Book review : The battle for Syria

BOOK REVIEW

The battle for Syria : International rivalry in the New Middle East

“Without serious, purposeful and united international pressure, including from the powers of the region, it is impossible for me, or anyone, to compel the Syrian government in the first place, and also the opposition, to take the steps necessary to begin a political process(…) You have to understand, as an Envoy, I can’t want peace more than the protagonists (…) Syria can still be saved from the worst calamity - if the international community can show the courage and leadership necessary to compromise on their partial interests for the sake of the Syrian people - for the men, women and children who have already suffered far too much”1.

What can be learned from this speech held by Kofi ANNAN at the Geneva press conference back in August 2012 when he announced his resignation as the United Nations and Arab League special envoy to Syria, it is his concentration on the significant international aspect of the conflict and the role that the international powers must play in order to finally end the “greater human disaster of the twenty first century”2 : the Syrian civil war. Five years later, Christopher PHILLIPS published a book on the subject “The battle for Syria : International rivalry in the New Middle East” where insist also and particularly on the external actors that have been crucial in affecting and impacting “the war’s character, scale and scope”3.

Christopher PHILLIPS’ main concern in this book is to propose an alternative essay to the past narratives that tend to focus essentially on the “internal dynamics” of the conflict. Having said that, it is important to note that the author does not deny the predominant role of Bashar Assad and his opponents. He understand the complexity of the subject but rather than focusing on the internal dimension, he gave a bigger emphasis to the external ones as he argue that, from the very beginning, international aspects had a more

fundamental position in transforming Syria’s uprising into a civil war. Whether it concerns the regional and international environment that existed in the pre-Arab Spring context, or the decisions made by the great powers in the early years of the conflict, or the policies pursued thereafter ; the stage had been set in a several ways by these international factors for a Syrian war. Moreover, these external factors have not only led to the civil war but have allowed it to continue and to be prolong overtime.

Right after explaining the purpose of the book and the problematics that it wish to analyse, Christopher PHILLIPS drew a brief contextualization of the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East on the eve of the Syrian crisis in 2011. This landscape was characterized by significant changes that all emerged from the withdraw of the US after its occupation of Iraq in 2003. The later is an important turning point that the author insisted on and that will have a major impact on the Syrian conflict. In fact, it was a new era that was emerging, an “era of regional uncertainty”4 as the author likes to call it ; primarily with the American hegemony beginning to decline and its domination slowly replaced with a new multipolar Middle East. Indeed, US’s failure of 1991 shifted the regional “balance of power” and awakened “the ambitions of other regional and international powers”5. In this context, Iran was the “major beneficiary”6 of 2003 as it wanted to expand its influence. That made Saudi Arabia have a different reaction filled with both fear and rivalry vis-a-vis of Iran ; and as the author says, this growing rivalry is “perhaps the most dramatic shift caused by Irak war”7. Other countries saw in the fall of Saddam an opportunity. It was the case of Turkey, Qatar and even Russia, as each of them was wishing to have a more attractive role over the region. In other words, the fading of American power over the region had created a struggle atmosphere between regional states, among them : Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, Turkey and Qatar.

Therefore, what have to be kept in mind is that all the six actors had each one of them, different agendas and interests beyond Syria. This is the reason why the author took the

time, in his first chapter, to briefly presents the main position of these six protagonists on the eve of the crisis ; in order to give the chance to the reader, to fully comprehend their actions, structural and political struggles, and the way of thinking of their formal leaders. Speaking of the United States, Christopher takes up the idea of Obama’s foreign affairs and how the actual president wanted to conduct things differently in order to reduce America’s physical presence and rebuild its reputation in the Middle East. Back in 2011, the author note that Syria was a low priority for the White House which had a very limited knowledge of the Assad regime. Regarding Iran, Syria was an oldest regional ally and “a key pillar” to reduce western influence. In fact, Syria represented for Teheran “a key bridge to deliver weapons to Hezbollah”8. Russia, too, aligned with “the anti US resistance axis” formed by Iran and Syria, as Vladimir Putin wanted to promote the Kremlin as “the third force in the region”. The relationship with Saudi Arabia is characterized of being “far from static” as it backed opposition to Syria for years but then there was a detente in 2009. Qatar, aligned itself too with the resistance axis, and as with Iran, it viewed Syria as politically valuable rather than economically.

An important question, then, that the book concentrates on is related to the degree of similarity and difference between Syria and the other states that faced the uprisings in the Arab world. Actually, the same political, economic and social problems existed as in other protesting Arab states ; However, the difference reside in the structure of the Syrian regime : it “was a very different animal than those that quickly crumbled”9. In this context, four main factors, or “buy-ins” as the author calls them, were responsible for making Assad regime different and led to the fact that a very large number of Syrians did not join the protests and remain loyal, and these factors were : economic benefit, patronage, ideology and sect. Another difference was that unlike Egypt, the Syrian military remained loyal. That was due again to a violence that the regime were facing from the internal level. The main actor here was the Mukhabarat which was a tool of the state to instal a climate of fear within and beyond the regime, through multiple

executions, tortures, detentions ... This amount of violence will be a primordial

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