Syria today notably has a small chunk (containing the ancient Christian Patriarchal seat of Antioch) removed from it in the North West (see map) which was given to Turkey by France in the 20th Century as well as the even longer standing chunk in the South West (called Lebanon).
Incidentally, because of various Church schisms, Antioch today officially has five Patriarchs none of whom live in Antioch (three are based in Damascus and two in Lebanon).
The Golan Heights, too, also in the South West, is currently occupied (since 1967 and not completely relinquished, despite Arab reclamation of the Golan foothills, in 1973) by another state’s military and civilian forces (Israel’s).
Syria shares borders with Turkey in the North, Iraq in the South East, Jordan in the South, and Israel and Lebanon in the South West. The damming by Turkey of the Euphrates River (which later dissects Syria) has restricted the availability of water in Northern Syria but has been more of an issue for Iraq. Syria, too, has dammed the river (leading to the lake/dam we can see in the North) and Iraq is farther downstream again. Much of Syria’s electricity is, in fact, hydroelectric by means of this damming. The partly straight-line borders with Iraq and Jordan remind us of the arbitrariness of the Western carve-up of the region.
Syria, however, with its many Arab (and one Israeli) land borders, is obviously a hub of the northern Arab world for all its chunks removed, water issues and early Christian heritage. Syrians in the East especially and to some extent in the South East have close ties with neighbouring Iraqis. These Eastern Syrian and Western Iraqi people live in what is called the Jazira region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
Syria also borders the Mediterranean and has three major Mediterranean ports, which are therefore naturally significant historically.
Around the northernmost of these ports lives a particular concentration of the ‘Alawite minority which is effectively a ruling class in Syria today as around the southernmost live a particular concentration of the Druze minority.
Historically, the two most significant cities and very different cities (along with Antioch and the three ports already referred to) have been Damascus, the current capital, in the south and Aleppo in the north.
Following the World War I Arab Revolt that began in 1915 and contributed to the British and French victory, the revolt’s Arab leader Sharif Feisal was elected by Syrian notables in Damascus to be King of Syria in around 1919. The area those notables intended Feisal to rule over when referring to him as King of Syria evidently encompassed French Syria and Lebanon and British Transjordan. By this stage, the French had taken charge of their intended area of influence that included his intended capital of Damascus and Lebanon and, further, had decided that he should not be permitted to assume a leadership role or indeed any role in ‘their’ territory. As compensation, the British allowed him to become King of Iraq (his brother, of course, became the Emir of Transjordan and eventually King of Jordan and had an interest in pretending to the rule of parts of nearby Syria, Lebanon and British Palestine).
The French at first ruled ‘their’ Syria as four provinces (five if you include Lebanon). The period 1920 to 1925 was marred as a result by thawra (Arabic for both revolt and revolution) leading to reduction from four provinces to one (two including Lebanon) and the Syrian republic in 1926.
Political parties developed from the late 1930s and Shuqri Quwatli was an early and influential president. Full independence from France was negotiated for both Syria and Lebanon in the period from 1943 to 1946 in the time of Quwatli who also served as president for a second time in the 1950s and was also a noted intellectual and activist.
In this period Syria hoped to continue to fully participate in friendly cultural and economic relations with France.
The period 1946 to 1954 was a volatile one for Syria, though, with the country experiencing around four significant coups. In fact, Syria was probably the most volatile region of the Middle East in the 20th Century.
There have been external and internal factors producing that volatility. A major external factor among other external influences in this period was the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. Under the various influences, the armed forces became politicised.
Hafiz al-Assad was an army pilot in this period. The major parties in Syria in this period were the Muslim Brothers (which today mostly draws support from populations centred on the major cities of Damascus and Aleppo), the Ba’ath Party and the Syrian Socialist National Party.
Relations with Israel have continued to be tense especially over the issue of the control and management of water sought by Israel in the vicinity of the source of the Jordan.
In the early period of independence, the West, too, attempted to reassert control in Syria. The British set up the short-lived Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO), not including Syria, by means of the so-called Baghdad Pact as a local bulwark against the then burgeoning influence of the USSR.
