Agonal Autism in the Syrian Conflict

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Two facts emphasize the need for a negotiated end to the Syrian conflict. Firstly, Syria's plunge into chaos. The country being beyond repair, something new will (have to) emerge soon. Brian Jenkins had already signed the country's death certificate in 2014 (cf. Jenkins 2014). In spite of Assad's relative revival, the increasing toll of fatalities and displacements - more than half of the population are displaced now - Syria is even deader now. Secondly, the military stalemate that leaves no single warring party any chance of an outright victory that would enable it to rule the whole territory. If, on the other hand, chances for a negotiated settlement have proven to disappear much swifter than they can be made to appear, this only comes to show that changing the sword for the pen is much more easily said than done. While it can be argued that this has always not been easy, it does seem that such a transition has become even more cumbersome, risky, and unlikely in our new age of small, asymmetric, and unconventional warfare with its chronic "lack of partners for peace".

Comprehensive analyses like Michal Lüders' (2015) Wer Wind sät have found an audience, but failed to reach a breakthrough against the political establishment's glass ceiling of defense and denial. The following argument tries to add some provisional ideas to Lüders' analysis in the hope that one or the other conceptual tool might be of some use to reach a fuller understanding of what went wrong - and what could prevent a repetition of the kind of thought, actions, and strategies that caused the Syrian tragedy in the first place.

Lack of Agonal Partnership

It may sound terribly nostalgic of traditional warfare to say that it was a great advantage of "old" wars that they were culturally embedded in a network of practices, customs, rules, and meta-rules that allowed for institutionalized communication even with soldiers still fighting. Ethnologist Wilhelm E. Mühlmann (1940) had referred to such phenomena as "agonal partnership". The existence of a meta-level of partnership in the middle of armed conflict produced things like the Christmas Truce 1914, but also episodes very difficult to imagine in the present-day Syrian conflict:

While German and British fighter pilots in World War I were the deadliest of enemies, stories of chivalry are not as rare as might be expected. In one case, German pilot Oswald Boelke shot down a British plane in January, 1916. Boelke then landed and was delighted so see that he had brought down the enemy plane with its two-person crew alive. He had a long talk with the pilot, saw to it that they were both taken in a car to the hospital, and later visited crewmember Fomilli in hospital, who wrote a letter to a Captain Babington of the Royal Flying Corps telling that they were alive and wanted their families to know that. The Germman pilot took the letter and dropped it over the British lines where it reached the captain and ultimately the crew member's family ("Gentlemen of the skies: German flew behind enemy lines to deliver letter from Brit he shot down. MailOnline 8 September 2012).

In the Syrian conflict, there is no such thing as agonal partnership. Much to the contrary. Like other "small" wars, it is characterized by deep hatred and lack of empathy, the absence or violation of humanitarian law and rules of engagement, a lack of distinction between combatants and non-combatants, and even between war and peace. Small wars like the Syrian one are almost by definition wars of blurred boundaries and de-civilizing vicious circles of brutality. Not only the other side's combatants are being defined as enemy, but the ethnic, religious or national group in its entirety. Civilians are seen as legitimate objects of sub-state actors in small wars - but even regular armies tend towards assimilating to the irregular ways of fighting they see in their counterparts. Moreover, small wars are being fought everywhere: in deserts and urban centers, on battlefields and the bridges or Christmas markets of European capitals. In addition, long-distance weapons like killer drones guided by far away armchair "pilots" and/or impersonal computer software ("disposition matrix"), the use of makeshift weapons like trucks or cars, etc., contribute to a chaotic situation in which nothing is harder to imagine than chivalry as part of agonal partnership.

The very fact that sub-state actors use unconventional weapons, tactics, and objects - including civilians - makes them more vulnerable to a definition as terrorists. Such a label paves the way for a strategy of extermination rather than negotiation. As White House Speaker Scott McClellan said when asked how the United States would react to Usama bin Laden's offer to negotiate a truce in 2006, "We don't negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business" (Buncombe 2006). - And is it hard to imagine a symmetric attitude on the part of insurgents with the experience of being exposed to incessant large-scale bombing and drone raids? Hence, what is certainly lacking in the Syrian conflict, is "agonal partnership" as a window of opportunity for getting to the negotiating table.

Instead: Agonal Autism

If we try to find a way to describe the Syrian situation today, we have to look for an antonym to the Mühlmannina term of agonal partnership - a search that could produce a term like "agonal autism". That would refer to the lack of communality, and the non-functioning of social communication and interaction including a basic lack of reciprocity. In people with an autistic personality disorder this comes to show in the problems that appear in everyday rituals like meeting and leaving, asking, giving and thanking, reciprocal smiles, frowns etc. - To be sure, the clinical term of autism has quite a varied use from Eugen Bleuler's first use in 1911 as a central symptom of schizophrenia over Sigmund Freud's equation of autism with narcissism, and all the way to today's everyday use to refer to persons with an excessive self-centeredness and who are in need of help because of their living mostly in their own imagination. While it may certainly be seen as objectionable to pick a term of individual pathology to draw analogies to political strategies, one may decide to provisionally accept this manoeuvre - and be it faute de mieux until some more appropriate term emerges.

