The Explainer: What if Bashar Al-Assad Goes?

The Syrian civil war has killed at least 2.5 lakh people and displaced millions. The Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has dismissed any talk of giving up power. In fact, the Syrian President has dug in his heels and is prepared for the long haul.

There has been loud condemnation from the international community against Bashar’s atrocities against his countrymen. Efforts by the Unites States, EU and Israel to impose punishing sanctions against Bashar’s regime have been, on several occasions, stymied by Russia and China.

In the last week of September this year, Russia launched massive strikes against the Islamic State strongholds, thus bolstering its presence in West Asia and raising the stakes for a new power game (some analysts compare the ongoing tussle between the U.S. and Russia as the beginning of a new Cold War) in the region.

Russia has ignored the protestations of the U.S., the European Union, Turkey and Saudi Arabia in lending military and logistical support (fighter troops, combat aircraft, helicopters, and tanks) to the beleaguered regime of Bashar Al-Assad. Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, has vowed to back Bashar Al-Assad against what he called “terrorist aggression” of the Islamic State/Daesh.

The U.S. is deeply worried about the aggressive Russian military campaign against the Islamic State terror group; the U.S. fears that Washington may end up playing second fiddle to Moscow even as the Russians are raising the combat quotient of their military campaign against the Islamic State.

What if Bashar goes? 
There is great anxiety in the United States, EU, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Lebanon about the outcome of this conflict in Syria.

Will Bashar al-Assad end up like Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen? If yes, what will be the impact of such development?

If Bashar al-Assad is booted out of power (either by the U.S.-led forces or by the Islamic State terror group or by a combination of circumstances), then we should consider the impact of such ouster on:

·         the Islamic State, which will emerge as the biggest political force, with a stupendous capacity to terrorise the civilians and spread its tentacles in West Asia, including in the immediate neighbourhood;

·         Syrian domestic politics, which has no credible opposition except for an umbrella moderate rebel body which is beset with infighting among its various constituent parties;

·         neighbours like Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey;

·         dictators with absolute power in the wider Arab World (like King Hamad of Bahrain);

·         global economy, which might witness revival problems because of energy supply disruption and spike in oil prices in case the conflict takes on a regional shape;

·         rise of Islamists, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Ennahda party in Tunisia, and 

·         strategic realignment, especially with regard to the role of the United States in the wider Islamic World and West Asia.

I will discuss the ongoing tussle between Russia and Turkey in another piece.

Sunday Reads

• Tipu Sultan: Noble or Savage? (Open Magazine) Hat tip: Mohan Ramiah.

• Return of a topless model. (BBC)

• Dark matter and the dinosaurs. (Brain Pickings)

The Explainer: The Syrian Refugee Crisis

The highly regressive version of Islam imposed on the region’s hapless people by the Islamic State has triggered a mass displacement of Syrians. 

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are a total of 41.8 lakh Syrian refugees. This figure includes includes 21 lakh Syrians registered by UNHCR in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, 19 lakh Syrians registered by the Government of Turkey, as well as more than 26,700 Syrian refugees registered in North Africa, as of the third week of October 2015.

Today Syria has the largest number of internally displaced people (IDP) in the world with over seven million people living away from home to escape the conflict zones. In addition, another four-and-a-half million Syrians have escaped from the region and poured into neighbouring Muslim nations and Europe where they have triggered the largest migrant crisis since the end of the Second World War. 

There has been intense criticism of the Muslim nations that have refused to open doors to the Syrian refugees; rich Arab nations like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and UAE have been indifferent to the plight of the fleeing multitude of Syrians.

On the other hand, Syria’s neighbours like Turkey and Lebanon have kept their doors open to the Syrian refugees, each taking at least one million of them while Jordan and Egypt have accepted substantial number of refugees.

However, it is the mass exodus of Syrians to Europe that has rang alarm bells in the region. Thousands of Syrian refugees are braving inclement weather, choppy seas, dishonest people smugglers, border fences, and hostile governments and local populations to reach Europe, especially Germany and France.

While the European Union has, on a general note, welcomed the refugees, there has been a backlash in several EU nations, like Hungary and Slovakia. In fact, the two countries have vowed not to accept any refugees even if the EU imposes any refugee quotas on its members. In a rather different twist, Slovakia agreed to take in 200 Syrian refugees only if they are Christian.

While Germany has opened doors to the refugees, the political leadership, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, is facing a domestic backlash for being too soft on migrants. There has been an upsurge in violence against migrants across Germany, especially in the wake of calls by anti-migrant organisations who allege that the influx of Syrians will destroy the religious character of their nation.

