“Syria” was one of those post WWI “countries’ created by Europeans with a map and a crayon to draw borders for their convenience/profit. Consequently, it has no unified citizenry, only fractious tribes and ethnicities and religions that have been held together by force and force alone. It will now devolve into balkanization . . . or more likely wind up as a "natural state" held together by a new central force or uneasy coalition of forces. It will become naturally what our U. S. and European leaders are trying artificially to force on their countries–warring tribes that must be controlled by force from the central government. Sensible people would prefer that central force not be controlled by Shia Iran or Sunni ISIS; Israel is doing its best to keep that from happening. Surprisingly enough the USAF also seems to be on the side of reason. Perhaps because we do not have a President right now, so somebody is acting sensibly for a change.
No, that's not really a fair description of what happened in Syria.
The Sykes-Picot line was drawn in the middle of an area with very limited population at that time (modern Syria has over 10x the population the same area did after WWI), and trying to balance with promises made to the Arabs for independent states, and they did actually try to draw (and then adjusted a few times) borders with some demographic / historical coherence.
The French mandate created Lebanon (majority Christian at the time), Latakia for the Alawites (who historically lived near the Mediterranean north of Lebanon and south of modern Turkey), Jabal for the Druze, and two big Arab proto-nation-state areas centered around Damascus and Aleppo as capitals. West of Aleppo was an area with sizable Turkish minority and given semi-autonomy as the "Sanjak of Alexandretta", but Ataturk never accepted its inclusion in the French mandate and had the long-term ambition of getting it back. Which he did in 1938, after sending in the Turkish military and expelling the Alawites and Armenians. That mostly why the eastern shore of the Gulf of Alexandretta (formerly called the Armenian Gulf after its former inhabitants) got carved out of modern Syria, the other reason being France's support of the annexation in a bargain to keep Turkey from allying with the Nazis.
It's funny that the French get blamed for not thinking about demographics enough, when not long ago they were criticized -for- thinking about demographics too much, specifically to try and counter demography-indifferent (royalist) pan-Arabist ambitions for the region. Modern Syria was fused together in part because of those Arabs (also plenty of British and American interference to undermine the French position).
The British Mandate for proto-Iraq originally only extended from Basra on the gulf to a bit north of Baghdad, with French areas stretching to Mosul and Kirkuk and the southern Anatolian parts of modern Turkey as places with historically large Kurdish, Assyrian, and Armenian populations. This was both completely untenable for the French and complicated by the facts of the big oil discoveries in the area, which the British and Arab royals wanted for Iraq, ("The Mosul Question").
The treaties of Lausanne and the Frontier Treaty settled things close to the way they ended up, but the point is that Syria ended up with lines drawn in response to constant conflict about them after WWI, and it's ridiculous to chalk it up to indifferent bureaucrats and greedy imperialists with crayons.
Many thanks for you detailed response, and I am certain your facts are correct; however, I believe that even allowing for some hyperbole and figurative speech, my essential points still stand--both about arbitrary lines and present facts on the ground in Syria and the USA. I would not expect the reader to literally accept the picture of bureaucrats using a 64-crayon box of Crayola markers (with built in sharpener). But the lines were imposed by Europeans and have not turned out well in all too many situations. And our current leaders in the USA (until January 20 anyhow) do seem set on creating warring factions/tribes in our country as Middle Eastern countries have all-too-often become.
Sorry, your point does not stand, and to demonstrate why would require even more long explanation of the complicated history after WWII. Syria's lines even included Egypt during the UAR (also Yemen, kind of, as part of the UAS) until the coup of 61. In 1970 they (kind of) joined Egypt again, with Gaddafi's Libya (and very briefly Sudan) in the FAR.
At the time it was thought by the Arabs themselves that the tribalisms of the past were being swept away with increased secularization and decreasing attachment to religion and sub-population heritage identity, and thus the various 'modernist' pan-arabic nationalist (and socialist) ideologies were born. That the salience of these identities would revive and again serve as important organizing principles for groups to coordinate their conflicts and rivalries would have surprised most of the leading figures in the 50s through the 70s.