Agonal autism lacks the prerequisites of agonal partnership, i.e. it lacks the option to change from a first level of antagonism (fighting each other) to a second one consisting of communication about the conflict). Lacking such a normative framework on a meta-level, a party to a conflict is condemned to a radically self-centered perception, conceptualization, and action within a conflict. Parties fight each other, but with regard to the codes of right/wrong, good/bad, legal/illegal, etc., their autism confines them within the conceptual walls of their own subjective world view and reality. All of this would be innocuous were it not for the fact that - as the Thomas theorem goes - "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences" (Thomas & Thomas 1928: 571-2). In other words: If a party to a conflict believes that the enemy is "really" neither willing nor able nor worth to negotiate, then there will the real consequence that there will be not negotiation - even if in the objective world the enemy were of a kind that did want to negotiate, were able to do it and were worth dealing with peacefully. The "real consequences" of the mere belief then could be the annihilation of the enemy believed to be unable, unwilling and unworthy negotiations.

The Phenomenon of Discrepant Punctuation

Why people develop a perceptional and interactional self-centeredness is not really difficult to understand. It is a function of self-preservation. Even extreme self-centeredness is a natural phenomenon. At least in developmental psychology. There, narcissism is the dominant trait during the first months of a human baby's life. As development proceeds, narcissism is being refined and reduced and ends up as a healthy "ego-ideal" in the adult (just like the super-ego can be seen as what is left in the adult person of the earlier Oediupus conflict).

Of course, there are all kinds of risks and hazards on the way to what is considered a well-balanced adult. In developmental criminology, some theorists (e.g. Kaplan 1980) contend that the need for a defense against low self-esteem (brought about by low performance in school) can be seen as a motivating factor for delinquent behavior (with defensiveness operationalized as a discrepancy between scores on measures of high conscious self-esteem and low unconscious esteem).

In social psychology, a certain self-centeredness in the service of the defense of self can be seen manifesting itself in dyadic conflicts between individuals, such as in long-standing conflicts between husband and wife. Here, each partner tends to have his/her own narrative of who treated whom unfairly first. This is what interactionist communication researchers have come to refer to as the phenomenon of discrepant punctuation in a sequence of events (Watzlawick et al. 1967).

The reason why different narratives about conflicts exist, is, for one thing, the fact that - in any longer chain of events - every item in the sequence can simultaneously be seen as stimulus, response, and reinforcement.

"A given item of A's behavior is a stimulus insofar as it is followed by an item contributed by B and that by another item contributed by A. But insofer as A's item is sanwiched between two items contributed by B, it is a response. Similarly A's item is a reinforcement insofar as it follows an item contributed by B. The ongoing interchanges, then, which we are here discussing, constitute a chain of overlapping triadic links, each of which is comparable to a stimulus-response-reinforcement sequence. We can take any triad of our interchange and see it as a single trial in a stimulus response learning experiment. - If we look at the conventional learning experiments from this point of view, we observe at once that repeated trials amount to a differentiation of relationship between the two organisms concerned - the experimenter and his subject. The sequence of trials is so punctuated that it is always the experimenter who seems to provide the 'stimuli' and the 'reinforcements', while the subject provides the 'responses'. These words are here deliberately put in quotation marks because the role definitions are in fact only created by the willingness of the organisms to accept the system of punctuation. The 'reality' of the role definitions is only of the same order as the reality of a bat on a Rorschach card - a more or less over-determined creation of the perceptive process. The rat who said 'I have got my experimenter trained. Each time I press the lever he gives me food' was declining to accept the punctuation of the sequence which the experimenter was seeking to impose. - It is still true, however, that in a long sequence of interchange, the organisms concerned - especially if these be people - will in fact punctuate the sequence so that it will appear that one or the other has initiative, dominance, dependency or the like" (Bateson & Jackson, 1964, pp. 273-74).

Every party to a conflict tends to see the other party as the cause of the grievance, and its own actions as a reaction to the other party's misbehavior. According to Watzlawick et al. (1967), disagreement about how to punctuate a sequence of events is at the root of countless relationship struggles:

"Suppose a couple have a marital problem to which he contributes passive withdrawal, while her 50 per cent is nagging criticism. In explaining their frustrations, the husband will state that withdrawal is his only defense against' her nagging, while she will label this explanation a gross and willful distortion of what 'really' happens in their marriage: namely, that she is critical of him because of his passivity. Stripped of all ephemeral and fortuitous elements, their fights consist in a monotonous exchange of the messages 'I withdraw because you nag' and 'I nag because you withdraw.' (...) It can be seen that the husband only perceives triads 2-3-4, 4-5-6, 6-7-8, etc., where his behavior (solid arrows) is 'merely' a response to her behavior (the broken arrows). With her it is exactly the other way around; she punctuates the sequence of events into the triads 1-2-3, 3-4-5, 5-6-7, etc., and sees herself as only reacting to, but not determining, her husband's behavior. In conjoint psychotherapy with couples one is frequently struck by the intensity of what in traditional psychotherapy would be referred to as 'reality distortion' on the part of both parties. It is often hard to believe that two individuals could have such divergent views on many elements of joint experience. And yet the problem lies primarily in an area already frequently mentioned: their inability to metacommunicate about their respective patterning of their interaction. This interaction is of an oscillatory yes-no-yes-no-yes nature which theoretically can go on ad infinitum and almost invariably is accompanied, as we shall see later, by the typical charges of badness or madness."

The evident function of clinging to one's own version of the sequence of events is - again - the defense of the worth and integrity of one's own self. The longer and the more costly those discrepant punctuations of sequences of events become, the more it will turn into a threat to a common good (the existence as a couple as such). In such a situation it is good to reach out for a third party (a therapist) who can observe the couple from a meta-level of communication and devise methods of cautious interventions with the goal of slowly opening both partners to the perceptions of the other.

