17.02.2017
Syria
Ahmad Khaddour
There are various causes and factors that led to the outbreak of the devastating war in Syria, including direct and indirect economic and social causes.
Israel had withdrawn from south Lebanon (except the Shebaa Farms) on May 25, 2000. This withdrawal came after a long period of battles and operations conducted by Hezbollah against Israeli's military sites in southern Lebanon. This tactic was political and military supported by Syria (including missile supplies). This Syrian support offered to the resistance harmed Israel and caused it pain. Even so, remaining parts of the rockets falling on Israeli settlements showed that some of the missiles were Syrian-made. The outcome of this war was that Syria imposed a new balance in the region, and this is one of the most important reasons that led to the war in Syria, whose goal is to destroy the Syrian army and Syrian leadership power.
When American troops entered Iraq in March 2003 in order to tighten American control on the unipolar world, Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, came to Damascus. While the United States felt passionately the taste of victory in Iraq, the United States asked President Bashar al-Assad to abandon support for Hezbollah and cut the relationship with Iran, Assad rejected the US proposals, and the "Syrian regime" started to support the Iraqi "Sunni" and "Shiite" resistance against the US army, and began to fatigue the US "imperial" military army in Iraq, until America withdrew from Iraq and the last US soldier left Iraq on December 18, 2011. This was one of the causes of the international outrage against the Syrian State.
Syria has embraced various Palestinian factions which raised the slogan of resistance against Israel, including Hamas, which today publicly announces its hostility to the"Syrian Regime,” i.e., the Syria that had delayed the opening of the Golan front due to the difficult conditions that allowed Israeli and American military superiority after the fall of the Soviet Union, but maintained a "balance of fear" with Israel. Syria did not sign any treaties with Israel, and continued providing support to Arab resistance movements against Israel.
Syria is considered to be one of the most important geopolitical and economic centers for the major parties of the international equation. The position of Syria on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean makes it a coastal gateway for the Asian continent, and linking the three continents of Asia, Europe and Africa, it is thus located at the intersection of crossing lines and trade between continents. America and some Western countries want to have power over Syria to extend pipelines from the Persian Gulf to Europe via Syria to break Europe's dependency on Russian gas as well as to make the Syrian land and its harbors a passage for the import and export of goods to the Arab Gulf states.
How did the war in Syria begin?