Egypt’s President Nasser also sought influence in Syria and inspired his version of Pan-Arabism with its defiance of the West. Finally, in 1958 the Syrian parties agreed to disband themselves and an independent Syria uniting Syria with Nasser’s Egypt under Nasser. Quwatli deferred to him on 1 February 1958.
Nasser put a lot of resources into strengthening Egypt’s armed forces and especially the army as a response to the threat of a well-armed Israel (and a well-organised Israeli arms industry) and earned respect in Pan-Arab circles during the 1956 defence of Suez. This goes some way to explaining the Syrian keenness for the 1958 union. He was nevertheless an authoritarian who would brook no opposition parties, officially considering them too divisive. Lebanese nationalist politicians in this period were also certainly not in sympathy with the West.
Jordan’s ruler, too, was finally persuaded not to participate in the Baghdad Pact (although he took some convincing, locally). Nevertheless, neither he nor the Lebanese were persuaded to unite with Egypt and Syria under Nasser’s rule.
The union with Egypt lasted for just over a mere three years and it appears that the CIA was likely involved in destabilising the union. However, other forces, both external and internal, contributed to the destabilisation leading to the split. The Syrians simply decided that they had made a big mistake uniting with Egypt, re-formed their disbanded parties and peacefully disunited from Egypt.
The old guard of the Ba’ath Party that had decided on union were no longer credible in Syria at this point. Part of the reason was that Nasser was considered to have become too involved with the USSR. He had become so involved essentially because the West had made itself unavailable to him. At first he had bought arms from Czechoslovakia rather than the Soviets but finally he bought MiG aircraft among other things from the Soviet Union directly. Then Western-promised finance for Nasser’s Aswan Dam project failed to materialise at very short notice so he probably felt forced to replace it with Soviet finance.
Nevertheless, only the Muslim Brothers opposed the infisal (separation) in 1961 (this despite the fact that they had originally been the only opponents of the union a mere three years before).
After the infisal, various relative freedoms not permitted or restricted under Nasser returned (if briefly) such as freedom of the press, of party formation, of expression and of economic activity. Certain Nasserist land reforms were also reversed.
The Muslim Brothers are banned today (with the exception of one faction within it). The Ba’ath Party (under new leadership, however, the old guard having been discredited) became the dominant party.
While the period 1961 to 1963 was a ‘honeymoon period’ for the new Syrian regime, by 1970 there had been around another four coups against it. With each successive coup, the recently regained freedoms were seemingly further eroded and more political power was concentrated in military hands, especially ‘Alawi ones. The ‘Alawi minority had responded for many years to perceived political oppression in Syria by joining the Syrian military with the result that, having achieved a critical mass in the politicised military, they were now potentially in a position to deal out some oppression of their own.
The Ba’ath Party, meanwhile, had become obscurantist in its discourse and its upper echelons had become infiltrated by Mossad agents. One in particular became number three in the party at a time that enabled him to provide useful information to Israel for its prosecution of the 1967 war against Syria, Egypt and Jordan. He was eventually uncovered.
Syria, who performed worst of the Arab side in it, regarded the Six-Day War of 1967 as a particular disaster. Israel had not been expected to defeat the Arab armies with such ease so its easy success was shocking to Syrians as much as to any other Arabs. A flood of refugees from the Golan Heights was noticeable in Damascus.
Syrian policy at the time was also to defend the interests of the PLO against Jordan as much as against Israel. Hence the regime was short of neither Arab nor non-Arab enemies.
In 1970 two events of significance for the region produced an end to the period of coups, however, and a relatively stable regime in Syria, one internal and one external: the coming to power of Hafiz al-Assad and the expulsion of PLO elements from Jordan.
Assad remained in charge as Syrian President until his death and the accession of his son, the optometrist/eye doctor, Bashshar al-Assad, in the year 2000, who remains President today.
Hafiz’s takeover was called a ‘corrective movement’ rather than a revolution. He was a shrewd man, which led to him being labelled “difficult” by people like Henry Kissinger, the West being evidently unaccustomed to dealing with shrewd Arab politicians. He had the eponymous Assad Dam constructed (mentioned above – besides the damming producing hydro-electric power, the dam became a significant fishery).
He also helped the Arab side fight the Israelis to a virtual standstill in the 1973 October (or Ramadan or Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)) War thus limiting the Israeli air of invincibility in the region.
