Five Takeaways From The Latest Sectarian Violence In Syria

The most likely scenario is that the Kristallnacht-like massacre of Alawites goes unpunished and the rebellion by some of the victims’ co-religionists is decisively defeated.

Syria was rocked by sectarian violence in recent days after the interim authorities and their foreign allies massacred members of the Alawite minority en masse in response to an armed rebellion from some of their co-religionists. It’s impossible to independently determine how many people have been killed, but social media is awash with videos showing the execution of children, women, and the elderly, which anyone can easily find if they look for them. Here are five observations about what just happened:

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1. Syria Just Suffered Its Own Kristallnacht

The interim authorities and their supporters collectively blame Alawites for every Assad-era grievance just like the Nazis blamed Jews for every grievance before, during, and after World War I. It was therefore inevitable that Syria would suffer its own Kristallnacht given the hatred that was boiling. Just like the preplanned pogrom against Jews was set into motion by the killing of a Nazi diplomat, so too was a similar pogrom against Alawites set into motion by the armed rebellion that some of them attempted.

2. Different Roles Led To Different Reactions

The interim authorities and their supporters don’t want foreign forces involving themselves in what they insist is a domestic affair, which is the opposite of their stance when they were in the opposition and urged foreign forces to intervene on various pretexts. Likewise, some of the victims and their supporters want maximum international media coverage, sanctions (maintaining existing ones and imposing new sanctions), and even a humanitarian intervention despite opposing all three before Assad’s downfall.

3. Inconsistent Approaches Towards Israel

The interim authorities and their supporters haven’t meaningfully responded to Israel’s military expansion inside Syria that’s placed its forces just outside of Damascus, yet they rapidly mobilized to brutally put down the armed rebellion from some of their own compatriots. They also claimed for years that Assad was secretly colluding with Israel, but their inconsistent approaches towards it, including some of them receiving support from Israel in the past, expose their hypocrisy on this sensitive issue.

4. Russia Is Placed In A Very Difficult Position

Russia is in talks with the interim authorities to retain its air and naval bases, but it’s also sheltering some of the (presumably mostly Alawite) civilians that these same authorities sought to slaughter. This might place Russia in a difficult position if the interim authorities demand that these civilians be handed over to them otherwise they’ll rescind their Assad-era military base deal. Russia doesn’t want to lose these facilities, but it also doesn’t want those civilians’ blood on its hand, which would lead to a dilemma.

5. A Coalition Of Malcontents Is Forming

It’s premature to predict that Syria will Balkanize along identity-centric lines, but a coalition of malcontents is veritably taking shape even if only informally among its various minorities like the Alawites, Druze, and Kurds. No mechanism has yet to be created for coordinating their activities, but it can’t be ruled out that one might soon be unveiled, including through the efforts of Israel, the UAE, and/or Russia (all three of which are close) or Iran (whether together with Russia or on its own).

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The most likely scenario is that the Kristallnacht-like massacre of Alawites goes unpunished and the rebellion by some of the victims’ co-religionists is decisively defeated. Another hybrid civil-international war probably won’t break out anytime soon unless coordinated with the Druze, Kurds, and foreign forces, which doesn’t seem likely for now. The best that can therefore happen is that Putin grants refugee status to the civilians under his country’s protection and lets them move to Russia without delay.