Syria through my own eyes

Dec 21, 2024 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Writing about Syria these days, one can be perceptive or obsequious. You either have to be very judicious in selecting the information you choose to read and to follow or be sentimental and careless in selecting background material and sources of information about developments in Syria in particular and the Middle East in general.

Hafiz al-Assad, father of Bashar al-Assad who I had the pleasure of meeting in November 1996 during President Jagan’s official visit to Syria, impressed me as a consummate politician with immense knowledge of Middle East politics and the importance of Syria’s geo-strategic location. In the discussion with President Jagan he demonstrated his ability to balance his country’s geo-strategic interests with its neighbours’ loop in conformity with the adage, ‘You can choose your friends but you can’t choose your neighbours.’

I have followed developments in the Middle East for many years and though I do not consider myself an authority nor expert on the subject, having visited a number of countries in the Middle East first, as Foreign Affairs and later, as Foreign Trade Minister and, after listening to and reading the work of professional analysts in the USA and the Arab world with long experience in Middle Eastern politics; biased and unbiased podcasters and ‘open sources’ with boots on the ground in Middle East countries, I am able navigate the religious/ideological fogginess and to cut through the thicket of complex and bizarre politics of that region.

It was from that perspective I came to realize that, as I watched on TV the fast-moving events in Syria on November 27, 2024 that there were other obscure moving parts. It did not take me long to understand what was happening; I knew it would certainly not be two angels in white sitting where the slain body of Syria lay, one at its head and the other at its feet. The destruction of Syria is not the end, Iran will now be the next principal target.

The situation has been aptly captured by the UN Special Envoy to Syria: “After enduring ‘nearly 14 years of relentless suffering and unspeakable loss, this dark chapter has left deep scars, but today we look forward with cautious hope to the opening of a new one—one of peace, reconciliation, dignity, and inclusion for all Syrians.”

Press reports indicate that the situation in Syria remains fluid and fraught with unforeseen developments. It is not an easy question to write about. I suspect that because of the complex and controversial nature of recent developments in that country, mainstream media in Guyana has shied away from editorializing or publishing op-eds while letters to the editors on the subject are almost non-existent.

What I witnessed as regards Israel’s war on Gaza and the destruction of Syria, unmasked the so-called ‘Rules-based World Order’ in contradistinction to Cheddi Jagan’s call for a ‘New Global Human Order.’

Events in Syria demonstrated that when certain world or regional powers want regime change in a particular country, they set themselves the strategic objective to achieve it. In Syria’s case, jihadists who were once hunted down by Western nations as terrorists have been installed to govern the country as ‘liberation and freedom fighters.’

Arming, training and lending diplomatic support to the Islamists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (H.T.S.), a coalition led by a group formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda who had set themselves the task to establish a Caliphate in Syria, demonstrates the extent certain regional and world powers were prepared to go to facilitate regime change in Syria. Some call it ‘destruction through inclusion, or, inclusion through destruction.’

The Syrian experience demonstrates that governments must either ‘play by the rules’ set for them by others or get out. Though it is possible, but highly improbable that some may return to power, that depends on a dramatic shift in the correlation of forces in favour of those who once incurred the wrath of the powers that be. Guyana experienced what I describe as ‘The In And Out Door’ in 1964, 1992, 2015 and 2020.

If there are fundamental lessons to be learnt from the collapse of the state and government of the Syrian Arab Republic, they would be, in my view, the misapplication of geo-politics and practice of realpolitik; neglect of Syria’s long-standing role as a pivotal geo-strategic actor in the Middle East.

Geo-politics or geographic politics has to do with the foreign policy of a country with contiguous borders to other countries and beyond.

Syria has borders with five countries; Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Israel. Israel always maintained a belligerent posture towards Syria; Turkey was viewed as untrustworthy; relations with Iraq and Lebanon were ambivalent due to Hezbollah’s influence in the former and the Islamic Brotherhood’s influence in the latter. Jordan for its part, had cultivated strong ties with Western nations.

For Turkey and Israel, geopolitics appeared to be the driving dynamic for their conquest and dominance over Syria, and a desire to ‘balkanize’ its territory. How Syria’s territorial integrity and its quest for national unity was undermined by foreign powers is an important lesson Guyanese must always bear in mind

Assad’s understanding of geopolitics was reflected in his attempt to convince those with close ties to the West that Syria was losing out. But this proved ineffective when he failed to strike a balance between old and new friends.

From reports, Assad appeared convinced that only with support of western governments the crippling sanctions could be lifted and the loss of oil revenues could be restored. He figured that the gateway for doing so was through the Arab League in general and the monarchies in the gulf states. Assad’s geopolitics appeared to be driven by the need to reverse his country’s loss of influence and his desperation to seek a place and space for his country in the global economy.

The significance and importance of space, a euphemism for geopolitics was reflected in S/N editorial ‘Guyana’s petro status and the 2025 general elections’ published on December 17, 2024: ‘No less significant is the greater ‘space’ that the country now occupies as an area of global strategic significance on the global map, which, of course, is attended by favourably altered global perceptions of its image as a state within the international community.’

The collapse and disintegration of Syria follows similar occurrences in the USSR, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Yugoslavia. And just as the collapse of the Soviet Union, was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, in the same way, Syria’s collapse, will prove to be the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 21st century.

National unity has been on Syria’s domestic agenda for many years. But it has proven to be the Achilles heel for the country. Divisive and subversive local and external forces took advantage of the country’s ethnic, nationality, tribal, minority and religious peculiarities to destabilize and to make the country ungovernable. Guyana has ethnic peculiarities that opposition elements seek to exploit.

According to a Turkish proverb ‘He who has no bread has no authority.’ Due to the crippling and corrosive effects of Western imposed sanctions, deprivation of revenues from its oil resources, a wrecked economy, a demoralized military who had succumbed to external forces after fourteen years of war, Assad had no ‘bread’ to offer his people, as a consequence, he had no authority. Thankfully, the Irfaan Ali administration has ‘bread.’

In late 2023, reports began to circulate about Assad’s desire to accommodate and to appease western powers. To that end, he initiated certain domestic and external measures. His decision to mend relations with the West rather than with Turkey proved disastrous. Turkey had grown impatient. The Jihadists were unleashed. In no time they overran Idlib, Aleppo and Homs and headed unimpeded for Damascus.

Assad’s friends stood aloof and watched the collapse of a neighbour. To them Syria’s collapse served as a reminder and perhaps, reinforcement of a conviction of what the cost would be were they to ignore the realities of a geopolitical space dominated at present by pro-American and Israeli considerations and spheres of influence.

There were no protests nor demonstrations in Arab nor Muslim countries against foreign intervention in Syria. There was a total hush hush and fingers on the lips of governments in the region.

Julani now considers himself a ‘statesman,’ however, he remains a U.S.-designated terrorist with a ten-million-dollar bounty on his head, but this does not seem to matter as western nations rush to Damascus for talks on state-building plans for the territory Julani now controls.

Since late November 2024, Julani issued statements reassuring Syria’s many religious minorities, particularly the Alawites and Christians that his group has embraced pluralism and religious tolerance however, the coming days, and weeks will be a test of those stated intentions.

If it is that Julani is proffering benevolence to the Syrian populace and to the millions of refugees abroad, then Syrians would know from their own experience that benevolence is a fragile thing, it is withdrawn as easily as it conferred.

Yours faithfully,

Clement J. Rohee

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs

(Syria through my own eyes)

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• ‘Rules-based World Order’, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Middle East in general, President Jagan’s, Syria

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