Understanding Syria: From Pre-Civil War to Post-Assad - The Atlantic - 0 views
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xtreme temperatures
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drought from 2006 to 2011
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2001 to 2010, Syria had 60 “significant” dust storms.
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lessening of rainfall
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as of the last year before the civil war, only about 13,500 square kilometers could be irrigated
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agriculture
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20 percent of national income
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employed about 17 percent
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Syria’s oil is of poor quality, sour, and expensive to refine
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densely populated
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less than 0.25 hectares (just over a third of an acre) of agricultural land per person
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population/resource ratio is out of balance.
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So it is important to understand how their “social contract”—their view of their relationship with one another and with the government—evolved and then shattered.
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threw the country into the arms of
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Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser
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or three and a half years
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part of the United Arab Republic
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A fundamental problem they faced was what it meant to be a Syrian.
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1961 Syrians were thrown back on their own resources
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The majority of those who became Syrians were Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslims
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seven and eight in 10 Syrians saw themselves as Muslim Arab
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being a Muslim Arab as the very definition of Syrian identity.
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Nationalists took this diversity as a primary cause of weakness and adopted as their primary task integrating the population into a single political and social structure.
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Israel
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Looming over Syrian politics and heightening the tensions
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A ceasefire, negotiated in 1974, has held, but today the two states are still legally at war.
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or Hafez al-Assad, the secular, nationalist Baath Party was a natural choice: it offered, or seemed to offer, the means to overcome his origins in a minority community and to point toward a solution to the disunity of Syrian politics
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bridge the gaps between rich and poor
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socialism
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Muslims and minorities
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Islam
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society
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hould be modern
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secular
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defined by a culture of “Arabism”
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the very antithesis of
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Muslim Brotherhood
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military, which seemed
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o embody the nation.
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help the Syrian people to live better provided only that they not challenge his rule
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his stern and often-brutal monopoly of power
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foreign troublemakers
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Hafez al-Assad sided with Iran in the Iran-Iraq war
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During the rule of the two Assads, Syria made considerable progress.
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locked into the cities and towns
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they f
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had to compete
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Palestinians
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Iraqis
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Syria was already a refuge
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March 15, 2011
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small group gathered in the southwestern town of Daraa to protest against government failure to help them
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government saw them as subversives.
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He ordered a crackdown
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And the army,
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responded violently.
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Riots broke out
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attempted to quell them with military
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what had begun as a food and water issue gradually turned into a political and religious cause.
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interpretation of Islam
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the Syrian government is charged with using illegal chemical weapons
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All observers agree that the foreign-controlled and foreign-constituted insurgent groups are the most coherent, organized, and effective
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astonishing as they share no common language and come from a wide variety of cultures
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slam has at least so far failed to provide an effective unifying force
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all the rebels regard the conflict in Syria as fundamentally a religious issue
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pwards of $150 billion
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a whole generation of Syrians have been subjected to either or both the loss of their homes and their trust in fellow human beings.
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How the victims and the perpetrators can be returned to a “normal life”
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First, the war might continue.
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Second, if the Syrian government continues or even prevails, there is no assurance that,
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t will be able to suppress the insurgency.
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Third,
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Syria will remain effectively “balkanized”
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This article captures Syria's geography, history, and all events leading up to the state Syria is in today.