Do Governments Need Therapy?

Nothing is more tempting than to transfer the image of the husband-wife-conflict with its mutually exclusive narratives about causes and responsibilities ("you started it all, I only react to what you are doing to me") onto the level of international conflicts.

During the Cold War, there was much talk about that. It went something like this: If one could reveal the blind spots of both sides' views of East-West conflict during the Cold War, one might help governments to overcome those perceptual limitations and prejudices, and conflicts could be resolved in almost no time at all. The hottest candidate was Carl Rogers' person-centered talking therapy. Did not Rogers himself propagate that? And even if this might be a false memory, it is a proven fact that Watzlawick himself did apply the concept of discrepant punctuation to the case of the East-West arms race (Watzlawick et al. 1967), implying that - given a third party to help them climb the meta-level of communication - things could be easily resolved. And it is not implausible at all that such a thought was behind more recent attempts to apply the concept of discrepant punctuation to the interaction sequences between the United States and Al Qaida in the War on Terror. Thanks to Malick's (2011) analysis, it can be treated as an established fact that there are indeed mutually irreconcilable narratives in the Al Qaida conflict - and it would come as a great surprise if the same were not true in the case of Syria that we are dealing with today.

The March-of-Folly Hypothesis

The question does not seem to be "If" there is a cognitive distortion in the Western narrative, but "Why". How is it possible that the world's only remaining superpower comes up with such a distored narrative? How can it be so blind to its own mistakes? How can a government follow an evidently self-defeating policy even though it knows that there is an alternative path of action? Such questions have been asked before with regard to other similarly compelling politica paradoxes. Why is it that governments pursue policies contrary to their own interests - from Vietnam over the counterproductive War on Terror all the way to Syria?

In the tradition of Barbara Tuchman's book on The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam (1984), it has been the dominant response of more or less well-meaning liberal critics that sometimes, decision-makers are just too ill-informed and ill-tempered, so they take foolish decisions that they (and others) will later regret.

The lesson from this kind of thinking leads to a simple conclusion even if that may be hard to realize in practice: let us elect more intellectually capable leaders, or, if that does not work, let us at least try to educate those in power to the highest degree possible with the best adivsors imaginable. And maybe, one or the other of our leaders could see a talking therapist.

The Higher-Rationality Hypothesis

An alternative approach would suggest that what seems self-defeating, dumb, and ineffective might look irrational at first sight only, but reveal a certain sense and rationality if seen in a larger context. Seemingly irrational phenomena in politics might turn out to be rational as part of a larger scheme. That is the idea of George Tsebelis in his book on Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics (1990).

Tsebelis asks why actors confronted with a series of choices sometimes do not pick the alternative that appears to be the best, but rather a more or less evidently irrational or outright foolish one in which there is a less than optimal correspondence between ends and means. The secret is, according to Tsebelis, that there is often not only just one two-sided game that is being played, but that there are often two or multiple arenas as well as different games in these arenas with variable payoffs. To make it more complex: there are also games in which the payoffs of the game in the principal arena are influenced by the prevailing conditions in another, secondary, arena. In other words: there can be a dominating game and a subgame, and mutual influences determining differential payoffs.

Applied to the Syrian conflict, a reconstruction may look like this:

(1) In the Syrian arena itself the game is "who owns Syria?". U.S. policy did neither bring peace to Syria nor well-being for the Syrian people. Much to the contrary, it further hurt the U.S.' reputation and interests in and around Syria, strengthening jihadist propaganda, recruitment and terrorism. Verdict: U.S. policy is irrational and foolish.

(2) In the Near East arena at large the game is "who owns the Near East?". A realistic view sees U.S. interests best preserved by reliance on powerful elites (instead of "Arab Spring movements"). Nuclear regional powers, strong military rulers and highly armed autocrats are seen as best friends. To legitimized this alliance, it is good to have terrorist organizations as "suitable enemies" (Nils Christie). It may be both necessary and fruitful to engage in an endless war against such enemies. The longer it lasts, the more deviant governments can be eliminated on the way - see Qatar - and the more stable and friendly the whole environment will be in the completely transformed region that will be characterized by, among other things, an effective incapacitation of all shiite governments, movements, populations, and organizations.

(3) In the World arena that game is "who rules the world?". Security and prosperity of the West can either be guaranteed by cooperation in a multi-polar word, or it can be pursued maybe more effectively by a hegemonic strategy of preventing the formation of any power or coalition of powers able to challenge U.S. supremacy. The hegemonic strategy would stress military and economic supremacy, while the multipolar cooeration strategy would invest in creating markets by spreadig economic buying power over the globe's population. A hegemonic strategy can afford and even strive to destroy government structures and social fabric in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and other potential troublemaker countries, since it gives the more reliable regional powers space to breathe and act as they wish. Even an "endless war" in the Near East and other parts of the world is better than reconstructing countries that - due to their traditions and interests - can only be regarded as potential troublemakers.

Seen from the nested games perspective, a famous Shakespearean line come to mind: Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't. What liberal thinkers see as the equivalent of a declaration of intellectual bankruptcy suddenly appears as highly rational. One just has to admit that there is more than just one game, and that the destruction of a few countries in the Near East can fit a calculation of ends and means in another arena where there is a game being played that promises much higher payoffs than any peace deal.

