MESOP DOSSIER : The Remaking of Syria, Iraq & the Wider Middle East /The End of the Sykes-Picot State System?
Gareth Stansfield – Royal United Services Institute – July 2013 – Briefing Paper
Foreword : Michael Clarke
While Western diplomacy continues to struggle with attempts to bring the Syrian civil war to a more, or less, peaceful conclusion, the revolutionary wheel in Egypt continues to turn.The military intervention that removed President Morsi in early July is at once part of the Syrian crisis and simultaneously a distraction from it. It ispart of the crisis because the removal of an Islamist government in Cairoplays directly to the Assad regime’s arguments that political Islam is unfitto rule anywhere. But important as events in Cairo are, they also distract Western attention from the much bigger game being played out in Syria.
Iran – both directly and via its ally Hizbullah – has now intervened very significantly in the conflict to bolster the Assad government. Western powers
are therefore seeking to even the odds again to lessen Assad’s dominance,while shepherding all parties towards a peace deal. But with each passing
month the conflict becomes more complex and diplomatically intractable,and the renewed crisis in Egypt will only make it worse. Cairo has long been
a bellwether of trends across the Arab world, but this time it is more likely
itself to be subject to the turn of the larger strategic wheel across the Levant.
A year ago, the war in Syria might have been constrained by strong Western
action, but it is increasingly clear that the world is confronting a crisis that
extends far beyond Syria, threatening to deteriorate into a regional conflict.
Now part civil war, part proxy war, it has also become a great-power struggle
between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and between the US, Russia and China.
Meanwhile, and perhaps most importantly, the conflict has prompted the
fragmentation of the twentieth-century states that have shaped the region
to date: Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan – and the interests of Israel and Turkey – are
all profoundly affected by what is happening in Syria today.
In the short term, and with no end to the fighting in Syria in sight more than
two years after it began, the most important casualty of the war is potentially
Iraq. In the medium term, it is possible that the Levant will change significantly
after a century of relative territorial stability. But such change is not liable to
consist of a universal collapse of old state structures. Rather, as elsewhere in
the world since the Cold War, we may see a region in painful transition, with
some traditional states – albeit smaller and perhaps weakened – surviving
intact, and with semi-states, assertive enclaves and contested territories all
vying for the attention of the big players, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, not to
mention the US, China and Russia.
While the agony within Syria looks set to continue for some time to come,
the Levant is on the verge of recasting itself around the epicentre of the
crisis. Syria might eventually emerge from this trauma more or less intact
as a state, but the same cannot be said for its neighbourhood. The winners
and losers from Assad’s civil war will extend far beyond Damascus, Homs and
Aleppo.
For Western powers, a significant moral dilemma relating to the future of
the Middle East state system looms large. The question is simple: if the
only way stability can be achieved in the Middle East (and North Africa) is
through support – whether passive or active – for regimes of varying shades
of authoritarianism, is it morally and practically acceptable to provide such
support?
It may be that the West need not be troubled by this particular dilemma
for long: forces inside the region – and in Syria and Iraq in particular – are
sounding what could be the death knell of this imperial creation of less than
a century’s vintage. Furthermore, there seems to be growing regional and
international acceptance of the possibility of erasing the once-rarefied,
externally imposed boundaries that have divided peoples as much as they
have united them, with a greater emphasis on the need for state structures
to be tied more authentically to the peoples they encompass.
Therefore, if it is now no longer possible to simultaneously maintain the
integrity of the extant state system while advocating democratisation –
which may result, among other things, in the removal of existing dictatorships
– then a different, and even more worrying, set of questions needs to be
posed. The problem now is how to ensure that the ongoing, escalating
instability in Syria and Iraq does not deteriorate further into a region-wide
war.
This is not mere speculation. Jordan’s delicate political stability is vulnerable
to instabilities in its wider environment, while Lebanon remains deeply
fractured.
Israeli action is increasingly plausible, both against Hizbullah in
south Lebanon, now that the latter is actively involved in Syria, and against
Iranian nuclear targets, now that Iran is pursuing its strategic interests
through direct intervention in Iraq and Syria.
In parallel, the Arab Gulf states
are also intervening in Syria and Iraq, but by proxy.
Meanwhile, renewed
turmoil in Egypt adds fuel to the fire in Syria – encouraging regime and rebels
alike – while threatening simultaneously to divert international attention
from the latter. And all of this is happening within a context of wider inertia
in the international community, caused by an East-West stand-off in the
UN Security Council, with Russia and China finally standing up to what they
perceive to be neo-imperialist, high-handed Western strategy, expressed in
an ex cathedra manner that they no longer deem acceptable.