As was common at the time, one thing the French and most local nationalist intellectuals (or military officers) at the time were naively over-optimistic about was the tenability of these places making rapid transitions into stable democratic republics. It wasn't the 'lines' that caused all the internal conflict, it was the lack of government strong enough to immediately crush any sign of trouble. The Ottoman lines extended to the limits of the empire and they ruled their imperial Levant holdings this way for centuries. During the Napoleonic wars both the French and British would discover repeatedly the challenge and necessity of such tactics. Well, after quite a number of post-war experiments with Arab democracy, the military ended up in charge of all those places at one point or another, leading to effectively one-party authoritarian states with ruthless suppression of internal challenges. And under those, as with the Ottomans, the lines no longer mattered, except to the extent they could be used by foreign regimes to interfere and subvert, and so, the minute one lowers one's guard or shows weakness, it will all fall apart again, as it is always being pushed to do.
Sigh. Sorry we are talking past each other. How and when the lines were drawn was not really my main focus. I do admire your detailed cartographical knowledge.
In general it's a lot more justifiable to draw straight lines through sparsely-inhabited badlands populated by Bedouin nomads and some scattered small villages than when there are ten times as many people who converge on and thus compete for major centers of population and economic activity.
You don't mention Saudi/UAE, which is the other major external force involved. The interesting thing is that Israel, Turkey and Saudi all have similar interests in Syria, and have all been able to get along well at times (albeit not right now) so maybe that is cause for some cautious optimism.
Russia too; the Assads are now in Moscow. Though their efforts there were likely low-value for the Russians (that's what Girkin argued, before he was arrested anyway) and perhaps they will write it off and that adventure will come to an end. Or, at least low continuing value, they probably gained as much insight into how to improve air-defense tech as they were going to.
I heard this morning that Russia's only Mediterranean maintenance port is in Syria and the reporter made it sound like that was very important to the Russians.
Syria was the stop at which I got off the neocon train back during the Obama era, so I also plead ignorance, but what I find interesting is that there seems to be general agreement that Israel's success against Iran's proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as its proxy Hamas in Gaza, played a critical role in making it possible for the 'rebels' to bring down the Assad regime (along with numerous other factors), in part by demonstrating that Iran and its proxies were not as formidable as the conventional wisdom suggested. The interesting thing about that is that it undercuts the 'realist view' as peddled by Mearsheimer et al, as well as the pro-Russian commentary on both the far right and the left (eg. the Gray Zone) that Israel's aggressive response to the October 7th attack would inevitably lead to the 'death of Israel' at the hands of Iran. I give Mearsheimer some credit for his prescience with regard to the Russian-Ukraine conflict (he argued that NATO was leading Ukraine down the 'primrose path' and that Russia would respond to the threat of Ukraine joining NATO by destroying Ukraine), but on the topic of Israel I've come to the conclusion that Mearsheimer is a plain vanilla Jew-hater and I'm glad to see Israel making him look like a fool.
I like Trump’s stated idea of doing nothing, with Syria.
I think we ought to do more natural experiments like that. See what happens if we pretend bad people don’t exist, or that they are living their best lives.
Kind of like we used to do even with our own relatives - remember, when you had to pay for long-distance calls? So mostly you just assumed people were fine? Or as well as possible?
As long as doing nothing includes gathering intelligence on the various factions to reassess the benefits of small interventions to protect civilians or maybe influence who gains power.
AN OPEN LETTER TO TULSI GABBARD: THE DANGERS OF HAVING A DICTATOR’S ALLY IN CHARGE OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
“Your nomination as Director of National Intelligence is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Entrusting someone with your record—marked by overt sympathies for despots, a troubling embrace of conspiracy theories, and a consistent undermining of credible intelligence—with safeguarding America’s security is a risk this country cannot afford to take.” Read more…
“Syria does not have the background conditions or institutions to be an open-access order. If Syria attains any stability at all, it will be as a natural state. But I am not sure that a stable coalition can be had there.“ What is a natural state? My guess is that America is a natural state in your view. How long did it take America to become a natural state?
