Syria, the Levant, and the Real Domino Effect

*

Adam L. Silverman, PhD**

 

As the Syrian Civil War continues into its third year, there are several potential outcomes that we need to look out for and be concerned with.  These are not just limited to Syria, but to the entire Levant, and even to Iran.  So lets run the board in order:

Syria

There are really two key potential outcomes and one sequel for Syria itself: stalemate driven insurgency, the fall of the Assads leading to a Sunni majority takeover, and the withdrawl of the Alawites to Latakia.

It is, in some respects, both surprising and not surprising that the Assad government has held on for as long as it has.  In many ways the Syrian Civil War is both an Assad and Alawite existential fight. which partially explains just how hard the government has responded and how far it is willing to go to survive.  One of the two most likely outcomes to the dispute is that the government is strong enough to survive, but not strong enough to completely put down the rebellion and that the rebellion is not strong enough to overthrow the government, but just strong enough to survive.  If this happens, then we will see a classic insurgency along the lines of what the Philippines has endured with the Moros on Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago and similar to what Columbia has faced with the FARC.  In this situation Syria essentially gets carved up into two or more statelets - with government control in some areas and rebel control in others. 

The second potential outcome is that the Assad government does fall and the Sunni majority, or some faction of it takes over.  And it is this latter concept of faction that is important.  There is clearly no good cohesion among the rebel groups, both the domestic Syrian and the foreign fighters/jihadis, as well as between them.  While it may ultimately be a good thing for the region if Assad goes, it will not be a simple transition.  The various factions are likely to try to consolidate power, claim and then establish legitimacy, and will come to blows with each other over who will take control.  This possible outcome has the potential to turn into a Syrian version of the Thirty Years War, where different factions try to and/or actually seize power, seek to consolidate, face challenges to their legitimacy, and then the cycle of violent succession starts all over again.  This would, unlike the actual Thirty Years War, not end in the creation of a secular state, as the Syrian Sunni majority is conservative and devout even though it is not Salafist.  So do not expect a secular Sunni majority Syria to emerge.

In both of these two potential outcomes their is a sequel: the fallback of the Alawites, with or without the Assads, to their traditional lands in Latakia.  Latakia is the mountainous strip of Syria below Turkey on the coast of the Mediterranean.  While it is not completely fortifiable, it is certainly good ground - to paraphrase MG Buford - for digging in and trying to make a stand.  Not only would this prolong the dispute, but it would complicate Syria's claims to their portions of the recently discovered Leviathan petroleum and natural gas field in the eastern Mediterranean.

The one wild card in all these potential outcomes, which is also a great transition to considering the rest of the Levant, are the Kurds.  The Kurds are trans-national, have been seeking both a homeland and a chance to create one for well over a hundred years, and would be able to exploit the chaos of a Syrian implosion - either protracted stalemate and insurgency or Assad defeat and prolonged conflict regarding establishing a new Syrian state - to achieve their own national strategic goals: the establishment of an independent Kurdistan.

The Levant

The biggest concern for the Levant is the humanitarian crisis being caused by the outflow of Syrian refugees - primarily into Lebanon and Jordan. The greatest concern is that Lebanon has had marked, historic difficulty dealing with demographic changes, especially those arising from refugee inflows.  The potential parallels with the run up to the Lebanese Civil War are important to keep in mind, without slaving future outcomes to past ones.  That Lebanon has recently undergone a mini-constitutional crisis, has an upcoming election, and that Hezbullah has a major interest in both exploiting any instability to further both its political aims within the Lebanese government and its illegitimate ones as a proxy for Iran, are all causes for concern in regard to the Syrian Civil War.

Jordan's stability is also a great concern.  As King Abdullah II continues to try to both transition Jordan's Hashemite monarchy into something resembling a Levantine constitutional monarchy and transform the economy into a high tech services and knowledge based one, the stress from both Syria's Civil War and the inflow of Syrian refugees provides the Jordanian Muslim Brothers with opportunities they would otherwise not have. The Hashemite monarchy has been one of the most resilient governments in the Levant and the Middle East even when it appears weak, but a complete Syrian implosion would challenge it in ways it had not previously seen.

The Real Domino Effect: A Levantine Cascade Failure

And this brings us to the other players: Israel, Turkey, and Iran.  Israel's concerns are its own security and ensuring that nothing happens to the Jordanians, who have become important allies, as well as a buffer state of sorts. Should Jordan appear to be tottering it is likely that Israel will move based on its own interests.  Moreover, should Lebanon appear to falter, especially given Israel's history of intervention there and the bad blood with Hezbullah, expect Israel to move militarily.  Turkey would also have to engage in order to protect its own immediate interests, including trying to prevent the establishment of an independent Kurdistan, as well as to protect its ongoing attempt to become the regional hegemon. 

