Syria: war won, can Assad win peace?

Text by: Paul Khalifeh

Ten years after the start of the crisis in Syria, this conflict, described by international organizations as "the worst humanitarian disaster since the Second World War", continues to claim thousands of lives and hundreds of thousands of displaced people. No political solution is on the horizon.

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From our correspondent in Beirut

When demonstrators demanding more democracy and freedom invaded major cities in Syria in March 2011, in the wake of the Arab Spring, most Western experts and governments predict President Bashar al-Assad will fall quickly.

It must be recognized that the arguments argued in their favor. After a few months, the protest movement began to militarize with the creation of the Free Syrian Army (ASL), mainly made up of dissident officers and soldiers. The influx of fighters from around the world has swelled the ranks of the various brigades of the armed opposition, supported by regional powers, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan or Turkey, with often divergent interests.

From 2012, a strong Islamist component appeared, very quickly controlled by a jihadist movement, the Al-Nusra Front (renamed Fatah al-Cham then Hayaat Tahrir al-Cham). This group was founded by a Syrian, Abu Mohammad al-Joulani, dispatched to Syria by the head of the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Bleed by heavy losses and defections and handicapped by a lack of manpower, the Syrian army, strongly ideologized and remained largely loyal to President Assad, begins to lose ground. The death in an attack, on July 18, 2012, of several Syrian generals, including the Minister of Defense and the head of the crisis cell, precipitates the withdrawal of Syrian power to the big cities and the abandonment of vast rural areas of the country. In 2013, the Syrian army was fighting on fronts located just 1 kilometer from the historic center of Damascus. The capital was surrounded by rebel bastions, the most famous being the eastern Ghouta, the main communication routes were cut off, the territory, controlled by the regime, was fragmented and represented only 12% of the country.

Central government loses border control

The borders gradually pass under rebel control. In the north, groups close to Turkey; in the south, brigades trained in Jordan by western countries, maintaining discreet links with Israel. In the east, a new actor appears in 2013. The Islamic State group self-proclaims, after having freed itself from the tutelage of al-Qaeda, a caliphate which will extend over half of Syria, with Raqqa as chief place, and a third of Iraq, with Mosul as its capital, from June 2014.

Believing the end of the regime is near, the regional powers are starting to compete for areas of influence. Turkey and Qatar support the movements that are turning in the orbit of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates support Wahhabi obedience groups or rebel brigades from the ASL, which is no more than a shadow of its own. These divisions often provoke deadly fighting between rival factions and political coalitions and other rallies, created with the blessing of Paris, Washington, Riyadh and Ankara, by personalities from various horizons, and supposed to represent the "opposition", have that a modest influence on the armed brigades which hold the ground.

The slow reconquest of the territory by the Syrian power begins in spring 2013, near the Syrian-Lebanese border. With the active support of Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the Syrian army won its first major victory in Qoussair in June.

Despite this counter-attack, which made it possible to secure a large part of the Syrian-Lebanese border after a few months and cut the supply lines of the rebels towards Homs, the country's third city, the Syrian army is in difficulty in other regions. Forced to fight on dozens of fronts, lacking manpower, it continues to fall back towards certain areas, leaving vast territories to its enemies. In spring 2015, the situation seemed critical.

It was at this point that Russia decided to become directly involved in the conflict.

The decisive intervention of Russia

Exploiting an international conjuncture which seems favorable to him, Vladimir Poutine sends his aviation and his military instructors to Syria. Combining his efforts with the Russians, who provide air cover and strategic advice, the Iranians, who reorganize pro-government paramilitary troops and militias by creating the National Defense Army (DNA, 80,000 men) and Hezbollah, which offers its military know-how, the Syrian army then begins a methodical reconquest of the country. The east of Aleppo is taken again, the rebels are gradually driven out of the suburbs of the capital, Daraa, the cradle of the revolt, returns in the fold of the State.

The Syrian army is also opening a front against the Islamic State group, by retaking the cities of Palmyra (center) and Deir Ezzor (east).

More than five years after the intervention of Russia, the Syrian power controls 70% of the territory that the country's borders with Jordan, Lebanon and part of those with Iraq.

Over time, local and regional actors are ousted, one after the other. Even the United States, which had directly engaged in the east alongside Kurdish militias against the Islamic State group, announced their intention to leave the country. They keep only 800 soldiers, mainly deployed around the oil wells, in the north and east, to prevent the Syrian army from taking them back in order to deprive Damascus of precious energy and financial resources.

Bashar al-Assad has come a long way. Only Idleb, of which he recovered half during the offensive of December 2019-February 2020, and part of the east still eludes him. He now has only one regional player in front of him, Turkey, whose capacity for influence is limited by the diplomatic and military maneuvers of Russia.

Ten years after the start of the conflict, which, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 384,000 dead and 11 million displaced, the Syrian president is still in his capital. But he rules over a bruised country, with a destroyed infrastructure and a devastated economy. If he practically won the war, as even those who predicted his fall would admit, he now has to rebuild the country. A goal that could prove more difficult than the military battle.

A man holds his baby in his arms after he was saved from the rubble of a bombing attack in Aleppo on February 14, 2014. REUTERS / Hosam Katan / File Photo

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