Thank you. My bad. I must have been distracted by the mention of the Violence and Social Orders book. I actually have the book right here, so time to crack it open for the first time.
Not a bad book, but a little "general". I felt I understood what they were trying to say better after reading the case studies in the later, "In the Shadow of Violence: Politics, Economics, and the Problems of Development".
Good to know. I started reading the general version last night and was not all that impressed. Maybe this case study version is better. Thanks for the tip.
It’s called Balkanization for Europe, Somalia copies more warlord China of centuries ago. Lebanon next door seems most likely, with factions of Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Christians, and Druze. But in Syria there are some 11 big factions I recall reading about, as unknown as the Yazidi until the ISIS genocide, with no college protests.
Syrian Jews are long gone, now it’s time for Christians to leave, or fight to the death…and mostly die or leave attacked areas so as to have ever less land. The new leader is promising peace with Christians, which is probably enough to stop the development of enough defense by external allies to deter a near future jihad against them.
Islam is explicitly non-tolerant of other religions, tho in theory accepting of not killing Christians, or Jews who are willing to live as second class inferior citizens paying tribute for peace. I’m expecting a genocide… tho it might not happen until the next Dem President.
I’m hoping for Cantonization, like Switzerland, with most laws only local. And each local majority faction getting reasonable historical borders, which are not violated.
“Syria” was one of those post WWI “countries’ created by Europeans with a map and a crayon to draw borders for their convenience/profit. Consequently, it has no unified citizenry, only fractious tribes and ethnicities and religions that have been held together by force and force alone. It will now devolve into balkanization . . . or more likely wind up as a "natural state" held together by a new central force or uneasy coalition of forces. It will become naturally what our U. S. and European leaders are trying artificially to force on their countries–warring tribes that must be controlled by force from the central government. Sensible people would prefer that central force not be controlled by Shia Iran or Sunni ISIS; Israel is doing its best to keep that from happening. Surprisingly enough the USAF also seems to be on the side of reason. Perhaps because we do not have a President right now, so somebody is acting sensibly for a change.
No, that's not really a fair description of what happened in Syria.
The Sykes-Picot line was drawn in the middle of an area with very limited population at that time (modern Syria has over 10x the population the same area did after WWI), and trying to balance with promises made to the Arabs for independent states, and they did actually try to draw (and then adjusted a few times) borders with some demographic / historical coherence.
The French mandate created Lebanon (majority Christian at the time), Latakia for the Alawites (who historically lived near the Mediterranean north of Lebanon and south of modern Turkey), Jabal for the Druze, and two big Arab proto-nation-state areas centered around Damascus and Aleppo as capitals. West of Aleppo was an area with sizable Turkish minority and given semi-autonomy as the "Sanjak of Alexandretta", but Ataturk never accepted its inclusion in the French mandate and had the long-term ambition of getting it back. Which he did in 1938, after sending in the Turkish military and expelling the Alawites and Armenians. That mostly why the eastern shore of the Gulf of Alexandretta (formerly called the Armenian Gulf after its former inhabitants) got carved out of modern Syria, the other reason being France's support of the annexation in a bargain to keep Turkey from allying with the Nazis.
It's funny that the French get blamed for not thinking about demographics enough, when not long ago they were criticized -for- thinking about demographics too much, specifically to try and counter demography-indifferent (royalist) pan-Arabist ambitions for the region. Modern Syria was fused together in part because of those Arabs (also plenty of British and American interference to undermine the French position).
The British Mandate for proto-Iraq originally only extended from Basra on the gulf to a bit north of Baghdad, with French areas stretching to Mosul and Kirkuk and the southern Anatolian parts of modern Turkey as places with historically large Kurdish, Assyrian, and Armenian populations. This was both completely untenable for the French and complicated by the facts of the big oil discoveries in the area, which the British and Arab royals wanted for Iraq, ("The Mosul Question").
