DSPO 23A11 - The Syrian war: from domestic conflict to global confrontation

The thirteen-year conflict that ravaged Syria between the March 2011 uprising and the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 drastically transformed the country's social and political fabric, while it also reshaped Middle Eastern power dynamics and the global political order at large. Such diverse phenomena as the exacerbation of the Israeli-Iranian rivalry up to the 2023-2024 showdown, the revival of Russian and Turkish imperial ambitions, and the rise of the far-right in Europe and the United States can all be partly traced back to the Syrian conflict and its fallout (e.g. the mid-2010s refugee crisis and global terrorist campaign). In this seminar course, the Syrian war will be approached as a multi-layered conflict whose roots and structure are distinctly domestic, but whose dynamics have been reshaped by the involvement of foreign states, transnational networks and international organizations. After reviewing the social, economic and political dynamics that have paved the way for the partial collapse of the Syrian political system in 2011, we will see how an uprising that started as part of a region-wide revolutionary wave turned into an armed conflict characterized by extreme military escalation (resulting, in turn, in unprecedented levels of population displacement) and, on both sides, foreign intervention and the proliferation of non-state armed groups. We will discuss the reasons for the fragmented character of the opposition, the factors behind the rise of hardline Islamist factions and the rise of rebel governance in regions abandoned by the Assad regime, leading to the establishment of quasi-state entities run by the Islamic State organization, and the Kurdish YPG, and the now incumbent Hay'a Tahrir al-Sham. We will address the shortcomings of the regime's attempted restoration following its Iranian and Russian-enabled military victories in the second half of the 2010s. International dimensions of the war will be further explored through sessions on attempted mediations by the UN and so-called “guarantor states” (e.g., the US, Russia, Iran and Turkey), on the refugee crisis, and on multifaceted activism in the diaspora. The course will conclude on an analysis of the ongoing political transition, followed by a role-playing game during which students will act as the participants in a Syrian national conference aiming to define the parameters of the post-Assad political system.

Thomas PIERRET

Séminaire

English

Spring 2024-2025

1°) Class presentation and participation (20%/10%) 2°) Final assignment (2500 words) (40%) 3°) Role-playing game (Syria national conference): negotiation document and participation (30%)