Syria and Egypt both also regained some actual territory.
Under Assad’s stewardship, Syria also regained an improved relationship with most Arab countries (if not the world).
Syria and Lebanon in particular have had a close relationship in the past and may be expected to in the future. Damascus and Beirut are, after all, only 50 kilometres apart. Nevertheless, relations have been strained in the latter part of the 20th Century and the early 21st Century mainly due to the recent occupation. Syrian forces initially entered Lebanon (over basically the third quarter of the 20th Century) to protect the Lebanese from local factions, Israel and a brief US occupation. The US occupation was possibly undertaken to prevent the Israelis from using nuclear weapons as they had threatened in the past when confronted with the possibility of losing a war.
Israel soon departed Lebanon, however, and the forces that had invited the Syrian forces immediately wanted Syrian forces to depart also. The Syrians chose not to until 2005-2006 and thus outstayed their welcome for many years with a significant portion of the Lebanese population.
In this environment, Syria has recently been accused of a host of assassinations in Lebanon over a half a century (leading ultimately to the withdrawal of the Syrian forces). The actual assassins have not been determined in all cases and in some cases may have had CIA or Israeli assistance – potentially equally ruthless actors in the region with motives at least as clear as Syria’s, to foment discontent with Syria being an obvious one.
As some of the early alleged Syrian assassinations were occurring mid-century, the CIA is now known to have been orchestrating the Iranian coup against Mossadegh, to illustrate what they were capable of in this region at that time (and may still be).
Certainly the family of Rafiq al-Hariri generally believes the instigators of his 2005 assassination were Syrian as he was clearly opposed to the Syrian influence in Lebanon during his lifetime (he was accompanied by a large retinue that was consequently also killed).
This multiple assassination led directly to the protests that led to the Syrian withdrawal in the same year. Assassinations have unfortunately continued in the aftermath of the withdrawal. The powerful al-Hariri family also blames Syria for this assassination and several of the earlier and later assassinations (quite insistently), as do other powerful families in Lebanon (less stridently, perhaps, though).
Consequently, Syria’s relations with some quarters in Lebanon are still quite strained. Syria itself tends to blame Israel while Israel predictably accuses Syria, in turn. The al-Hariri family would evidently prefer that Syria not be dealt with although even most anti-Syrians accept the need to continue to deal with Syria reasonably.
Some other Arab states also have some problems with Syria, ironically buying into the ideas of the US and Israel. The line of Israel and the US is that Syria remains at least an associate member of the ‘Axis of Evil’ (formerly the ‘full members’ were Iran, Iraq and North Korea according to the now infamous 2002 State of the Union address of George W. Bush).
They are also believed (and by some Arab states, too) to deal closely with Iran, as a fellow Shi’a power, and with Hizbollah in Lebanon, forming a dangerous "Shi’a Crescent" in the region opposed to Sunni regimes and herein lies the problem for the Arab states.
That analysis is probably too simplistic, however, and may well therefore one day appear as simplistic as the Domino Theory and Communist Unity Theory of the early part of the Cold War is now considered to be. Nevertheless it plays a role in regional relations.
Internally, Syria still faces problems with the local Muslim Brothers and over the claim of the remainder of the Golan Heights.
Since 2000, the president has been Bashshar al-Assad. He was expected to represent a ‘new broom’ on his ascent to the role on the death of his father, as new generations of royals of a similar age have sometimes been in the recent past in the region and food-wise, at least, Syria has recently become potentially self-sufficient and there was, indeed, a flowering of freedom of expression in the early years of his rule.
Nevertheless, he followed it with a familiar period of oppression reminiscent of the crackdown in China followed the Mao-authorised “hundred flowers” movement.
With regard to the major issues with Israel, Turkey is attempting to mediate between the two countries.
Despite all its difficulties, however, Syria has held a major place in both the Arab world and the Middle East since at least the time of the ‘Umayyad caliphs and has also been fairly termed Pan-Arabism’s “throbbing heart”. Syrian political parties have led the way in the politics of the Arab world and Damascus and Aleppo have been sui generis cultural hubs. The agricultural regions in the east of the country also sustain Syria well. In short, Syria remains in a reasonable position to positively, complexly and significantly contribute to the region.
