Syria First? State of chaos or cohesion
A study on the country's de facto leaders. How Libya failed itself. And a brutalised Iraq
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The Big Story:
The fall of Syria’s dictator has set off ecstatic scenes, which recall similar events in neighbouring Iraq and in Libya, but with various groups competing to fill the vacuum, there are fears it too could descend into chaos.
But Bashar al-Assad’s regime was not toppled by foreign forces as happened with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, nor by fighters supported by Nato as with Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.
And for the moment, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group, which has effectively seized control in Damascus, seems to be taking a pragmatic and inclusive approach.
This Week, Those Books:
A scholarly look at the fighters who’re taking charge in Syria.
What went wrong with Libya after Gaddafi’s fall.
A novel from Syria’s neighbour, Iraq, about a strongman’s bloody handiwork.
The Backstory:
The scramble for Syria is underway with foreign powers trying to exert control and thereby influence the sequence of events as a new government is formed.
Israel is conducting airstrikes on Syria and made its first overt entry into Syrian territory in more than 50 years. It crossed the disputed borders of the occupied Golan Heights, where Jolani is from.
In northern Syria, there has been fierce fighting between rebels supported by Turkey and Kurdish forces backed by the US.
Russia is holding on to its Tartus naval base and the Hmeimim air base in the west of Syria, both crucial to maintain clout in the region and in Africa.
This Week’s Books:
The Age of Political Jihadism: A Study of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham
By: Aaron Y Zelin
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Year: 2023
Aaron Zelin, whose research has long focussed on Sunni Arab jihadi groups in North Africa and Syria, recently noted that a statement by HTS leader Abu Muhammad al-Jolani sounded like it came from a western HR department rather than a jihadist warlord.1 It was a reference to Jolani’s comment – “diversity is a strength” – on the ethnic and religious mix of Aleppo, as his fighters captured Syria’s second largest city.
Zelin’s expertise makes this 2023 study crucial to understanding Jolani, who may become Syria’s de facto leader and will be responsible for preventing his country from becoming another Iraq or Libya.
The study notes Jolani’s “evolution” and that of HTS. It could be, Zelin writes, “the strongest and most successful jihadist case seen thus far for a more pragmatic approach to day-to-day politics, auguring what could be a trend of political jihadism”.
Choice quote:
“…Jawlani (sic) has stated that he primarily wants two things from the United States and the West: ‘There is no need for you to classify people as terrorists and announce rewards for killing them…What we might have in common would be putting an end to the humanitarian crisis and suffering that is going on in the region, and putting an end to the masses of refugees that flee to Turkey or to Europe’.”
Understanding Libya Since Gaddafi
By: Ulf Laessing
Publisher: Hurst
Year: 2020
After Gaddafi was overthrown in August 2011, Ulf Laessing was one of the few foreign journalists to report from there. He was Reuters bureau chief for Egypt and Sudan and his knowledge helps understand what went wrong with Libya’s euphoric revolution against its tyrant. As Laessing says at the outset, he has tried “to explain why this North African country, with its embarrassment of riches and wealth of natural resources, has descended from a popular uprising against a dictator into a failed state and major security headache for its neighbours in Europe, the Middle East, and West Africa”.
This is exactly what many fear for Syria, so Laessing’s exploration of post-Gaddafi Libya is instructive.
Basically, he tells a story of weak central government, which tried to co-opt the militias by putting them on the state payroll. When those payments stopped, the militias turned to other income sources, such as kidnapping and people-trafficking. The national struggle became a battle over resources rather than state-building, democracy and governance. Laessing notes that Libya’s conflict is not about ideology but money and that it’s hard to end because “too many people benefit from the status quo”.
Choice quotes:
“While the rebels united over ousting Gaddafi, their loose alliance fell apart as the various groups pursued different agendas and distrusted each other for political, regional or religious reasons”.
“The brutality of the Gaddafi era was also a driver in the post-revolution era, as many Islamists took on former regime security agents or officers, especially in Benghazi – former prisoners fighting their long-time captors”.
The President’s Gardens
By: Muhsin al-Ramli. Translated by Luke Leafgren
Publisher: MacLehose Press
Year: 2017
This take from Iraq is only partly fictional because the author’s brother was executed by Saddam in 1990.
The story is about an unnamed president, who is both capricious and cruel. Executions are commonplace. One of those who falls foul of the regime is Ibrahim ‘the fated’. His childhood friends – Tariq ‘the befuddled’ and Abdullah ‘Kafka’ – reunite in grief over Ibrahim’s murder. The novel starts with dull-witted herdsman Ismail puzzling over nine banana crates on the roadside. But bananas were a rarity in Iraq because of a UN embargo imposed after Saddam’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The first line of the book sets the tone: “In a land without bananas, the village awoke to nine banana crates, each containing the severed head of one of its sons”.
Choice quote:
“Each head had a story. Every one of these nine heads had a family and dreams and the horror of being slaughtered, just like the hundreds of thousands slain in a country stained with blood since its founding and until God inherits the earth and everyone on it. And if every victim had a book, Iraq in its entirety would become a huge library, impossible ever to catalogue”.
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How Syria’s ‘Diversity-Friendly’ Jihadists Plan on Building a State by Aaron Y Zelin. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Dec 3, 2024
#thisweekthosebooks is honoured that @MuhsinAlRamli, one of the featured authors on our recent #Syria post, has sent this message: I have posted a note of your article (for the memory and archive) in my blog, here is the link: https://t.co/M45bZX3M9r
This Week, Those Books is honoured that author Muhsin al-Ramli has sent a note after we featured his novel The President's Gardens in this week's post. He writes: "Thank you very much for your interest and this good analytical article of a very complicated situation. I am very glad that you have read my book, which is a voice, if not a pleasant one, of my people."