The endless potential of the war

On March 15, he has been 4 years old since the beginning of the Civil War in Syria - the consequences of which today are spreading throughout the Middle East

March 15, 2011 is officially considered the day of the beginning of the Civil War in Syria. For four years, an ongoing massacre would have been a great tragedy, regardless of where it was happening, but the war in Syria, in addition to causing a humanitarian catastrophe, had many negative geopolitical consequences - a deterioration in the superpowers, destabilizing the entire region of the Middle East, and the rise of radical Islamism. And it is not at all clear whether the Syrian conflict will retain in its current already wide boundaries.

The war in Syria sharply exacerbated the political rivalry of the two main branches of Islam - Sunnism and Shiism, and, accordingly, the two main states representing them, Saudi Arabia and Iran . The confrontation between them passes along a wide front, including inside OPEC, and its contribution to the collapse of oil prices observed in the past six months, it undoubtedly introduced. The war in Syria also inflated the flame of Kurdish nationalism and separatism ; undermined the stability of Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan; And it revealed the groundlessness of the claims for the role of the regional hegemon of Turkey, which turned out to be incapable of incapable of the most minimum humanitarian intervention in the neighboring state (political conflicts between increasingly Islamized power and secularly tuning military leaders, as well as conflicting sympathies of ethnic communities in Turkey to various participants in the Syrian conflict completely paralyze the anka). All this is fraught with the risk of breaking existing state borders in the interfluve. Participation in the conflict on the side of the regime of Bashar Assad Iran and Hizballa turns the area of the Golan heights into a potential focus of tension and increases the likelihood of active intervention in the Syrian war of Israel.

Fights in the Syrian province of Idlib. March 8, 2015

The war in Syria also faced the question of the measure of the stability of modern states to large -scale and long shocks. What is their strength reserve? The leading specialist of the Washington Institute for the Study of Middle Eastern Policy David Pollak comments on the situation at our request:

- I would not say that Syria is functioning today as a full -blooded state. Theoretically, I admit that it can recover within its current borders, since de jure none of the regions of the country has broken off or was absorbed by the neighboring state. The armed forces in many respects remained faithful to Assad, which also holds the country from a complete split. But the power of the Central Government in Damascus is currently not distributing to many areas. The central government has lost a sovereign monopoly on violence. Even the delivery of humanitarian goods to the population blocked in the regions of military operations is not able to guarantee. There are other typical signs of disintegration: malnutrition and hunger, epidemics of infectious diseases - cholera, poliomyelitis, measles - legal lawlessness. Almost half of the population is driven off from the ragged places, and either fled from the country (five million), or is in the position of forced migrants (about nine million) - is this not a evidence of the collapse of the life of the life support of society? Aleppo, Homs, Hama, many other cities are destroyed. In the center of Damascus and a handful of settlements on the coast, relative calm remains, but even the suburbs of the capital are not at all safe. The whole country, I would say, has turned today into a combat zone of various armed groups.

A fighter of one of the detachments of the "moderate" Syrian opposition in Aleppo. February 2015

- Syria until recently had a reputation as a completely competent dictatorship, capable of pacifying any manifestations of public discontent. It is enough to recall how the father of the acting ruler, Hafes Assad, dealt in the early 80s in a boor with the rebellious Islamists. Why couldn't the son repeat the success of his father and strangle the rebellion in the bud that broke out in March 2011, after the suppression of peaceful performances inspired by the Arab Spring in the country?

- A short answer: Syrian demographic realities. The 1982 uprising was religious , it did not set in motion conflicting ethnic groups of the population. That is, just what happened this time did not happen. For several decades, the repressive apparatus ensured political stability, hiding the fact that Assad’s power was the power of ethnic and confessional minorities. And that the majority of the population, robbed by the regime economically, does not experience any ideological loyalty to him. It was worth the disgruntled majority to unite, even for a short time, the regime cracked. It is amazing in the light of this not that Assad did not break the opposition’s ridge, but that he was generally able to stay afloat.

This is partly the result of this, David Pollak emphasizes that Assad received diplomatic and military support from the outside, while the victims of the Arab Spring, dictators in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia were deprived of her. Another reason for the survival of Assad was the emergence of armed groups of pro-government militias, soldered by communal and confessional scrapers, as an help of a regular army, which was distinguished by a low military spirit. Understanding that in the event of a defeat of the regime, militants from the Islamic State, “Ang Nusra Front” or “al-Qaeda” are able to physically exterminate minorities in Syria.

Now a few words about the Arab Spring. Synchny waters, contrary to forecasts, did not wash off ancient monarchies in the Persian Gulf zone, in northern Africa or in Jordan . The most fragile in fact were not dynastic regimes based on the sovereignty of one person and committed to modernization. In Egypt, the “brothers-Muslim brothers” came to replace Autocrat Hosni Mubarak, who soon proved their absolute inadequacy to the challenges of our time, and were pushed by the army. In Libya, blood spilled much more , but the intensive stage of bloodshed, if in Libyan experience there is at least something positive, was short. Syria is completely different - both in terms of violence and its duration.