This brings us to Iran...  Iran has a huge interest in what happens in Syria and the Levant.  It views the area as its near abroad - politically, religiously, and strategically.  Syria and the Levant provide a vital corridor between Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbullah and has been one area where its meddling in regional politics, aside from post Saddam Iraq, has been quite successful, unlike the largely failed attempts to stir up the Shi'a pluralities and majorities in several of the Gulf States under cover of the Arab Spring.  Moreover, while Ayatullah Khameini is still the supreme religious authority, there have been ongoing challenges to his authority by Ahmedinihad and a number of his influential supporters, which we can expect to only intensify as Iran fully enters its election cycle later this year.  The loss of an Iranian client in the Assads and Syria, which would cut the life line through northern Syria to Hezbullah in Lebanon, and create a huge crisis of legitimacy for Ayatullah Khameini, the Quds Force, and Iran's attempts to establish itself as a regional power with a Twelver Shi'a sphere of influence.

The Levant, unlike East and Southeast Asia in the 1950s and 1960s, has the real possibility of being home to a domino effect.  Unlike the concern that if Korea or Vietnam succumbed to Communism there would be a wave of one East or Southeast Asian state after another falling, the Syrian Civil War, the humanitarian crisis it has created through the creation of a large body of refugees in neighboring states, and the general instability in the region that predated, but was exacerbated by the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, has the potential to create an actual domino effect.  If the outcome of the Syrian Civil War is not handled correctly, regardless of the outcome, it is possible to see several states in the region become destabilized or further destabilized in way that leads to regional crisis in the shape of a cascade of regional warfare, failing and failed states.

* Image can be found here: levanttech.com/images/levantmap.jpg

** Adam L. Silverman is the Culture and Foreign Language Advisor at the United States Army War College.  The views expressed here are his alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Army War College and/or the US Army.

 

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

Thanks Dr. Silverman for this post and analysis. Who outside of Syria benefits now or continues to benefit from the civil war [?}? It seems to me that the US is one large beneficiary because until Syria resolved gives the Administration an excuse to avoid dealing with other hard choices in MENA! And is there any good article or book tracking the success or failure of the USA in what some might label a civil war?

[Rd.]

“As the Syrian Civil War continues into its third year, there are several potential outcomes that we need to look out for and be concerned with “

By radicalizing the Chechen extremists to aggravate Russians, did we not promote the Boston bombers? Should similar policies be avoided in Syria?

“One of the two most likely outcomes to the dispute is 'stalemate' “

Is dual containment not a policy favored by certain FP centers? Applying that line of thinking in the 80's between Saddam and Iran, what was the end result? Should those lessons be learned?

“The …... potential outcome is …..“

For any potential outcome, one “may” consider the 'locals/regionals' who are most concerned with the events impacting their well being. These locals may have very well learned the characteristics of US dual containment approach and have planned accordingly. Is that not a possibility? Or do we simply consider those locals as not that sophisticated?

The one potential outcome we can count on, the US FP thinking, is obviously out of touch with the reality of our times.. but who wants to look back at the last 30 years and learn?

[turcopolier]

Adam

"If the outcome of the Syrian Civil War is not handled correctly," IMO it is a delusion to think that something like this can be "handled." pl

[The Twisted Genius]

An interesting analysis, Adam. Thanks. You're right about Jordan. I doubt anyone meddling in this area has really thought that one through.

However, I agree with PL on our ability to handle these events. I'm reminded of Cousin Eddie's advice to Clark about his dog Snots:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yEbUndTnUM

[bth]

Mr Silverman has the refuge migration out of Syria been quantified recently? My question is how it stacks up to similar humanitarian crisis? Is it in fact a crisis?

[Adam L Silverman]

BTH: if you click on the hyperlink sentence right below the sub header "The Levant" it'll take you to the UNHCR's website, which has the most up to date data and numbers. Last time I looked, last week, showed a little over a million refugees and/or at risk Syrians. About 80% divided almost evenly between Lebanon and Jordan.

[Adam L Silverman]

Sir,

Handful is the result of poor wording on my part. Perhaps "resolved as positively as possible" would have been better. 3rd party involvement, by us or anyone else, might stabilize thing for a while, but eventually as we saw in Iraq, the Syrians will settle their own scores and reorder things however they want. And as we've all discussed here before in regard to Iraq, Egypt, Afghanistan, etc that the initial resolution of this will not be the resolution of the Syrian Civil War. That's going to result from a number of different attempts, many of which will likely be quite violent.