To sum it up: to the neutral observer, the U.S. narrative shows a clear cognitive distortion. In a way, though, such a focus on faulty communication tends to belittle the relevance of socio-economic interests, power structures, and legitimizing discourses. To say that conflict parties just do not talk enough and that they do not talk enough because they have different perceptions of who started it all and who is responsible for the conflict ("discrepant punctuation") simply does not grasp the fact that international politics are not governed by naively distorted perceptions, but that - as a rule - they at least contain a large portion of strategic modelling, and be it only for securing popular support in the electorate. While the political and the media discourses might look similar to the one-sidedness of a husband's narrative in a couple conflict, one should not rush to conclusions. While the husband may be given the benefit of naiveté, the White House discourse on Syria should be given credit for having been more carefully constructed to serve the foreign policy interests as defined by those in that House. Instead of being unable to prevent cognitive distortions in their perceptions and discourses, political actors in asymmetric conflicts are normally unwilling to refrain from distoring facts because they calculate that to do that kind of talking and to pursue that kind of walking will serve their most important objectives best. What they need, then, from those who believe in the power of justice and solidarity, is not therapy, but resistance.

Chances for peace

“We should have prevented this from happening because this is a self-made disaster, this flow of refugees to our countries in Europe,” Ahtisaari said. “I don’t see any other option but to take good care of these poor people … We are paying the bills we have caused ourselves.”
  • "Die beiden großen Syrien-Konferenzen der UN, im Juni 2012 und im Januar 2014 in Genf, sind gescheitert, weil die 'Freunde des syrischen Volkes' auf einer Übergangsregierung bestanden, der Assad und idealerweise das gesamte Regime nicht mehr angehören sollten. Warum hätte er sich, warum hätten sich Russland und der Iran darauf einlassen sollen? Zur ersten Syrien-Konfernz war Teheran gar nicht erst eingeladen worden. Bei der zweiten suchte UN-Generalsekretär Ban Ki-moon, diesen Fehler zu korrigieren und lud die iranische Führung ein , um sie kurz vor Konferenzbeginn in einem beispiellosen Akt der Demütigung auf amerikanischen Druck hin wieder ausladen zu müssen. Die Politik der USA zwischen beiden Konferenzen war wesentlich darauf fokussiert, immer wieder Moskau und Peking zu geißeln. Vor allem Außenministerin Hillary Clinton tat sich hervor mit verbalen Angriffen: Russland und China würden ihre Unterstützung Assads 'teuer bezahlen', beider Verhalten sei 'verabscheuungswürdig', sie betrieben 'Obstruktion' und 'missbrauchten' die Vereinten Nationen, und so weiter. Im Übrigen wurden weitere Sanktionen gegen Damaskus verhängt, drohten die USA wiederholt mit militärischem Eingreifen, sagten aber die allseits erwartete Intervention nach dem Einsatz von Chemiewaffen im August 2013, mutmaßlich durch das Regime, überraschend ab. (...) Fehlende Diplomatie udn Kompromissbereitschaft im Umgang mit Russland und dem Iran haben ebenso wie das Festhalten an der vermeintlichen Alternative einer 'gemäßigten' Opposition den Weg geebnet für den weiteren Staatszerfall und den Vormarsch des 'Islamischen Staates' auch in Syrien. Gleichzeitig wurde Syrien neben dem Irak zum Schlachtfeld eines Stellvertreterkrieges zwischen Saudi-Arabien und dem Iran, eines zunehmend gefährlicheren Showdowns zwischen Sunniten und Schiiten, dessen Folgen noch gar nicht abzusehen sind." (Lüders 2015: 73 f.).
  • Dem "Wehklagen, wäre Assad rechtzeitig gestürztworden, hätte es auch den Siegeszug des 'Islamischen Staates' nicht gegeben, sei entgegnet: Das Gegenteil ist richtig. Die Absicht, Assad um jeden Preis zu stürzen, hat den IS in Syrien erst stark gemacht. Und wäre der Diktator tatsächlich gestürzt worden, wären heute in Damaskus die Gotteskrieger an der Macht" (Lüders 2015: 78 f.).
  • The war in Syria opened a window of opportunity for ISIL. Hama sunnites were looking for help against the shiite government forces, and ISIL saw a chance of toppling the shiite regime in Damascus. In 2012 and 2013, ISIL became active in Syria: holy scripture saying that the final victory will be handed to sunni moslems north of Aleppo close to the Turkish border at Al-A'maq or Dabiq against 42 armies (Lüders 2015: 88).
  • Den Iran "auf Distanz zu halten, obwohl er ein natürlicher Verbündeter gegen sunnitische Extremisten wäre, ist ideologisch motivierter Unsinn und falscher Rücksichtnahme Israel und den Golfstaaten gegenüber geschuldet (...) Die Lage ist so verfahren, dass westliche Regierungen mit allen Beteiligten reden und verhandeln müssten. DAs schließt Russland und China ... mit ein. Geschehen wird das gleichwohl nicht, weil die amerikanische Politik einer hegemonialen Vernunft folgt, die nicht auf ein Gleichgewicht der Kräfte abzielt, sondern die politische und wirtschaftliche Vorherrschaft der USA weltweit zu sichern sucht. Vermutlich wird dieser fehlende Pragmatismus am Ende den Niedergang der Weltmacht noch beschleunigen." (Lüders 2015: 100).


Timeline

In 1982, Bashar's father, Hafez al-Assad, ordered a military crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, which killed between 10,000-40,000 people and flattened much of the city. That accounts for the Muslim Brotherhood's opposition to Bashar al-Assad.

