Why did the Syrian Revolution Fail

          Why did the Syrian Revolution Fail

                     By

       Dr. Michael Sakbani 

What Was the Revolution About

The Syrian people have been ruled since 1963 by the Baath Party. Since its establishment in the late 1930s, the party has gone into 4 transformations. At the establishment, it was a pan- Arab movement reflecting the prevailing culture and the sense of the Arab identity of Syria. The second transformation was in 1952 when Mr. Akram al Hourani merged his Arab Socialist party with the Baath, thereby forming the Baath Arab Socialist Party.

Mr. Hourani introduced into the Baath socialism as an economic goal in which the rural population would revolt and seize the lands of the bourgeoise owners. He also inserted the Party into the army. Mr. Hourani had been since the late 1940s encouraging the youth of his region, Hama, to enter the officer school so that he uses the army to further his political career. This enabled the Party that got only16 elected members in the 142 deputies in the  Syrian parliament of 1954, to play an outsized role  in directing Syria through implicit army control.

 The third transformation came in 1961, after the demise of the United Arab Republic. A few hundreds of the old cadres of the party reestablished it after its dissolution by Nasser, but without Mr. Hourani. However, this Baath unfortunately continued Mr. Hourani`s demarche to draft military officers into the party and his socialist orientation without regards to the economic failures it brought about in Syria.

This was the Baath that came to power by the coup d`etat of 1963.Ghe Baath expanded its membership after it assummed power from a few hundreds to thousands who flocked to it beacause they wanted association with power and control. This Baath ruled Syria for seven years full of internal party strife for power and position. It conquered authority by a coup d`Etat and execised authority by claiming that it represented the people without ever consulting them. Thus, its leaders and officials involved themselves in a struggle for positions and not for policy goals. Throughout these years, the ruling Baath steered its governance away from the Syrian people in the belief that it represented and spoke for the people even in the absence of any open, free democratic consultation. 

From 1963 to 1966, It showed an inexorable increase of control by the military elements of its regional Syrian command. Thousands pf people were arrested. Thousand were dismissed , especially in the army. These years exposed also the lack of experience and indiscipline and sometimes even lack of political intelligence of the Party leaders. It was a period of competing for power and personal gain without adherence to any lofty goals. And that was not surprising, as the Party was largely popualed by individuals hailing from the lower middle class with literacy but remote relationship to the economically productive cadres and the cultural mileau of most of the Syrians.   

In 1965, the militarist now in control of the Syrian Party ended up expelling most of the civilian leaders, including the two founding fathers; Michele Aflaq and Salahuddin al Bitar.  They also broke up with the Party`s national command. Moreover, the purge of the Party went hand- in-hand with purging the Army of thousands of its professionally trained and experienced officers for the simple reason that they were not party members. In reality, this was the prelude to the 1967 defeat by Isreal. The Syrian front was surrendered without a fight in order for the army to protect the party in power. Sadly, after this defeat the cardinal goal of Arab unification was no longer a Policy concern and the nationalist goal of an Arab Common-Wealth of cooperation in any form was practically ended.

Once the militarists were firmly in control, the rivals moved to purging each other. Hafez al Assad  moved to get rid of his old allies of the” military committee”and to physically liquidate them. First, it was Mohammad Omran in1966, then Abdul Karim al Jundi in 1969 and finally, Salah al Jadeed who enterred the prison in 1970 and left it dead years later(Note)[i].

In 1971, Hafez al Assad the ex-major who promoted himself to a major-general, took over the state and the Party in a military coup, thereby ushering the Party into a fourth transformation where it claimed to be the leader and the sole representative of the Syrian people. Indeed, his 1973 Constitution provided for that explicitly in its article eight.

  Once the deck was cleared of rivals, Hafez al Assad faced the problem that the Baath that he then dominated had no significant popular base. It had no urban support in the big cities and whatever rural support it might had was poverty stricken in an economy that had neither developed national capitalism nor a wide proletariat to mobilize. The danger to his authoritarian rule will thus come from the middle class. So, he proceeded to build an authoritarian order that substitutes for and excludes the existing middle class. This order was based on a minority sectarian base to man the controlling power centers. To keep control of the security forces set up to  protect the regime, he multiplied rival security forces each competing with the other in sevicing the regime. And to round up this set up, individuals working for the authoritarian state were enabled through corruption and graft to steal from the society.This ushered Syria into a one- party system with a collectivistic non-democratic form of representation, where the concept of social contract was absent and the peaceful alteration of power non-existent (Constitution, 1973)[ii].

