Syria

by Samer N. Abboud

Syria was once one of the Middle Easts most stable states. Today it is a country on its knees. Almost 200,000 people are estimated to have died in its bloody internal conflict and, as the violence intensifies, Syrias future looks bleak. In this timely book, Samer Abboud provides an in-depth analysis of Syrias descent into civil war. He unravels the complex and multi-layered causes of the current political and military stalemate - from rebel fragmentation to the differing roles of international actors, and the rise of competing centers of power throughout the country. Rebel in-fighting and the lack of a centralizing authority, he contends, have exacerbated Syrias fragmentation and fragility. This, in turn, has aided the survival of the Assad regime, contributed to the upsurge of sectarianism, and led to a major humanitarian crisis as nine million Syrians have been forced to flee their homes. A resolution to the Syrian conflict seems unlikely in the short-term as the major actors remains committed to a military solution. As this situation persists, the continued fighting is reshaping Syrias borders and will have repercussions on the wider Middle East for decades to come.

Genres: History, Middle East, War, Nonfiction

248 pages, Paperback

First published October 26, 2015

Reviews

[Keith Currie · Rating 5 out of 5]

In four years the world has witnessed Syria change from a secretive, authoritarian but apparently stable nation state into a chaotic patchwork of competing armed factions with the consequent human disaster of migrant refugees. Most people find it difficult to understand how this has occurred and to make sense of what is currently happening in Syria. The remarkable achievement of Samer Abboud’s book is that he is able to disentangle the Syrian web so successfully and in so many different aspects.
Abboud’s account is sober and objective, non-partisan and knowledgeable; he guides the reader from Ottoman Syria, through the French Mandate, independence and the Ba’ath Party to the Arab Spring and beyond into the catastrophe of political fragmentation now evident.
There is discussion on who supports the Assad regime and why: how it is seen by many as ‘the lesser evil’; how it survives and has retained its grip on much of Syria.
The opposition to the regime is considered in detail: its divisions; militarisation in parallel rather than consequent on political opposition; the civilianisation of the conflict through the increased importance of armed militias on both sides (‘networks of violence’); the rise of sectarianism as an important factor in the conflict.
The factions are distinguished throughout: the Free Syrian Army – corrupt, ineffective and now virtually moribund; the An-Nusra Brigades – so-called Al-Qaeda in Syria; the Kurds; ISIS – of ‘almost entirely foreign composition’. On ISIS Abboud openly states how little we know about what actually is happening in the areas under their control.
He considers foreign intervention, which has ‘propelled violence, solidified the stalemate and embedded the Syrian conflict’. The conflicting purposes of Saudi, Qatari, Iranian and Hizbollah interventions are seen as ‘a battleground for regional proxy wars’; the motivations of Russia and Turkey in the conflict are considered and discussed. The author highlights the impotence of the UN, the half-heartedness of the western powers which see Islamist groups as ‘more important to security than the conflict itself’.
The effects of murder, maiming, displacement of the populous are all discussed in an excellent, but appalling, chapter on the humanitarian catastrophe presently unfolding. Over half the population has been displaced. The long term consequences of this are beyond imagination.
In his conclusion, Abboud considers possible prospects for the country. He reminds the reader that the conflict has not followed a ‘linear trajectory’ so there can be no logical end game proposed. Abboud proposes an approach which recognises the situation on the ground. Rather than reconstituting a centralised state, the current ‘fragmentation’ could be used for restructuring the state itself, as for example has happened in Uganda and Macedonia. He further asserts that a political solution cannot be found without a concurrent solution to the humanitarian crisis. He also considers how the conflict could be demilitarised and re-politicised, admitting the extreme difficulties in this, as no participant is currently looking beyond a military solution. He considers that the decentralising approach mentioned above may have value in assisting the achievement of this objective. Finally, any solution must have the involvement of the Syrians themselves. For the moment, a continuation of violent stalemate seems likely.
Inasmuch as it is possible to clarify, disentangle and explain the Syrian disaster, Abboud has succeeded. His book is clear, all-encompassing and believable. Of course it is in some respects already out of date on the ground, but as an introduction to the ‘hot-spot’ it is remarkable in every way.

[Phil Princey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book in passing at my local library, probably initially because of the provocative picture on the cover. But I have always had an interest in middle eastern history (never mastered it tho). It is so very complicated that I think no author can give real justice to the issues that have plagued this area over the centuries.

This author, however, writes very scholarly and with precise language that is clear on points and issues. I like how he frequently provides examples to assist for better understanding. For me this made the reading more manageable and interesting to keep up with the pile after pile of information to do with organisations, the people, the conflicts etc and all the complexities that exist in the nation.

I won't pretend to have understood everything in the book apart from the fact (and the point I think he is really making) that there is a ridiculous amount of interference to the welfare and progress of the country.

To begin with, Abboud gives a relevant history to Assyria as the backdrop to the current crisis fromthe Ottoman period to the French rule and mandate after the Great War to the new regime that refuses to be ousted later on. He looks at the classes and the struggles for equality leading into the long-running regime that started out well (tho like a dictatorship, it gave back to the poor and struggling lower classes) but inevitably led to an uprising with changes over time.