The Explainer: The Rise of the Islamic State

The Islamic State started off as a local offshoot of Al-Qaeda under the leadership of a Jordanian terrorist named Abu Musa Al-Zarqawi (who was later killed by American forces operating in Iraq). It was originally called Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQIQ). However, a faction broke away from the parent organisation and called itself the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI).

After the Syrian civil war broke out in the first half of 2011, it expanded its theatre of operations to that country. In the following months, the ISI was engaged in a bitter battle with Jabhat Al-Nusra, a successor organisation to AQIQ which had declared its affiliation to Al-Qaeda.

In 2013, in a unilateral decision, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISI,

Source: bbcnews.com

announced the merger of ISI with Jabhat Al-Nusra; the new merged entity, he said, would be called the Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS). (In the Arab world, Al-Sham is synonymously used for Levant, a name used to describe Syria and adjoining areas in the eastern Mediterranean territory. In that sense, ISIS is also called ISIL.)  However, Al-Nusra repudiated the merger, calling the ISI devious and anti-Islam. Al-Nusra asked the ISIS to focus on Iraq and leave Syria to it (Al-Nusra) but the ISIS leader disregarded the advice.

In 2013, the ISIS launched a series of attacks in several Iraqi cities; it did not help that the ISIS, a Sunni group which had openly declared war on Shia Muslims, was supported by the substantially large Sunni population in Iraq, which faced severe discrimination at the hands of the Shia-dominant Iraqi Government.

Soon after running over large parts of Iraq, including wresting control of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, the ISIS changed its name to the Islamic State and declared the Caliphate in the occupied territories while it named its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi as the new Caliph.

Several Muslim nations and organisations, including radical terror outfits like Jubhat Al-Nusra (and its parent organisation, Al-Qaeda) found it particularly galling that Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi could declare himself a caliph (leader of Ummah or the global Muslim community) and ask Muslims worldwide to follow his dictate.

Muslim nations and organisations, which despise this radical terror group, refer to the IS as Daesh (Arabic for ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ – Al-Dawla Al-Islamiya Al-Iraq Al-Sham). However, IS hates this name as it carries a lot of negative connotations (for want of space, we will not go into the details).

Today, the Islamic State controls large swathes of both Iraq and Syria where it has declared a Caliphate. In Syria, the IS controls nearly 50 per cent of the country’s area. In areas under its control, the IS has imposed a strict version of Islam which it enforces through a network of fighters and mercenaries. The IS draws its cadre from mainly Syria and Iraq; however, it has attracted fighters not just from several Muslim nations, like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, and Turkey but from European nations as well. Tens of hundreds of Muslims from Britain, France and other EU nations have joined the Islamic State. It is believed that the IS has a cadre base of around 40,000 fighters. 

The Harrowing Experience of Alex Owumi in Libya

Muammar Gaddafi was killed in 2011. For a man who ruled Libya with an iron fist for nearly 42 years, the end was rather an ignominious one. From wallowing in his luxury tent to spending his last moments in a drain pipe, Gaddafi's life and death epitomised the adage that 'those who live by the sword die by the sword'.

Gaddafi was the uncontrolled master of everything he surveyed. He never occupied any post, yet styled himself 'The Leader'. He was a megalomaniac, one who loved unbridled power but with no accountability. A paranoid, he did not trust his own shadow.

Fear and repression were his twin weapons, especially against his own countrymen. A past-master at suppressing dissent, he crushed all opposition and brooked no criticism. 

Read my complete piece on the rise and fall of Muammar Gaddafi here.

Early today, I read a BBC article, narrated in first person by a young American basketball player about his harrowing experience in Libya. 

Here's an excerpt. 

When US basketball player Alex Owumi signed a contract to play for a team in Benghazi, Libya, he had no idea that his employer was the the most feared man in the country. Nor did he guess the country was about to descend into war.
...

When the hunger pains got really bad, I started eating cockroaches and worms that I picked out of the flowerpots on my windowsill. I'd seen Bear Grylls survival shows on TV and seemed to recall that it was better to eat them alive, that they kept their nutrients that way. They were wriggly and salty, but I was so hungry it was like eating a steak.

I started seeing myself, versions of myself at different ages. Three-year-old Alex, eight-year-old Alex, at 12 years, 15 years, 20 years and the current, 26-year-old version. The younger ones were on one side, and the older versions on the other. I was able to touch them and I talked to them every day. (End of excerpt)

I strongly urge you to read the harrowing story of Alex Owumi.