2011

  • January: first limited articulations of public dissent, inspired by North African revolts. January 31: Assad declares himself ready for political reforms in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. He rules out that North African revolts could happen in Syria, because the situation is different.
  • February: An oppositional call for a "day of wrath" (4 and 5 February) elicits little response. - But on Feb. 15, anti-Assad graffiti on a school building in the southern city of Deraa leads to harsh reactions. Arrest of 15 school children.
  • March: March 17 a UN resolution allows intervention in Libya. - At the same time, waves of demonstrations and repression with many victims in Deraa (Darʿā). Object of protest: Rami Machluf, a cousin of the President and symbol of corruption. Object of repression: A mosque used as a makeshift hospital. Inconsistent reactions between brutaliy and concessions. Demonstrations still limited to Deraa, with only insignificant protest in Kurdish town of Qamishli and little dissent in Damascus proper. 25 March Assad announces reforms, later also repeal of emergency laws. Cabinet steps down.
  • April: the repeal of emergency laws fulfills a central request of demonstrators. Infamous seurity courts to be abolished. By now, protests have spread, and dissatisfaction has radicalized. US start sanctions; UN Human Rights Council starts investigation. Exiled Muslim brotherhood supports protests. 500 people dead since beginning of the year.
  • May: Assad deploys army in anti-terrorism actions. Countrywide mass protests. The mutilated corpse of 13 year old Hamza al-Chatib released. He had disappeared 29 April near Deraa and had been tortured and killed by security. He becomes a symbol in the ensuing revolt.
  • June: June 20, Assad promises reforms in his third public speech since January. June 26, government permits meeting of opposition that calls for more democratization, end of regime violence, and liberation of all political prisoners. - Human Rights Watch publishes report; Australian PM wants Assad before a UN court. - Mass protests and violence continue. Snipers keep playing a role.
  • July: National Dialogue; permission of political parties. - USA and France challenge authorities by non-announced visits to Hama in solidarity with protesters. Anti-US demonstrations in Damascus. - Defectors announce formation of a Free Syrian Army.
  • August: Turkey calls for end of regime violence; US, France, Britain, Germany declare that Assad regime has "lost all legitimacy".
  • September: Oil embargo. Opposition creates Syrian National Council in Istanbul to prepare transition.
  • October: Start of work on a new constitution. Assad admits great mistakes of security forces in interview with Sunday Telegraph on 30 October, promises that only terrorists would be targeted.
  • November: Agreement between government and Arab League to end violence. Agreement cannot be implemented. Suspension of Syrian membership.
  • December: Local elections. - Observer mission of Arab League. - Russia and China ready to support anti-government-violence resolution of Security council, but no sanctions. - Mass protests in Syria continue.

Although the initial protests in 2011 were mostly non-sectarian, armed conflict led to the emergence of starker sectarian divisions. Minority religious groups, but also the Sunni business world, tend to support the Assad government, while the overwhelming majority of opposition fighters are impoverished Sunni Muslims, many of whom victims of the severe drought that plagued the country 2007-10, spurring as many as 1.5 mio. to migrate into the cities, exacerbating poverty and social unrest. - Syria's security establishment, on the other hand, is dominated by Alawites, of which Assad is a member. Besides Deraa and Homs, the center of protests is Hama, a Sunni town where Assad's father had killed 30 000 in his fight against the muslim brotherhood in 1982. Of Syria's 23 mio inhabitants, more than half have become (internal and external) refugees.

  • As soon as 2011, the lack of compromise was tangible. While it seems that Assad himself repeatedly tried to reach out to opponents, his security forces (and non-identified snipers) continued a repression that was countered by uncompromising opposition refusing anything short of regime change - an opposition strongly supported by Saudi Arabia, the USA, and others.
  • As soon as 2012, a secret weapon supply by air was inaugurated for the opposition: Arab regimes and Turkey were helped by the CIA to ship weapons and war materials to the opposition forces (NYT; Lüders 2015: 76).

2012

  • June: UN Syria conference
  • July: Assassination of Assad's brother-in-law marks attack at inner circle of Damascus regime.

The Free Syrian Army combines a bundle of militias attacking government strongholds like Damascus and Aleppo and thus provoking regime repression and destruction in these large urban centers. Unable to build a working administration in its occupied territories, the FSA does produce the image of a civil war and is instrumental in transforming the Syrian conflict into a proxy war of outside powers. On the one hand, the Western countries including Israel, Turkey, and the Gulf states under leadership of Saudi Arabia, who want regime change, and on the other hand, Russia, China, and Iran, trying to prevent exactly that.

Since no Western power was ready to pressure Israel to return the Golan to Syria after 1967, Syria moved closer to Russia. With the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Syria gained another ally. And when Hizbollah emerged in the 1980s as a reaction to the israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon (1982-2000), this shiite liberation group was another ally. This axis between Hizbollah, Assad, and Iran is one of the main objects of Israeli concern. Much of the foreign policy of Israel, the USA, and the West, can be explained as the attempt to do as much as possible to destroy this axis and each of its parts (Lüders 2015: 70):

  • The West pressured Syria to take out its troops from Syria that had been stationed since the beginning of the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990), after the Hariri-assassination in 2005
  • The West organized the "Friends of Syria" (France, West, Turkey, Gulf, under leadership of the US). Aim: regime change. Assad = Hitler. Officially for democracy, in reality global politics with the hope of establishing a Western regime without connections to Iran and Hizbollah.
  • The aftermath of Libyan regime change: intensified unrest in Northern Nigeria (Boko Haram) and Mali. Secondary interventions in Mali by France and Germany. - Russia and China remain cautious with UN Security Council resolutions that purportedly "protect civilians" against regime violence. They block UN resolutions on Syria.