With the uprising begins the crisis of conflicts that has led to more than half of Syrians being displaced. He says, "The United Nations High Commission on Refugees has declared the Syrian refugee crisis the largest operation in it's history and have requested billions of dollars in immediate aid to provide services, aide, and shelter to more than 4 million Syrian refugees"! He says that makes Syria the second largest refugee-population in the world.

The author's main point (I think) is that there is no one explanation to the uprising and political disarray . To better understand Assyria and it's complexities one has to consider many factors. And from this the book describes in great detail the fragmentation, factions, politics, and violence that plagues Assyria.

The effects is long term that will "last for generations" and currently there is no answer. Abboud looks at all the historical attempts for resolution with different parties, national and international, including UN, to reveal that mostly it is for a political gain.

To the world it appears that Assyria is over-looked and not greatly understood. He recognizes it is too complex to find exact answers. However he does conclude with what direction the Assyrians should take to include all (Assyrian) parties with locale autonomy to see the way forward for repair. How that is possible is up to the Assyrians themselves.

[Matthew McCarthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A robust history of conflict, particularly valuable for its thorough explication of the fragmentation and shifting alliances on the battlefield. However, Abboud doesn't really touch on two important topics: how the debate around chemical weapons influenced international actors' approach to the conflict; and the ideological underpinnings and relative uniqueness of the Rojava experiment. For the latter, Revolution in Rojava: Democratic Autonomy and Women's Liberation in the Syrian Kurdistan is worth reading.

[Row · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really good book that explains more on the political and how the Syrian war was started.

some key points;
- Syria and Turkey were about to go in the war in the 90s but did not
- when the US invaded Iraq because of 9/11 Syria was affected a bit because they traded a lot with Iraq
- Syria had a big socialist time and were honestly doing pretty good until the president died and was replaced by his son, Bashar al Saad
- Syria kind of lost lots of money due to not being able to control the oil and relied on agriculture instead
- Syria really had no genuine political party it was a bit jumbled

[Nico · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book for someone who only followed the Syrian conflict through the news. this provided context into the start and end of the conflict

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

well thought out descriptions of the many factors to the awful war syria has gone through, may all citizens proper going forward and may all those who lost their lives rest in eternal power

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another readable account of the Syrian conflict though it stops short of the Russian intervention i september 2015, and therefore does not cover the dynamics shaping the conflict now. But the book does give a highly readable account of the trajectory of the first four years, the main strength of the book however lies in the first chapter where Abboud gives a detailed analysis of the "Rise and Fall of the Ba'ath Party". He starts out by describing the French Mandate period and under what circumstances Arab nationalism and the Ba'ath party became dominant in Syria. The cross-class revolt against the French basically changed their attitudes to reform the political system and respond to nationalist demands. The revolt of course was heavily repressed and ultimately crushed. The elite from the Ottoman period gravitated towards nationalism and a National Bloc emerged, eventually the French would negotiate with the block after strikes and unrest in 1936. The French occupation ended in 1946 and a period of instability followed. The failed war in Palestine in 1948 radicalized Syrian politics and the National Bloc started to fall apart. The Ba'ath Party became the dominant political force in a coup in 1963, with peasant roots and strong links to the military where Alawites increasingly dominated. Instability continued until Hafiz al-Assad (an alawite air force officer) took power in 1970 in a corrective revolution. he would lead the country until 2000 when he died. Abboud gives a thorough analysis of Assad-Regime and lays out the pillars of power: 1) The Ba'ath Party, 2) Corporatism (the insubordination and cooptation of social forces such as peasants, merchants, students), 3) The expanding state bureaucracy, 4) The army and security institutions. This model helped the regime survive an Islamist insurgency in the late 1970s, and well into the presidency of Bashar al-Assad. In 2011 it collapsed and civil war broke out. The remaining of the book lays of how that evolved (chapter 2) and what characterized the dynamics of the conflict, the emergence of the opposition and its fragmented nature (chapter 3). Chapter 4 describes how foreign interference shaped the conflict through escalating it and giving hope for the opposition that the U.S. would intervene on their behalf just as the West had done in Libya. This major miscalculation (by the opposition and their regional supporters) is well described. Chapter 5 elaborates on the fragmentation of the opposition, primarily between its nationalist and Islamist wings, the increasing influence of the hardliner Islamists and sectarian polarization that emerged. Chapter 6 covers the hard facts of the staggering humanitarian dimension of the conflict, a crisis that has only worsened since the book was published in november 2015. Overall a good read if you know little about Syria and the civil war, although already somewhat outdated on the latest major developments.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aboud provides an amazing history of the Syrian Conflict up to the time of writing, including the rise of armed groups including al-Nusra and ISIS. It provides amazing perspective and detail of the conflict up to 2014 or 2015. It is without a doubt the best book available on the conflict to date. Of course, it is inevitable that this book will become dated rather quickly, since it is about an ongoing war. Hopefully, Aboud will provide an updated version in several years which includes everything in this volume as well as what is to come.

[Jeffrey Bumiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an essential book for anyone trying to wrap their head around the tragic situation in Syria. Highly recommended.

[Mills College Library]

956.91042 A1343 2015

[Hoho Ghumpus · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lucid summary of the war.

[Hoho Ghumpus · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lucid summary of the war.