Partitioning Syria for the New Middle East ?

As the battle smoke in Syria and Iraq continues to cloud the sky, it is abundantly clear that the Syrian and Iraqi political landscapes are going to be forever changed. Five years of civil war has not just destroyed infrastructure and buildings but it has also created a series of societal divisions that were not in place in before the conflict began.

Sunni, Alawite, Shia, Druze, Yazdi and Kurd; many of these divisions between the groups in Syria were in existence but the society was not overwhelming divided along these lines. As the next wave of peaceful negotiations fall apart it is clear that the sheer multitude of groups that are now represented in the conflict in Syria will mean that the political system will need an overhaul.

It is a foregone conclusion that most regions of Syria will no longer tolerate Bashar Assad's political domination. The government’s formation of security forces that robbed, tortured and raped young men and women, as well as the bombing of opposition towns and cities instead of al-Nusra and ISIS over the past five years has eroded any legitimacy Assad had. This was demonstrated by the recent swathe of 104 anti-government protests around the country on March 4. Simply put, many people distrust the al-Assad regime. As one organiser of the protest in Aleppo commented,

“We came to confirm that our revolution is ongoing, no matter what happens. We are a resilient and determined people, and we will not back down from our demands: a free Syria for all Syrians and free of Assad and terrorism. Thousands of martyrs have fallen, which makes us more determined not to back off on our rightful and legitimate demands.”

So the question now becomes what will bring peace.

The Dream of Partition

According to the United States Secretary of State John Kerry, plan B for Syria if the peace talks failed is the partitioning of Syria along sectarian or ethnic divisions. Secretary Kerry stated to the US Foreign Relations Committee that ,

“this can get a lot uglier and Russia has to be sitting there evaluating that too. It may be too late to keep it as a whole Syria if we wait much longer”.

Although Secretary Kerry has not given details of how such a partition would be completed, the plan was previously outlined by Condoleeza Rice in 2006 as part of the United States Foreign Policy entitled The New Middle East Plan which had its roots in the Israeli foreign policy from the 1980sby Odid Yinon. The United States is said to have a plan to separate Syria into a federal system of states, like the United States, Russia or Australia. Thus the Alawites would have a state in the west near Lebanon, a Sunni Arab State would dominate the centre and the Kurds would control the north.

This may solve some issues. Firstly, many Alawites are concerned about a Sunni backlash against them due to the perception of the Assad regime being coterminous with the Alawite population. As a result they are seeking protection from the ethnic retribution of the Sunni based opposition groups. Secondly, it will cement the north, also known as Rojava now by the Kurds, into a functioning state which will calm their attempts to separate from Syria altogether.

The Reality

Unfortunately, this sort of partitioning is little more than a recipe for disaster. Firstly, it does not include many of the minority groups like the Druze, Yazdis or Armenians that have coexisted in Syria for generations. Furthermore, with interfaith and interethnic marriage occurring regularly it is hard to see how such a heterogeneous society would operate under a more homogenous rule.

In the current climate the separation also does not demonstrate how such a division will provide an equal amount of resources to all divisions in Syria. As the Alawite and Kurdish territories would control most of the arable land, water supplies and oil and gas fields this partitioning would mean that large portions of the Syrian population in the Sunni section would be left without ready access to arable land, oil and most importantly water. This could lead to further conflicts within the federal state system as resources and control over the government becomes an issue for the have-nots.

As Jacob Purcell from Global Risk Insights argues

A federal system like the one described above could simply set up the next wave of fighting as various ethnic groups contend with each other to control the central government and entrench themselves.

It should be noted that the argument for partitioning has been overruled by more than one participant in the war.

Lack of Syrian and Russian Support for Plan B

The Assad regime for one has stated they will not agree to anything that compromises the integrity of Syria as a whole. While the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, has echoed these sentiments when he stated that it is best to keep Syrian territorial borders unchanged and the people unified.

Syrian opposition coordinator Riad Hijab has stated that "any mention of federalism or something which might present a direction for dividing Syria is not acceptable at all".

The Winner is Kurdistan

One place that supports this plan is found in an autonomous Kurdistan. The civil conflict has allowed for the creation of large autonomously governed sections of Kurdish territory, which are now backed by organised and battle hardened militia and governing bodies. In March this year the Syrian Kurdish political party the Democratic Union Party or P.Y.D declared that it would be putting together a plan to unite the regions controlled by the Syrian Kurds into an autonomous region to operate within a federal based system. 

"What you call it isn't important," the PYD's Saleh Muslim told Reuters on Tuesday. "We have said over and over again that we want a decentralised Syria - call it administrations, call it federalism - everything is possible."