2013

  • In spite of considerable pressure, US President Barack Obama does not intervene directly to topple the al-Assad government after it allegedly used chemical weapons (thus crossing a "red line"). Russia helps de-escalate the situation and al-Assad starts to dismantle his arsenal of chemical weapons. Despite that 1,300 tonnes of sarin nerve gas and its precursors were removed from Syria, chemical weapons have been a recurring footnote in the bloody narrative of Syria's civil war.
  • April 9, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi claims union with Nusra-Front; Nusra resistance leaves 6000 dead in clashes between ISIL and Nusra. Both gain ground in Syria.
  • July 3, military coup in Egypt topples elected government of muslim brotherhood's Mursi
  • Jane's Defense Weekly estimates more than 1000 groups, militias and other entities in the armed conflict at the end of the year.

2014

  • January: Second Syrian Conference in Geneva.
  • April 7, the US carried its first direct military action against Assad's forces, launching 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air force base from which US officials believe a chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun had been launched. Since then, an international coalition led by the United States has bombed targets of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS). - video: The origins of ISIL (47:29)
  • Sisi wins presidential election in Egypt with 96.31 per cent of votes.
  • June: 29 June, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimes Caliphate in Mossul.
  • July & August: Israel attacks Gaza (Protective Edge)
  • December: Times of Israel reports on 13 December: "Report by international High Level Military Group blasts UN commission, says Israel set a standard no other army could match."

2015

  • September: Russia launches a bombing campaign against what it referred to as "terrorist groups" in Syria, which included ISIL as well as rebel groups backed by western states. Russia has also deployed military advisers to shore up Assad's defences.
  • September 7: Nikolas Busse criticizes the West for inaction in Syria. "Krieg in Syrien. Bewährungsprobe für die EU. Iran und Saudi-Arabien liefern sich auf syrischem Boden einen Stellvertreterkrieg. Die Europäer müssen nun ihre diplomatische und militärisch Strategie überdenken, um vereint Druck auf diese Regierungen auszuüben. Zu den großen Versäumnissen der Europäer gehört es, dass sie den syrischen Krisenherd anderen Akteuren überlassen haben. Seit Jahren ist bekannt, welche Gefahren und Belastungen für die EU vom Bürgerkrieg in diesem Land ausgehen. Aber weder diplomatisch noch militärisch haben sich die Europäer bisher sonderlich um eine Stabilisierung Syriens bemüht. Die politischen Verhandlungen führen die Vereinten Nationen; der Fortgang des Krieges wird maßgeblich von den Vereinigten Staaten, der Türkei, den Golf-Staaten, Iran und Russland beeinflusst – über Waffenlieferungen oder durch direkte Interventionen. Die Interessen dieser Länder decken sich aber nur zum Teil mit denen Europas. Für die meisten stehen geostrategische Aspekte im Vordergrund, von Flüchtlingsströmen sind sie (mit Ausnahme der Türkei) kaum betroffen. Frankreich will das durch einen Eintritt in den Luftkrieg nun ändern. Ähnliche Überlegungen gibt es auch in Großbritannien. Grundsätzlich ist ein stärkeres europäisches Engagement zu begrüßen, allerdings stellt sich schon die Frage, ob gerade Luftschläge dazu das geeignete Mittel sind. Es ist ja nicht so, dass es der von Amerika geführten Allianz gegen den „Islamischen Staat“ an Flugzeugen mangelt. - Woran es in Syrien fehlt, sind westlich orientierte Bodentruppen, die sowohl gegen den IS als auch gegen das Assad-Regime vorgehen könnten. Die Amerikaner sind mit dem Aufstellen einer solchen Truppe bisher nicht weit gekommen. Die Entsendung von Bodentruppen schließt Präsident Hollande aber kategorisch aus. Deshalb sollte man sich von seinem Vorstoß nicht allzu viel erwarten. Die geplante Fokussierung auf den IS könnte sogar noch Assad in die Hände spielen, der militärisch derzeit in großer Bedrängnis ist. - Wenn die Europäer ihre Passivität gegenüber dem Hauptherkunftsland der Flüchtlinge endlich überwinden wollen, dann sollten sie ihre gesamte regionale Diplomatie überdenken. Die beiden wichtigsten Protagonisten sind Iran und Saudi-Arabien, die sich auf syrischem Boden einen Stellvertreterkrieg liefern. Wenn die Europäer beginnen würden, vereint Druck auf diese Regierungen auszuüben, statt getrennt ihren geschäftlichen Interessen nachzugehen, könnte das durchaus Wirkung entfalten. Auch das ist eine Bewährungsprobe für die EU.
...es ist durchaus nicht so, daß die EU in syrien passiv das geschehen verfolgt. es gibt die gegen das land syrien mit seiner rechtmäßigen regierung verhängten sanktionen. es gibt die einseitige unterstützung dubioser bewaffneter verbände durch die sogenannten "freunde syriens" [inklusive der EU-staaten] gegen die rechtmäßige regierung syriens etc. pp. die jetzige fluchtbewegung ist nicht zuletzt folge dieser politik - die schuld einseitig den USA zuzuweisen, greift da wohl zu kurz. ich kann mich auch noch an die festnahme einer zweistelligen anzahl französischer geheimdienstoffiziere durch syrische behörden erinnern - das war noch vor der aufnahme der abkürzung "IS" in den duden. und die britische regierung berichtet heute im unterhaus über einen bereits erfolgten militärischen angriff auf syrischem staatsgebiet. das zusammen ist jedenfalls kein "nicht-engagement". und die anwerbung der gebildeten syrischen mittelschicht als flüchtlinge auch nicht.
  • October: the US scrapped its controversial programme to train Syrian rebels, after it was revealed that it had spent $500m but only trained 60 fighters.