The Symbiotic Neighbours
Is Syria on the verge of collapse? And could Iraq, in particular – as well
as Lebanon, Jordan and Israel – survive this eventuality? The answer is a
tentative Yes to the first question and a probable No to the second.
The ‘Collapsed’ Syrian State
Considering the first question in greater detail, if Syria were to collapse
following the defeat of the Assad regime and subsequent contestation over
the spoils between disparate factions, what would the resultant ‘state’ look
like? Here, analysts often look to events in Iraq some six years ago, when
its society was ripped apart by inter-communal conflicts driven by the
devastating logic of sectarianism that continues to stalk its tortured political
landscape today.
But is this how events would unfold in Syria? Arguably, it is not. There are
significant differences between the two cases, particularly the fact that
– unlike Iraq – three-quarters of Syria’s population is Sunni Arab, and the
fact that there is not (as yet) a Western occupying force attempting an ill-
informed state-building initiative in the country.
As such, the post-civil war
future of Syria will likely be based around a dominant narrative of Arabism
of a Sunni hue.
Without doubt, in such an environment, there would be
recriminations against those closely associated with the worst excesses of the
former regime. However, these would likely be limited because the regime,
although headed by Alawis, has been the primary agent of all social and
political mobilisation and economic advancement and thus remains as much
‘Sunni’ as ‘Alawi’. There may also be significant problems in the north of the
country, with recent skirmishes between Islamist Arab fighters and the forces
of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) potentially a harbinger of future
unrest among the area’s predominantly Kurdish population.
9
Furthermore,
the Alawi heartland in the west of the country could witness serious human
rights abuses as victorious rebels target those believed to have been part of,
or to have benefited from, the previous order. But a collapse which renders
borders irrelevant seems counterfactual. On the contrary, borders could
become very relevant indeed, as zones of contestation and as features that
need to be changed.
The Potential Impact on Iraq
This leads to the second question – whether Iraq could survive the collapse of
the Ba’ath regime in Syria. Assessing Iraq as a discrete state entity, it is clear
that the country is already changing as a result of its own internal dynamics,
and that talk of the ‘integrity of Iraq’ is increasingly misguided. The Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG), for example, pays only lip service to the notion
that the sovereignty of Baghdad extends into the north of the country, even
though its existence within Iraq depends financially upon the constitutional
mechanisms that provide it (in law, if not in practice) with 17 per cent of the
country’s oil revenue.
Meanwhile, the final piece of the Kurdish puzzle of independence is now
being put into place, with the engagement of an as yet undisclosed Turkish
state-owned energy company (believed to be TPAO) and ExxonMobil in the
KRG, and the construction of a pipeline between the Kurdistan region of Iraq
and Turkey that can be connected directly to Turkish infrastructure north of
the border. It is speculated that this pipeline will be completed in October,
allowing the Iraqi Kurds to present a secessionist
fait accompli that may well be supported by Turkey, the Arab states of the Gulf, and Iran, because it would now be in their interests – whether financial, security, sectarian or a combination thereof – to do so.
Interestingly, this points to another layer of complexity within the region.
The development of the KRG’s economic relationship with Turkey means
that it is no longer in the Iraqi Kurds’ interest to engage with, and support the
autonomous demands of, Syrian Kurds. This is especially so given Ankara’s
domestic troubles with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has long
struggled to gain an autonomous region of its own and has strong ties with
Syria’s Kurds. As such, the powerful Kurdish leadership within Iraq may well
find itself protecting broader Kurdish interests in Syria while at the same
time denying its ethnic kinsmen the same structures from which Iraqi Kurds
benefit.
Clearly, pan-Kurdish sentiment is not the unifying force Western
analysts tend to think it is – at least not when the choice for Iraqi Kurds is
between forming an oil-rich, ‘UAE-lite’ entity within their own patch, and
being part of a fractious, hard-to-govern and relatively poor pan-Kurdish
state that would be opposed by Iran as well as the rump states of Iraq, Turkey
and Syria. From this perspective, it is not a difficult choice to make.
It is possible, therefore, that Iraq could find itself suffering the consequences
of both the secession of the KRG and the collapse of Syria within a short space
of time. If this were the case, what would be the impact of the emergence of
a Sunni-dominated state in Syria on the rest of Iraq?
