Geopolitics Review - 23rd December 2024
Hidden Wars: Syria - The History
Contents
Introduction
The History of Syria
The Assad Dynasty
Concluding Remarks
Bitesize Edition
The recent collapse of the Assad regime was unexpected. Assad and Syria had spent the last year in a frozen conflict, re-engaging with many other international actors, and rejoining the Arab League. For Assad, there were signs of positivity.
What was also unexpected was the sheer speed at which the Assad regime collapsed. HTS branched out from the Idlib province, taking Aleppo and Hama with relative ease. After Assad fled and resurfaced in Moscow, it was confirmed that the Assad dynasty had come to an end in Syria.
And so, with much unknown about this dramatic change in Syria, it’s worth diving deeper into this issue. Before exploring the present day, we need to dive deeper into the history. How did the history of Syria contribute to the present-day environment? When did the Assad dynasty rise and how did Assad contribute to the journey that took Syria down the road towards a civil war? Let’s dive in below.
Introduction
A few weeks ago, when the rapid collapse of the Assad regime in Syria ensued, many sources were releasing articles and videos that were outdated in a few short hours. This collapse moved rapidly, and so as I usually prefer to do, I decided to wait. With more time, we can assess the history of Syria and how it led to the current events. Over the coming weeks, we’ll explore the civil war, the key players involved, and where Syria goes from here.
The History of Syria
The Middle East is known for its rich religious history. Especially when exploring prehistoric Syria, books upon books could be written on the topic.
I’ll start with slightly more modern history when Syria was a part of the Persian Empire in 539 BC. As Iran does today, the Persians showed a great interest in controlling and influencing the land bridge that created a path to the Mediterranean. As a consequence of these aspirations, the Persians controlled Syrian territory.
The period of Persian rule ended with the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Macedonian-Greek king, in 333-332 BC. Syria was incorporated into the Seleucid Empire as a result of this conquest. Soon after, the empire fought a series of six wars named the Syrian Wars with the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. This heavily drained the resources of both empires and paved the way for a well-known empire to enter, take advantage of this weakness, and reap the rewards. This was the Romans.
Antioch, the capital of Syria during the rule of the Seleucid Empire, became the third biggest city in the Roman Empire, after Rome and Alexandria. After the Western Roman Empire collapsed, Syria remained under the umbrella of the Byzantines, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire. This lasted until the 7th century, when the Rashidun army conquered Syria, integrating the territory into their Islamic Empire.
The history of Syria becomes more chaotic after this. The Caliphate collapsed in the mid-8th century. The Umayyad dynasty, who had placed Damascus as the capital of their empire, were overthrown by the Abbasid dynasty in 750, and they moved the capital to Baghdad.
Syria was then ruled by the Egyptians, the Ikhshidids, and the Hamdanids. They even experienced a period of anarchy!
The Byzantines returned in 969 and clashed with the Hamdanids and Damascus-based Fatimids. The Byzantines reclaimed all of Syria by 996, but the Fatimids and Buyids of Baghdad ensured stability never occurred during this period of rule for the Byzantines.
The Seljuk Turks, the Burid dynasty, the Zengid dynasty, and the Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt all controlled regions of Syria before the Crusader States of the First Crusade took control of parts of Syria. The Great Seljuk Empire also continued to control regions of Syria at the same time.
Even the Mongols arrived in the Syrian region in 1260. After they withdrew, the Mamluks of Egypt invaded and conquered Syria, eliminating the last of the Crusader footholds in Syria.
In 1400, the Timurid Empire defeated the Mamluks at Aleppo and captured Damascus. This period led to many of the city’s inhabitants being massacred and saw heavy persecution of Christians in Syria.
In 1516, we had the Ottomans arrive in Syria. I’ve discussed this entire history in my series on the Balkans, and so I’ll only loosely refer to it here.
I’m aware my coverage of multiple centuries of Syria‘s history was shortened dramatically. Thankfully, this next period requires no shortening. The period of Ottoman rule in Syria persisted until 1918 when the empire collapsed at the end of World War One. The Iranian Safavids made two brief captures of Syrian territory during this period, but neither was particularly long-lasting.
When the Ottoman Empire collapsed, we truly entered a period of chaos in the Middle East. The French and British had agreed on the partition of the Middle East in the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916. In 1918, Arab and British troops took Aleppo and Damascus. Two years later, Syria was a French-controlled mandate of the League of Nations. In my history on Israel and Palestine, I argued that Sykes-Picot was a major precursor for the chaos that the Middle East continues to be embroiled in today.
Syria was divided into three separate regions under the French, with an Alawite State on the coast and a Druze state in the South. Nationalist revolts emerged in 1925 across all of Syria and parts of Lebanon. These ceased in 1927, and elections in 1928 were held to seek a constituent assembly which would draft a constitution. When the French High Commissioner rejected these claims, further nationalist protests emerged. In 1930, the State of Syria was declared the Republic of Syria and a constitution was written by the French High Commissioner.
Syria and France finally negotiated a treaty of independence in 1936, after over a decade of Syrians pursuing this independence. It was agreed in principle with the French maintaining military and economic dominance. This treaty never came into effect after the French refused to ratify it. As France fell in 1940, Syria was controlled by Vichy France until the British and Free French occupied the country after their 1941 Syria-Lebanon campaign. Syria was finally recognised as an independent republic on January 1st, 1944. The French were slow to withdraw, and the British were also present for periods during the next two years, but finally, Syria fully gained independence on April 17th, 1946.
For the next decade, Syria had twenty different government cabinets and drafted four constitutions. They were involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1948 and were pushed back to the Golan Heights before an armistice was agreed with Israel in 1949. A UN-supervised demilitarised zone was established, and this became a large stumbling block for any future negotiations between Syria and the Israelis.
