The Essence of the Conflict in Syria

No other conflict since the end of the Cold War has had such a destructive impact on people, combined such a multiplicity of conflicts and had such far reaching regional and international ramifications as the conflict in Syria. Of Syria’s 13.5 million pre-war inhabitants 6 million are internally displaced under cruel conditions, 5.5 million have fled and are refugees in Turkey, Europe (mainly Germany), Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.  What began during the “Arab Spring” as a peaceful protest against a repressive government, escalated into a conflict fought with the means of modern all-out warfare including the use of chemical weapons, cluster bombs, modern jets, cruise missiles and drones, killing civilians and fighters alike. The death toll is estimated at half a million persons, many of them children. Magnifying this ordeal is the particular cruelty of ISIL rule and executions. Many cities have been completely destroyed.

The war in Syria is the vortex of roughly three crisscrossing conflict fronts.  The origin and the center is the conflict between the Assad-government and the national opposition - enlarged regionally by Iran, Hezbollah and fighters from Pakistan and Afghanistan supporting the government while Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia support the opposition in a sort of Shia-Sunni confrontation. This conflict front has been enlarged geopolitically by the United States supporting the opposition and Russia the Assad-government, indeed, using the conflict to implant herself as a major actor the Middle East.

The second conflict front has been created by the extremist Islamic force ISIL and its conquest in Iraq and Syria, where it fights against both   governments and their allies as well as the international coalition led by the US. And the third conflict front opposes Turkey and the Kurds, the latter fighting ISIL while being supported by the US and European countries. This conflict is increasingly complicated by the fact that the military forces of Turkey, a NATO ally though in growing closeness to NATO’s adversary Russia, oppose troops actively supported by the US.

Given the extraordinary complexity of this vortex of conflicts it is not surprising that repeated attempts to find a political solution or a cease fire have had no lasting effect. The pending defeat of ISIL will remove one problem but is unlikely to make a solution easier (not to forget that displaced ISIL fighters might reappear as terrorists in their countries of origin). Given the involvement of Iran and Saudi Arabia any development on the Syria conflict has a profound and potentially negative impact on the rivalry between these countries and the stability of the region. Should President Trump implement his threat to withdraw from the nuclear deal with Iran an explosive dimension with unforeseeable consequences would be added to the regional conflict situation, let alone to the fate of the global non-proliferation regime. Whether the conflict between Turkey and the Kurds can be contained is entirely open, quite apart from the consequences of a military clash between Turkish and US supported Kurdish forces. Finally, the humanitarian disaster of millions of refugees inside and outside of Syria must remain on the agenda of world politics.

A withdrawal of the US from Syria, as threatened by President Trump, and above all from the Iran nuclear deal would make matters much worse. The European Union has to step up its involvement given its interest in the stability of its neighborhood and in dealing with a potentially aggravating refugee situation.

A massive and renewed effort at the level of the UN has become imperative if a worsening of the humanitarian disaster and a regional explosion with global consequences is to be prevented.