Brussels Bombings Expose Europe’s Soft Underbelly

The bombings in Brussels shocked Belgium and Europe to the core. The senseless violence that left 300 injured and 35 dead in the attacks at the Maelbeek Train station near the EU headquarters and the Brussels airport struck at the heart of the Europe and the European Union.

Even as the hunt for the elusive white jacket bomber has ended with the arrest of Mohamed Abrini, any relief will be short lived.  Europe is now back to square one in its fight against the Islamic State global terrorist campaign. 

As was discovered when Belgium authorities arrested Europe’s most wanted fugitive and the only survivor of the Parisian attack cell, Saleh Abdelslam, the new wave of Islamic extremists are predominantly  European nationals who know the ins and outs of the European Union and have large familial networks that provide them support in Europe.

This has led many to agree with French President Françoise Holland who stated “This is not over,” and that security forces are trying to uncover the ‘wide, extensive’ network of jihadists who are behind these attacks.

A Game of Cat and Mouse

For now it is a game of hide and seek. Belgium Foreign Minister Didier Reynders has admitted previously that Brussels authorities thought there were at least 30 terrorists remaining at large in the city. Finding these terrorists will be difficult because these groups have morphed into something more than religious extremists.

According to security experts, many of the terrorists operating in Europe have become integrated with organised crime groups or the Mafia. Intelligence experts like Yan St-Pierre, CEO and counter-intelligence adviser for the Modern Security Consulting Group, have argued that the Islamic State have tapped into

‘Mafia-type organized crime, with highly sophisticated smuggling operations, for logistics support like transporting people, issuing fake identity papers or selling weapons’.

The Islamic Mafia

The development of such an entity is not surprising  given the clan based nature of many Arab and North African societies. In Belgium for example, Moroccan-Belgiums often existed within a very tight knit expat community. Brothers, cousins and extended family relations are often very close and will provide support to one another without asking questions due to clan based loyalty to their friends and family.

Infiltrating and monitoring these identity networks is extremely difficult due to their close nature.  One only has to look at the Paris and Brussels attacks to note that many of the attackers in both incidents were family or friends, some from childhood (Mohamad Abrini for example was friends with Saleh Abdeslam and his brother Ibrahim who blew himself up in Paris) and both the el-Bakraoui brothers and Mohamad Abrini were known criminals and had spent time in jail, as had Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the leader of the Paris attacks.  

Europe’s Soft Underbelly

While these gangster-style Islamic networks make infiltration difficult, both the Paris and Brussels attacks were a study of the miscommunication that hampers the European Union. The open nature of the European Union and the freedom of movement provided by the Schengen Agreement means that it is a hard to coordinate security measures between countries and share relevant intelligence. Security forces in the Netherlands, Sweden, France and Belgium were clearly aware that there were terrorists operating within their borders but due to miscommunication and protocol failures many warning signs were missed or discounted.

After the Brussels attacks it was revealed by the Turkish Prime Minster that Turkey had deported one of the suicide bombers Ibrahim el-Bakraoui after catching him on the Turkish-Syrian border in July 2015, but worse than that was the information that the FBI had informed the Dutch government that both el-Bakraoui brothers were wanted by the Belgium authorities in March in connection with the Paris attack and yet both remained free.

Border controls in Belgium were also lacklustre during the weeks prior to the attack in Brussels with a recent report detailing the use of untrained border guards to identify those arrivals who were high risk against an EU-wide terror database, SIS, which contains alerts for the names of several thousand foreign fighters, as well as stolen and forged passports. Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Belgian architect of the Paris massacre, had boasted that he was able to go from Syria to Belgium as border guards failed to identify him, despite his face being in the media. 

Perhaps this was sheer luck but more likely this oversight was caused by the economic cuts many European nations have made to their security  budgets over the past few years. Many are now simply relying on sophisticated facial recognition software and high tech surveillance which does not utilise costly human investigators who can monitor suspects daily.

As a result, intelligence experts such as Claude Moniquet, a retired agent for France’s external intelligence service, DGSE, who now runs a private intelligence company in Brussels, fear that Europe will face further attacks.

                  “What we expect is a multicity, multi-target attack at the same moment, and it will have terrible consequences,”

Racism and Radicalisation

Many are not surprised. For years racism against Muslim immigrants has been a problem in various European nations. In France it has lead to heated debates and riots over Islamic headdress. In Belgium, Moroccan Belgiums often face discrimination and marginalisation due to their nationality.

Many believe this lack of opportunities and societal rejection is the reason behind many of Europe’s youth becoming radicalised. One young Belgium Moroccan told a CNN reporter that,   

            "The Belgian state rejects children and young people; they say, 'They are all foreigners, why               should we give them a job?' They fill us with hate, and they say we aren't of any use, so when             young people see what's going on over there [in Syria], they think 'Well OK, let's go there and be useful.'"\