I've never done one titled "Understanding Syria", and hence this thread. But I've nearly done so early on when the civil war in Syria began to get serious attention here in the U.S. That thread from 2013 entitled
focused on whether the US should become involved or not, but as it addressed the situation in that unfortunate land and gave some explanation of its background. Given the ongoing deterioration, and the fact that the situation in Iraq and Syria is now much different than it was then, I'm repeating a bit of that below.
WWI vintage poster for Middle Eastern relief.
Some time ago
I wrote an item here on what seemed likely to be an intervention in Syria's civil war.
And now, its being debated in Congress.
I'll
applaud the President for submitting this to Congress. Just last week
or so it appeared that the President was set to simply order the Navy to
conduct strikes against Syria, in retaliation for the Syrian government
using chemical weapons on its own people, without bothering to bring in
Congress, but the British Parliament turned that around. That only
occurred as Parliament was being asked by Prime Minister David Cameron
to support the upcoming U.S. strike. Parliament said no. That caused
the President, in what now seems to be a miscalculation, to seek
authorization from Congress. Right now, to my surprise really, Congress
doesn't seem likely to grant that authority. As a result, there's some
discussion on the President ordering the strikes anyway, which would be
a massive political miscalculation. Of our allies, there's a movement
in Canada to require their PM to follow Britain's lead and submit the
question to Parliament, which would likely vote no. France appears to
be the only country that is likely to support us, but probably for
historical reasons that we have a very dim appreciation of.
Bedouin riding through Roman triumphal arch, Palmyra Syria, 1939.
In
Congress views on this topic are split three ways. One camp wants to
authorize the President's proposal, which is to make a limited strike
over a 90 day period in retaliation for the government's use of chemical
weapons on civilians. Another wants to stay out of the war entirely. A
third will vote no as, ironically, it wants to jump into the war,
topple the government and create a new one we, we think, will like
better.
That's
basically John McCain's position, or at least that's his position
by implication. But do we dare to suppose that's realistic? And if it
is not, do we dare get into this thing at all? Do we even understand
Syria?
Straight Street in Damascus. This street is so old its mentioned in the New Testament.
Americans
tend, to an almost charming degree, to believe the diametrically
opposed beliefs that the United States is the best country in the world
and that every other country is just like us. What country may be the
best in the world is a subjective matter, but objectively, not every
nation and not every people are just like us. Far from it.
Most
nations in the world, or at least most successful ones, are "nation
states". A nation state is a country made up of one nation. This
notion, or rather this fact, is so contrary to our own experience that
generally we don't really grasp what it means. Indeed, in our pledge of
allegiance we even state that we are "one nation, under God."
"Syrian"
(almost certainly Lebanese) children playing in the streets of New York
City. There is a huge global diaspora of Lebanese. According to some,
the Lebanese diaspora is the most successful, in terms of business and
wealth, in the world. The Lebanese are distinct for a variety of
reasons, including that at the time of the formation of their country
Maronite Catholics made up a majority of the population.
Perhaps,
over time, the American "nation" has become just that, but most stable
countries in the world have been formed by nationalism, and that
nationalism long ago separated out the borders of the country along
cultural boundaries. This appears to be changing in the modern world,
but it's still largely the case. That is, France is a country for the
French. Italy is a country that united in the 19th Century in an effort
to combine all the Italians, and some who were sort of Italians, into
one country. Germany united in the 1870s as a confederation of German
principalities.
Roman temple for Emperor Diocletian, a figure frequently noted for persecution of early Christians.
Conversely,
the Austro Hungarian Empire flew apart in the early 20th Century
partially because the constituents of that empire no longer wanted to be
ruled by a common government. Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia
became separate countries, with that process rolling along right up
until almost the present day, as Czechoslovakia, made up of the Czechs
and the Slovaks, split into two separate countries, each of which is a
nation state. We witnessed something similar to this in Yugoslavia in
the 1990s, when a country made for the "south Slavs" busted up along
ethnic lines that essentially only they could discern.
Not
all modern countries are nation states, of course. The United States,
for example is not. And countries that share a common origin to that of
the US are not. That is, Canada and Australia, also nations that were
formed via the immigration from many parts of the Europe and even the
globe aren't. The United Kingdom isn't, although in the true European
fashion the various nations that make up the UK; IE., England, Scotland
and Wales, have remained nations rather than blending to a surprising
degree. And as noted, this was so much the case for Ireland, once part
of the UK, that it violently departed.
A
person could legitimately ask, of course, what the heck this has to do
with Syria, but it has a great deal to do with it. Syrian isn't a
nation state. And not only isn't a nation state, it isn't like the US
or Canada in which the various ethnicities mix fairly readily. They
don't mix.
A
person might find that surprising, and many Americans apparently don't
realize this at all. We keep hearing about "they Syrians" but who are
they? A person with an ear for history might presuppose that the
Syrians of today are the Assyrians of old, but they'd only be very
partially correct.
Syrian Bedouin, 1939.
Assyrians
do indeed living on, in some fashion, in the DNA of many Syrians today,
but modern Syria isn't he Assyria of old. Even by the time of Christ
what is now Syria had come under the influence of some foreign
populations, namely the Greeks, which is why Syrian actually fit so
seamlessly into early Christian history. The coastal region of what was
in very modern times Syria was at that time, as now, Lebanon, and that
area had its own ancient populations that contributed to its nature,
namely the Phoneticians, who may have descended from the Philistines.
Syrian gypsies.