Throughout the 1970s, Hafez al Assad increased the representation of minorities, in particular his Alawites sect, in both the Party and the Army top command. His proliferated security services, were dominated by Alawites loyal to him. To free them from accountability, he granted them immunity under the law and a wide scope of competence in every aspect of the state. Simultaneously, his 1973 Constitution arrogated to him the control of the judiciary, the Party, and the Executive. The Parliament was made a stamping body practically appointed by him. It was clear after the mid- seventies, that the Baath had become a personal tool for Assad charecterised by an anti-urban character, further marginalizing the Sunni urban majority.

The simmering discontent of the majority population broke out in the 1982 events where Hafez al Assad suffered an attempt on his life, and where many of his collaborators were assassinated. These armed actions were the work of a small militant minority of the Muslim Brothers aided and supported by the rival Baath regime in Baghdad. Even though the violent actions of this fringe were largely outside the silent majority participation, they could not have taken place in the absence of a wide discontent and alienation of the vast majority of the populous. The violdnce of this part of the MB, furnishd the regime with the justification to react by the massacres of Hamah, Palmera`s prison and Jusrul Shughour as well as by arresting tens of thousands of people, some of whom disappeared without a trace. (Note )[iii].

The 1980s and 1990s were periods of great repression by the multiple security services and of considerable economic difficulties. The economic performance was markedly bellow the median of developing countries in growth and technology acquisition. In many years, the real per-capita income declined and the economy reeled under the control of an inefficient public sector most of whose institutions were in the red. Theft of the Public Treasury, in particular, the oil and gas revenues, became routine. These revenues went to the account of the President and not to the State Budget. What hapenned to the funds and who ended up owning them can only be guessed at from the enormous building up of wealth by the Assad family and its collaborators. The political system was in shambles, all the civil society organizations, including syndicates, were extinguished and the repression of other political views created a society living in fear under the military boot. In effect, the Syrian State disappeared. 

The Party was made an empty shell for Hafez al Assad one person-rule. For twenty years, it had no National Conference. Considering the important role played by the Baath in Syria, it is astonishing that the Party disappeared in the two decades after the events of 1982 leaving hardly any important intellectual trace or ideological contribution. This was not surprising if one considered the type of cadres that populated the active parties in Syria and the ideology the Baath had. The Baath was fundamentally a flawed party. It had a right wing nationalist Arab creed, mixed with leftist socialist program. The two ideologies were also mixed with a mythical mission (al Risah al khalidah), which some bellieved to refer to Islam and others had differnt understanding. A mix of ideologies from the right to the left that is both confused and confusing. The Baath like other Syrian parties was largely manned by the children of the lower middle class who went to schools which turned them literates, but without cultural awarness or links to their societies. They were essently produced to man the state apparatuses and to exercise contol and authority over the society. This was a standardized type that formed the cadres of the Baath, the Communist Party, the Muslim Brothers and the Nasserites. The result was that these parties had no programs,  and in the case of the Baath, failed to carry out programs of development and economic transformation, Added to that failed democratic governance, failed cultural and educational progress and failur in bulding societal and governmental instiutions   

The Governance of Hafez al Assad, was described by Michel Kilo as a progression from the dictorship of the Party to that of the sect and thereafter to that of the family. Loyalty, not merit, was the prime criteriion in all appointments and to lubricate that, corruption was allowed as a reward. So, the state became a family farm and its instiutions disappeared into the authoraterian apparatus solely commanded by Hafez al Assad and populated by his intelligence and army loyalists (Michel Kilo)[iv].

Hafez al Assad`s death in 2000, after years of semi-physical disability, ushered hopes of change. But his succession was a planned choreography in which his 34 year second son, Bashar, was to inherit the Presidency with the help of his father`s military collaborators and the regime beneficiaries. The Constitution which fixed the age of a President at 40 and above, was amended within a few hours to fit the son`s age of 34 and the Parliament approved his election the same day without dissent or discussion.

The new President with his youth and Western exposure, ignited hopes of a new era. For six months, the country lived in what was labled the” Damascus Spring”. In this brief period new names and personages appeared to eventually articulate the theme of Democratization and liberties under the law, which has been the Constant demand of the syrian people for forty years. In October 2005, the so called “ Declaration of Damascus” demanding freedom, gradual transition to multiparty system and equality of all citizens under the law was the concrete expression of this leitmotife (M.H. Kerr )[v]. 

