Syria: Failed State


The Hashemite Kingdom is not a failed state.  The verdict is not entirely clear regarding Iraq.  Lebanon has suffered with corrupt leadership and the export of terrorism for decades.  They remain a cautionary tale regarding lack of good sense.  Egypt? Stable state with immense poverty.

Because it really does not matter if you have pyramids if your citizens dwell in squalor.  And nobody cares if you boast of excellent safari adventures for hunters or a canopy rope bridge through the jungle... a magnificent waterfall. Pyramids are the work of slaves.  Nature is the gift of God. And beyond the arts, sciences, and mathematics, a rudimentary benchmark for a civilization/modern state is care for the citizens. 

Can your citizens reside within their neighborhoods with calm and lack of fear for basic safety? Is there potable water? Nutrition?  Medical access?  Vibrant corridors of commerce and education?  Successful states (Turkey comes to mind) take care of their citizens.

But Syria?  Syria - mows them down; and ambushes, kills, kidnaps, and tortures their representative minority citizens.  The President is also embarked on lucrative land grabs.

And whether it is Alawite or Druze shop owners in Damascus receiving threats, Christians being oppressed,  protesters being fired upon in  As-Sanamayn or the continued violence in Daraa Province,  Syria presents as an infestation of incompetence and corruption - beginning with and ending with - their self-appointed President.

Meanwhile, beyond what I coined as "Toyota Jihad", (because of the white new Toyota trucks ferried to the Taliban years ago)  the rural areas of Syria continue to suffer from motorcyclist jihad. In the western region of Hama Province, motorcyclists are speeding along and spree killing members of the Alawite community,  opening fire along the roads without any attempt at pursuit by official-dum. Why pursue them? They are doing God's work.

There was also a recent coordinated effort mounted to remove members of an Alawite-majority neighborhood from Damascus with 52 families scuttled into the streets and their homes confiscated. This mirrors what President Omar al Bashir did in the Sudan years ago.  Sitting atop the ancestral lands of Muslim families in Khartoum are the edifices of the cooked-up deals which enriched a corrupt despot.  Invalidate the deeds.  Sell the land.  Buy gold and stash it in the bank in your wife's account....

Observers in Syria have taken note of long columns of military equipment on the Homs-Damascus highway moving toward Damascus and onward to As Suwayda and Daraa.  Not only trucks, but locally modified combat vehicles,  armored personnel carriers, and the metal beasts known as tanks.  Moving under cover of darkness, this does not bode well for Suwayda.  The massacre perpetrated against the Christian and Druze population in July 2025 might resurrect as the massacre of October 2026. There is good reason that we embrace Posse Commitatus as a model of military business in America.  We will never see the tanks rolling down the streets.  





I feel a bit sorry for this man.  An opposition leader when Al Assad was in power, his confiscated property holdings are now being developed by the current president.  Returning to Syria was a very bad decision.  And touching down in an extremely dangerous country where Canada has not had a sovereign footprint for years and then making an appeal to the U.S. Embassy and the Canadian Embassy in Lebanon shows quite a bit of desperation.  Walking through the door of your representative embassy allows for immediate safety. I have no idea regarding his status now but hope he safely flew out of Damascus. As for the Syrian citizens trapped within their failed state - I offer no advice.





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