As
noted, Syria was a region of the Middle East whose population took
rapidly to Christianity, and there have been Christians in Syria ever
since the 1st Century. Christianity took so rapidly to Syria that
Damascus was where St. Paul was headed in order to persecute the
Christians when he had his Epiphany. And that also tells us that there
were Jewish populations there at that time as well, but there were
throughout the Middle East at the time. Christians were first called
that in Syria, Antioch to be precise, although that city is now in
Turkey, on the Syrian border.
Ruins of Crusader era church in Syria, 1939.
Like
the rest of the Middle East, Syria was invaded by the Arabs during the
early Islamic period, and like places where there was a strong Christian
presence, the Arabs were never able to fully supplant the native
Christian population. This has very much been the case in Syria. Today,
Syria is made up of Islamic populations, Christian populations, often
in their own areas, Alawites (a minority Moslem group), the Druse and
some Kurds. None of these groups has much in common with the other,
except by the exent to which the minority groups, the Christians, Druse
and Alwaties fear, and have reason to fear, the majority Moslem Arabs.
Representatives
of the Orthodox in the US, following the Russian Revolution. In
addition to Maronite Catholics, Syria has populations of Antiochean
(Syrian) Orthodox. Contrary to the way history is sometimes imagined,
Roman Catholic Crusaders, upon taking Antioch, restored the Antiochean
prelate to his seat.
The
Ottoman Turks occupied and governed Syria for eons, until the Ottoman
Empire disappeared due to World War One. France received Syria, with
which it had strong historical ties, as sort of a consolation prize for
helping the British defeat the Turks during the Great War. France
occupied Syria from 1918 until 1946, keeping it through several changes
in the French republican government and even into the Vichy period.
Syrian troops served the French in World War Two, both in the Vichy
cause and the in the Free French cause. In some ways Syria was the
French
consolation prize for its role in the Middle East in World War One, as
the French also fought the Ottoman's there, but
it also recognized that France's role in the region existed for
historic reasons going back to the Crusades. Many of the Christian
Kingdoms of the Crusading period saw significant French colonization and
a recent work by a British author has made the point that during this
period not only were a majority of the residents Christians (and were
well after the fall of the Crusader kingdoms) but that in some areas,
but not all, they were basically French colonies. French trade with the
region kept on keeping on in to modern times, and its worth noting that
about the only government that appears inclined to get into Syria now
is France.
The
British High Commissioner for Palestine, left, and the French High
Commissioner for Syria, right, with young lad in middle, 1926.
Anyhow,
while the French have a pretty poor record in
regards to the success of their 19th and 20th Century colonies, in terms
of becoming modern states so their experiences must be used as examples
with caution, Syria did have the benefit of both Ottoman
and Syrian administration and that doesn't appear to have lead to a real
concept of forming a modern state really. If France was unable to do
it in 20 years, I don't think we'll be able to in ten or fifteen, or
whatever period we'd be willing to invest in the country if we got in
full bore. And to suppose that the Syrian rebels are going to create a
parliament and recognize civil liberties without European or American
boots on the ground is absurd. The French, we might note, had the
benefit of being successors to the Ottomans, which
meant that the Syrian population wasn't really inclined to be hostile
to a foreign overlord, as they now will be under any scenario.
Kurds,
a stateless people, are native to a region encompassing parts of
Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The Kurds are actually responsible for
the final stages of the spread is Islam, not the Arabs, and have given
it an enduring memory of a unitized theocratic state and the false myth
of enduring a Christian invasion. Ironically, not all Kurds are Moslems
today, nor have they ever been.
On
French
administration, one thing worth noting is that the French came to the
conclusion that it wasn't possible to rule Syria as a single political
entity, and they ultimately created districts on ethnic lines. Lebanon
exists today for that reason. The Alawites and the Druse also had their
own regions. We always seem to think that any country we step into
makes sense as a nation, and that would go counter to the modern
experience of the Middle East in general, and Syria in particular. That
is, why Syria at all? For that matter, why Iraq? It probably makes
more sense that these countries be busted up into their ethnicities,
which do not mix. But we won't do that. And whoever we prop up isn't
going to want to do that either as no government ever desires to become
less powerful and control less country. In other words, the Kingdom of
Sweden might have been willing to recognize that Norway wanted to be its
own country in 1903 without fight, but Syria isn't going to do that
with any of its minorities. For that matter, even the highly civilized
United Kingdom fought to keep disenchanted Ireland in the group form
1918 to 1922, and I doubt that any Middle Eastern nation would do less.
Druse
refugees, 1925. The Druse are an Islamic sect despised by other Islamic
groups. They live in Lebanon, Israel and Syria today. Early opponents
of the Turks, and allies of the British in World War One, today they
are closest to Israel.
Regarding the ethnicities, examination
of the sides in Syria ought to really give us pause. Syria has some really distinct ethnicities.
By and large,
Syrian Christians are afraid of the rebels, as they fear that a rebel
victory will mean their end, and in my view it probably would. Alawites
feel the same way. We (the US) feel that because the government is
brutal, we should depose it, but should we depose it in favor of a
probable bigger brutality? I just can't see a way out of this mess that
doesn't leave us with blood on our hands in one way or another.
On
that, it's interesting to note that some 20 years ago or so the Syrian
government crushed another rebellion, and that's come up in this context
from time to time. But, what of that rebellion? It was by hard core
Islamist. Had it succeeded, Syrian would be an Arab Iran today. The
crushing of the rebellion was brutal. That's inexcusable. But had it
not been crushed, the result would have been grim for us. Do we even
want to have to be associated with the results of a civil war there
today, given that any result is grim from our prospective?
.jpg)