Of importance in this regard are the deeply held and murderous sectarian
hatreds that clearly remain, given the ramping-up of violence in Iraq in
recent months. Violence has spiked dramatically from the (relatively) low
levels of killing at the beginning of the year: estimates suggest that some
700 people were killed in April, and that there was an increase of nearly
half the following month, with approximately 1,000 people killed in May.
Furthermore, the method of killing suggests the return of organised and
systematic violence of the sort that used to be committed by the highly
capable Iraqi nationalist insurgent outfits – such as the 1920s Brigades – and
by Al-Qa’ida-affiliated groupings, including the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI).
These numbers do not (yet) match the terrible figures of 2006–07, when
monthly death tallies would routinely top 3,000 and when all components
of society were targeted during a full-scale civil war which also saw the full
engagement of US forces. However, the trend is deeply worrying – perhaps
even more so than the situation in 2006 – for two reasons.
The first concerns the fact that the government and other Iraqi political elites
today seem to be far more closely engaged with the emergence of instability
and violence. In 2006, violence occurred very much at the level of ‘the street’,
with the political life of the Iraqi state, for what it was, continuing more or
less unhindered. While Prime Minister Maliki did take some action against
insurgents, he tended to focus his efforts on removing the threat posed to
him by the Sadrist (Shia) movement – ordering the Charge of the Knights
to break the insurgency in Basra in 2008, for example – while doing relatively
little to target the Sunni-associated insurgency. This was left largely to the
US, and it is here that the second reason the current trend is so worrying
becomes very pertinent indeed.
This concerns the fact that the forces that brought the civil war of 2006–08
to an end are no longer in place in 2013. In late 2006, the Sunni insurgency
was brought under control as a result of both the efforts of the US and
the acknowledgement by many Sunni Arab stakeholders that it was in
their economic and political interests to work with, rather than against,
the US (although this willingness to co-operate did not extend to the Iraqi
government). In short, Sunni insurgents became increasingly isolated. The
tribal leaderships accepted the US strategy of furthering the ‘Sons of Iraq’
programme – bringing Sunni militias into the pay of the US with the promise
of future incorporation into government structures – and Sunni politicians
became increasingly fearful of the influence of Al-Qa’ida among their
constituencies. As part of this, insurgents were divided into ‘reconcilable’
and ‘irreconcilable’, with the former embraced by General David Petraeus’s
‘Awakening’ programme, while the latter would likely find themselves on the
assassination list of General Stanley McChrystal’s Joint Special Operations
units.
Today, however, none of these elements – either political or military – remain
in place. Far from being separated from the violence, the interests of Iraqi
political elites seem to match very closely the interests of those committing
the violence – whether Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and intelligence units,
insurgents or militias. Consider, for example, whether it is in the interests of
the leadership of Sunni parties (for example, from the spectrum of Iraqiyya
– the Iraqi National Movement) to condemn and work against the current
insurgent attacks on government targets or to passively support them.
Arguably, it is the latter. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Maliki is caught up in
accusations that the ISF – increasingly Shia in its composition – is pursuing
a sectarian agenda in areas north of Baghdad, with the alleged massacre
at Hawija earlier this year a clear case in point. Furthermore, there is no
overarching US presence of 100,000 troops capable of ‘encouraging’ Sunni
insurgents to stop their activities, killing the irreconcilables, or influencing
the actions of Iraq’s elites, including the prime minister. And there is no
realistic chance that this military capability will return.
The emergence in Syria, post Assad, of a Sunni-dominated regime is therefore
likely to have a significant, negative effect on Iraq, not least because of the
close ties of kinship and religion between the two countries, the historical
legacy of shared service in their respective insurgencies, and the powerful
ideological sentiments of Sunni Arab nationalism. For these reasons, Arab
Iraq (with the Kurds still safely in their northern redoubt) stands to become
the front line in the conflict between Sunnis and Shias.
In this scenario, it is possible to imagine a Sunni-dominated Syrian state
capable of strongly influencing the Sunni-dominated provinces of Iraq west
and north of Baghdad, supported by the Arab states to the south, whether
in financial, logistic or moral terms. Meanwhile, having been defeated in
Syria, Iran would have little choice but to intensify its efforts to shore up
the Shia-dominated Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Basra. And as such, sectarian
contestation would once again be focused on the area which saw the
emergence of the schism in Islam some 1,300 years previously.
