The Questions that Arise with Syria's Re-emergence

https://thecradle.co/article-view/26056/syria-intends-to-join-brics-sco

Now that Assad has his foot back into the door of the international community, he's looking to join institutions that will promote stability, growth, and security. This is hardly surprising though it will continue to outrage his critics in the West – the individuals, entities, and governments that attempted to overthrow him and fomented a civil war in his country that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of refugees.

By citing the international community, I refer to the real one, not the narrow handful of Anglo-sphere nations (and occasionally some of the nations of NATO) directly controlled by the US that are often referred to as 'The International Community' in state and media proclamations.

By joining institutions like the SCO and BRICS, Syria will also have access to economic mechanisms that can evade the restrictions imposed on the nation by US-led Western sanctions – sanctions which recently contributed to the number of deaths in the wake of the February 2023 earthquake.

The fact that nations such as Türkiye, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are also looking to join these organisations signals that the US Empire is losing its grip and more and more nations are seeking to escape its shadow and triangulate their position in the emerging world order. These nations don't want to break all ties with the US but they're looking for options that afford them a degree of freedom. As such, they will deal not only with Washington but Beijing and Moscow and represent a growing non-aligned movement. Russia and China don't resent partner nations dealing with the US but the Americans won't have it – history demonstrates no small degree of outrage and attempts at retribution directed toward nations who embark on this non-aligned path.

But the reality is the US can't chase everyone down nor manage all the various crises that currently face its empire.

Syria certainly has no claim to moral standing – its dark record of oppression and brutality is long and established as well as its domination of neighbouring Lebanon. However, given the precarious nature of Syria itself – a contrived state born of the French and British carve-up of the Ottoman Empire, as well as the instability generated by the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), the threat to minority groups within its own borders from the increasingly radicalised Sunni majority, and its historic disputes with neighbouring nations like Türkiye – the resulting authoritarian rule of the Assads is not surprising and in some respects was a foreseeable outcome. It's a complicated and contrived country living in an impossible neighbourhood.

And we would be remiss in failing to mention the Alawite Assad family's relationship with Shiite Iran and how this has played into the dynamics of Levantine politics and the situation with Israel. It's worth noting – though largely ignored in Western media, that though the civil war has largely ended, Tel Aviv launches frequent attacks on Syria and the US still occupies the east and northeast of the country where its oil assets are to be found. In many respects this welcoming of Syria back into the Arab League and this larger body of international institutions communicates a strong rejection of American and Israeli policy with regard to Damascus.

Assad continues to war on the small pockets of al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates in his country but he cannot dislodge the Americans who continue to occupy large swathes of his country.

It is logical that Assad will want to join BRICS and seek access to its financing – the question is this, will the lenders be willing to finance reconstruction when his situation retains such volatility? Between the Salafist militants, American occupiers, and Israeli airstrikes, his country represents something of a risky investment.

That said, there are parties within the BRICS and SCO framework that for political reasons have an interest in seeing Assad flourish and Western machinations defeated. Syria is a fault line in this clash competing world orders – the emerging multi-polar order the US is so desperate to prevent.

The various cultural and ethno-Christian groups in the country who in other contexts are reckoned 'Christians' by American Evangelicals when it fits American foreign policy interests, but ignored when it doesn't, largely support Assad. I've related in the past when visiting an Arab   restaurant in Pittsburgh and finding pictures of the Assad family on the wall – upon asking the proprietor about this, he tells me he's a Christian, a Syrian Orthodox Christian. Their support is not rooted in some desire to bolster an authoritarian regime but in the reality that the country is fragmented and can only be bound together by a strong-man. The Assads in power mean the Christians will be protected from the Islamists. If the Sunnis get control, it will spell disaster for the Alawites, Kurds, Yezidis, Druze, and Christians in those lands. This is made worse by the more radical forms of Islam that continue to emerge.

Long before the Syrian Civil War, the West would frequently evoke the 1982 Hama Massacre which took place under Hafez al-Assad in which he brutally crushed an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood that resulted in around 30,000 deaths. The Brotherhood which is Islamist was opposed to the secular rule of the Baathist Assad family. Time and again we see this across the Middle East. From Libya, to Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and of course Iran we see a conflict between secular rulers and Islamist insurgents. Ironically as the secular rulers emerged in the aftermath of World War II they have been almost universally opposed by the United States and the West. The major exception would be Iran under the Shah and after Sadat flipped Egypt – the US has supported secular rule under Mubarak and al-Sisi.

Otherwise, whether it be Egypt under Nasser, Libya under Qaddafi, Syria under the Assads, or Iraq under the Baathist rule of Saddam Hussein, the US has opposed these entities – and in many cases allied with Islamist forces to oppose them. This pattern was broken after 9/11 but only for about a decade. Since the 2011 Arab Spring and the new wave of civil wars and uprisings, the US has quietly shifted policy and once again is supporting Islamist forces in these contexts. This should have prompted a major investigation when it came to Libya and Syria but instead what we witnessed was a cover-up, the media engaging in a smoke and mirrors campaign, selectively using photos to stoke public outrage without ever telling the whole story.

Indeed, recently there have been concerns over Assad's 'rehabilitation' and the fact that a war criminal has been allowed to regain standing in certain quarters of the international community. What about George W Bush? I find his rehabilitation offensive and an affront to the millions of lives lost as a result of his policies and their aftereffects. Assad at least could make a case that he fought against foreign-supported insurrectionists and terrorists for the survival of his country and to protect the minority populations that would have faced mass slaughter had his regime fallen. Bush could make no such case and the arguments he made were revealed even at the time to be lies. Subsequent events only emphasized this reality.

All of this has to be taken into consideration when one hears US congressmen and others rail against Syria and what they perceive as Washington's tepid policy in the country. Apart from the larger context their statements (when isolated) can be very misleading if not outright deceptive and the media continues in ensure public ignorance. If the story was really understood, most of the public would likely turn away from the situation and demand the US withdraw. Some will even understand (or come to understand) that there are great perils in Syria and continued US occupation that could lead to a wider regional war. The Biden Administration even now is weighing these questions as it prepares for larger conflicts with Russia and China.