Some of the Consequences of the Syrian Civil War; What We are Observing Currently in Iraq, Lebanon, etc.

Here below is part of my essay entitled: An assessment about the current civil war in Syria. This essay was written on August, 2013. Some viewers might be interested to go through some of my predictions in that time about the consequences of the Syrian civil war; some predictions that we are dealing with them currently in Iraq, Syria itself, Lebanon and lone wolf attacks in the western countries, etc. 



M. Sirani                        01.11.2014

7- Some Consequences of the Syrian Civil War:

Whether we are supporting Bashar Assad or its opponents or are neutral, we should pay attention to some of the consequences of the Syrian civil war. Analyzing these consequences is very important, because some of them might occur beyond the Syrian geographical territory within the country that we live in. Some of these consequences are briefly as follows.

1- The first and important issue is the large number of human casualties and near-total destruction of the country’s infrastructure. We should not be genius to anticipate that this issue would be devastating for Syria, the Syrian people and the neighboring countries for some decades to come.

2- The second issue is about the overall effect of the civil war on the life of the Syrian people. This issue has caused that more than 1.6 million people have fled Syria and taken refuge abroad in some countries such as Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and some North African countries. We should bear in mind that we are talking about more than 500,000 Syrian refugees in a country such as Lebanon with a population size of 4.2 million, or nearly 500,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan with a population size of almost 6 million people, etc. The large numbers of the Syrian refugees are the huge burden on the shoulders of all these states, the international organizations as well as NGOs. In the long term, this issue would cause many problems in different arenas including security for all these countries. As an example, asylum seekers and refuges are the most vulnerable groups around the world; because, in most cases they don not have proper access to their basic needs and rights. As such, some members of this vulnerable group would become the easiest preys for different criminal organizations as well as Jihadist groups. This issue is also applicable for some of the Syrian refugees in the Middle East. Given the fact that most of these countries mentioned above do not have a powerful, stable and reliable political system and the Syrian civil war has entered in the new phase of a conflict between the Shiite and Sunni groups, we can anticipate that the presence of large numbers of the Syrian refugees would threaten the peace, stability and security of some countries in the Middle East in the long term.

There is also another important issue with regard to the Syrian refugees. What these refugees would do, if Assad’s regime would manage to survive this civil war? Given the fact that some of these refugees, themselves or their relatives are fighting against Assad’s regime, would they dare to return to Syria in the future? Who / which powerful international entity would be able to provide and maintain their security in Syria under the rule of Bashar Assad? On the contrary, if Assad’s regime would collapse somewhere in the future, who, or which powerful entity would be able to provide and maintain security for those Shiite or Alawites people, who have supported Bashar Assad or neutrally have behaved during this conflict?

3- The overall presence of Hezbollah in this conflict and increasing numbers of conflict between the Shiite and Sunni groups in different countries in the region illustrate the fact that eventually, the Syrian civil war would spread to some other neighboring countries in the Middle East. In this respect, the two countries of Lebanon and Iraq are the most vulnerable states.

4- The Syrian civil war has facilitated the best environment in terms of training, access to different facilities such as money, weapon, training and network building for all Jihadists around the world. This chaotic environment functions like an academic institute for all Islamic fundamentalists including novice Jihadists, who enter Syria legally or illegally from different borderlines. After a while, these novice Jihadists would be expert in different military tactics and strategic matters such as using different weapons - explosive materials, organizing, surviving in harsh and difficult circumstances, network building, etc. The important and tricky point is the time that these jihadists would decide to return to their countries of origin, whether is somewhere in the Middle East or the EU or some other countries around the world. In this respect, we can anticipate that each of these jihadists would function as an ambassador of terror and would be able to organize and establish a terror cell in his /her country of origin.

5- This is the fact that the Kurdish people has been one of the most marginalized and deprived groups in Syria. The Syrian Kurds live mostly in the northern part of Syria along the southern border of Turkey and partly the northern border of Iraq. During the chaotic atmosphere of the civil war, the Syrian Kurds might decide to establish an either autonomous or a Kurdish self-regulated region in the northern part of Syria. This issue would threaten the sovereignty of Syria, Turkey, and Iraq. As a result, it would create extra instability and tension in the region.

6- We should bear in mind that some of these consequences, inevitability, would also affect the Israeli–Palestinian peace process to some degree.

All mentioned above, indicates the fact that the consequences of the Syrian civil war from different angles and to some degrees would be devastating not just for the Syrian people or the country of Syria, but also for all of us, no matter whom we are or where we live.