Monday Late Night Edition - The Egyptian Saga Omnibus

Egypt is facing internal turmoil. From dictatorship to democracy to chaos, Egypt is experiencing it all. Click on the links below for an omnibus edition on Egypt.

• How a 'Yes' or 'No' will shape Egypt's future (BBC)

• Testing the military's legitimacy (CNN)

• Does Egypt's vote matter? (New York Times)

• On whose side are you? (Economist)

• Egyptian constitution approved (ABC)

Sunday Reads - Parallel Worlds & Saying No to Sex

• Catch up in industrialization. (The Hindu)
• Enduring exile. (Guernica)
• Why have young people in Japan stopped having sex? (Guardian)
• Parallel worlds. (Economist)

Sunday Reads - India's code of silence over sexual abuse

• The Syrian War is creating a massive kidnapping crisis in Lebanon. (The Atlantic)

• India's code of silence over sexual abuse. (BBC Magazine)

• The Muzaffarnagar Riots: Meltdown of the Majgar Alliance (The Hindu)

• What Putin has to say to Americans about Syria. (NYT)

Read The Explainer: The Sryian Crisis - Part I and The Explainer: The Sryian Crisis - Part II

Sunday Reads - The Egypt Crisis Edition

Source: AlJazeera

Egypt is in turmoil. The tussle between the Islamists and the secularists has divided the country right down the middle. Here's a collection of some readings to help you make sense of the complex situation.

• Question & Answer (BBC)
• The Muslim Brotherhood after Morsi (Foreign Affairs; registration required - its free!)
• Egypt: A fire that will burn us all (Foreign Policy)
• Egypt's identity torn into two (CNN)
• The Mosque Standoff (AlJazeera)

Monday Reads - Boys & Girls and Death on the Nile

Continuing with this month's Reads only posts, with Monday Reads.

• Death on the Nile. (Foreign Policy)
• When giants slow down. (Economist)
• Arvind Panagariya on Amartya Sen's views on Food Security Bill. (Economic Times)
• Boys and girls. (LRB)

Reuters blog has an infographic on the most deadly train accidents in the last five decades.

Sunday Reads - Operation Easter & A Father's Sorrow

• If Detroit were a country, would it be a failed state? (FP Passport) Click on each of the embedded links (below) for greater insight.

Excerpt: The city of Detroit has sorrows to spare. Its government -- officially, as of Thursday -- can't pay its bills. Its police don't arrive in time to stop criminals, and its ambulances don't arrive in time to save lives. Its citizens are fleeing in droves. It's likely the most dysfunctional municipality in the United States. (End of Excerpt)

Also check this Economic Times slideshow on the seven recent and significant municipal bankruptcies in the U.S. 

• Operation Easter: The Hunt for Illegal Egg Collectors. (The New Yorker)

• Jahar's World: A profile of the Boston Bomber. (Rolling Stone)

• A Father's Sorrow (BBC)

Video - Turkish Unrest

Turkey, once nicknamed the Sick Man of Asia, is facing massive unrest. Here's CNN's veteran journalist Christiane Amanpour explains the state of politics in Turkey to understand the ongoing civil unrest there.

Sunday Reads - An executioner's tale & Replacing the $

Sunday Reads series is back after a really long time.

• What sparks prejudice in humans. (BBC)

• An executioner's tale from Yemen. (TIME)

• What currency will change the dollar. (MarketWatch)

• What the world needs from BRICS. (Project Syndicate) 

Source: DNA

France in Mali - Triumph for France?

The fighting in Mali seems to be on the wane. The Islamists who threatened France by promising to turn Mali into a French graveyard are nowhere to be seen. Either they are melted away into the Sahara sands to fight another day or have just given up on the formidable task of fighting the top class French military force.

This is France's third major foreign intervention in the last few years. Earlier the French were there in Libya and Côte d’Ivoire. In the case of Mali, France is seriously worried that West Africa may turn into an 'Afrighanistan', a kind of homeground of Islamists. 

The Economist lends some insight on the situation in Mali and what the current turn of events could mean for all involved - Mali, France, and the Islamists.

Here's an excerpt:

Mali’s loose mix of jihadist and Tuareg rebel groups has dispersed. The lighter-skinned ones and ethnic Arabs tended to go north into the desert; the dark-skinned ones fled south to the arid farmlands. 

They are less united than before. The aim of the French and their Malian allies is to separate the religious zealots, hailing mainly from Algeria and beyond, from native Malians and the less fanatical rebels.

Read the whole thing here. 

Video - Top Ten Global Threats in 2013

... and so let me go back to what I do best on this blog: share learning!