The treaties of Lausanne and the Frontier Treaty settled things close to the way they ended up, but the point is that Syria ended up with lines drawn in response to constant conflict about them after WWI, and it's ridiculous to chalk it up to indifferent bureaucrats and greedy imperialists with crayons.
Many thanks for you detailed response, and I am certain your facts are correct; however, I believe that even allowing for some hyperbole and figurative speech, my essential points still stand--both about arbitrary lines and present facts on the ground in Syria and the USA. I would not expect the reader to literally accept the picture of bureaucrats using a 64-crayon box of Crayola markers (with built in sharpener). But the lines were imposed by Europeans and have not turned out well in all too many situations. And our current leaders in the USA (until January 20 anyhow) do seem set on creating warring factions/tribes in our country as Middle Eastern countries have all-too-often become.
Sorry, your point does not stand, and to demonstrate why would require even more long explanation of the complicated history after WWII. Syria's lines even included Egypt during the UAR (also Yemen, kind of, as part of the UAS) until the coup of 61. In 1970 they (kind of) joined Egypt again, with Gaddafi's Libya (and very briefly Sudan) in the FAR.
At the time it was thought by the Arabs themselves that the tribalisms of the past were being swept away with increased secularization and decreasing attachment to religion and sub-population heritage identity, and thus the various 'modernist' pan-arabic nationalist (and socialist) ideologies were born. That the salience of these identities would revive and again serve as important organizing principles for groups to coordinate their conflicts and rivalries would have surprised most of the leading figures in the 50s through the 70s.
As was common at the time, one thing the French and most local nationalist intellectuals (or military officers) at the time were naively over-optimistic about was the tenability of these places making rapid transitions into stable democratic republics. It wasn't the 'lines' that caused all the internal conflict, it was the lack of government strong enough to immediately crush any sign of trouble. The Ottoman lines extended to the limits of the empire and they ruled their imperial Levant holdings this way for centuries. During the Napoleonic wars both the French and British would discover repeatedly the challenge and necessity of such tactics. Well, after quite a number of post-war experiments with Arab democracy, the military ended up in charge of all those places at one point or another, leading to effectively one-party authoritarian states with ruthless suppression of internal challenges. And under those, as with the Ottomans, the lines no longer mattered, except to the extent they could be used by foreign regimes to interfere and subvert, and so, the minute one lowers one's guard or shows weakness, it will all fall apart again, as it is always being pushed to do.
Sigh. Sorry we are talking past each other. How and when the lines were drawn was not really my main focus. I do admire your detailed cartographical knowledge.
10x the population …
But everything gets easier and better with population growth! Because population growth!
In general it's a lot more justifiable to draw straight lines through sparsely-inhabited badlands populated by Bedouin nomads and some scattered small villages than when there are ten times as many people who converge on and thus compete for major centers of population and economic activity.
I guess we had other reasons to pay for that tenfold population increase.
You don't mention Saudi/UAE, which is the other major external force involved. The interesting thing is that Israel, Turkey and Saudi all have similar interests in Syria, and have all been able to get along well at times (albeit not right now) so maybe that is cause for some cautious optimism.
Russia too; the Assads are now in Moscow. Though their efforts there were likely low-value for the Russians (that's what Girkin argued, before he was arrested anyway) and perhaps they will write it off and that adventure will come to an end. Or, at least low continuing value, they probably gained as much insight into how to improve air-defense tech as they were going to.
I heard this morning that Russia's only Mediterranean maintenance port is in Syria and the reporter made it sound like that was very important to the Russians.
Russian logistics to Africa relies on Syrian air bases too
My guess is it'll wind up like Libya. Not really a state anymore.
Not my area of expertise, either, but I'd say your take makes as much sense as anyone's.
The missing element is: which factions are in a position to quickly seize a strong position, and who are their backers? Not that I know the answers.
