Journalists from around the world have written on the subject of the Syrian conflict, which began in March 2011. Many western journalists will have you to believe that Pres. Bashar al-Assad is the core problem, and Syria would be better off without him. However, he is not the core problem. The beginning of the conflict was not about the President ordering a brutal military crackdown on peaceful protesters.
The fact that dozens of Syrian security forces were killed in Deraa on the very first night of ‘protests’ reveals the fact the protesters were armed and willing to kill to advance their political aims. It was an armed uprising from the beginning, and it was not grass-roots in origin, as it was the Libyan mercenaries in the employ of the CIA who were in Deraa prior to the beginning of the ‘revolt’, as they stockpiled weapons in the Omri Mosque. Libyan mercenaries, armed with weapons brought over the border at the Jordan-Deraa crossing, can never be considered ‘grass-roots’.
Had the conflict actually been ‘grass-roots’, the ‘revolution’ could have been successful. The fact that Pres. al-Assad is still in office attests to the steadfastness of the majority of the Syrian people. A successful revolution depends on the national army splitting and siding with the population. However, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) never split, and never turned on the government.
The SAA are a national Army in Syria, made up of every able-bodied male over the age of 18 who are not enrolled in University. Because the population of Syria is about 80% Sunni, the majority of the SAA are from that sect. There were many defections among the Army, but it was never enough to affect the performance of the Army, and the unity of the Army meant the armed opposition could not ever win against the SAA.
The crucial factor for success in a revolution is the number of people on the ground that will support the revolution, and be willing to fight. The organizers may have understood that they never had enough support inside Syria to win, and instead counted on a US-NATO military intervention, most likely to be based on a response to a staged chemical attack. However, the staged chemical attacks came and went without ever initiating their goal of ‘Humanitarian Intervention’.
Those who were fighting the Syrian government in the streets of Deraa, Homs, East Aleppo and East Ghouta were following Radical Islam, and were mounting an armed struggle to remove the secular government and install Shariah Law as the new Syrian constitution. These groups were supported by US-NATO-Turkey-Jordan-Qatar-Saudi Arabia alliance, known as “The Friends of Syria”. The attack on the Syrian government beginning in March 2011 was a foreign planned and funded attack, to produce regime change, for the political benefit of the US and its allies, as well as the neighbors of Syria who were already following, or promoting Radical Islam as a political ideology.
The very same Radical Islamic political party, The Muslim Brotherhood (MB), which had started the Hama uprising in Syria in the 1980’s, was front and center in the Syrian crisis. Virtually every founding member of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), located in Istanbul, Turkey, was a MB member. They used a Christian-turned-atheist-Communist, George Sabra, as their cover: camouflaging their real agenda. They put out a call to their brothers in arms: al Qaeda, and these foreign fighters began their invasion of Syria from the four corners of the globe.
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is approaching the end of 19 years in office. At the time of the death of Pres. Hafez al-Assad, the Syrian constitution stated there was one legal and recognized political party: the Ba’ath Party, which has a secular and socialist party platform, and is committed to the political ideology of the resistance to the occupation of Palestine.
However, during the Syrian crisis in 2012 a new constitution was drafted and ratified by popular vote. That new document abolished the old one-party system, and allowed for multiple registered parties, with the exception of any sectarian parties.
Pres. al-Assad is the president of the only secular country in the Middle East.
Certainly, there is a Syrian opposition. They fall into many different groups: some advocate armed struggle, and others do not. Some of these various groups are strictly following Radical Islam, which is a political ideology, and is not a religion or sect. Some of the groups are secular and democratic.
Pres. Bashar al-Assad will be remembered by some as the man who ordered the bombing of Syrian neighborhoods. However, if any country, including USA had armed terrorists embedded in neighborhoods, and holding civilians hostage for years, and targeting unarmed civilians constantly, they too would be using their own military and security forces to fight the terrorists, in order to liberate the captive civilians. A situation occurred in USA in which an armed revolutionary group was dealt with in the same way.
People living a life of safety thousands of miles away could not possibly understand what life is like while living for 5 years underground while being held captive in your neighborhood. The only way to really understand this is to speak directly to the civilians freed from East Aleppo in December 2016 and East Ghouta in April 2018. If you can’t speak to them personally, at least look for their own videos online, or perhaps their own words incorporated into news articles. Those people were praying for the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) to advance and free them. One woman stated, “We heard the bombs coming our way, and we were happy knowing we might finally be free.”
Of course, not everyone makes it to freedom. Many innocent civilians were killed in the battles by both sides. In war the innocent always suffer.
The President of Syria is not a Sunni; however, the majority of the officials in the Syrian government are Sunni, as well as the majority of those who hold Parliamentary seats. The media-mantra of “Alowite Ruling Elite” simply is not accurate. Syria is a mosaic of 18 different sects. Sectarian conflict was not part of Syria’s culture. The typical Syrian will tell you they say “Happy Holiday” to their neighbors, even if that was not their own holiday.
In June 2014 the first multiparty Presidential election took place. It was constitutionally scheduled, even though the conflict was raging in many areas. Pres. al-Assad took about 88% of the votes cast out of a field of 3 candidates; 2 of whom were Sunni. Many people have said the reason Sunni citizens voted for him was because they felt he was the best person to take the nation through the war successfully.
In late 2015 the Russian air force arrived in Syria, and the tide of the war turned. Western media like to use the phrase “to prop up the Assad regime”. The Russians explain it differently: either you can fight ISIS and their allies in Syria, or you can wait and fight them on the streets of Moscow, and across Europe. Stopping the Radical Islamic terrorists is a global fight which Russia takes seriously, as does Iran.
The political ideology of resistance to the occupation of Palestine runs deep in the Syrian culture, and after 40 years of that ideology being taught in schools as well as various political and social groups, the average Syrian, regardless of religion or sect, feels strongly about this subject. Because of that ideology, it is easy to understand the alliances between Syria, Iran and Hezbollah who all share the resistance ideology. Many analysts feel that Syria was attacked by the US-NATO alliance because of their steadfast resistance ideology and their shared friendship with Iran and Hezbollah.
The Syrian conflict is coming to an end. Pres. al-Assad has remained through 8 years of armed conflict. The next Presidential election is June 2021. Syrians who have suffered through the conflict are dreaming of a peaceful future. Refugees abroad may be dreaming of returning home to peace. The enemies of Syria have lost. The Syrian people have resisted regime change for the benefit of the US-NATO war machine, which used Libya as the field-test for the Syrian conflict; however, Syria proven to be different.