2016

  • In December 2016, the Syrian army announced that Aleppo has been fully recaptured from rebel fighters, the government's biggest victory in the nearly six-year civil war. Syrian government forces used chemical weapons in rebel-held areas of Aleppo during the final weeks of the battle to retake the key city, killing at least nine people and wounding hundreds more, according to Human Rights Watch. Since Assad's forces recaptured Aleppo, a new military alliance of rebel groups in northern Syria was formed with the aim to consolidate military control over Idlib province, the western part of Aleppo province and parts of Latakia province, according to an FSA commander.
  • Whereas several rounds of peace talks have failed to stop the fighting, the Syrian government and the opposition groups have agreed to 13 evacuations. Evacuation deals allow opposition fighters to safely leave government-besieged cities and towns for areas under opposition control in Northern Syria.
  • Rebel groups have jockeyed for power, and frequently fight one another. Fighting has occasionally spilled over from Syria into Lebanon, contributing to the country's political polarisation.

2017

  • February: the CIA froze funding and logistical support for rebel factions in northern Syria.
  • March: according to Free Syrian Army (FSA) sources, the funding was restored to a certain extent by late March. In March, the alliance of US-backed fighters said it has begun a new phase of its campaign on the ISIL-held city of Raqqa in northern Syria, aiming to complete its encirclement and sever the road to the group's strongholds in Deir Az Zor province. - Also in March, fighting in and around Damascus has intensified after surprise attacks by rebel fighters in the northeastern parts of the city. The United Nations said fighting around Syria's capital has cut off 300,000 people from humanitarian assistance and pauses in the conflict are needed to allow aid convoys to get to the area.
  • A suspected chemical attack that killed at least 80 civilians in the Idlib opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun is being investigated by the UN as a potential war crime, while Bashar al-Assad said it was a " fabrication" to justify US military intervention.
  • April: Over 110 were killed on April 15, during an evacuation deal between the rebels and the goverment. The attack targeted the evacuation convoys from the rebel-besieged towns of Foua and Kefraya in Idlib.
  • May 4: Russia, Iran and Turkey have called for the setup of four "de-escalation zones" in Syria, in which Syrian and Russia fighter jets that Syrian government fighter jets are not expected to fly over for six months.
  • At the UN Security Council, Russia has vetoed eight Western-backed resolutions on Syria, while China vetoed six resolutions.
  • US administration claims it found evidence of a crematorium in the notorious Saydnaya prison. According to the reports, the Syrian regime is using the crematorium to cover up the number of those killed in prison.
  • According to the SDF, Tabqa and the adjacent dam were recaptured from ISIL, which leaves no other major ISIL-held urban settlements on the eastern road to Raqqa. EXPLAINED: Re-taking ISIL's capital
  • In addition to Aleppo, the Syrian government currently controls the capital, Damascus, parts of southern Syria and Deir Az Zor, much of the area near the Syrian-Lebanese border, and the northwestern coastal region. Rebel groups, ISIL, and Kurdish forces control the rest of the country.

Participants in the Conflict

The Government and its Supporters

Iran and Iraq support Assad, as does Lebanon-based Hezbollah. Russia.

The Anti-Government Forces

  1. Since the Free Syrian Army formed in 2011, many new rebel groups have joined the fighting in Syria, including ISIL, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, Iran-backed Hezbollah, Iranian and Afghan fighters, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). The FSA has weakened as the war has progressed, while explicitly Islamist groups such as the al-Nusra Front became empowered. ISIL emerged in northern and eastern Syria in 2013 after overrunning large portions of Iraq. The group quickly gained international notoriety for its brutal executions and its energetic use of social media. The ranks of ISIL include a sizeable number of fighters from around the world. - al-Nusra Front leader, Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, announced in 2016 his group's name changed to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, or The Front for liberation of al-Sham, and severed ties with al-Qaeda. - The rebel group Falcons of al-Ghab, in: en.wikipedia.org (2012-15) associated with the FSA, after the killing of its leader in 2015 by Al Nusra Front, the group was dissolved and integrated into Jaysh al-Nasr (Army of Victory).
  2. Several Arab states, along with Turkey, have provided weapons and materiel to rebel groups in Syria. Sunni-majority states including Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and others staunchly support the rebels.
  3. Turkish troops and special forces backed by the Free Syria Army, launched in August 2016 operation " Euphrates Shield" against ISIL to liberate the strategic Syrian city of Jarablus on the border with Turkey and to stop the advance of Kurdish militia fighters. Turkey's government fears its large native Kurdish population may grow more restive and demand greater autonomy as a result of increased Kurdish control in northeast Syria.
  4. In March 2017, Turkey officially ended the Euphrates Shield military operation, but struck again in April against Kurdish PKK targets in the Karachok Mountains. Turkey's top officials have also criticised the US' decision to arm Kurdish fighters battling ISIL in Syria.
  5. Israel also carried out air strikes inside Syria, the latest of which on Damascus and Quneitra. Purportedly hitting Hizbollah arms deliveries. Israel and Syria are technically at war since 1948, but the border remained largely quiet since 1973. - WATCH: Syria: Under Russia's Fist (25:00). WATCH: US strike in Syria: Game changer or deterrent? (25:00)