Syria was the stop at which I got off the neocon train back during the Obama era, so I also plead ignorance, but what I find interesting is that there seems to be general agreement that Israel's success against Iran's proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as its proxy Hamas in Gaza, played a critical role in making it possible for the 'rebels' to bring down the Assad regime (along with numerous other factors), in part by demonstrating that Iran and its proxies were not as formidable as the conventional wisdom suggested. The interesting thing about that is that it undercuts the 'realist view' as peddled by Mearsheimer et al, as well as the pro-Russian commentary on both the far right and the left (eg. the Gray Zone) that Israel's aggressive response to the October 7th attack would inevitably lead to the 'death of Israel' at the hands of Iran. I give Mearsheimer some credit for his prescience with regard to the Russian-Ukraine conflict (he argued that NATO was leading Ukraine down the 'primrose path' and that Russia would respond to the threat of Ukraine joining NATO by destroying Ukraine), but on the topic of Israel I've come to the conclusion that Mearsheimer is a plain vanilla Jew-hater and I'm glad to see Israel making him look like a fool.
The funny thing about Mearsheimer, which I only learned recently, is that in 1993 he argued that USA shouldn't twist Ukraine's arm but instead let it keep the nuclear weapons in order to deter possible Russian aggression. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/1993-06-01/case-ukrainian-nuclear-deterrent
I like Trump’s stated idea of doing nothing, with Syria.
I think we ought to do more natural experiments like that. See what happens if we pretend bad people don’t exist, or that they are living their best lives.
Kind of like we used to do even with our own relatives - remember, when you had to pay for long-distance calls? So mostly you just assumed people were fine? Or as well as possible?
As long as doing nothing includes gathering intelligence on the various factions to reassess the benefits of small interventions to protect civilians or maybe influence who gains power.
It will surely be divided in some way, and I’ll be surprised if a hell of a lot more blood isn’t spilled in the process.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-152847663
AN OPEN LETTER TO TULSI GABBARD: THE DANGERS OF HAVING A DICTATOR’S ALLY IN CHARGE OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
“Your nomination as Director of National Intelligence is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Entrusting someone with your record—marked by overt sympathies for despots, a troubling embrace of conspiracy theories, and a consistent undermining of credible intelligence—with safeguarding America’s security is a risk this country cannot afford to take.” Read more…
Perhaps you’d favor us with evidence backing your assertions? First hand sources, please.
More proof that Israel was correct to permanently annex the Golan.
A peace agreement (hudna) is only valid for the duration of the authoritarian regime that signs it.
“Syria does not have the background conditions or institutions to be an open-access order. If Syria attains any stability at all, it will be as a natural state. But I am not sure that a stable coalition can be had there.“ What is a natural state? My guess is that America is a natural state in your view. How long did it take America to become a natural state?
"natural state" is a term used by North, Weingast, and Wallis. It does not mean what you think it means.
Got it. Yes. Will begin reading the North, Wallis and Weingast book now.
See the second paragraph of the essay for an explanation of "natural state".
Thank you. My bad. I must have been distracted by the mention of the Violence and Social Orders book. I actually have the book right here, so time to crack it open for the first time.
Not a bad book, but a little "general". I felt I understood what they were trying to say better after reading the case studies in the later, "In the Shadow of Violence: Politics, Economics, and the Problems of Development".
Good to know. I started reading the general version last night and was not all that impressed. Maybe this case study version is better. Thanks for the tip.
It’s called Balkanization for Europe, Somalia copies more warlord China of centuries ago. Lebanon next door seems most likely, with factions of Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Christians, and Druze. But in Syria there are some 11 big factions I recall reading about, as unknown as the Yazidi until the ISIS genocide, with no college protests.
Syrian Jews are long gone, now it’s time for Christians to leave, or fight to the death…and mostly die or leave attacked areas so as to have ever less land. The new leader is promising peace with Christians, which is probably enough to stop the development of enough defense by external allies to deter a near future jihad against them.
Islam is explicitly non-tolerant of other religions, tho in theory accepting of not killing Christians, or Jews who are willing to live as second class inferior citizens paying tribute for peace. I’m expecting a genocide… tho it might not happen until the next Dem President.
I’m hoping for Cantonization, like Switzerland, with most laws only local. And each local majority faction getting reasonable historical borders, which are not violated.