The Broader Regional Implications
Syria’s neighbourhood
– and the countries likely to be affected by its civil war
– extends beyond Iraq, however. Indeed, from the perspective of Western
policy-makers, Iraq is perhaps the least-important element in considerations
of the long-term regional ramifications of instability or change in Syria, since
the possibility of intervening again in the affairs of Iraq after a decade of
trauma is simply anathema to them.
Of far greater concern in Western capitals is the stability of Syria’s Levantine
neighbours – Lebanon, Jordan and, of course, Israel – not least because
of their proximity to Europe. In particular, there is concern over the very
real threat posed by the possibility of state failure or of the emergence of
ungoverned space in Lebanon, which could easily be exploited by Iran’s
Revolutionary Guard and Sunni Islamist militants alike (although they
would likely be as entertained by each other’s presence as they would be
by the presence of Israel to the south or Europe to the west). Similarly,
the Kingdom of Jordan may prove unable to survive significant instability
without substantial external help, while the possibility that Israel might be
tempted – in an environment of geopolitical flux – to take provocative action
to strengthen its borders and enhance its security is also of major concern to
Western policy-makers.
Lebanon, more than any other country, is intimately tied to Syria. Indeed, with
its complex ethno-confessional society, Lebanon is actually part and parcel
of the conflict in Syria – a fact that has become readily apparent in recent
months. The now open alliance between Hizbullah and the Assad regime
has intensified sectarian tensions between Shias in the south and Sunnis in
the north of Lebanon to the extent that they are palpable, with both sides
increasingly viewing their futures as tied not only to the struggle for control
of the country, but also to the wider sectarian contestation across the region.
Beirut, of course, lies on the front line between the two communities and,
with Shias from Lebanon now fighting alongside the Syrian army and the
country’s Sunnis flocking in significant numbers to join anti-Assad forces, the
country’s demise – or at least the emergence of long-term internal instability
– can almost be taken as a given.
The situation in Jordan is different – there is no sectarian tension there –
but any form of instability, from any direction, is always a concern for a
small, nearly landlocked state with a significant foreign population (in the
form of Palestinian refugees). This is compounded by the daily arrival of
ever-more Syrian refugees, with some half a million having already arrived.
It is therefore unsurprising that Jordan has emerged as a vocal opponent
of the Assad regime, at the forefront of early efforts by the international
community to build up a military force in response to the Syrian crisis. The
US has deployed Patriot missile systems to protect Amman, while Operation
Eager Lion
, undertaken for the third time in June, saw some 8,000 troops
from across the Middle East and Europe participate in war games in Jordan.
The UK, too, has made public commitments to ensuring Jordan’s security.
Following his meeting with King Abdullah in June, Foreign Secretary William
Hague agreed to ‘protect Jordan and Syria’s other neighbours from the
consequences of the crisis’.
Increasingly, Jordan seems to be considered,
by planners in Western capitals, as a possible platform for intervention
in Syria – in preference to Turkey, perhaps because of the complexities of
operational engagement from the north and the difficulties faced by Turkish
Prime Minister Erdogan at home.
Last but not least of the Levantine countries affected by the Syrian conflict is
Israel. The increased aggression of the Assad regime must surely be a cause
for concern for Israel – especially in light of the sporadic engagements in
the Golan Heights – as must be the emergence in Syria of a capable and
determined Islamist militia that is now in receipt of Western arms. However,
there is a calmness emanating from Israeli politicians and analysts that
suggests that Israel may see, in the volatile cloud of chaos and instability
in Lebanon and Syria, a significant silver lining. Indeed, it may see the
potential for a change of government in Damascus to offer opportunities
for engagement with new actors, some of whom may be open to discreet
discussions regarding future relationships. Such a profound shift in policy,
however, could only be made as part of a broader transformation of Israel’s
overall regional policy, particularly in terms of the country’s relations with
Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf states. Furthermore, at present, any such
developments – particularly with regard to the Gulf states – could only ever
be tacit, and would be dependent upon Israel reviving the peace process with
the Palestinians. In short, it is clear that Israel and its neighbours will have
to react in novel ways to the changing systemic realities unfolding around
them, and that previous red lines may no longer be so clear in the future.
Threatening to distract Western attention from these countries, however,
is Egypt – itself in turmoil since the removal of President Mohamed Morsi
from power by the military establishment in early July. The situation in Egypt
is now very different to that in Syria, with the two cases having followed
different trajectories and timescales. Nevertheless, our final analysis of the
impact of the conflict in Syria across the Arab world must take recent events
in Egypt into account.
