After a decade of war, the fighting has waned in Syria, but hopes for peace are still remote. In 2011, in the wake of the “Arab Spring”, the regime of Bashar Al-Assad, yet one of the most rooted in the region, seemed on the verge of collapse. But the ferocity of its crackdown surprised even its most determined opponents.
The meteoric expansion of the Islamic State (IS) organization in 2014 diverted international attention to the anti-jihadist struggle, at the expense of the rebels fighting the regime. The involvement of several foreign actors with divergent interests will help to bog down this conflict. Despite its repeated attempts, the United Nations will not be able to make its voice heard.
One of the turning points of this war will undoubtedly remain the about-face of the president of the United States, Barack Obama, in 2013, when he renounces at the last minute strikes against the forces of the regime after a bloody chemical attack. The “red line” he drew in 2012, promising to intervene if Bashar Al-Assad’s regime used unconventional weapons against the rebellion, has been erased.
Today, the Syrian regime has regained control of nearly 70% of the territory, but the country is divided into several zones of influence. Turkey is deploying 15,000 troops in northern Syria where it supports rebel groups. In the Northeast and East, Kurdish forces, which have been backed by Washington in their fight against ISIS, control vast areas rich in wheat and oil. The rest is held de facto by Turks, Americans, Kurds or pro-Iran militias. As for IS, whose “caliphate” was wiped off the map in March 2019, it is experiencing a resurgence, leading deadly attacks against loyalists and Kurdish militias.
Former diplomat, university professor in Middle Eastern history at Sciences Po Paris, Jean-Pierre Filiu has been running the blog “Un si near Orient” since 2015 on the website of World. He answers your questions on the diplomatic and geostrategic issues of this conflict, Monday March 15 from 4 p.m.
