Syria is a small Arab country in size, its area does not exceed 185,180 km2, but it is a large country due to its influence. Syria has always played a much greater role than its area and capabilities, which made it the center of the attention of most countries in the region and the world, if not as an active state, then at least as a state that obstructs any action in the region that is incompatible with its policies. Hence, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger summed up the importance of Syria in the region by saying:”The Arabs can’t make war without Egypt; and they can’t make peace without Syria.” From here, attempts to destroy Syria have begun because it is the only Arab country neighboring Israel and has not signed a peace treaty with it.
The Syrian people believe that humanity started from Syria, for Syria is the land of Adam and Eve, and it is the place in which the first two children in history, Abel and Cain, were born. The Syrian people are peaceful by nature, but this does not negate that the first action of killing, that humanity witnessed, was in Syria, when Cain killed his brother Abel, and Syrian people are still visiting Abel’s tomb near Damascus.
Before 2011, Syria lived a period of stability and prosperity, and the living conditions improved a lot, but despite that, Syria was suffering, like other countries, from corruption and lack of power, which is the dominant feature of most countries in the region and the world .
The war in Syria started as a result of many internal reasons, with external interventions from Arab and regional countries whose goal was to change the system in Syria. Syria today is a country devastated by the war that has entered its twelfth year. The war began in 2011, and the exchange rate of the dollar against the Syrian pound was 50 Syrian pounds to the dollar. Today, one dollar is approximately equal to 4000 pounds. Therefore, you should imagine how people live in a country where the family income does not exceed $25 per month.
What has added to the suffering of the Syrian people is the Western sanctions imposed on their country. With these sanctions, as in the rest of the world, the citizens are the ones affected by them. More than 95% of Syrian people are now living below the poverty line, especially since the term poverty does not mean securing the minimum food needs only, but also securing the minimum level of health, education and adequate housing as well. 86, 3% percent of Syrian families suffer from severe food insecurity, and only 5% of Syrian families remain secure in terms of food.
There are more than 2.4 million Syrian children who did not enroll in their schools, according to UNICEF estimates for the year 2021. Moreover, educational institutions suffer from underdevelopment and the inability to secure the basic needs of children, especially heating.
In terms of health, primary health services have declined, and more than 13.1 million people are in need of health care, according to an ESCWA report issued in 2019. This report also indicated that 15.5 million Syrians need safe sources of water.
As a result of the war operations, many Syrians were forced to migrate outside Syria, or to move to other cities inside Syria, leaving 13.2 million people without protection, and about 1.5 million homes were destroyed.
Today, it seems clearly that there is an international obstruction to the reconstruction of Syria, linking this to the implementation of Resolution 2254, which has become clear to everyone that it cannot be implemented in light of international tensions, especially after the war in Ukraine, and the suspension of nuclear negotiations with Iran. Russia and Iran are interested in a political solution in Syria, and no solution can be expected without international agreements with these two countries.
A large part of the Syrian territory is occupied by the Turkish forces, which seek to establish a buffer zone in the north of Syria, with a depth of up to 30 km inside Syrian territory.
US forces are in Syrian oil production areas, protect oil thieves and sell them outside Syria, through tanks protected from coalition aircraft, to reach Iraq and the Kurdistan region in particular, and part of it goes through the Syrian desert to the Homs refinery to secure a small part of the needs of the Syrian people in the areas controlled by the Syrian government.
Syria was producing 385,000 barrels per day before the war. According to official statistics, the SDF forces, which are protected by American forces, sell about 80,000 barrels of oil per day. The need to import oil from Iran has doubled the economic crisis in Syria, as the volume of Syrian imports from Iran is estimated at 3 million barrels of crude oil per month, with a price of up to $5 million per month. It is purchased through the “Syrian-Iranian credit line” i.e. bartering and selling them products Syrian. The same applies to gas, as the production of Syria in 2011 was 30 million cubic meters per day, but today it is less than 300,000 cubic meters per day. The shortage of oil and gas has affected the electricity, as it only on about 4 hours a day.
Northern Syria, which is called the “safe zone” is in fact – although it contains a large number of civilians – but it is a major terrorist outpost where the terrorist “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham” (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra), led by Abu Muhammad al-Julani, is active, as well as “the organization Jund al-Sham” terrorist, a Chechen organization led by Murad Margoshvili, whose nickname is “Abu Walid the Chechen.”
As for Western sanctions against Syria, the declared goal is to bring down the Syrian government, and this will not be achieved, for what military force has failed to achieve, other means will not succeed in achieving it as well.
When economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq since 1991, they did not overthrow Saddam Hussein, and the sanctions imposed on Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 did not change the Islamic rule in it. The same applies to Cuba, North Korea and other countries. Also, the political system in Syria is strong with its international alliances. Its allies did not let it down when needed, but rather supported it by all means, including military ones.
In addition to the popular base that it has, which I will not go into estimating its percentage, but the reality of the situation has made even opponents of the system rally around it, especially since the opposition was mostly extremist Islamic, with a secular group, but it is certainly weak and there is no real international support for it.
Thinking of applying democracy in the Western way is not necessarily a solution for a society that is still living in a state of narrow affiliations and loyalties, “pre-state” loyalties, where the idea of citizenship has not taken root yet. Also, the neighboring democratic experiments brought Islamic currents to power in Palestine, Tunisia, Egypt…etc. We must also not forget that Hitler came to power through democratic elections.
The war in Ukraine may negatively affect the Syrian situation, in terms of declining international interest in the Syrian file, at the very least. Rather, Syria may become a card for political rivalries between the Russians and the Iranians on the one hand, and the rest of the Western countries on the other. The idea of partition is rejected by all components of the Syrian people, including a large group of Syrian Kurds, and partition is not a solution to the Syrian problem.
The decline in international interest in the Syrian issue necessitates that civil organizations and political activists work to restore interest in this issue that affects millions of Syrians, and to stay away from political rivalries and false slogans, and international conferences that do not include all the parties to the crisis are conferences that will not succeed.
If the Israeli interest in the Ukraine crisis stems from the fact that there are a large number of Jews in it, and the Western interest in the Ukrainian refugee because he is a Christian, then let everyone remember that Syria is the cradle of the Christian religion, and that the Aramaic language, which is the language of Jesus Christ, is still spoken by many Aramaeans in Syria. And that the human aspect should be above all other affiliations.
The idea of economic recovery that some Western countries are putting forward through some exceptions to the sanctions imposed on Syria is not a sufficient solution to the crisis. In addition, the step-by-step policy proposed by the UN envoy to Syria, Pedersen, does not appear to be an urgent policy for an envoy who may not be interested in more than the continuation of his mission for upcoming years.
I do not think that any Syrian citizen, nor any human being in the world, who is characterized by humanity can support the idea of economic sanctions against Syria, unless he is connected with the political agendas of foreign countries that were party to the Syrian crisis.
The idea of threatening to use force against Syria is also useless, for Syrian Defense Minister Youssef Al-Azma, who confronted the French Army when it invaded Syria in 1920, knew that he would die in front of a large and advanced army, but he refused but to die in defense of his country to prove to the world that the Syrians would not hesitate to giving their lives in defense of their country. His death has immortalized him, as the Syrians do not know the names of the defense ministers who came after him, while the statue of greatness still stands tall in the center of Damascus.