[The Twisted Genius]

Very informative, Adam. Thanks. Jordan is an interesting part of this whole Levant puzzle. It seems like the stable linchpin, but as you said, events could change that. I doubt if any of the parties have thought out those possibilities.

However, I agree with PL's assessment that any thought that the outcome of the Syrian Civil War can be managed is delusional. I'm reminded of the advice Cousin Eddie gave Clark Griswold about his Mississippi leg hound of a dog Snots:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yEbUndTnUM

[b]

This "analysis" is weak.

It is based on a view that the Assad government is tribal Alawite and fighting a Sunni majority. That view is false. Major parts of the government as well as the army are Sunni and with Assad. Some 30,000 takfiri insurgents, many of them foreign, do not make a majority of the Syrian people.

The part on Iran and the idea that it needs a land route to Hizbullah is false. For two decades there was Saddam and later the U.S. army and thereby no viable land route between Iran and Lebanon. Despite that Hizbullah was able to stockpile Iranian deliveries.

In Iran Ahmedinejad is on his way out. There is no problem for Khamenei holding his position even if Syria should fall. The system of the Islamic Republic is not contested within Iran itself.

It is arrogant to think that the U.S. can influence anything that will happen around Syria. How did that work in Iraq? It didn't.

[bth]

Thanks. That data was exactly what I was looking for. So the current Syrian refuge problem is about the size of the Iraq Sunni refuge problem around 2008 or so with that out flow heavily directed to Syria. Now the Syrian migration bulge is disproportionately straining Jordan and Lebanon.

On a common note, the Syrian economy both for the government and for the rebels must be in total collapse.

[Babak Makkinejad]

I agree with your assessment/observations.

[ISL]

b: I would note that the we are quite capable of the bull in a china shop type of influence.

So far, I have seen little evidence that our influence in general has been positive for the overall US interest, although certainly some sectors of the US Society have clearly benefited enormously. In fact, that is why I think much of recent decades interference has been so ineffective - too many cooks in the kitchen without the Soviet empire to keep focus.

[turcopolier]

b

I completely agree with your observations about the nature of the two sides in Syria. pl

[Mark of Ohio]

There are estimates that that two to four million Iraqis were displaced by the US invasion and its aftermath. Estimates are that one million of the Iraqis fled to Syria. How, does the population of Iraqi exiles play into the Dr. Silverman's analysis of possible outcomes of the present fighting in Syria?

[Tunde]

Breaking news re chemical weapon use in Syria. BHO's red line has been crossed. What happens now ?
(Leaked Britam defence emails forecasted this development months ago as some sort of false flag operation)

[turcopolier]

Adam

"This would, unlike the actual Thirty Years War, not end in the creation of a secular state, as the Syrian Sunni majority is conservative and devout even though it is not Salafist. So do not expect a secular Sunni majority Syria to emerge."

This seems to be internally self-contradictory? pl

[The beaver]

Tunde

http://www.cyberwarnews.info/2013/01/24/britam-defence-hacked-confidential-documents-leaked-site-offline/

[bth]

So the PKK is withdrawing from Turkey to Northern Iraq.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDxh4TbhUEw

[Eliot]

How many rebels are there? What percentage of the population is resisting the regime, either in an active or tacit role? What percentage simply want's to provide for their family, and survive for tomorrow?

If this is like any another civil war there should be a soft middle.

"Breaking news re chemical weapon use in Syria. BHO's red line has been crossed. What happens now?"

Are we talking about tear gas? Or nerve gas? Both are considered chemical weapons under Soviet doctrine.

[Tunde]

They say Sarin, 'with varying degrees of certainty'.
Though not a conspiracy theorist but for a PMC (Britam Defence) to be discussing this very same scenario being sponsored by Qataris many months ago and for the secDef to be asserting whilst in Qatar ........I dunno.

[Tunde]

Col,
Somewhat of topic, but I have been reading lately of the great damage done to your former agency by Ana Belen Montes. There seems to be a calculated release of information suggesting this was a major breach. Did you come across her in your time at the agency ?

[turcopolier]

tunde et al

"with varying degrees of certainty" means there is disagreement among the agencies of the IC. pl

[r whitman]

Are the Syrian refugees in Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and Lebanon pro-Assad or pro-rebel?

[bth]

Col., do you think the Syria govt would ever transfer chemical weapons to Hezbollah perhaps into Lebanon? I'm not asking if they have, but rather, from your knowledge is it even a consideration they would make?

[turcopolier]

Bth

Only in extremis. pl