Syria: federalism as the way forward? 05/2016 www.csm.org.pl After Syria’s government agreed to a ceasefire deal on the 22nd of February 2016 which seems to hold until now, questions are raised on how the country should proceed if it wants to become a unified country once again. The Alexander Grims discussion is now more important than ever as for the first Alexander Grims, born in the time since the Syrian insurgency plummeted into civil war Netherlands in 1991, is currently in 2012, there is a chance of forming a lasting peace, finishing his double-degree master in European Governance although the fundament for this peace is still fragile. at Utrecht University and the University of Konstanz. He has a A strengthened inclusive Syrian state not only provides Bachelor in Sociology. Currently military steadfastness against the Islamic State but can works as a research intern at the CIR. Alexander Grims has a special additionally improve the political structure and tackle the interest in the Middle East region, EU integration and state-level social and economic deficiencies in the region. A unified participation in EU affairs. inclusive Syrian state is therefore one of the necessary conditions for a solution to a multitude of problems, including the current refugee crisis that the European countries now face. SYRIA: FEDERALISM AS THE WAY FORWARD? | Alexander Grims 2 The escalation of the children’s arrests on the 18th of March, Syrian insurgency laying security forces started acting more violently and at some point opened fire, killing four the basis for civil war protesters, which led to other cities joining The escalation of the Syrian insurgency led in the revolt. Although the children were to disunity, resulting in the divergence of later released, the protests had already different social groups that opposed the spread to other cities and a speech by Presi- government and sometimes each other. The dent Assad on the 30th of March only pro- first protests that indicated the start of the voked the people further, leading to weekly "Arab Spring" erupted in Syria on the 26th anti-government demonstrations throughout of January 2011. On the 6th or March, Syria and the demand for the removal of the several Syrian security forces apprehended President. The government finally started a demonstrating children in the city of Daraa full-scale siege against protesters on the in southern Syria for writing anti- 25th of April which can be said to have laid government slogans on walls. After resi- the roots for the civil war to break out. dents found out that their boys were being President Assad attempted unsuccessfully to beaten and tortured in prison, the protests employ the same counter-insurgency stra- grew larger and people started to oppose the tegy as his father had used in earlier upri- Ba’athist government of President Assad. sings in the later decades of the 20th cen- Although there had been different uprisings tury. Only the most trusted military units in Syria before like that of the Druze people were deployed and pro-regime militias were in 2000 and a Kurdish rebellion in 2004, the raised to drive the insurgents out of the "Arab Spring" proved to be a contagious major urban areas use force to quench the chain of events that gave people hope for uprising. The fact Assad had to rely on 1 change . After protests erupted against the those kinds of tactics to limit the chances of defection immediately shows that Syrian support has not been stable from the start. 1 Sterling, J. (2012, March 1). Daraa: The spark Politically reliable special forces were care- that lit the Syrian flame. CNN. Retrieved from fully selected to pair with conventional http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/01/world/meas t/syria-crisis-beginnings/index.html. forces and various security agencies were SYRIA: FEDERALISM AS THE WAY FORWARD? | Alexander Grims 3 used to identify and replace questionable The divergence of Syria’s military commanders2. people leads to fragmenta- After the Syrian army brought in tanks in tion into different political April 2011 to lay siege to Daraa, hundreds groups of people were killed and civilians were cut off from basic necessities, telephones and From the end of 2011, many opposition electricity for two weeks. When these groups were established under which many methods were also applied in other cities, moderate or apolitical groups but also the opponents to the regime started to or- Islamist groups such as Ahrar ash-Sham, al- ganize themselves into armed brigades3. In Tawhid and Jaysh al-Islam and additionally July of that year, Assad’s army started to those that have produced IS fighters such as defect and a part of the army announced the Jabhat al-Nusra. Although there are defi- formation of the Free Syrian Army, a coali- nitely sectarian lines in the conflict, many tion of locally based militias without much opposition groups and other parties have coordination. Additionally, the