We begin with a video on the Ten Biggest Global Risks in 2013. Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group lists his top ten geopolitical and global economic risks. 

In Bremmer's list, India comes in at No 9!



Source: Reuters

Sunday Reads - The Best of Politics, Economics, & Ideas

Apple's iPhone 5 was launched last week. Here is a Reuters graphic comparing the iPhone 5 with its four major rivals, including Samsung Galaxy III and Nokia Lumia 920.

• Syria: The 800-year history lesson. (BBC) 

• Putin's God Squad: After years of repression under Communist rule, the Orthodox Church is back at the heart of Russian politics. (Newsweek) 

• SEALs’ Cover Story if Bin Laden Raid Went Bad: Downed Drone (Wired)

• Cairo's many shades of protests: what they reveal about how the new Egypt operates. (TIME)

Mid-Week Reads - The Best of Politics, Economics, & Ideas

Apple's much-awaited iPhone 5 was launched yesterday. The Economist has an infographic on the impact of the iPhone on the global mobile market. 

• Why Apple has become boring. (BBC) Also read Five out of ten. (The Economist) 

• Libya attack brings challenges for America. (NYT)

• Do you need to be a jerk to be a successful entrepreneur? (CEO)

• Monetary policy explained with animated GIFs. (Rortybomb blog)

Sunday Reads - The Best of Politics, Economics, & Ideas

• Poverty and violence in the U.S. (New Yorker)

“My aim is to get to the core of violence in America.... Not just the physical violence against one another but the quiet violence of letting families fall apart, the violence of unemployment, the violence of our educational system, and the violence of segregation and isolation.”

• Malnutrition and hunger stalks Gandhi family's bastion. (ET)

The Rae Bareli seat in Uttar Pradesh has been a Gandhi family bastion since 1967 when Indira Gandhi first stood for election from there. Sonia Gandhi adopted the constituency in 2004 and was re-elected with a huge majority in 2009. It should, therefore, be one of India's most developed districts. Right? Wrong. 

• The world economy is in grave danger. A lot depends on one woman. (The Economist)

• Why the U.S. will never be able to win the arms race with China. (FP)

Sunday Slideshow Special: Photos from the War Zone in Syria, from TIME.

Sunday Reads - The Best of Politics, Economics, and Ideas

My collection of best reads for your Sunday!

• Black-Scholes: The maths formula linked to the financial crash (BBC)

It's not every day that someone writes down an equation that ends up changing the world. But it does happen sometimes, and the world doesn't always change for the better. It has been argued that one formula known as Black-Scholes, along with its descendants, helped to blow up the financial world. 

• Why do they hate us? (FP) This article on the status of women in the Middle East societies (and in Islam), is one of the best I have read in a long time.

How much does Saudi Arabia hate women? So much so that 15 girls died in a school fire in Mecca in 2002, after "morality police" barred them from fleeing the burning building -- and kept firefighters from rescuing them -- because the girls were not wearing headscarves and cloaks required in public. And nothing happened. No one was put on trial. Parents were silenced. 

• Finland imagines life without Nokia. (BusinessWeek) 

Nokia’s 94 percent share-price plunge from its 2000 peak has left thousands of engineers looking for work now that Nokia is curtailing local development and moving production to Asia. Nokia’s share of gross domestic product probably shrank to 0.8 percent in 2011 from as high as 4 percent in 2000.  

• Must watch: Andre Kuiper's stunning photographs of the Earth and space sent to Earth via Twitter. (Telegraph UK) Take, for instance, this photo of the UK and Ireland by night, with the Aurora Borealis on the horizon, snapped on March 28 this year.

The Explainer: The Syrian Crisis - Part II

In The Explainer: The Syrian Crisis - Part I, published in this space on March 6, I focused on the presidency of Hafez al-Assad and the demographics of Syria. 

In this second and final part, I will focus on the presidency of Bashar al-Assad and the rebel movement that is raging across Syria against his dictatorship. 

Enter Bashar al-Assad
Bashar al-Assad, an Ophthalmologist, is the current president and youngest son of Hafez al-Assad. He was not the chosen heir to his father's presidency; it was his older brother, Bassel al-Assad, who was groomed to succeed Hafez. However, Bassel died in a car accident when he rammed his Mercedes at high speed into a roundabout.

At the time of his father's death, Bashar was 34; however, the Syrian constitution stipulated that the president must be 40 years of age. To overcome this constitutional hurdle, the Syrian parliament amended the constitution within 48 hours of the death of Hafez al-Assad, to lower the minimum age for the president from 40 to 34. This way Bashar became the president of Syria. 

