After 12 years of civil war, Syria finds itself fragmented: the government of Bashar al-Assad managed to control nearly 60% of its territory after it was saved by Russian military intervention. There is a Kurdish enclave in the northeast, a Turkish enclave in the northwest, and an Islamist enclave in the Idlib region.
A bitter reality
The extreme cruelty of the police authorities following a benign demonstration in Daraa triggered a widespread revolt carried by the slogan “Doctor, it’s your turn!” », meaning that ophthalmologist President Bashar al-Assad will soon have the same fate as the presidents dismissed during the Arab Spring in 2011: Ben Ali in Tunisia, Mubarak in Egypt, Gaddafi in Libya and Saleh in Yemen.
Government repression was merciless: bombings, use of chemical weapons, arbitrary arrests and torture. Deserting Syrian officers formed the Free Syrian Army, which fought the Syrian dictator for a time. The Daesh Islamic uprising followed. Nearly half a million Syrians have lost their lives and 6.8 million have become refugees outside Syria’s borders.
Today, 90% of the population lives below the poverty line. More than 50% do not have access to drinking water and electricity. Food subsidies have been canceled and the queues in front of the bakeries are long. However, the regime survives thanks to sales of the psychostimulant Captagon, which provide revenues of nearly $30 billion, which allows the regime to preserve itself and even rearm itself. It was in the hope – disappointed – of being able to limit sales of Captagon that the Sunni countries allowed Syria to rejoin the Arab League, from which it had been excluded in 2011.
External interventions also played an important role.
Foreign interventions in Syria
The United States intervened in 2014 to fight the Islamic State group. Subsequently, President Trump wanted to withdraw his forces from Syria. He reversed his decision following protests — all political parties combined — pointing out that the Kurdish allies who had contributed to the victory against the Islamic State group risked finding themselves defenseless in the face of the Syrian dictatorship and the Turkish president’s anti-Kurdish obsession. , Erdoğan. The presence of American forces in northeast Syria also aims to block the road linking Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut.
Russia, which has been Syria’s usual arms supplier, intervened in 2015 and established two military bases, one naval and one air. Russian aerial bombardments and help from Lebanese Hezbollah allowed Syrian government forces to regain the upper hand — albeit incompletely — in the civil war.
Turkey has occupied the Kurdish regions of northwest Syria and is trying to settle the Syrian refugees who are on its territory there. President Erdoğan is a fierce enemy of the Syrian president and wants — just like Russia — to limit Iranian influence. The Astana agreement, ratified in 2017, aims to avoid clashes between Turkish, Iranian and Russian forces in Syria.
Iran has subjugated Syria. “Iranian advisors” and the presence of nearly 60,000 Shiite, Afghan and Pakistani mercenaries reinforce its authority there. Iran offers various services to the population and encourages conversion to Shiism for hard money. The extreme drought in Iran has caused migrations of populations, some of whom are invited to occupy abandoned Syrian houses.
Iran finances and arms militias that encircle Sunni countries and Israel: in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen. Iran is behind their destabilizing terrorist actions, and only after more than 200 attacks against US forces has President Biden decided to respond, whether against the Houthis of Yemen or the Shiite militias of Syria and Iraq. The fact that considerable sums are being invested by the Iranian mullahs to strengthen their power in the region irritates the Iranian population, who have more than once expressed their opposition despite the risks that public protest entails. For the mullahs’ regime, so-called aid to the Palestinians is the perfect weapon to neutralize Arab opinion opposed to Iranian interventionism.
Israel has provided medical care to injured Syrians during the civil war. Moreover, Israel’s goal is to reduce Iranian military penetration into Syria and in particular arms convoys intended for Lebanese Hezbollah. Despite numerous Israeli air attacks (around thirty per year), Lebanese Hezbollah has obtained nearly 150,000 missiles. According to the US State Department, annual Iranian aid to Hezbollah is estimated at $700 million. Hezbollah has not intervened in force since the events of October 7. Iran probably wants to reserve such an intervention in case the conflict between Israel and Iran flares up. The fate of Sunni Gazans does not come into play in the mullahs’ calculations.
The American bombings in Yemen and Iraq constitute a new phase in the geopolitical balance, and many analysts fear a generalized conflict in the region.
Furthermore, although the issue is not on the agenda, Israel must prepare for the possibility of limiting its air interventions in Syria. So far, Russia has not expressed any opposition.