These moderate demands fell on deaf ears. Reforms  never came and the reality dawned that the new President is a continuation of his father but without the latter experience and political cunning. This was to be expected, for Bashar was the instrument forged by the security apparatuses to continue their authoraterian control of the people. The disappointment in Bashar was total.

The “Damascus Declaration” gave rise to a nucleolus of an opposition, that the regime kept under watch. However, this opposition was far from homogeneous. There were first of all the Muslim Brothers and other political Islamists, who turned out to be as non- Democratic as Assad. There were also some liberal Democrats, some leftists, some engaged intellectuals and some" opposants" planted by the regime`s secret services. This opposition “mélange” was later to become the “ opposition- abroad” which claimed to represent the Syrian people[vi]. The one thing common to all was the lack of political experience and the absence of a domestic political base; altogether not surprising, as Syria had only 8 years of democratic practice:1945-1949 and 1954 to 1958.

When the winds of the Arab Spring blew into Syria, the uprising against the long entrenched regime was spontaneous and without a domestic leadership that had a program. People wanted to breath freely, wanted to choose their governance and wanted the rule of justice under the law, things that the Syrian people did not have to a larger extent than their neghbors.

The Leaderless Revolution

For six months, the revolution was unarmed. But as the numbers of the killed and the arrested mounted into the thousands, the leaderless revolution was manefestly in need of protection and perhaps arms. The regional Arab autocrats who viewed the revolution as a threat, found in the non- unified ranks, individuals who would do their bidding, while the West viewed its backing as a gamble on an unknown alternative.

Each of the regional autocratic regimes recruited its agents among the opposition figures living abroad. The Qataris sponsored the Muslim Brothers, the Saudis and the UAE sponsored the Salafist Political Islamists while the West hung its hopes on the military defectors as well as on the minority of liberal democrats who had no domestic base, but without giving them the necessary aid . In effect, this meant that a majority of  the leadership of the opposition abroad was largely a set of sponsored agents on the payrolls of outside powers.

That was the seed that grew into failure. The revolution was about changing the way people are governed and the way that people accept how they are governed, but it metamorphed into pursuing the agendas of so called "supporters of the revolution"; i.e. outside powers. This was tantamount to giving up what the people rose for. For the people who rose to change their governance, the revolution was not merely about transiting from one regime to another, but about leading the society from one state of being: corruption, despotism, agency for foreign powers and disregard of human rights, into the anti-thesis of all that. And this is where the leaderless revolution lost its way.  

The regime which could not have sold itself to anybody now found an opportunity to highjack the revolution by introducing fundamentalist Salafist Islamists into this leaderless and divided revolution. So, along with Iranian intelligence and Maliki`s security services, it released from prisons the Islamists fundamentalist that in short time, formed ” ISIS” and other outfits like” Jabhatul Nusrah” and” Ahrarul Sham”. These formations were led by Salfist Islamists with no programs or experience. They collaborated with Saddam`s escaped army officers to form the various terrorist groups (Kilo, Sakbani)[vii]. This enabled the regime to present to the world a binary choice between itself and these fanatic terrorists. All attempts by western diplomates, in particular, ambassador Robert Ford of the US and Ambassador Eric Chevalier of France as well as well meaning Syrians, to unify the opposition and establish its presence on the ground failed (Antoine Mariotti)[viii].

The support of the West, which was initially genuine, became, henceforth, purely verbal and without a balancing impact on the forces on the ground (note) [ix]. The US in particular faced the Arab Spring in the shadows of the 9/11 terrible attacks. Its policies and strategic thinking was all about fighting Islamist Terrorism. When democracy produced in Egypt and, to an extent, in Tunisia, Sunni Islamists governments, the US did not find that Democracy produces an acceptable alternative to the autocratic dictators it had supported and controlled. Thus, Democracy was not its political objective. It all along found the "opposition" lacking in credentials and in effective control. Thus, its support of the Arab Spring was basically non commital and militarily lacking in effective means. In a cynical view, Syria was for the US a place where the regime and its fundamentalist Islamists would finish off each other. Europe ,with the possible exception of France, simply followed the US and did nothing to support the revolution.

To every observant eye, the Islamists militants confiscated the revolution, and the struggle became between two authoritarian sides: the regime and the Islamists. Many Syrians felt that this was no longer their revolution; for who in the rightness of mind would want to exit from the Assad dictatorship to a theocratic mediaeval dictatorship?