The irony of out-surviving Morsi was not lost on President Assad, who
declared that ‘Egyptian events signified the fall of “political Islam”’.
Assad went further, noting that Islamist groups were unfit to rule and attacking
those seeking to draw religion into political life. For the Syrian rebels, the loss
of the Islamist government in Egypt is a hit to morale, rather than a material
loss. However, what should be of real concern to them is the speed with
which their supporters – Saudi Arabia and Qatar – congratulated Morsi’s
successor, suggesting that alliances are perhaps not as concrete as initially
thought.
Clearly, the situation in Egypt has yet to resolve itself, and it may take time to
do so. But in the meantime, Egypt will remain a lodestar for both the regime
and the rebels in Syria, with each taking developments there as an indicator
of popular dynamics – Arab and Islamic – and of the posture of regional
powers in what will remain a destabilised system.
The End of Sykes-Picot?
The instability in Syria has had an undeniable impact on its Levantine
neighbours, while the interplay between events in Egypt and Syria will prove
important in the months ahead. However, it is clear – in the short term at
least – that the interaction between events in Syria and those in Iraq should
be viewed as being of intrinsic importance, especially given the long and
porous border between the two countries and their all but symbiotic – and
potentially mutually empowering – relationship. As such, the interaction
between them must be acknowledged and taken as a given. Syria, in 2013,
owes a great deal, if that is the right phrase, to developments in Iraq between
2003 and 2008, and events in Iraq in 2013 and beyond will increasingly be
conditioned by the realities that emerge from the unfolding civil war in Syria.
Furthermore, the comparison provided by the experiences of the two
countries is important. Syria is not Iraq – in terms of the way in which the
conflict is unfolding, the way in which Western powers will engage with the
conflict, and its ramifications for the wider region – but there are strong
parallels that need to be recognised and understood. In essence, Syria and
Iraq cannot be separated, neither spatially nor temporally; they present a
past, present and future continuum that will prove transformative in Middle
Eastern political life.
Nearly a century after Sir Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot concluded
their agreement over control of the Middle East in May 1916, it is tempting
to conclude that the Middle East state system is coming to an end; that
the anomalous, Western-made century of regional instability is now being
challenged and overthrown by those indigenous forces of ethnicity, religion
and local communality that were so imperiously ignored by the realist policy-
makers of a century ago. But this would be wrong.
The Sykes-Picot Middle East state system is not being erased. But it is
almost certainly being modified – coming to be marked, potentially, by the
emergence of a scattering of new states, with the Republic of South Kurdistan
at the head of the list.
Perhaps the new model for the Middle East will indeed be the former
Yugoslavia, as some analysts have suggested – not in terms of the
establishment of ‘new states’, but in terms of both the development of new
entities and the contestation of spheres of influence.
Such entities might comprise those that are stable and coherent – with Israel, Jordan and maybe even South Kurdistan the potential equivalents of Slovenia and Croatia in
this regard; those that are recognised but remain deeply problematic, with
Lebanon and maybe Iraq the equivalents of today’s Bosnia; and those that
exist in a netherworld of contested recognition, debated sovereignty and
challenged state power, with possible post-Syrian entities such as an Alawite
or Kurdish state or an entity spanning Syria and Iraq being akin to Kosovo.
In short, the future map of the Middle East is likely to be confused, confusing
and changeable. Yet the legacies of twentieth-century states will prove
difficult, if not impossible, to dispel, raising the question of who will be in
control of the remnants of their structures, their narratives and their futures.
These are the pressing issues that Western states should now be addressing,
rather than concerning themselves with the pitfalls of intervention in
situations where the opportunity to usefully intervene has long since passed.
Professor Gareth Stansfield is the Al-Qasimi Chair of Arab Gulf Studies and
Professor of Middle East Politics at the University of Exeter, where he is also the
Director of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies and Director of Research
at the Strategy and Security Institute. He is also a Senior Associate Fellow and
Director of Middle East Studies at RUSI.
Notes and References
Jean-Loup Samaan, ‘Jordan’s New Geopolitics’,
Survival
(Vol. 54, No. 2, April–May 2012),
pp. 15–26; Mudar Zahran, ‘Jordan is Palestinian’,
Middle East Quarterly
(Vol. 19, No.
