Humanitarian Catastrophe: Syria was Born amid Plague and Imperial Violence,
and has come Full Circle
TAREQ A. RAMADAN
06/16/2020
Detroit (Special to Informed Comment) Since its creation in 1920 during
the Sam Remo Conference, led by the victors of WWI, the nation-state of
Syria has endured a seemingly perpetual cycle of violence illustrated by
numerous revolts, rebellions, coups, uprisings, and internecine conflicts
over the decades and which continue to haunt the country of nearly twenty
million a hundred years later. Factor in WWI and the decades preceding it,
the population of the Ottoman province of Syria (Vilayeti Suriya) has been
subjected to what seems like more than a century of utter misfortune. By the
end of WWI, some 500,000 people living in Greater Syria succumbed to
fighting, famine and disease and it is certain that a substantial number of
lives, in fact, were lost to the 1918 flu pandemic that even claimed the
life of one of the modern Middle Easts chief architects- Sir Mark Sykes (of
the infamous Sykes-Picot Agreement).
Fast forward to 2020 and some 500,000 or more Syrians have perished in its
broad conflict while a new, global pandemic, COVID-19, threatens to further
ravage the people of Syria. A measure of surrealness surrounds this
horrifying déjà vu, and the chances that war, economic collapse, and
pandemic strike the same place twice during such a short chronological
period, is seemingly unimaginable for many of us. Yet, a few generations
later and the people of Syria are living the same nightmare of their
grandparents and great grandparents.
While the precise historical circumstances differ, the outcomes have been
similar. Today, the multi-faceted and complex uprising turned civil war,
turned proxy battlefield at the hands of major regional and extra-regional
players vying for regional hegemony in Syria has entered its ninth year and
the various conflicts beleaguering the Syrian government remain trying.
Roughly half of Syrias body politic are either refugees living outside the
country (the bulk of whom are in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan with many others
spread around the world) or are internally displaced. Entire sections of
cities have been demolished, razed, obliterated, and countless neighborhoods
and urban districts have been reduced to rubble from fighting on the ground
and as a result of air strikes.
President Bashar al-Assad continues to be the target of unrest and criticism
around the nation and has become increasingly concerned about his and his
familys future, going forward. Rifts between him and his billionaire
maternal cousin, Rami Makhlouf have now become public and Makhlouf has been
barred from traveling and his assets have been frozen on account of
allegedly failing to pay millions in back taxes. Makhlouf, believed to have
been in control of more than half of Syrias economy, is only one of a
handful of regime loyalists who have been targeted by Assad in recent
months. Prince Muhammad bin Salman, in an attempt to control influential
actors in the Saudi Kingdom, similarly placed close relatives under house
arrest and seized billions of dollars in assets as both a symbolic show of
force as well as a money-grab in a nation whose economic future has become
uncertain. A similar situation is unfolding in Syria, it appears, and for
similar reasons.
Additionally, the long-exiled paternal uncle and cousin of Bashar, Rifaat
and Duraid al-Assad, have even conveyed that they may have a role to play in
the future of Syria, going forward. What all of this means is uncertain at
this point, with some arguing that Assad is concerned about losing out to
other Assad family members and others asserting that the crackdown
represents a re-orientation of power and serving as a muscle-flexing
exercise. Syrians and outsiders are watching closely to see if there is, in
fact, a serious internal family dilemma and whether it morphs into a wider,
inner-Baathist struggle for power.
Just last week, Assad fired Prime Minister Imad Khamis in what many see as
an attempt to divert attention away from Assad as the reason for the
nations economic woes. However, things have devolved so terribly in Syria,
financially, that in 2011 (at the start of the conflict), one U.S. dollar
was worth 47 Syrian pounds. That number has now skyrocketed to 3200 Syrian
pounds per U.S. dollar, thus exacerbating the almost indescribable hardships
Syrians have endured for nearly a decade now. In fact, some observers
believe that the crumbling economy, alongside the Syrian governments
unbridled corruption, may be Assads undoing (even the Russians have
reportedly criticized Assad in newspapers over his governments unchecked
nepotism and financial improprieties).
Nonetheless, Putin and his nations armed forces continue to expand their
operations and overall presence in Syria (leading to new tensions between
them and U.S. forces), Erdogan and the Turks have their own independent
vision for the future of its southern neighbor and continues to occupy parts
of northern Syrian including Afrin, Tell Abyad, Ras al-Ain, militias and
terror groups remain a security issue, and swaths of Syria remain home to
anti-government opposition such as As-Suweida and the Houran region,
especially Deraa, which remains a hot-spot for anti-government dissent. In
As-Suweida, anti-regime protests are in full swing among its Druze
population (a subsect of Shiite Islam) with demonstrators shouting the
famous Arab Spring chant al shaib yureed isgaat al-nithaam (the people
want the downfall of the regime) as well as other anti-Assad slogans over
horrifying living conditions there.