Role of the USA

Die USA verkünden westliche Werte, akzeptieren Wahlergebnisse aber nur, wenn der Gewinner genehm ist: Algerien 1992, Staatsstreich gegen Mursi 2013. Keine Einwände gegen Annullierung der ägyptischen Wahlen 2011/12 durch das Mubarak-treue Oberste Gericht. - Wer sich dem Hegemonieanspruch der USA widersetzt, wird mit Sanktionen überzogen. Iran, Syrien, Irak, Libyen, Russland ... Wenn ein Staat implodiert, antworten die USA mit unerklärten schmutzigen Kriegen, vielfach von Söldnern geführt, stets auf der Jagd nach Terroristen Drohnen in Pakistan, Jemen, Somalia, Libyen, Irak und zunehmend auch Syrien. "Über die Zahl der Todesopfer dieser offiziell meist geleugneten Einsätze lässt sich nur spekulieren, allein in Afghanistan sollen es i nden Jahren der Besatzung (2001-2014) über 10 000 gewesen sein, mehrheitlich Zivilisten, die meist als 'Kollatoralschaden' geführt werden (Lüders 2015: 112).

Verbündete der USA sind vorzugsweise Diktatoren und Feudalherrscher. Aber auch terroristische Organisationen. Das Ideal ist der "delegierte Krieg": andere bis hin zu guten Dschihadisten übernehmen, gewissermaßen im Franchise-Verfahren, Ordnungsaufgaben im Sinne der USA. (112 f.).

Amerikas Freunde sind Ägypten und Saudi-Arabien, Kuweit und die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate sowie - vor allem Israel. Sie bilden eine reaktionäre Heilige Allianz à la 1815, die im Namen der Terrorbekämpfung jeden Ansatz demokratischen Aufbegehrens in der Region zu unterdrücken sucht.

Die Parteinahme für reaktionäre Autokratien beruht nicht zuletzt auf der Annahme, sie würde freiheitliche und liberale Werte gegenüber den Muslimbrüdern verteidigen. Man glaubt, dass sich die religiösen Überzeugungen von Islamisten nicht vereinbaren ließen mit der Respektierung von Demokratie, Pluralismus und Frauenrechten. Vor allem aber haben die Islamisten bestimmte vage Vorstellungen von einer arabischen Welt, mit Selbstbewusstsein und Unabhängigkeitsstreben - was man von den Allianzpartnern der USA glücklicherweise nicht zu befürchten hat. (vgl. Lüders 2015: 127 f.).

Wer den Wahabismus, Al-Qaida oder den IS geschwächt sehen möchte, tut gut daran, in den Muslimbrüdern eine Alternative zu erkennen. (130). Westliche Politik begeht aber den Fehler, sich immer enger an die wahabitischen Saudis und an das Dreieck Saudi-Arabien, Ägypten, Israel anzulehnen und (ausgerechnet) die Muslimbrüder als Bedrohung zu sehen. Richtig wäre es andersherum.

Der zweite große Fehler besteht in dem Glauben, eine sunnitische Koalition aus Golfstaaten und Türkei könnte den IS besiegen. Das kann aber nicht gelingen. So laufen die USA und Europa Gefahr, "in einen Krieg der Golfstaaten gegen die Schiiten im Irak und im Iran hineingezogen zu werden" (134).

Der dritte große Fehler ist die Iran-Politik: seit 1993 "dual containment" against Irak and Iran. Auf Israel-Lobby zurückzuführen. Hat auch mit der israelischen Hizbollah-Obsession zu tun. Hatte Israel nach langer Besatzung (1982-2000) zum Abzug genötigt. Israel und AIPAC April 1995: Comprehensive U.S. Sanctions Against Iran: A Plan for Action.. - AIPAC verfolgt zwei geostrategische Ziele: Iran politisch und wirtschaftlich zu isolieren und Gründung eines palästinensischen Staates verhindern (135). Reformer Chatami (1997-2005) läuft gegen eine Wand. Nach 11. September 2001 geht Bush von Containment zur Strategie regionaler Transformation über: Regimewechsel in Irak und Iran. Nachdem Iran 2002 zur Achse des Bösen kam, erschienen 2003 reihenweise Artikel, die auf einen Krieg gegen Iran und regime change hinarbeiteten. Mit erstaunlichem Erfolg überzeugt Israel die USA und Europa, dass eine Atommacht Iran mit allen Mitteln verhindert werden müsse (136). Ahmadineschad (2005-2013) war Wasser auf die israelischen und amerikanischen Mühlen. El Baradei beschreibt, wie die USA vielfach in letzter Minute eine Einigung im Atomstreit verhinderten und stattdessen die Sanktionsschraube weiter andrehten (136-138).

Der vierte große Fehler ist der Glaube, dass wir die Guten und die anderen die Bösen sind. Wir übersehen dabei, dass ein Großteil der Menschheit ein Leben in Ohnmacht führt, vielfach entrechtet und ohne Chance. Wir begreifen nicht, dass es an der Zeit ist, die Selbstgerechtigkeit und den heuchelnden Moralismus abzulegen. Wenn Menschenrechte dazu dienen, eigene Machtpolitik zu tarnen oder unliebsame Politiker anzugehen, während sie sonst - man denke an die Verbündeten Ägypten, Saudi-Arabien u.a. - keine Rolle spielen, werden sie zu Worthülsen und machen den Westen nicht gerade zum Lieblingskind derjenigen, die das Spiel durchschauen.

Weblinks and Bibliography

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