TODAY’S MESOP EDITORIAL : The Syrian Uprising at Three Years – After three years, no end in sight
by Borzou Daragahi, Financial Times – 16-3-2014 – (…) “Two years ago we controlled nothing,” says Mr Hammoud, 53, during a meeting in a hotel in southeast Turkey where he and some of his fighters gathered to discuss strategy with other Syrian activists, rebels and politicians. “Now from the Iraqi border to Deir Ezzour there is no regime.”
Three years on…
Many of his men, his relatives and his neighbours have been killed, martyred to a revolution that began three years ago this month. But there have been many victories, too. “If we lose one fighter we take 10,” he says. “We have so much experience at this point. We have gotten very good. Of course, we are winning; we are advancing all the time.”
As the Syria war enters its fourth year, no question is perhaps more pertinent to the calculations of combatants inside the country and policy makers abroad than who is winning. Ominously for the prospects of ending the conflict that has left up to 140,000 people dead and displaced more than 9m in what the UN describes as the worst humanitarian catastrophe since the second world war, both sides claim they are.
“The fact that we’re in this intermediate situation where both sides can hope to win, but it’s not clear that they will, is the worst of all worlds,” says Jean-Marie Guehenno, former UN and Arab League deputy envoy to Syria. “Because all sides have an interest in continuing the fight rather than going for a political solution, all sides believe they can win.”
The war has mutilated Syria, savaging its economy and infrastructure. Once-vaunted systems of healthcare, education and transport will take a generation to repair. It is also quickly transforming the region, hardening sectarian animosities between the Muslim world’s Shia and Sunni sects and the geopolitical tensions between east and west. And it shows no signs of ending soon. The conflict has become a complicated, multi-layered contest with four big participants, each with its set of foreign backers: the regime, the rebels, the hardline al-Qaeda offshoot Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or Isis, and ethnic Kurds.
All sides publicly claim victories and progress, in part to calm the nerves of their worried backers. Both the regime and the opposition say they would have long ago defeated their adversaries were it not for the meddling of international powers. But no side has been able to deliver a decisive blow against the other and neither is ready to give in on core demands: the opposition insists that Bashar al-Assad, the strongman president and member of Syria’s Alawite Shia minority, steps down; the regime insists on the capitulation of “terrorists”, its catch-all term to describe the largely Sunni opposition.
“There is no military solution to this,” says a western diplomat. “The only way forward is a transitional process. It’s going to be messy.”
For both the regime and its opponents, the war has become an exercise in diminishing expectations and declining returns. Both have retreated to defensive positions, unable to achieve decisive battlefield breakthroughs.
“It’s about control of regional resources,” says the Syrian head of an international aid organisation. “Why does so much of the fighting happen within 5km of the border? It’s about checkpoints and customs and control over goods smuggled in and out of the country.”
From their strongholds, they exchange mortar rounds and rockets. The regime dispatches fighter jets and helicopter gunships to rain death on opposition-held neighbourhoods. All sides have been accused of vicious atrocities.
“The war taking place in Syria is one of the filthiest wars in history,” says Younis Oudeh, a pro-Syrian regime commentator based in Lebanon. “It is a mix of many types of war. If each side had a specific enemy with a specific aim, we might have called it an orderly war, but it is not. And we cannot call it a street war either. It is a filthy, roguish war with diverse aims.”
Since the uprising against Mr Assad’s rule began, the opposition has made big strides. Where Mr Assad and his father for 40 years controlled Syria with an iron fist, huge stretches of the country – including in and around the capital Damascus and the commercial hub of Aleppo – are now under the control of either the Syrian rebels, Isis or ethnic Kurds. In some critical oil-rich areas, such as the largely Kurdish Jazeera district, Mr Assad maintains only a token presence.
“The war is slow,” says Sobhi Abu Leith, a furniture vendor and former soldier who defected. “It’s not remarkable or easy to witness. The regime cannot make one step advancement, but they can shell.”
Mr Assad has struggled for months to take control of the Lebanese border in towns such as Yabroud, only managing to make progress in recent days with the all-out support of Lebanese Hizbollah fighters who fought Israel to a standstill in 2006.
Rebels who once fought in flip-flops now have fatigues, medical kits and walkie-talkies. They have set up joint operations rooms inside and outside Syria to co-ordinate attacks. Fighters receive the occasional token salary – sometimes as little as $35 a month, to help support their families.
“Even with the little we have we have managed to fight the regime,” says Col Abdul Jabbar Al-Oqaidi, commander and spokesman of the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo province. “We’ve become experienced and stronger and we can hold on to our own territory. We’re fighting a two-front war and it’s a good experience for us. After two years, we’ve become more experienced in street fighting.”
