and growingly more evil time.
That's my input. -- Brianroy