 Many of the old faces from the Declaration of Damascus started their revolutionary careers by forming the Syrian National Council in 2011. The Council was dominated by the Muslim Brothers and their allies. In 2014 it was transformed with expanded numbers into the" Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces”, ,i.e., the “Etilaf”. Interestingly, the new added  members came from many so called "local bodies", that were fabricated by and bore allegiance to the MBs.

The MB and their allies voted down the idea of creating a Syrian Free Army led by the defecting officers and the formation of a military council to controle and conduct the armed struggle in order to implement the UN`s Transition Authority. (Labawani)[x].

 It should be recalled that the UN decisions, in particular, UNSC 2245, provided for the establishment of a transition authority with full executive power to carry out a UN supervised election which will bring about an assembly to draft a new constitution and an authority which will  release all prisoners. However, this decision had no executive mechanisms. The MB as the dominant element in the opposition, were in reality trying to controll the transition to replace Assad with themselves (ibid.)[xi].

In 2015, Assad and his Iranian and Hizbullah supporters were on the verge of military defeat. This is when the Iranians sent the late Qasem Sulaymani to Moscow to talk the Russians into military intervention in Syria. Sulaymani succeded  in moving Puttin who had been solisited by assad for the previous two years.

 President Putin found in that a return to the Middle East tracing the steps of the Soviet Union, a field to test and show-case his new arms and a means to get new bargaining cards in his global assertion of Russia as the heir to the banished Soviet Union. Under the pretext of fighting international terror, the Russians intervened to save Assad and defeat the Syrian revolution. Western intelligence estimated that the greater part of the Russian aerial bombardment was directed at the revolutionaries and civilian targets ( Hill & Triepart, NYTimes, 2020)[xii].

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Turkey, the regional supporters of the revolution, each reordered their respective priorities and changed their policies. Saudi Arabia and the UAE were involved in Yemen and Turkey shifted its priorities to combating the Kurds while Qatar withdrew active direct support. The West, led by the US, looked the other way and, in effect, signed off Syria to the Russians.

The Putin Divergence Trap

To go around the UN decisions of transition, President Putin created the Astana and Suchi venues instead of the UN venues and convinced Turkey and Iran to travel this route and sponsor its decisions[xiii]. Surprisingly, the so called "opposition coalition" accepted to participate in this Russian diversionary approach and it set up and sent a negotiating team to this Russian farse.

Two major results came out of this Russian diversionary tactic : the first was a series of five local cease-fires whereby combatants were transferd from combat zones to concentration camps. In reality, a forced immigration of fighters to the Indians Reservation that became of Idlep, and the creation of the Geneva negotiations in the Committee of the Constitution. On the ground, the major result of this tri-partite conspiracy, was the fall of Aleppo and the disarming of the revolutionaries, thus, the effective defeat of the armed revolution.

Naturally, the regime violated every agreement and played out for time while the revolutionaries were decimated by his actions, and the combatants still alive were put out into the reservation of Idlep, which came under the joint contrfol of the terrorists led by Abu muhammad al Jolani and Turkey, whose policy has changed since Suchi following the Russian policy line

The Geneva Constitution Committe has in 9 sessions resulted in nothingness and instead of establishing under the UN a tranition body for Syria  and releasing all prisoners, the regime and his sponsors shifted these meetings to trivial and irrelevant issues and to drafting a Constiution which was supposed to be after establishing a transition authority. The sponsors also shifted their gaze to their own agendas[xiv]. In all this show, the Syrian people where absent in the deleberations of the outsiders about their future. It is truely astonihing that the so called "opposition" has been willing to participate in these Geneva endless and fruitless negotiations without being conscious of the time they grant the regime to consolidate its gripp while the Syrian society at large is disintegrating and sinking into misery. 

Is the Revolution Over ?

Throughout 2020 and 2021, practically nothing advanced on the Syrian dossier. The US has had zero ideas and evidenced a total lack of interest; the opposition did not gain a single concession from the regime, but kept going to the Geneva charade. The localities controlled by the revolutionaries and the American sponsored Kurds sank into corruption, ethnic cleansing and brutality (Young, Gergis) [xv]. Neither Turkey nor its agents manning the Eitilaf opposition tried to build in the liberated areas, zones of law and order, of personal security and non corruption. And the Russians failed to bring about a political settlement on the regime‘s terms.