The Israeli Air Force frequently launches missile attacks against Syrian,
Hezbollah, and Iranian targets inside the country, and the regime and its
allies have yet to secure the entirety of the war-torn nation whose
population has endured some of the most extensive and traumatic conditions
since WWI which produced destruction, famine, and a frightening death toll
in the area constituting much of modern Syria. Today, like in 1918-1920,
some half a million Syrians are dead, tens of thousands languish in
government prisons or have disappeared (abducted, killed, etc.), there are
food shortages, wheat and flour are at critically low levels, and more than
nine million Syrians have been further immiserated by food insecurity which
has even produced a black market for bread.
Damascus remains a heavily surveilled city with Syrian intelligence
monitoring who departs and who arrives and Syrian ex-pats, particularly
those returning from western countries, are viewed as security threats,
especially young (military-aged) men on account of their absence and their
time in enemy lands such as the U.S. and Europe. They are regularly
interrogated and some even imprisoned and tortured. In fact, thousands of
Syrian men who have returned to Syria, either voluntarily or forcefully,
have been jailed or have disappeared, with no records of their whereabouts.
According to a Washington Post report from July 2019, some 2,000 Syrian men
who had returned to Syria have endured such fates. The countrys security
woes are further compounded by a collapsing economy, as the Syrian Pound
continues to plunge while the corrupt, kleptocratic infrastructure of
Syrias administration continues to be denounced and protested by everyday
Syrians across the country. Its neighbor to the west, Lebanon (home to
hundreds of thousands of Syrians who have fled), has just experienced a
crippling banking collapse that is sending shockwaves into Syria, creating
additional strains on Syrian economic life, which is translating into
further anti-government sentiments.
On top of this, the spread of COVID-19, like the Flu Pandemic of 1918, also
poses a major threat to a nation whose demoralized and broken medical
community is ill-equipped to tackle and will further immiserate a population
who has already lost as astounding number of its own citizens to the
unrelenting violence that has plagued the country since March of 2011. The
dilapidated healthcare infrastructure that has yet to recover from the
horrifying bloodshed of the uprising and ensuing violence could not sustain
a major outbreak and while the confirmed cases are low right now, it is
likely the result of a lack of testing, not a lack of infections (as of June
13, 2020, the Syrian Ministry of Health has recorded 177 confirmed
coronavirus cases and 7 fatalities but only 5,833 COVID-19 tests have been
conducted across only three governorates thus far, according to the UN
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the World Health
Organization). Of course, as infection rates rise, the already plummeting
economy and food shortages will intensify, increasing the misery of millions
of everyday Syrians who have yet to recover from the war that engulfed the
nation for years.
Attempting to gain from the coronavirus outbreak is ISIS (or Daesh). In
fact, ISIS is resurgent in Syria (and in Iraq) and hopes to capitalize on
the spread of COVID-19 which has led to government, administrative, and
military vulnerabilities. ISIS, while holding no territory, has been
actively engaged in sporadic terror attacks in Syria and Iraq, provoking a
response by U.S. and coalition forces via Operation Inherent Resolve- the
premier anti-ISIS military campaign that targets ISIS fighters in both
countries. Additionally, U.S. forces reportedly launched a successful drone
strike in northwestern Syria that killed two top Al-Qaeda-linked commanders
(belonging to the Horras al-Din group) on Sunday (6/14/2020) in Idlib
province.
Furthermore, Iran continues to play a major role in Syria despite its own
economic and pandemic-related woes. It would be quite difficult for the
Iranian government, who reportedly invested some $30 billion in propping up
Assad, to simply depart Syria anytime soon. The same can be said for
Lebanons Hezbollah, who has similarly made major sacrifices to ensure
Assads position there. The subversion of Syrian sovereignty is beginning to
take its toll, though, and is a byproduct of the Syrian governments
capitulation to conventional, armed forces of Iran as well as militias from
around the region and beyond.
In other words, Assads authority and political autonomy is constrained by
the fact that powerful actors have made major investments in (and took many
losses), and have spent incredible resources trying to maintain their
foothold in Syria and are unlikely to bow to Assad if he becomes a
liability. This creates a framework for which to place the next phase of
Syrias upheaval, though it is difficult to predict what happens next. One
thing is for certain, though- the protracted conflict does not appear to
have an end in sight and the more vulnerable Assad appears to his neighbors
and to the various fighting forces vying for power in his domain, the more
unstable Syria will become. Between the multiple actors engaged inside
Syria, the countrys declining standards of living, and the spread of
disease, one can surmise that we are entering a new phase of the Syrian
dilemma, albeit one reminiscent of the circumstances surrounding its very
birth, only a century ago.
By 1918, Syria became detached from the Ottoman Empire and endured a massive
loss of life due to fighting, starvation and disease stemming largely from
the events of WWI. The Syrians endured an appalling level of violence,
economic devastation, and a pandemic by the time the nation-state of Syria
was born in 1920. In 2020, Syria continues to reel from crushing,
hair-raising violence, an economic catastrophe and yet another a
blood-curling pandemic. This redundant reality Syrians are facing is
distressingly unpalatable and is a testament to the fragility and
vulnerability of humanitys collective well-being. It is challenging to
predict what happens next in Syria, but the short-term future appears
increasingly bleak and dire.