As Mr Hammoud, the Deir Ezzour commander puts it: “He [Mr Assad] controls the sky. We control the ground.”
Opposition leaders estimate that more than 100,000 fighters in about 1,000 brigades are grouped in several big coalitions. The regime’s armed forces, once numbering 250,000 and considered among the most formidable in the Arab world, appear to be sliding into disarray with each passing day. Analysts say there is strong evidence that the command-and-control structure has broken down. Rebels say they have intercepted radio communications in which regime pilots or ground forces bluntly disobey orders. “There is a chaotic situation in the command of the armed forces,” says Mohamed Suleiman, a former defence ministry inspector who defected to the opposition but maintains contacts within the armed forces. “The military institution has already collapsed. You have gangs fighting for the government.”
According to the regime’s narrative, Mr Assad has survived despite vast forces arrayed against him. “The campaign against the Syrian regime is fierce, domestically and internationally,” says Mr Oudeh. “So far the Arab and foreign funds and powers have failed to topple this regime. Syrians are still supporting the regime strongly while state apparatuses such as intelligence and diplomacy are still standing strong.”
The western diplomat warns that “fatigue is going to set in” among Arab and international donors to the opposition the longer the war drags on. Russia, Iran and Hizbollah consider the survival of the Assad regime vital to their wider conflict with the US and the west.
“Bashar is getting major international support; we’re talking thousands of militiamen and millions of dollars,” says Hazem Lotfi, an official of the Aleppo council, which oversees governance and aid distribution in northern Syria. “On the other hand the friends of the Syrian opposition abroad are not delivering.”
The regime also has better equipment. Rebels complain they are forced to fight against the regime’s air power with second world war-era anti-aircraft guns. They long for portable heat-seeking air-defence rockets. But it is not just weapons where the regime has the edge, but surveillance gear, too. “We need more technology,” says Colonel Abdel Salaam Mehdi, commander of the military council of Aleppo. “We need devices to help us hear what the regime says and its plans. We need more intelligence and espionage devices. The regime has the ability to get all it wants of intelligence devices, to fight us with, from Iran and Russia.”
Regime forces have advanced slowly on Homs and Damascus, making an assault on Damascus from the northwest a near impossible goal for now. A recent western intelligence assessment predicts that the regime will gain firm control over a rump but feasibly functional area of the country within 18 months, a diplomat said. Born in part of desperation and a lack of loyal troops, the regime’s vicious bombardment of civilian areas under rebel control not only degrades opposition forces cheaply but also has a political aim: in effect it prevents any alternative to Assad rule taking root anywhere in the country.
“So far there’s no spot where you can say, ‘look, there’s the new Syria’,” says Bassem Kuwatli, a Syrian opposition activist. “The goal is to show people that the revolution won’t bring anything better. They’re trying to destroy the social infrastructure supporting the revolution.” The gradual erosion of the rebels’ habitat and the fact that much of the world looks the other way as the regime shells densely populated urban areas has led many to conclude the state is winning the conflict, regardless of rebel advances.“If you look at the regime in the last six months they have been making small strategic advances,” says an aid worker who makes dangerous weekly forays in and out of northern Syria. “Where you get wide boulevards you have the regime. Where you have alleyways the rebels are holding it.”
The strength of the uprising might be its weakness. The fragmentation and disunity that allowed it to take root in hundreds of localities without any central authority is hampering its ability to deliver a knockout blow.
“What I don’t see is a more coherent opposition army,” says the head of the western aid group. “You have guys that are shifting their alliances. They stick together but do not merge.” While Lebanon and Iraq, facilitated by Iran, provide the regime with fresh recruits, the number of new fighters joining the rebellion has dried up. “If I don’t have enough aid for salaries and weapons, I cannot recruit more fighters,” says Col Mehdi.
Even if the rebels prevail in the conflict, they will have a difficult time winning the peace. “Although the rebels are doing a good job in the field, a lot of Syrian factions don’t trust them,” says Khaled Milaji, a Syrian doctor at an organisation that co-ordinates humanitarian aid.
For many Syrians, including the 2.5m refugees who have left the country and an estimated 7m displaced, the war has meant tremendous losses. Yousef, 20, an opposition supporter from the northern town of Tal Rifaat, withstood air strikes and shelling but finally fled his home along with his family to Turkey when water and electricity supplies were cut. “The revolution is not winning,” he says after crossing the Turkish border at the town of Kilis. “There are lot of reasons and I would need hours to explain. But it’s basically because we’re not in unity.”
Additional reporting by Erika Solomon –
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