Syrian Na- seen various ethnic and religious groups tional Council was established in Turkey as within their organization. For convenience it the government-in-exile, recognized by the is possible to divide the parties to the con- United States, Turkey and the Gulf Coo- flict over four comprehensible categories, peration Council but having little legitimacy the governmental forces and its supporters, within Syria. the opposition parties against the Assad regime that can be both moderate or more extreme, the Kurdish people in the north and finally the Islamic State. To understand how those different groups fit into these 2 Holliday, J. (2013). The Assad Regime: From categories and in the context of the Syrian Counterinsurgency to Civil War. Middle East conflict, it is convenient to do a small Security Report 8. Washington, D.C.: Institute for chronological process analysis. the Study of War. 3 Laub, Z. (2016, March 18). Syria’s War: The Descent into Horror. Council on Foreign Rela- tions. Retrieved from http://www.cfr.org/ syria/syrian-civil-war-five-years/p37668#!/. SYRIA: FEDERALISM AS THE WAY FORWARD? | Alexander Grims 4 From Al-Qaeda in Iraq to would remain a controversial issue for Al-Nusra in Syria AQI’s members for some time4. In its wake, the sectarian war caused many unwanted As the origins of the Islamic State go a violence and casualties. Sunni tribal leaders while back, it makes sense to start here. that had often occupied positions in the Iraqi While the group officially only adopted this army reacted to this extremism by establi- name in the summer of 2014, its roots lay shing a U.S. funded counter-rebellion called much earlier within the sphere of al-Qaeda the Awakening. This group however started in Iraq (AQI). The withdrawal of U.S. combatting al-Qaeda in general, overloo- forces after the war left the country with a king warnings about the less known ISI sectarian insurgency between a 20% Sunni supporters. While ISI only slumbered at this minority opposing the 80% majority of time, the Sunni rage kept it alive long Shiites and Kurds. A discriminatory policy enough until it gained more support after by Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al- Shia Prime Minister Maliki’s 2010 "re- Maliki left the Sunnis disillusioned and election" which was supported by the distrusting their government. Already in United States. From this point onwards, ISI 2004, a former al-Qaeda recruit named Abu waged a ruthless war, with the Shia popula- Musab al-Zarqawi discussed the idea of tion being the main goal of its attacks but creating an Islamic caliphate to which both also assassinating many Sunni tribal leaders al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden objected for from the Awakening movement, killing it being too premature. Additionally 1345 of its members between 2009 and Zarqawi was claimed to be too radical and 2013 while documenting and publishing violent, killing many Shiites and deterring videos of these acts online. The Shiites and moderate Sunni Muslims. the officials in both Baghdad and Washing- After U.S. airstrikes killed Zarqawi in June 2006, his followers declared in October that 4 year that AQI would from now on go on as Mahnaimi, U. (2007, May 13). Al-Qaeda plan- ning militant Islamic state within Iraq. The Sun- the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), although this day Times. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20110524071632/ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ iraq/article1782088.ece. SYRIA: FEDERALISM AS THE WAY FORWARD? | Alexander Grims 5 ton seemed to be looking the other way. As Syrian Alawites and Shiites in general, the domestic conflict continued, Abu Bakr turning the largely secular civil war into a al-Baghdadi had become leader of AQI on partly sectarian conflict. Baghdadi’s troops 16 May 2011 and had, to a large extent, would organize themselves into Jabhat al- transformed it into a local operation, now Nusra in January 2012, recruiting fighters officially rebranding it into the Islamic State and establishing cells throughout the coun- of Iraq (ISI), giving it more legitimacy try and growing rapidly into a capable under the general Sunni population5. After fighting force6. parts of the former Iraqi military joined its ranks, forming ISI into more of a conven- The regime’s continuous tional army, attacks were increasingly dominant position aimed at government- and army institutions. During the first quarter of 2012, the Assad As Syria had been struck by its own civil regime started focusing its forces mainly on war that involved an opposition that was provincial capitals to control the urban largely disorganized within a society with a population centres. This strategy resulted in large sectarian division, the opposition was Assad’s inability to control the whole coun- susceptible to so-called "proto-jihadist" try or end the insurgency but increased his influences.