After Di- Mestora’s failures, the UN named  Gier O. Pedersen as a special envoy to Syria. Pedersen did nothing for a year. Recently, he came up with the idea of step by step approach of mutual concessions.  The UN Special envoy idea, given where the revolution is now, amounts politically to an effort to garner up concessions to Assad and refloat him.

The call to refloat Assad despite all his unprecedented crimes, has found response among many Arab Governments, especially in the Gulf, and in Jordan who basicaly wants to repatriate the Syrian refugees and secure economic benefits (France 24, SOHR )[xvi]. These rulers harbor the illusions that returning Assad to the ineffective Arab League, can wean him off the Iranians and change his behavior, a false premise that stands on no basis in fact or record (Sakbani)[xvii]. If getting Iran out of Syria is the joint aim of all the regional and international players, then, only the return of the 12-14 million Syrians now in the diaspora, can chase out the Iranians from every niche they entered. 

So, in effect, the armed revolution has ended but the revolution has not. A settlement that ends the 11- year old Syrian problem has to bring about full implementation of the UN international decisions. This must include the followings:

1.  - Establishing a transition authority with full executive powers to organize a UN supervised elections of a National Assembly to draft a new Constitution and to set up a representative Government which can then change Syria.

2.  - The release of all prisoners,

3.  - Realization of legal transition justice with respect to all committed crimes and criminals.

 T.- The voluntary safe return of all Syrian refugees and the preservation of all their property and personal rights,

5.  - Reorganization of all military and security forces and dissolving most of them and subjugating them to legal accountability under a civilian non-partisan leadership,

6.  - Facilitating an International effort to finance the reconstruction of the country.

As it was pointed out before, the UNSC reolution 2254 had no executive mechanism. Moreover, it was not taken under chapter 7 of the UN Charter. So, outside powers are not forced to do anything. The Syrian revolution has been under the merci and conflict of interest of outside powers for more than a decade. Neither the regime of Assad nor the so called " Opposition" represent the will of the Syrian people. This is the lacunae that has prolonged the agoney. Thus, the Syrians must creat a body that can bring about a solution by the Syrians themselves in the areas which Assad does not control. 

This body must have unified military-organized power. It is impossible to unseat a regime that is armed and willing to fight its own people by politics. So, a genuine Syrian , free and terraine- present military body must be found. The presence of such a body would be coupled with elected political representation that focalizes any outside support. This would eliminate the conflict of interest of outside powers and thereby facilitate the implimentation of the UNSC decesion to create a transition authority. That is the only way to solve the Syrian problem and ends the nefast presence of militias, the oppressive regime and the occupiers.

What Are the Features of a True Free Syrian Order   

In the light of the Syrian political failures since independence, the Syrian state can neither be Arab Nationalist nor with the religious ideology of the Sunni majority. It has to be a civil secular state where all citizens are equal before the law. Neither nationalism nor religion are relevant to a modern state that can bring peace, prosperity and economic advance. Such a state has to be secular and democratic. Democracy is far more than just having elections. It requires a state of law protected by an independent judiciary, freedom of speech, of assembley, of association and of personal believes. Naturally, the political system requires organized parties of programs and policies but never of ideolgies of nationalism or religion.

The contemporary experience has demonstrated the failure of state-run economies. Thus, a market system with anti monopoly and controls of anti market domination has proven its superior eficiency and performance. But such an economy requires a social safty net that porvisides the basic needs in public health, sustenance and basic education. These are the neccessary conditions for social peace and progress. 

Experience also shows that a structure of governance requires a separation between the lagislature and executive and checks and balances, full transparence and free press. This model of liberal democracy is not perfect, but it has worked better than all other alternatives.

That is the Syria that can be hoped for and that a million people died for. 

 (Geneva 10 /2/2022)

[i] Hafez al Assad along with four other officers : M. Omran, A.K..al Jundi, A. al Meer, and S. Jadeed, established a secret military committee in Cairo in 1959 when Syria was a part of the UAR. These officers were sacked from the Syrian army during the UAR. After the 1963 coup, they were returned to service and with the help of other officers of rural background, they succeeded in  occupying critical positions in the Syrian army. With the dismissal from the army by the Baath of thousands of officers of nonpartisan background, the  military committee and the officers around it were able to practically  control the army.

[ii]  Article 7  of Assad Constitution of 1973 provides that the Baath Party is the sole representative and leader of the people. This, regardless of the political fronts formed with other groups, has resulted in a system of one party.

