Syria broken beyond repair

DEVASTATING REALITIES CONTRADICT POSITIVE PUBLIC RELATIONS CAMPAIGN BY THE REGIME

Realities contradict positive public relations campaign by the regime |

The Syria we knew is not the Syria that will come back. They’ve changed irrevocably. For Al Assad, the battle is not completely over ... Talking about foiling the western project in the region doesn’t mean we are victorious.” Maha Yahya | Director, Carnegie Middle East Centre

ith his political survival all but assured, Syria’s President Bashar Al Assad and his wife, Asma, are back to acting presidential, making bread at a bakery in Hama province, checking out a dairy in Tarsus, and comforting wounded soldiers at their home.

After six years of civil war, the images of a beaming, confident Al Assad are meant to telegraph his ability to defy predictions that his ouster was only a matter of time.

But they can’t paper over the fact that the Syrian leader has emerged from this power struggle much weakened, heading a country possibly broken beyond repair.

Volatile fiefdoms

The Syria he once ruled with an iron grip is now fractured into volatile fiefdoms, its citizenry ravaged, its infrastructure decimated, its insurgencies likely to smoulder even after the conflict officially ends.

He controls only half of the country, and after the war, will have to share authority with other players, including autonomy-seeking Kurds, and Russia and Iran, whose militaries shored him up.

“The Syria we knew is not the Syria that will come back,” said Maha Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Centre.

“They’ve changed irrevocably. For Al Assad, the battle not completely over.”

Al Assad himself acknowledged the massive challenges ahead, even as he blamed his country’s turmoil on the West.

“Talking about foiling the western project in the region doesn’t mean we are victorious,” he said at a government event last month. “They have failed, but the battle is still going on.”

When Syria’s conflict began in March 2011, at the height of the Arab Spring revolts, many expected Al Assad to be overthrown like other regional leaders. Gulf countries shut embassies and withdrew financial support, and European leaders called for his departure. Barack Obama, then the US president, warned of red lines.

But Al Assad prevailed over setbacks, helped by the opposition’s fragmentation and radicalisation, and Russia’s entry into the war on his behalf in late 2015, said David Butter, associate fellow at Chatham House in London.

The half of Syria he now controls is home to major cities, more than two-thirds of is the population and several gasfields, according to Rami Abdurrahman, head of the UKbased Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war through activists on the ground. Government troops recently broke the three-year siege of Deir Al Zor in the east, moving close to oil deposits.

The rest of the country is controlled by Kurdish separatists and a proliferation of armed groups — including Daesh, an Al Qaida affiliate, fighters backed by the West and Turkey — suggesting that violence will continue to dominate Syria’s future, even if a settlement is reached.

Al Assad’s piecemeal gains represent “a very fragmented approach,” Yahya said. “It’s one that’s likely to reduce the intensity of violence and maybe stabilise a little bit, but medium to long term it’s very fragile.”

Even in the areas he controls, Al Assad’s position has been weakened, with wartime allies Russia and Iran becoming major players in Syria’s military, diplomatic and economic affairs, including peace talks.

“Al Assad owes them his survival and he has to deal with foreign armies on the ground,” said Sami Nader, head of the Beirut-based Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs.

“Russia and to a lesser extent Iran are doing big Syria politics by striking deals with other players, irrespective of how the Al Assad regime feels about it.”

Iran’s deepening presence in Syria has also raised the risk of confrontation with neighbouring Israel.

Israel says top foe Iran and its allies are digging in across its frontier with Syria to position themselves to attack, and has warned it won’t tolerate the threat. Just last week, Damascus blamed the Israeli air force for last week’s unclaimed strike on a military facility.

Small victories

In the meantime, statecontrolled media are celebrating small victories. SANA news agency reported that 400 factories have returned to production in Aleppo, the longbesieged pre-war commercial hub. It carried pictures of Syrians enjoying a festival in the resort town of Bloudan and an exhibition in Damascus called “State of Love Q1.”

“As we slowly inch back to the light, we grasp at whatever can restore the pulse to our lives, so we can live with dignity and peace,” Syrian actress Rana Shmeis said after winning the best actress award at Iraq’s film festival in August.

Even in the areas he controls, Al Assad’s position has been weakened, with wartime allies Russia and Iran becoming major players in Syria’s military, diplomatic and economic affairs, including peace talks.