Drought, Democracy and Disaster in Syria 2017 Senior Thesis
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Drought, Democracy and Disaster in Syria 2017 Senior Thesis Aidan Snyder ABSTRACT This paper explores the effects of water scarcity on the Syrian Civil War. Ultimately it will become clear that, although the Arab Spring provided a spark for the conflict, water scarcity was responsible for putting the nation on the path that resulted in revolution. Climactic, population, and economic data all serve to support the argument. An extended period of drought led to extreme water scarcity, and ultimately a collapse of the nation’s agricultural industry. This resulted in widespread migration of the population from rural to urban areas, and ultimately widespread discontent that facilitated the nation’s descent into Civil War. 2 Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION 3 2. EXISTING EXPLANATIONS 7 2.1 ETHNO-RELIGIOUS CONFLICT AND MINORITY RULE 7 2.2 ECONOMIC PRESSURES AND GETTING ON THE RIGHT TRACK 12 3. DESPERATE REVOLUTIONS IN A CHANGING WORLD 15 4. SYRIA’S WATER WAR 19 4.1 AGRICULTURAL BOOM 20 4.2 THE REPEATED SYRIAN DROUGHTS 24 4.3 AGRICULTURAL COLLAPSE 28 4.4 MASS INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT 31 4.5 SYRIA’S PATH TO CIVIL WAR 33 5. THE DROUGHT ACROSS THE MIDDLE EAST 36 5.1 THE CASE OF JORDAN 38 5.2 THE TURKISH QUESTION 41 6. CONCLUSION AND LOOKING FORWARD 44 7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 47 8. WORKS CITED 48 3 Aidan Snyder Paulina Ochoa Espejo – Advisor 1. Introduction Since the Arab Spring of March 2011 Syria has been embroiled in a bitter civil war, pitting government forces against rebel militias and the Islamic State (also known as Daesh, ISIS, and ISIL)[CNN Library, 2016]. Conventional wisdom, and the majority of research, indicates that this Civil War is the result of ideological and religious clashes as the population seeks to dethrone Bashar al-Assad and establish democracy [Hof, FAO, Jenkins, Bellin, Fearon, Lynch, Rich, Cederman et al]. This explanation for the conflict is echoed through the majority of the scholarship about the Syrian Civil War, and alternative explanations largely explain the conflict as the result of economic grievances perpetuated by the corruption present in the Assad regime [Wimmen, 2016][Haddad, 2012]. Both of these explanations focus on economic and political causes of the conflict, and they provide valuable knowledge about how the nation descended into Civil War. Despite the valuable insight these explanations provide they continue to miss one of the most important causes of the conflict. Given the relatively stable nature of Syria until the Arab Spring, it is easy to attribute the conflict to the majority of a population pushing against minority rule. In 2007 an article published by the American Political Science Journal, “Ethnic Minority Rule and Civil War Onset,” indicated that nations with minority leaders were 2.75 times more likely to experience civil war each year that the minority ruler stayed in power [Fearon et al, 2007]. This type of research displays that there is a tendency in Political Science to 4 attribute conflicts to familiar and historically studied factors. Lars-Erik Cederman published a 2015 book, “Inequality, Grievances, and Civil War,” that discusses the historical causes of civil wars and water is not mentioned as one of the possible causes [Cederman et al, 2015]. It is within this realm of political science that much of the existing research exists, and as a result there has been a gap in research about the important causes of the Syrian conflict, namely water scarcity. The area where Syria is today has been populated for over 5,000 years, which was made possible by the invention of water irrigation technologies to permit agricultural production in the extremely arid region. Irrigation permitted these early civilizations to flourish, and the area came to be known as the Fertile Crescent. Water has remained the most important resource for this arid nation, and the first historical example of a water war in Syria happened almost 2,500 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. In this war the kingdoms of Lagash and Umma went to war as a result of conflict over an irrigation canal from the Euphrates River [Hammer, 2013]. The conflict today has little in common with the water wars of thousands of years ago, but the importance of water in the region cannot be exaggerated and the influence of water scarcity on the Syrian state needs to be explored. In recent history there has been a precedent for war over limited water resources around the world, and the issue is only magnified in the extremely arid Middle East. As recently as 1990 Syria threatened neighboring Turkey with military action over the construction of damn on the Euphrates River, a conflict that eventually led to the signing of a treaty concerning water usage between