This can be looked at in another way: Bashar forced the parliament, populated by his father's lackeys, to change the eligibility for president's office by tweaking the constitution. You do not expect a person who becomes president through force and manipulation to respect the will of the people of his nation. 

The Paranoid Dictator
All dictators are paranoid by nature. Bashar al-Assad is no exception. With the help of the secret police, he crushed all political opposition, denied basic freedoms to his people, while repression, nepotism and economic corruption became the order of the day. Thousands of opposition political activists were sent to jail without trial. 

In fact, Bashar would always romp home with more than 98 per cent of the vote, like in the 2007 presidential election. It is nobody’s guess that the elections were a one-sided affair, with all legitimate opposition leaders either disqualified or put in jail. In short, Bashar continued his father's policy of subverting the system to perpetuate his rule.  

The Demographic Bomb
While the political and military elite are enjoying the fruits of Bashar's dictatorship, life is nothing less than a living hell for the ordinary Syrian. About 50 per cent of the total population of 23 million is below 30 years of age, a feature that demographers call the 'youth bulge'. 

As the population expands while the economy stagnates because of official apathy, unemployment numbers are rising by the day. With an overall unemployment rate of over 20 per cent and youth unemployment rate at over 40 per cent, the Syrian youth are frustrated at lack of economic opportunity, social security, and employment. Today it is the youth who are taking to the street, calling for political and economic reform.  

To summarise, a high degree of youth unemployment, widespread corruption, lack of basic freedoms, discrimination against certain groups of people (like Sunnis) and the all-pervasive shadow of a totalitarian state have all come together to explode in the face of Bashar. 

Current situation
Inspired by the success of the popular movements against dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, the marginalised and frustrated people of Syria took to the streets, first peacefully and later violently, demanding that Bashar al-Assad step down from the presidency.  

As Syrians came out in thousands to hold protests in major towns (like Damascus and Homs), Bashar’s response was on predictable lines: shoot at sight, arbitrary detention without trial, and charge the arrested protesters with draconian provisions like treason, all aimed at crushing any form of dissent against his regime. 

The situation in Syria is slowly veering toward civil war. Security forces, loyal to Bashar's regime, have killed more than 8000 protesters. However, even in the face of an unrelenting onslaught by troops loyal to Bashar, the rebels are not giving up. 

Regional impact
As is the case with most conflicts today, what happens in one country does not stay there. This is especially true in the case of Syria. The al-Assad regime is close to Iran, Iraq, and the Hezbollah, the terror outfit-cum-political party in neighbouring Lebanon. What connects the four is their common sectarian identity: Shia Islam. (As mentioned in The Explainer: The Syrian Crisis - Part I, the Assads belong to the Alawi branch of Shia Islam.) 

There has been growing condemnation from the international community against Bashar's atrocities against the rebels. Efforts by the Unites States, EU and Israel to impose punishing sanctions against Bashar's regime have been stymied by Russia and China.

Recently, Saudi Arabia sent arms to the rebels to fight the regime in Damascus; the irony of the situation would not be missed on anyone who knows the autocratic and despotic royal house in Saudi Arabia. While Saudi Arabia muffles any voice that rises against the royal house, it is 'helping' the rebels in Syria. 

Why? 

Because Saudi Arabia is Sunni, the Syrian rebels are Sunni, while Bashar al-Assad is an Alawi Shia. Now bring in the larger regional picture: Bashar is backed by Shia Iran, a sectarian and ideological rival of Saudi Arabia. In a simple sense, great power politics is underpinned by regional, ideological and sectarian power struggles.

What if Bashar goes? 
There is great anxiety in the United States, EU, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Lebanon about the outcome of this massive rebel movement in Syria. Will Bashar al-Assad end up like Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen? If yes, what will be the impact of the outcome?

If Bashar al-Assad is booted out of power, then we should look at its impact on:

• Syrian domestic politics, which has no credible opposition except for an umbrella rebel body which is beset with infighting among its various constituent parties;
• neighbours like Iran, Lebanon, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq;
• dictators in the wider Arab World (like King Hamad of Bahrain);
• global economy, which might witness revival problems because of energy supply disruption and spike in oil prices in case the conflict takes on a regional shape;
• rise of Islamists, like the radical Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the moderate Ennahda party in Tunisia, and 
• strategic realignment, especially with regard to the role of the United States in the wider Arab World and Middle East.

However, not withstanding these scenarios, Bashar al-Assad may yet survive to live another day, a day that may come to signify the triumph of sheer brute power over people power.