Syria today is the most powerful diplomatic point in the Middle East because it is the most competitive – as it has been for thousands of years. The outcome of the competition for control of governance and alliances in Syria will define political trends in the Levant and the wider Middle East for years to come.
Three concentric circles of domestic, regional, and global actors compete for power and influence in Syria because of the country’s unique position and status. It is an extraordinary Arab country of complete and fruitfulness, due to its human and natural resources, strategic location, and political, cultural, and ethnic ties to the Middle East and the world.
Syria today, even in its dire state after half a century of dictatorial torture and 13 years of war, hosts hundreds of diplomats, businessmen, social activists and carpetbaggers. But this is not new.
The people and rulers of the Syrian land have experienced this during the past 5,000 years, since Damascus and Aleppo emerged as productive, healthy, and strategic urban centers in the third millennium BC. Throughout recorded human history, the land and people of Syria have been producing knowledge, value systems, food, wealth, culture, technology, and identity that have made their country a strategic and desirable global hub.
A world tour through Syria reveals sprawling networks of roads, forts, farms, water systems, and urban areas that have long served the east-west and north-south trade routes linking Asia, Europe, and Africa. Next to them stand the great cities of Syria – Aleppo, Damascus, Homs, Hama, Deir az-Zor, Palmyra, Deraa, Latakia, and others – that have played prominent roles in the history of the country. Various ethnic and religious groups lived in these strategic urban centers – Sunnis, Shia, Alawites, Druze, Christians, Armenians, Jews, Arabs, Kurds, Circassians, and a few others. Throughout history, they have lived together through informal negotiation through formal and informal methods based in these cities.
Syria has always been special and remains special because it is the most complete Arab country that enjoys all the properties of true nationalism and nationalism. This includes fertile land and water resources; mineral and agricultural wealth; industrial base; a wealth of people from talented citizens, talented managers, and entrepreneurial entrepreneurs; a mixed citizenry in all the violent and creative urban centers, associated with concentrated villages and rural areas; strong national and cultural identity; and, land and sea access to the wealth and trade routes of three continents.
It is also a country of consequence because of its internal wealth and its strategic world. Ancient and modern empires – from Greece, Rome, Persia, Byzantium, and India to Britain and France, not to mention Russia and the United States – have fought for control over Syria to ensure access to its resources and important routes that cross the continent. tear it up. If you want to experience how that works, go spend a few days at the Damascus Sheraton Hotel.
More than any other Arab country, including modern Egypt and the energy-rich Gulf states, Syria is also important because it emits waves of regional sentiment and identity that reflect what ordinary Arabs want to achieve both their humanitarian and social aspirations. At different times in the last century, these feelings emerged in the fields of pluralism, fundamentalism, Islamism, anti-colonialism, and Arabism.
Syria is also important for people around the world to grasp because its experience reminds us of the singular repetition of all the Arab region’s strengths, weaknesses, failures, identities, and modern ambitions.
For millennia, “Syria” meant Greater Syria, or Bilad-el-Sham (“Land of Sham”), which included most of the Levant and parts of the Fritile Crescent that are now Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel. , Palestine, and parts of Turkey and Iraq.
It was reduced after the fall of the Ottoman Empire by the military forces of the Franco-British empire that prevented the birth of a constitutional monarchy established in an elected assembly in 1920. Successive colonialism faced the same problems and vulnerabilities that define many Arab countries. today.
These include: anti-colonialism and the struggle for independence that did not achieve full sovereignty; unrelenting foreign military intervention; efforts at consultation and participatory decision-making often end in dictatorship and military rule; periods of real progress in education, health care, infrastructure, and economic growth that eventually stagnated and declined, due to corruption, mismanagement, and lack of accountability; and mixed societies that often succumb to sectarian wars, overwhelmed by external forces.
Today, many Arab citizens and other citizens in our region follow the Syrian revolution with hope and admiration. We all want Syria to be the modern Arab world’s first self-governing, citizen-sanctioned, truly democratic and independent state.
It is not lost on any of us that the current leadership of Syria comes from Islamic groups that were strong in the war in Iraq invaded by the US and overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad with the help of America, Israel, Turkey, and other non-Syrians. This only increases our congratulations to the Syrians for achieving their ambitious goals.
Regional and global powers are working overtime to influence the new Syrian leadership who will use bribery, weapons, and guile to ensure that the emerging new Syria will go along with them. If the new authorities resist, they will face foreign-instigated and funded attempts to overthrow them, as has happened many times in the past throughout the region.
In some ways, Syria’s struggle for a decent, stable state today is the delayed result of a historic but wasted decade of rebellion for democracy, pluralism, and equal rights for all. As in 1920, Syria today is also testing whether outside powers can allow its citizens to define themselves, and set an example for the rest of the region. If there is any Arab citizen who can achieve this, it is the Syrians, because they have been running this moment for 5,000 years.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
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