the two nations [Gleick, 2008]. In Sudan, students opposing the construction of the Jonglei Canal were killed during protests, the 5 population responded with violence that halted the construction of the canal [Gleick, 2008]. In this Sudanese example it is accurate to say that the construction of the canal led to the violent protests because of the clear chain of causation, a chain that has not been fully explored in the Syrian conflict. In 1979 Anwar Sadat was quoted as saying that the “only matter that could take Egypt to war again is water.” Although these examples do not prove that the Syrian conflict was caused by water scarcity, they show a trend indicating the important role that water can play in conflict. Why, however, is it important to understand the influence of water scarcity on conflicts? If the conventional scholarship is only missing one of the multitudes of factors that caused the Syrian Civil War is it really even a big deal? The issue of water scarcity is becoming increasingly important as time progresses and the world changes. Since the mid 1990’s scientists have been evaluating the possibility that climate change will cause increased drought and desertification in semi arid to arid regions [Le Houérou, 1996]. Evidence shows that these areas are far more susceptible to the drying impacts of climate change than other areas around the world. The entirety of Syria is described as semi arid or drier, putting it at an extreme risk for desertification and drought [Le Houérou, 1996]. Unless major steps are taken in the future to reduce the impacts of climate change then this is a process that may repeat itself around the world. As a result research into the effects water scarcity is having on nations around the world is becoming and will continue to become more important to the academic and international communities. Climactic changes in the region led to a decrease in the amount of stored water, resulting in a failure of the agricultural industry that had grown dependent upon 6 groundwater reserves to satisfy irrigation needs. There was mass internal displacement, as a direct result of water scarcity, which led to widespread discontent with the regime and desperation among the population. This economic collapse, caused by water scarcity, is what drove the Syrian population to the streets, and put the nation on a path that has led to a continuing Civil War. Once a full examination of Syria is complete it becomes clear that by the time the ideals of the Arab Spring swept across the Middle East, providing a spark, the Syrian state was already on the path to Civil War as a direct result of water scarcity. 7 2. Existing Explanations 2.1 Ethno-Religious Conflict and Minority Rule By comparing the Syrian situation to neighboring countries with more responsible water policies, and examining how the drought affected the stability of the Syrian state, this paper will show that there is a direct connection between water scarcity and Syria’s current Civil War. Before the question of how water scarcity impacted the stability of Syria can be explored it is vital to discover why the existing explanations for the Syrian conflict are coming up short, and missing the most important cause of the war. 1 Most of the academic literature about the Syrian Civil War is focused on the conflict as the result of democratization or ethno religious conflict [Hof, Lawson, Fearon, Cederman, Jenkins, Bellin]. Any understanding of this argument requires knowledge of Syria’s demographics. The ruling sect, the Alawites, is a Figure 1: Syrian Demographics minority that makes up only 12% of the population, but it controls virtually the entire government [Library of Congress, 2005]. The Alawites are a specific sect of Shia Islam, which has dominated the majority Sunni (74%) population for almost 50 years [Library of Congress, 2005]. Before the Civil War 10% of the population was Christian, with the remaining 4% made up by Druze, Judaism, or various other religions [Library of Congress, 2005]. Ethnically, 90 % of the population 1 Figure taken from: US State Department. 2012. Web. https://sperglord.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/syrian-demographics-updated.png 8 is Arab, while 9% are Kurds, who are concentrated in rural Northeastern Syria [Library of Congress, 2005]. On the surface this diverse mix of religions and ethnicities seems to be a reasonable explanation for the recent conflict, and one that fits well within the existing realm of political science research [Fearon et al, 2007]. This has resulted in researchers focusing on the ethnic and religious aspects of the conflict rather than the environmental factors that drove the population to desperation. Researchers, including Frederic Hof and Eva Bellin, among others, believe that the Civil war was caused by protests for reform and the Assad regime’s violent crackdown on what began as peaceful protests [Hof, 2013].