1, Winter 2012), pp. 3–12; Elizabeth Picard, ‘Lebanon in Search of Sovereignty: Post
2005 Security Dilemmas’, in Are Knudsen and Michael Kerr (eds),
Lebanon: After the
Cedar Revolution
(London: Hurst, 2012), pp. 156–83; Hilal Khashan, ‘Will Syria’s Strife
Rip Lebanon Apart?’
Middle East Quarterly
(Vol. 20, No. 1, Winter 2013), pp. 75–80.
For an account of how Israel may view its position in the region since the beginning of
the Arab Awakening, see Efraim Inbar, ‘Israel’s National Security Amidst Unrest in the
Arab World’,
Washington Quarterly
(Vol. 35, No. 3, Summer 2012), pp. 59–73.
Augustus Richard Norton, ‘The Awakened Arab World and its New Landscape’,
International Spectator: Italian Journal of International Affairs
(Vol. 48, No. 2, June
2013), pp. 63–76; Madawi Al-Rasheed, ‘Saudi Arabia: Local and Regional Challenges’,
Contemporary Arab Affairs
(Vol. 6, No. 1, January 2013), pp. 28–40.
Samuel Charap, ‘Russia, Syria and the Doctrine of Intervention’,
Survival
(Vol. 55, No. 1,
February 2013), pp. 35–41.
The Remaking of Syria, Iraq and the Wider Middle East
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BRIEFING PAPER
For an analysis of the different phases of the conflict in Syria, see International Crisis
Group, ‘Syria’s Metastasising Conflict’, Middle East Report No. 143, 27 June 2013,
<http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/Middle%20East%20North%20Africa/
Iraq%20Syria%20Lebanon/Syria/143-syrias-metastasising-conflicts.pdf>, accessed
8 July 2013.
See Gareth Stansfield, ‘Accepting Realities in Iraq’, Chatham House Briefing Paper, May
2007; Fanar Haddad,
Sectarianism in Iraq: Antagonistic Visions of Unity
(London: Hurst,
2011); and Toby Dodge,
Iraq: From War to a New Authoritarianism
(London: IISS, 2013).
It should be noted that the collapse of the Assad regime remains hyopothetical. Indeed,
recent events, such as the regime’s retaking of Qusair and advances in Homs, suggest
that the Assad regime exhibits significant resilience, whereas the disparate rebels are
less able to deal with setbacks. With this in mind, an interesting comparison for the
Assad regime in today’s Syria is the survival of Saddam’s regime in Iraq in 1991, when
the regime overcame very significant rebellions, marshalled the military, and ultimately
survived for the next decade – albeit as a pariah state in the international community. I
am grateful to Nadim Shehadi of Chatham House for bringing this possible scenario to
my attention.
See Larry Diamond,
Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled
Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq
(New York, NY: Times Books, 2005).
8.
For a detailed analysis of the interaction between the Syrian Ulama and the state, see
Thomas Pierret,
Religion and State in Syria: The Sunni Ulama from Coup to Revolution
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
9.
See International Crisis Group, ‘Syria’s Kurds: A Struggle Within a Struggle’, Middle
East Report No. 136, 22 January 2013, <http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/
Middle&20East%20North%20Africa/Iraq%20Syria%20Lebanon/Syria/136-syrias-kurds-
a-struggle-within-a-struggle.pdf>, accessed 3 July 2013.
10.
See Gareth Stansfield, ‘The Unravelling of the Post-First World War State System? The
Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the Transformation of the Middle East’,
International
Affairs
(Vol. 89, No. 2, March 2013), pp. 259–82.
11.
See Foreign and Commonwealth Office, ‘Foreign Secretary Meets King Abdullah of
Jordan’, press release, 20 June 2013, <https://www.gov.uk/government/news/foreign-
secretary-meets-king-abdullah-of-jordan–2>, accessed 3 July 2013.
12.
For a detailed exposition of this argument, see Itamar Rabinovich, ‘Israel’s View
of the Syrian Crisis’, The Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings Analysis
Paper No. 28, November 2012, <http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/
Papers/2012/11/israel%20syria%20rabinovich/Rabinovich%20web%20final.pdf>,
accessed 3 July 2013.
13.
See Anne Barnard, ‘Syrian Leader is Jubilant at Morsi’s Fall’,
New York Times
, 4 July 2013.
14.
See Jonathan Eyal, ‘The Regional Winners and Losers in Egypt’s Military Coup’,
RUSI.org
,
5 July 2013.
15.
See Michael Williams, ‘Back to the Future’,
World Today
(Vol. 69, No. 3, June/July 2013),
pp. 14–15