- Did Syria put the point in the Arab Spring at all, did she fail for a very long time to the line under the reformation in the Arab world?

Fighters of the "Syrian Free Army" in the break between battles. Winter 2015

- The results of the "Arab spring" brutally disappointed the liberals in the Middle East and sympathized with their circles in the West. Wide public unrest revealed the weakness of autocracies, but they could not replace the absent economic and social prerequisites for the emergence of democracy. Therefore, we see the restoration of authoritarianism in Egypt; Anarchy in Libya and Yemen. The massacre in Syria. Plus, all this is the heyday of Islamist groups, which filled the political vacuum formed as a result of the weakening of autocracies. The fears of the reformers to provoke instability for an indefinite time paralyzed their efforts. The only exception to the very bitter rule is, perhaps, Tunisia . The change of power passed there relatively painlessly; The country is ruled by a moderate Islamic regime, respecting the democratic rules of the game, including elected. Tunisia gives me optimism, ”says David Pollak .

Four -year massacre: 200 thousand killed, many hundreds of thousands of wounded. But the UN Security Council is inactive, the West, on the one hand, is Russia and China, on the other hand, they cannot agree on the settings. The Geneva Agreements I and II, according to the unanimous opinion of the experts, did not cost the papers on which they were written. Therefore, almost from the very beginning of the conflict, the CIA proposes to organize the supply of weapons to moderate groups in the Syrian resistance movement, but the White House objects, stating that this will undermine attempts to convince Russia to refrain from supplying Assad’s army with military equipment. The Pentagon recommends the creation of a baseless zone in the north of Syria plus an intensive, but short bombardment campaign, beyond which a round -the -clock patrol of the country's airspace will enter into effect. But the Obama administration does not lie to power measures, only to public diplomacy.

In June 2013, Syrian air defense is shot down in the air over Turkey, a Turkish intelligence plane. NATO has a wonderful formal reason to intervene in the war, because Ankara seems to intend to demand the introduction of Article V of the NATO Charter about the joint response of all the alliance members to attack one of them. The White House provides new assurances between Ankara, and the Erdogan government is limited to the updating of Article IV of the Charter, which provides only for urgent consultations between participants. "The United States offers us blankets and cell phones, but with their help you can’t overthrow," the representative of the Syrian opposition complained. "Only Allah is known how Washington works."

Refugees from Syria in Istanbul. February 2015

At the end of the summer of 2013, Assad even more promotes the flywheel and crosses the “red line” drawn by Obama, his troops carry out the massive use of chemical weapons against the partisans . And then, when the United States was on the verge of joining the Syrian war, Vladimir Putin demonstrates what Russian diplomacy is potentially capable of, David Pollak continues:

- This success of Russian diplomacy and the fact that in general the clashes of Washington and Moscow in Syria are extremely verbal in nature is explained by the simple reluctance of the Obama and NATO administration as a whole to open a new front in the Middle East. The American -Russian dialogue for Syria continues to this day, and he did not bring any results - with the exception of the only case associated with the destruction of the Assad of chemical weapons. Although here Assad and Moscow were chewed: the agreement did not formally demand from Damascus to destroy the stocks of chlorine, unlike other poisonous substances, such as Zarin and VX. And he not only did not destroy them, but episodically then used in hostilities, killing or injuring several thousand rebels. These episodes still understand the UN, and the guilty party did not suffer any punishment for them. Nevertheless, I would still venture to say that this agreement with Putin was 80 percent fruitful.

- Is the conflict in Syria today, or will it creep out today?

Refugees from Iraq and refugees from Syria on the border of the two countries. March 2015. Where to run is unknown ...

- The scenario with sprawling is more likely. The prerequisites for this are the activation of the Islamic State group and the unexpected decision of the United States to stop it. To some extent - with the help of US trained Syrian partisans. But, mainly with the help of the Kurds and Iran. Which have their own serious ambitions, which they try to realize at the expense of the war in Syria. Kurds - gain independence. Iran and his Lebanese ally of Hizballus are to open another front in the war with Israel in the area of the Syrian -Israeli border. And through such a maneuver, to close the front in Lebanon, whose government does not want to be again by the grace of the "party of God" to be in the thick of a new armed confrontation with Israel. The growth of the Syrian conflict due to the involvement of superpowers in it is extremely unlikely, but the regional potential of the war, in my opinion, is far from exhausted, ”is convinced by David Pollak , senior analyst at the Washington Institute for the Study of Middle Eastern Policy.

The other day, under the blows of the “Ang Nusra” front, the Khazm Movement detachments of the movement, from which the CIA and the Pentagon planned to create a backbone of anti-Islamist organizations in Syria, ceased to exist. The training of fighters was supposed to begin this month in Jordan and continue in Turkey and Qatar. In October - November, the Islamists captured the city of Idlib, the stronghold of another pro -American group "Front of the Syrian Revolutionaries", and its units defeated it.