The Syrian Arab Republic
has been inhabited for 10's of 1000's of years and, as a result,
has a rich cultural history.
The area that is now the Syrian Arab Republic was part of the Empire
of Mesopotamia around 2300 BC, during which time the cities of Byblos
and Ugarit (where the oldest written alphabet in the world is believed
to have been developed) grew to become powerful commercial centre's.
By about 500 BC, southern Syria had fallen under the rule of Egypt,
while the northern principalities had been welded into the Mitanni
Empire.
Within a few centuries, however, the Hittites from the north had
overrun all of Syria, an empire that in turn collapsed in the face
of invasions by the Mediterranean Sea working class. The history
of the following centuries, until the eventual destruction of the
Kingdom of Judah
in 539 BC, is 1 of a struggle by Assyrians, Babylonians, Canaanites,
Phoenicians and several other tribes and empires for control of
Syrian trade. Alexander the Great absorbed Syria into his empire
in 333 BC, however, control of the region was disputed for the following
2 centuries, on this occasion, between the assorted people trying
to gain control of his inheritance.
For many centuries, the Province of Syria enjoyed
the mixed blessings of the Pax Romana and was a province of the
Eastern (Byzantine) Empire after the division of the Roman Empire.
But even then, Syria was considered as a frontier region, bordered
to the east by the Arabs and Persians. The Persian invasions were
revolted but Syria eventually fell to the Muslims in the mid 17th
century. From then on, Syria was to be firmly part of the Muslim
world, although maintaining Christian and Jewish populations.
Muslim control of Syria was essential to the
defeat of the Christians and their expulsion from
Jerusalem. However, during the 13 th century, a far greater threat
was the terrifying force of the Mongols. In the
space of 50 years, they swept through Asia, creating an empire that
stretched from Moscow to Korea. By 1260, they had overrun Syria
and overthrown the Abbasid Khalif. The Muslim world, and, indeed,
the Christian one, seemed doomed. But in that year, the Mamluk General
Baybars defeated the massive army of Hulagu at the Battle of Goliath’s
Well, a victory that, in retrospect, must be seen as 1 of the world’s
most decisive military engagements. By 1520, the region had fallen
under the sway of the Ottoman Turks and, as a result, Syria prospered
once, for the most part.
The 19 th century was a period of increasing restlessness in the
area, Napoleon’s campaign in 1799 / 1800, the Egyptian
invasion in the 1830's and the insurrection in 1860 to
1861 are 3 instances of this. The Turks were defeated in World War
I and Syria was engaged by the French for a short time, before Syria
was granted full independence in 1946. 3 years later, the country
came under the 1st of a series of military dictatorships that have
governed the country for most of the subsequent period.
As in the rest of the Middle East, Arab nationalism
became a huge political force during the 1950s, indeed, the influence
of Nasser’s revolution in Egypt on the Syrians was so powerful
that Syria joined Egypt in forming the United Arab Republic in 1958.
The alliance was short lived, Syria seceding in 1961, to form the
Syrian Arab Republic. The most powerful political force in Syria
since then has been the Ba’ath Party or Arab Socialist Renaissance,
which seized power in 1971, under the leadership of General Hafez
al-Assad, who ruled at the head of a tightly controlled dictatorship,
until his death in June 2000.
Assad’s
main power base was the Alawite group, a Muslim sect to which 10
% of the Syrian population is affiliated. With the tactical and
strategic skill that was his trademark, Assad comfortably dealt
with the challenges to his superiority, largely through his control
of the army and the country’s myriad intelligence organisations.
The major exception occurred in February 1982, when the Muslim
Brotherhood, the chief opposition group confronting the
Assad regime, launched a rebellion from the town of Hama. The rebellion
was crushed, with several 1000 deaths, by military forces led by
Assad’s brother Rifaat who then controlled the country’s
security forces. A few months afterwards, Assad then faced his most
solemn foreign policy challenge since the loss of the Golan Heights
(an area bordering the Syrian Arab Republic and Israel) in the 1973
Arab - Israeli war, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
The Syrian Arab Republic perceived Israel’s strategy as establishing
a Christian subjugated client state, underpinned by Israeli
military power. The Syrian Arab Republic could not hope
to match the Israelis militarily but Assad nonetheless managed to
manoeuvre the Syrian Arab Republic into a dominant position in Lebanon.
This he accomplished by supporting the main Lebanese Muslim militias,
Amal and Hezbollah, and then introducing a substantial military
presence of its own, remaining careful to avoid direct confrontation
with the Israelis.
In 1984, the Israelis moved into a self styled ‘security
zone’ south of the Litani River and in 1999, after
a decade and a half of attritional guerrilla warfare with the Syrian
backed Hezbollah, the Israelis pulled out overall. The Syrian Arab
Republic, meanwhile, had established a political and military dominance
over Lebanon, which continues to this day, although events in early
2005, such as the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister,
Hariri, the United Nations Security Council and the United States
of America's increasing pressure on Syria, and rallies on both sides,
have prompted Syria to begin the process of withdrawing its troops,
although it is not know how quickly or how thoroughly this process
will be undertaken.
Apart from anything else, their attendance in Lebanon
served to confirm that the Syrian Arab Republic was indispensable
to a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East. The Syrian Arab
Republic has yet to secure its main objective the return of the
Israeli occupied Golan Heights, and has made clear that unless the
issue is settled, the Syrian Arab Republic will not follow Egypt
and Jordan in reaching a formal peace with the Jewish state. It
is therefore uncertain whether Syria will be prepared to exit Lebanon
completely, when it is so key to their objective in Israel.
There have been some cautious contacts between the Syrian Arab Republic
and Israel in the last few years, most recently
in early 2004. Israeli premier Ariel Sharon invited President Bashar
Assad to visit Israel, an offer which so far has not been accepted.
The relationship between the 2 countries took a turn for the worse
in 2005 over an alleged deal Syria was making with Russia to acquire
missiles.
The Syrian Arab Republic’s relations with the West
reached a nadir during the late 1980's, but the 1991 Gulf
War came as an unanticipated blessing, with the United
States of America eager to attract Arab states into the anti Iraqi
coalition. Assad had been an implacable opponent of Saddam Hussein’s
Iraq from the beginning, the pan-Arab Ba’athist movement had
suffered a lethal ideological split in the 1960's which has never
been healed. The Syrians were happy to back the United Nations
coalition and as part of the deal, they also secured considerable
financial support and the guarantee of a free hand in Lebanon (which
they still have, although, as aforementioned, this is subject to
increasing contention and it is possible Syria may withdraw completely
by later within the tear).
In June 2000, after years of deteriorating health, President
Assad died. Having fallen out with his brother, Rifaat,
some years earlier, and with the accidental death of his eldest
son, Basil, in 1994, Assad had selected his 2nd son, Bashar, as
heir. While domestic policy has seen something of a relaxation under
Bashar, Western hopes that the Syrian Arab Republic would pursue
a more pro Western line have proved misguided, in the vocabulary
of the United States Bush administration, the Syrian Arab Republic
is a ‘state of concern’ (1 level below the ‘axis
of evil’). The Syrians have provided some assistance to the
Western ‘War Against Terror’ but were
strongly opposed to the Anglo American invasion of Iraq in 2003.
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