Failed States, Failed Ideologies: The Syria Model

“To save your world you asked this man to die;

Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?” 

- W. H. Auden, Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier (1953).

The post-9/11 regime changes operations have each gone disastrously wrong in their own unique way.

Iraq was signed, sealed, and delivered to Iran via popular elections and civil war. I don’t know why Iran’s ungrateful Islamic leaders don’t thank America instead of cursing it all the time. Washington gifted them not one but two countries. 

Afghanistan was given to a corrupt CIA druglord and then handed back to the Taliban after twenty years of foreplay by NATO. You can call it a war, but it was not a war by any sane definition. It was a half-assed idea of war because Pakistan was never brought into the war’s overall equation. It’s like waging war on the cartels in California but not following them into Mexico. 

Libya became a mess almost immediately after Gaddafi’s ouster. It was a clusterfuck from the word go. The West didn’t even try with that one. They just wanted to see an enemy burn.

That leaves Syria. It’s Washington’s only hope left that a successful Western-led regime change in the Middle East is possible.

And, who knows, it could be.

The fact that Turkey and the Gulf states are invested stakeholders in the new Syria along with its close proximity to Israel may give it a better chance to succeed than far-off Libya and Afghanistan. 

Also, the SDF are responsible and rational local actors, unlike the terrorist militants that took over Libya and Iraq in the absence of a strong central state. They will provide a healthy check on the new rulers’ ambitions. 

But Syria could also go horribly wrong, and end up worse than Libya and Afghanistan because the possibilities for disintegration, ethnic cleansing, civil war, and unwanted external military interventions are even greater. 

What will define Syria’s success will be the role played by charismatic leadership. As of now an unelected body that is hostile to alternative opinions is ruling the country. And this body is composed of limbs that are anathema to democratic pluralism and religious co-existence.

So far, the key decision makers in Damascus, probably guided by outside voices, have given the dogs of war red meat to chew on by lining up the Druze and Alawites for slaughter. 

In the absence of showing its strength against foreign threats the new state has looked inward to consolidate power and manufacture legitimacy. It’s a dangerous gambit. 

Whatever kind of regime will emerge in the future has to find a balance between a pragmatic foreign policy and internal solidarity. 

The new Syria doesn’t pose a threat to either Israel or Turkey. The Sunni Arabs don’t want to fight Turkey for religious reasons and the Kurds and Druze don’t want to fight Israel. So the rulers in Damascus are in a real bind.

Since it isn’t a unified country with an obvious powerful external enemy there’s a good chance it will go after smaller prey who are within each.

The new Syria could puff its chest by lashing out at home or against weaker neighbours. Each time its pride is wounded by Israel it could strike against targets that are closer at hand and easier to slap. 

If its radical leaders miscalculate and go adventuring abroad to keep their hungry dogs happy then Syria will pose a threat to the stability of Lebanon and Iraq. 

Again, it all comes down to the nature of the new regime and the direction its foreign appointed leaders choose to take it. 

Will the new Syria serve as a launching pad to attack the Shia, dismantle Iraq, and disfigure Lebanon? Or will it be guided more wisely? 

After the 2014 coup in Kyiv the fate assigned for it by America and NATO was clear: commit suicide against Russia. 

What fate have they assigned for Syria?

Source: http://disquietreservations.blogspot.com/2025/07/failed-states-failed-ideologies-syria.html