Yeah so basically Syria has been a total shitshow. I closely followed Syria from 2011 to like 2016 or so but I was kind of a lib back then so take this with a grain of salt but this is what I remember.
2011 is the Arab Spring, so some folks in Syria are like "shit sucks let's overthrow the government" as had been happening in neighboring states in the Middle East. Their grievances were mostly justified—the Assad family has ruled Syria for years and kept it economically stable and ethnically stable (Syria is home to many Christians, Kurds, Shia and Sunni Muslims, as well as some non-"standard" Muslims like Alawites (of whom Assad is a part) in exchange for strict political control. The bargain worked for a long time, but as 2011 rolled around there was a massive long term drought that forced many farmers to move from their lands to the cities to find work so they wouldn't starve, so the cities get overcrowded and food becomes a little scarce/expensive and boom you've got massive protests on your hands.
The protestors are mostly vaguely left youths and disaffected farmers, but Assad responds very brutally very quickly. Black sites, killing and imprisoning dissidents, the works. The original protestors mostly refuse to arm themselves, but a select few end up taking up arms. It just so happens to the groups that do decide to fight are almost entirely supplied by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Gulf States who happen to only give arms to the radical Wahhabi Islamist groups who want to turn Syria into a Sunni-ruled Muslim state rather than the multi-ethnic state Assad currently ruled over. So they get good weapons, and then a lot of the original rebels are like "uhhh we wanted to overthrow Assad but we don't want to replace Assad with al Qaeda so no thanks." Then it erupts into this massive proxy war, where Assad gets help from Russia and to a lesser extent Iran, who don't want the whole region to go to shit and become a breeding group for radical Islamist terror groups. They're simultaenously fighting Saudi Arabia/Qatari armed jihadist rebels in the South primarily, Turkish armed rebels in the North since Turkey wants in on the action, and then the breakaway Kurdish region of Rojava who realized that as the "moderate" Islamist rebels gained ground they would revoke the privileges the Kurds had enjoyed in Syria so they formed their own independent polity since they could no longer rely on Assad, being cut off from Damascus and Assad's stronghold by rebel forces.
From that point onward it's just a massive shitshow, with Assad eventually gaining the upper hand thanks to Russian air support, but only after a very long, protracted, and brutal civil war that has completely leveled large parts of Syria. It's noticeable that the "moderate" Islamist rebels went on to partially form ISIS, which is a whole other thing but basically ISIS would never have even existed without the Syrian Civil War, and in particular the American/Gulf State arming of "moderate" Islamist forces in Syria. Assad is not a Good Dude and his government is definitely brutal and repressive in a similar fashion to Iran's, but he does guarantee the safety of Christians and Alawites and Shia Muslims in a Sunni majority state, and he is sure as hell better to live under than an al Qaeda adjacent group aligned with the House of Saud, hence this forum's general critical support towards the Lion of Damascus. Missing some stuff I'm sure but that's the basic gist as I remember it.
I know this is The Narrative™, but I find it so hard to believe the first part. The drought was real but I find it hard to believe people were upset enough to go out and protest.
Any sane Syrian would have known what was coming. Anyone old enough would absolutely still remember Hama 1982. I just don't like how this narrative presents the protests as being so organic, especially with it being well documented that the West had longed for the destruction for Syria for decades.
I think I can believe it just given the nature of the protests sweeping the Arab world during 2010-2011. There's a lot of overeducated, frustrated, unemployed Arab youth across the region that absolutely had reason to protest the shitty state of their lives, whether than anger was directed at Assad or capitalism or imperialism or whatever was up for grabs. The median age in Syria is 25 (similar to many states across MENA), so yeah over half the population in Syria wasn't even alive in 1982! I think the propaganda being pumped out by the West directed the anger towards Assad specifically, but I have no doubt that the anger and frustration boiling in Syria was real.
Yeah so basically Syria has been a total shitshow. I closely followed Syria from 2011 to like 2016 or so but I was kind of a lib back then so take this with a grain of salt but this is what I remember.
2011 is the Arab Spring, so some folks in Syria are like "shit sucks let's overthrow the government" as had been happening in neighboring states in the Middle East. Their grievances were mostly justified—the Assad family has ruled Syria for years and kept it economically stable and ethnically stable (Syria is home to many Christians, Kurds, Shia and Sunni Muslims, as well as some non-"standard" Muslims like Alawites (of whom Assad is a part) in exchange for strict political control. The bargain worked for a long time, but as 2011 rolled around there was a massive long term drought that forced many farmers to move from their lands to the cities to find work so they wouldn't starve, so the cities get overcrowded and food becomes a little scarce/expensive and boom you've got massive protests on your hands.
The protestors are mostly vaguely left youths and disaffected farmers, but Assad responds very brutally very quickly. Black sites, killing and imprisoning dissidents, the works. The original protestors mostly refuse to arm themselves, but a select few end up taking up arms. It just so happens to the groups that do decide to fight are almost entirely supplied by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Gulf States who happen to only give arms to the radical Wahhabi Islamist groups who want to turn Syria into a Sunni-ruled Muslim state rather than the multi-ethnic state Assad currently ruled over. So they get good weapons, and then a lot of the original rebels are like "uhhh we wanted to overthrow Assad but we don't want to replace Assad with al Qaeda so no thanks." Then it erupts into this massive proxy war, where Assad gets help from Russia and to a lesser extent Iran, who don't want the whole region to go to shit and become a breeding group for radical Islamist terror groups. They're simultaenously fighting Saudi Arabia/Qatari armed jihadist rebels in the South primarily, Turkish armed rebels in the North since Turkey wants in on the action, and then the breakaway Kurdish region of Rojava who realized that as the "moderate" Islamist rebels gained ground they would revoke the privileges the Kurds had enjoyed in Syria so they formed their own independent polity since they could no longer rely on Assad, being cut off from Damascus and Assad's stronghold by rebel forces.
From that point onward it's just a massive shitshow, with Assad eventually gaining the upper hand thanks to Russian air support, but only after a very long, protracted, and brutal civil war that has completely leveled large parts of Syria. It's noticeable that the "moderate" Islamist rebels went on to partially form ISIS, which is a whole other thing but basically ISIS would never have even existed without the Syrian Civil War, and in particular the American/Gulf State arming of "moderate" Islamist forces in Syria. Assad is not a Good Dude and his government is definitely brutal and repressive in a similar fashion to Iran's, but he does guarantee the safety of Christians and Alawites and Shia Muslims in a Sunni majority state, and he is sure as hell better to live under than an al Qaeda adjacent group aligned with the House of Saud, hence this forum's general critical support towards the Lion of Damascus. Missing some stuff I'm sure but that's the basic gist as I remember it.
I know this is The Narrative™, but I find it so hard to believe the first part. The drought was real but I find it hard to believe people were upset enough to go out and protest.
Any sane Syrian would have known what was coming. Anyone old enough would absolutely still remember Hama 1982. I just don't like how this narrative presents the protests as being so organic, especially with it being well documented that the West had longed for the destruction for Syria for decades.
I think I can believe it just given the nature of the protests sweeping the Arab world during 2010-2011. There's a lot of overeducated, frustrated, unemployed Arab youth across the region that absolutely had reason to protest the shitty state of their lives, whether than anger was directed at Assad or capitalism or imperialism or whatever was up for grabs. The median age in Syria is 25 (similar to many states across MENA), so yeah over half the population in Syria wasn't even alive in 1982! I think the propaganda being pumped out by the West directed the anger towards Assad specifically, but I have no doubt that the anger and frustration boiling in Syria was real.