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Usman Butt on FB:
The truth is Syria is finished as a country. That's the reality that
nobody is willing to admit to. The Syrian army has fallen to bits and
can scarcely be called an army anymore. There is no economy, limited
electricity, health system has been decimated and state infrastructure
has been pounded to the point of near collapse. The only thing
sustaining the idea of Syria were the Syrian people, but now for the
sake of the political survival of one man, the people have been crushed
and their place has been taken by disaster capitalists from Iran and Russia.
Places like Damascus were among the oldest continual inhabited cities in
the world, pre-Islamic civilisation built great cultural, political and
intellectual centres. The arrival of Islam expanded upon this and
cemented the reputation of the land as holy for billions today. 50 years
of Ba'athists rule, 17 years of Assad rule, Syria has reached a new low,
it is barely fit enough to call itself a brothel. 17 years of 'secular'
Assadist rule, 470,000 dead, 11 million displaced (including 6 million
refugees at least), 60,000 in prisons/internment camps and a trillion
dollars worth of damage is all his regime has to show for itself.
The country will be ruled by a mishmash of different militias whose
loyalty to the Assad regime will begin to wane as they increasingly
don't see the need for him and want to grab more power for themselves by
attacking other militias loyal to Assad. A civil war between the
different loyalist militias will erupt. Iran and Russia will come to
blows in Syria (via proxy) as their agendas begin to diverge. Al Qaeda
and the next generation of ISIS will find a permanent home in Syria,
radicalisation caused by Assad's supposed victory will create fertile
ground for the next generation of Jihadis. Sectarianism will intensify
and soon nobody will be able to control any of the militias. The Iraqi
Shia militias operating in Syria will increasingly break from Tehran and
will openly disobey Iraqi clerics they currently have loyalty too, as
the aggressive radicalisation of the group members intensifies to new
levels. What they will morph into should be of great international concern.
Syria educated and connected middle class facing the spectacle of more
war and corruption will continue to leave the country and invest abroad.
Iran and Russia will be unable to reconstruct Syria as their economies
are far too weak.
Assad's 'victory' is also the victory for normalised Islamophobia, which
will farther alienate Western Muslims who are still in the eye of the
storm of Islamophobia. Most western Muslims don't realise that the
inaction of western states to support liberated Syria, the decision to
support Assad by other states, is rooted in the deepening entrenchment
of Islamophobia in the international system. Right wing groups, the
popular mood in various country, and left wing movements, are all
reflecting this growing problem. While they might have different
attitudes towards Muslims, Syria has created a shared well of
Islamophobia for both the left and right to drink from. Of course ISIS
and Al Qaeda loves this as Assad's 'victory' grantees their future and
no amount of 'this doesn't represent Islam' is going to get us out of
this problem.
Only the people of Syria could have saved us from this fate. But instead
we chose comfortable lies and have condemned them and us to a new cycle
of violence.
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