The next part of this post is a similar history but told from a more party political and ideological perspective.
Following Syrian independence, a parliamentary system was set up. There were two kinds of party: movements, really, that were community rather than ideology based set up initially and then (mostly beginning in the 1950s) ideological parties.
The two major movements were designated the Nationalist Bloc and the People’s Party (Hizb ash-Sha’b).
The Ba’ath Party was the first local ideological party beginning in the early 1940s. The other three major parties were the Communist Party, al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun (Muslim Brothers) and the Syrian Nationalist Socialist Party (the SNSP).
Much of the debate in these early years was over response to the ‘disaster’ of 1948 (the formation of Israel). Another minor disaster had been the ceding by France to Atatürk’s Turkey of the Arab region of northern Syria around Antioch.
Following a short period of relatively free elections the army became politicised and the legal-constitutional system and its reform became dependent upon its support.
The weak but militant SNSP which still operates in the current Ba’ath state championed the idea of a greater Syria which basically encompassed the entire Fertile Crescent – an example of the regionalism mentioned in earlier posts another version of which was represented by the brief union of Egypt and Syria.
Against this, the Brothers were more pan-Arab or pan-Islamist in their outlook and were thus legally less favoured than the SNSP as too radical.
The first ideological party, the Syrian Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party (the Ba’ath Party), was also the most successful party in the earliest period. It was formed from a couple of other early parties and was led at first by two or three Damascene and other Syrian Christians and Muslims.
Michel ‘Aflaq, a Christian, was one of them and became the major ideologue. His ideas tended to be too nebulous in reality. Despite its usual slogan in both Syria and Iraq of “Arab unity, liberation and socialism”, no regime in either country has ever really lived up to any of these ideals.
The first opportunity for some Arab political unity came with a 1958 invitation to Nasser to merge Egypt and Syria (the year of the Ba’athist coup in Iraq and the consequent collapse of the 1955 NATO-like, British-formed and pro-Western ‘Baghdad Pact’ alliance). The result, however, was more a takeover even though the title of the new state, the United Arab Republic, suggested a degree of real unity. Nasser had hoped to persuade more Arab states to invite him in with the inclusive title. By 1961 the politicians who had invited him into Syria, however, already wanted him gone. Nasser had insisted that all parties but his dissolve themselves which they had initially happily done. Nevertheless they had continued to exist in a subterranean form while Nasser vainly attempted to court the support of the West and Israel. Former ‘Baghdad Pact’ countries remained suspicious of Nasser so further unity was not possible. Several still valued their Western alliances.
In Syria today, this infisal (separation) is now generally viewed with a degree of shame although some Syrians and the Ba’ath Party have attempted to justify it on the alleged basis that it permitted further discussion on a larger Arab unity including with Iraq that Nasser’s union allegedly caused problems for.
The Ba’ath Party formally came to power in 1963 with the support of the army. The senior ranks of both the Party and the army had recruited a large number of members of the northern ‘Alawite minority and the leadership of the state has recently been largely the preserve of the allegedly Shi’a ‘Alawites.
In the period of rule from 1963 to 1970, the party also developed an anti-intellectual tendency that led to the emigration of Michel ‘Aflaq to Iraq. Meanwhile, the tendency to recruit for senior positions from a minority group was repeated in Iraq where the Sunni minority almost always filled the most senior state roles.
The al-Assad family beginning with Hafiz who ‘reigned’ as President until his death in 2002 came to power in 1970. His optometrist son, Bashshar, succeeded him and still rules as President, as I've mentioned above.
Officially, the loss of the Golan Heights continues to be a minor set-back in the ongoing war with Israel. An air-force ace, Hafiz was an admirer of Nasser and copied him in building a large dam and in maintaining a police state and the rule of the military/army. He established stability and promoted economic development by opening up trade while maintaining a somewhat socialist system. Internationally, his relations were ironically better with Egypt and the Soviet Union (while it existed) than with his own Ba’ath Party colleagues in Iraq. His son’s relations with the US and Israel continue to be quite bad but may be improving.
Internally, relations with the Muslim Brothers (among other objections, as a basically Sunni group they had religious objections to the ostensibly Shi’a ‘Alawite faith practiced by the ruling class) have not always been good (but were especially bad in the 1980s).
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