thank you so much for this in-depth analysis of the situation in Syria...something I have never seen up til now. Assad has always been a mystery to me..is he the murderous dictator or the enlightened ruler of a very mixed population? I have only seen very polarized viewpoints. I regret what has happened to the Syrian population this decade...they sit in a very contentious and disputed geographical position and have died in huge numbers for no reasons of their own. So it seems to me. Erdogan is on shaky enough ground with his own population without involving himself in these meddling adventures with his neighbours in the Middle East. The insane Netanyahu is just driven by bloodlust at this point. Your slogan at the top of the page reflects why I don't wish him dead and buried. Kinda sorta..lol I have never been to Syria..I just know them through their beautiful traditional clothes and jewelry...but that is enough to like them a great deal and wish them peace and happiness.
It is not black and white. Like all of us, Bashar Al-Assad is a product of history. He entered into a situation created by his father and the death of his older brother which was, in effect, a structure designed to achieve multiple ends ... obviously to sustain a family dynasty but also to secure order against serious ideological and foreign threats (as we are seeing unfold at the moment) and such an order that would align with the ideals of Arab nationalism. That structure became ossified because it was given no room to change except on the terms of those who wanted to unravel the ideal, to which we can add the natural fear of Alawites (as last community standing in power after coup after coup after coup that had left almost no alternative but a social military dictatorship) at what would happen if they did not hold power. Conveniently forgotten is that the 'massacre' at Hama (even if it happened as has entered modern Islamic mythology) took place after the terrorist slaughter of young military cadets, mostly of Alawite origin. Alawaites became military much as Druze have becomed military within the IDF structures of Israel. The regime became detached from its population, ruthless in maintaining itself and was forced into extreme economic measures by sanctions and the loss of its some of its most important assets placed under occupation in effect by foreign powers. The 'murderous dictator' opinion is that of half-wits without an understanding of history but the enlightened ruler position is equally absurd. I would prefer to see Bashar Al-Assad as an anxious defensive figure trapped by history and without the knowledge or imagination or national infrastructure to change direction under intolerable pressures from 'Ottoman' neo-imperialist, late liberal capitalist, Islamist, centrifugal and 'Zionist' pressures and subversions. The Syrian civil service tended to inefficiency, anxiety and self-protection and so served its nation ill not from malice or laziness but ignorance. The structure built by his father was effective in its time but maladaptive (like the Soviet Union under Brezhnev) as history moved on. What is perhaps most impressive is not its sudden fall but the fact that it maintained resistance to all this forces, all of whom were perfectly happy to combine against the regime, for so long. As so often, peoples are the victims of history - as in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan and so forth. We British are also the victims of our own history which gives us Governments subservient to foreign interests and serially inept. As to the Syrian people, you are right. They are owed more than this but the villainy here is shared widely and cannot simply be assigned to the myth of a quintessentially evil Baathist dictatorship. Thanks for commenting despite the clunkiness of Substack.
thank you so much for this in-depth analysis of the situation in Syria...something I have never seen up til now. Assad has always been a mystery to me..is he the murderous dictator or the enlightened ruler of a very mixed population? I have only seen very polarized viewpoints. I regret what has happened to the Syrian population this decade...they sit in a very contentious and disputed geographical position and have died in huge numbers for no reasons of their own. So it seems to me. Erdogan is on shaky enough ground with his own population without involving himself in these meddling adventures with his neighbours in the Middle East. The insane Netanyahu is just driven by bloodlust at this point. Your slogan at the top of the page reflects why I don't wish him dead and buried. Kinda sorta..lol I have never been to Syria..I just know them through their beautiful traditional clothes and jewelry...but that is enough to like them a great deal and wish them peace and happiness.
It is not black and white. Like all of us, Bashar Al-Assad is a product of history. He entered into a situation created by his father and the death of his older brother which was, in effect, a structure designed to achieve multiple ends ... obviously to sustain a family dynasty but also to secure order against serious ideological and foreign threats (as we are seeing unfold at the moment) and such an order that would align with the ideals of Arab nationalism. That structure became ossified because it was given no room to change except on the terms of those who wanted to unravel the ideal, to which we can add the natural fear of Alawites (as last community standing in power after coup after coup after coup that had left almost no alternative but a social military dictatorship) at what would happen if they did not hold power. Conveniently forgotten is that the 'massacre' at Hama (even if it happened as has entered modern Islamic mythology) took place after the terrorist slaughter of young military cadets, mostly of Alawite origin. Alawaites became military much as Druze have becomed military within the IDF structures of Israel. The regime became detached from its population, ruthless in maintaining itself and was forced into extreme economic measures by sanctions and the loss of its some of its most important assets placed under occupation in effect by foreign powers. The 'murderous dictator' opinion is that of half-wits without an understanding of history but the enlightened ruler position is equally absurd. I would prefer to see Bashar Al-Assad as an anxious defensive figure trapped by history and without the knowledge or imagination or national infrastructure to change direction under intolerable pressures from 'Ottoman' neo-imperialist, late liberal capitalist, Islamist, centrifugal and 'Zionist' pressures and subversions. The Syrian civil service tended to inefficiency, anxiety and self-protection and so served its nation ill not from malice or laziness but ignorance. The structure built by his father was effective in its time but maladaptive (like the Soviet Union under Brezhnev) as history moved on. What is perhaps most impressive is not its sudden fall but the fact that it maintained resistance to all this forces, all of whom were perfectly happy to combine against the regime, for so long. As so often, peoples are the victims of history - as in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan and so forth. We British are also the victims of our own history which gives us Governments subservient to foreign interests and serially inept. As to the Syrian people, you are right. They are owed more than this but the villainy here is shared widely and cannot simply be assigned to the myth of a quintessentially evil Baathist dictatorship. Thanks for commenting despite the clunkiness of Substack.