Syria’s slow implosion

What is left of Syria since the end of the civil war that began in 2011, during the so-called Arab Spring? The Syrian Diaries, a series of articles published in Le Monde since September 15, provides answers that are all the more valuable given that the country is more than ever closed off from the world. Their lessons are alarming. After the explosion of a war waged with unprecedented brutality by Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the jihadist militias that benefited for a time from its weakening, these reports describe a country that is slowly and hopelessly imploding. It’s not just a question of ruins that won’t be rebuilt and endemic misery, but also of the dismemberment of its society and the obliteration of a generation tempted by exile, when it hasn’t been crushed by war.

The reasons are well known. The kleptocratic dynasty in power in Damascus won with the support of Iran and Russia, driven by their strategic interests. Tehran is now focused on its survival, while Moscow is absorbed in the war it imposed on Ukraine. Neither has the means to complete the total restoration of Assad’s control over a territory that continues to elude him, let alone to finance a costly and lengthy reconstruction.

The influence that the Iranian regime during a decade of conflict acquired, which explains the repeated Israeli bombardments on a territory that has lost much of its sovereignty, can only dissuade the Gulf countries from getting involved. The effect of the sanctions imposed by many Western countries, starting with the US, adds a final obstacle. The Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act was adopted in 2019 by the US Congress in the name of fighting impunity. It targets the countless war crimes against its people of which the Syrian regime has been guilty, from chemical bombing to the industrial use of torture.

International fatigue

Assad has decided that realpolitik will eventually make these sanctions disappear, once he has recognized the only power he has left – the power of nuisance, illustrated by his deleterious role in the trafficking of a synthetic drug that is devastating the entire region. Without having conceded the slightest shred of power.

This calculation, however, remains futile. Syria’s symbolic reintegration into an impotent Arab League in 2023, at Saudi Arabia’s initiative, has done nothing to alter the impasse in which the country is, nor the behavior of the diminished master of Damascus. Recent calls within the European Union to re-engage with him must be set against this particularly disappointing precedent.

This stalemate continues to generate international weariness, particularly on the part of those countries that have taken in the largest number of refugees driven out by the civil war. Some countries, particularly in Europe, are now quick to consider that Syria has once again become a safe country to which these refugees could be sent back. Our reports show that this is not the case. Quite the contrary, in fact. In another, less noisy but equally destructive form, the Syrian ordeal continues.

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