3. There was an attempt of assassination against Assad senior in 1981. A series of assassinations took place after that of key regime figures. In 1982 some 70 Alawite cadets in the artillery school of Aleppo were also massacred. The regime accused the Muslim Brothers of carrying out all these acts. In 1982, a big rebellion against the regime erupted in the city of Hammah inflicting close to a hundred casualties of the local security elements. The response of the regime was to attack and sack the city inflicting anywhere between 15 thousand and 40 thousand civilians killed. This was followed by a massacres  of islamist prisoners in Palmyra prison by the forces of Assad`s  brother and another massacre in Jisrul al Shougour.

[iv] Michel Kilo, “from the Party to the family”, mimeograph, 2018.

[v]  Malcolm H. Kerr, Damascus Declaration, in al Monitor, March 2012.

[vi]Among the signatories of Damascus Declaration were Michel Kilo, Kamal aLLabwani, Akraml al Bunni, Rriad Seif, Yasser al Turk, Burhan Ghalyoun,Haytham al Maleh, H. Abdi and several others

[vii] During the second meeting of the Committee of the Constitution  in Geneva in 2014, Michel Kilo, a prominent opposition leader told the al Monitor that the opposition presented pictures of Assad with several Emirs of ISIS .see, al Monitor January 23, 2014. See also Michael Sakbani,” The Tale of ISIS and the Problematique of the Islamists”  in michaelsakbani.blogspot.com, September, 2016.

[viii] Antoine Mariotti, La Honte de l``occident ; la coulisses de la Fiasco Syrienne, Tallandrier, 2021.

[ix] The US and other Western countries refused to give lethal weapons, including anti- aircraft weapons to the Syrian Free Army, thereby insuring total sky domination for the regime. The regime was, therefore,  able to use Barrel bombs dropped by Helicopters to decimate villages, towns and cities.

[x]  Dr. Kamal al labwani, a prominent signatory of the Damascus declaration and a member of the Syrian National Council, recounted in his program on YouTube how the NC was expanded into the Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces in a way to preserve the majority for the Islamists. He also states that the MB were totally opposed to the SFA.

[xi] Ibid .

[xii] See Evan Hill and Christaane Treibert, “ the Russian Bombardment,  New York Times, ,October 13, 2019, update on May 4,2021. Their documented investigation shows that the Russians bombarded 870 hospitals and clinics. The Russians also bombarded bakeries, schools, market fairs as well as militants’ positions.

[xiii] Saudi Arabia, and The UAE got bogged down for the last six years in a bloody war in Yemen without an end in sight. Turkey faced repeated attacks from Kurdish PKKseparatists in Northern  Syria and Iraq  This shifted the priorities of these countries away from the Syrian revolution

[xiv] Russia has now been in Syria for 7 years without achieving a political settlement that resolves the Syrian conflict on the terms of Russia and the regime.. It has deceived a part of the opposition into participating in useless negotiations in Geneva which produced zero results. It wants to spread Assad`s control over all of Syria, but to no avail. Russia  has so far  failed in that about 35 percent of Syria, containing the bulk of its water, energy resources  and agriculture remains outside the regime`s control. The Russians also face the problem of reconstructing the country for which neither they nor Iran have the resources to finance it.

[xv] Michael Young, “The administration in the Middle East”in Carnegie Middle Est  Center , February 3, 2022.

Professor Fawaz Gergis the LSE expert on the Middle east described on Fareed Zakaria program on Sunday, 6 february 2022, the US`policy as lost in inaction.

[xvi] The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights based in the UK (SOHR) has been tabulating statistics on the Syria. According to France 24, a new tally was established by the end of 2021. According to this source, 494,438 were killed by the regime. In addition, 42,000 were killed in the regime`s prisons, 168,326 were the regime`s casualties and there are still 57,567 persons in the government prisons whose fate is unknown. If the usual ratio of killed to injured is used ,it is reasonable to make a guess-estimate of 1 million injured and maimed.

To this staggering record, one has to add that 4 million Syrians have been internally displaced and 7 million Syrians forced to immigrate all over the world.. Moreover, the regime and the Russians have destroyed 80 % of the infrastructure. In a country whose population in 2010 was 24 million, this record delineates a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions in the annals of history. See France 24, January 2022.

The UAE, Oman and Jordan each for its own agenda have sent emissaries to Damascus in an attempt to return Syria to the Arab League.  

[xvii]See michael sakbani, The Middle East and the New Sham Project; Fantasies or Realpolitique, in michaelsakbani.blogspoi.com, November 2021.