1949 saw three coups in the aftermath of Syria’s involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Adib Shishakli seized power in the third coup in an attempt to prevent a union with Iraq that the previous leadership were pursuing. He was overthrown in 1954 by another coup, in which the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party was involved. Since Syria had struggled to establish any institutions, the military and security establishment seemed to be the only force capable of enacting influence and gaining power. For Syria’s future, the Ba’ath Party certainly understood this.
In 1956, Syria signed a pact with the Soviet Union as a direct consequence of the Suez Crisis. Coming out of the Suez Crisis, Egyptian President Gamal Abdal Nasser’s strong leadership created support for a union between Syria and Egypt. This union occurred on February 1st, 1958, and created the United Arab Republic. Discontent with Egyptian dominance in this union led Abd al-Karim al-Nahlawi to seize power three years later in September 1961. Two days later, the Syrian Arab Republic was established.
A March 1963 coup finally saw the Ba’ath Party gain monopolistic control of Syria. They did this through the installation of the National Council of the Revolutionary Command, which assumed control of all executive and legislative branches of government.
The Ba’ath National Command was overthrown in 1966 by General Salah Jadid. The 1967 Six-Day War and the loss of the Golan Heights saw Jadid’s popularity collapse.
In 1970, the period of the Assad dynasty began, when Minister of Defence Hafez al-Assad gained power in a bloodless coup.
The Assad Dynasty
Assad moved to quickly establish his rule as unchallengeable. The 173-member legislature saw the Ba’ath Party take 87 seats, a majority that couldn’t be threatened. A 21-member regional command structure was also headed by Assad. Shortly after, a national referendum confirmed Assad for a 7-year Presidential term. March 1973 saw a new constitution passed, which recognised Syria as a secular socialist state, with the main religion of Islam.
Also in 1973, we saw another Syrian connection to my series on Israel and Palestine as Syria and Egypt launched the Yom Kippur War against Israel. The Israelis pushed deeper into Syria, and continue to occupy the Golan Heights today due to moves made over fifty years ago in this conflict. In 1976, Syria invaded Lebanon in an attempt to intervene in the Lebanese Civil War and ensure the status quo was maintained. This occupation of Lebanon remained until 2005, even after the Syrian-sponsored Taif Agreement in 1990 brought the civil war to an end.
In the same year as the end of the Lebanese Civil War, Syria joined the U.S.-led coalition against Iraq. This put Syria at the table when it came to negotiating, and they attempted to do just this with the Golan Heights. No agreement was formed, and this issue hasn’t been discussed since Assad met with Bill Clinton in 2000.
In the same year, Hafez al-Assad died. His eldest son had died in a car crash in 1994, and so Bashar al-Assad was chosen as his successor.
Bashar was elected in July as he was the only candidate who stood in the election. Repression of political dissidents and the jailing of prominent Syrian figures were the norm under both father and son. There was some hope for better under Bashar, as numerous political forums emerged for discussion in Damascus as Bashar first rose to power. Pro-democracy groups emerged, and Bashar released over 600 political prisoners. The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood resumed activity and the Pope even visited in 2001. By late-2001, however, normality had resumed, with key intellectuals in Syria arrested and repression once again clear and obvious in Syrian society.
The next decade for Syria was as tense as those before it. The United States accused Syria of acquiring weapons of mass destruction in 2002, and consequently threatened sanctions against the Syrians. Syria denied this, but in 2004, the sanctions came anyway. The United States also accused Syria of supporting terrorist groups due to Syria’s relations with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad.
The withdrawal of Syria from Lebanon in 2005 was triggered by the death of a former Lebanese Prime Minister in Beirut of which Syria was accused of orchestrating. In response, many urged Syria to withdraw its forces from Lebanon, which it finally did by April 2005.
Once Syria had removed its presence in Lebanon, there were positive signs that they were interacting with more geopolitical actors. Relations with Iran were restarted in 2006, and dialogue between Syria and the EU also restarted in 2007. A peace treaty was also discussed with Israel in 2008, mediated by the Turks. But, in the background, Syrian civilians continued to be repressed. Activists Michel Kilo and Kamal al-Labwani were sentenced to long jail sentences, and the authorities tightened internet regulations at this time against many websites popular in the West.
These positive signs were shattered by more calls that Syria was pursuing weapons of mass destruction. Sanctions resumed from the United States, and the IAEA reported Syria for its alleged covert nuclear programme.
In 2010, we started to see a series of anti-government protests in the Arab world that became known as the Arab Spring. As part of the Arab Spring, we come to the start of Syria’s current chapter of history, marked by the onset of the Syrian Civil War.
Concluding Remarks
With Christmas rapidly approaching, I’ll be releasing my 2024 flashback piece, followed by my 2024 lessons and reading list, before diving into my geopolitical predictions and previews for 2025. That is the plan unless somebody decides to throw a spanner in the works, which could be rather likely at this point. After these posts, I’ll return to the story in Syria, covering the civil war, the key geopolitical players active in Syria and why they are there, and the latest with the collapse of the Assad government, and where we’re heading as we look forward.
I will say this in my upcoming posts, but thank you for another great year here on Substack. We crossed over 1000 subscribers, which is an absolute dream, especially when I started from scratch in June 2022. I have many ideas I want to pursue as we head into 2025, but I’ll leave these details for my upcoming posts over the next week. Keep an eye out if any of these posts sound interesting to you, and thank you once again!
Other News In Geopolitics This Week
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UK Government Approves Sale of Post Office to Czech Billionaire
Virginia Will Be Home To The World’s First Nuclear Fusion Power Plant
White House Official Claims Drone Activity is Legal and Lawful
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Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/article/syria-civil-war-rebels.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idlib
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Syria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Syrian_civil_war
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Israeli_invasion_of_Syria