Geography is a very important dimension in understanding why the Syrian rebellion has developed into what it is today. The five elements of geography- which are Location, Place, Human/Environment Interactions, Human Systems, and Regions- all have their own way of impacting the Syrian rebellion which will be discussed throughout the course of this blog post.
The location of Syria is a very crucial element to why the rebellion got to the point that it is at today, countries surrounding Syria quickly became involved due to the large amount of oil the country has. This made many countries very interested in helping the side that would benefit them most once they gained control of the country and its exports and political views. Russia, Iran, and to some extent China quickly began supporting Assad and the current government with military and financial help. On the other side Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Isreal began backing the rebel side. Yes, they did support the rebels because they supported their cause but from a geographical standpoint, countries like Jordan “experienced a major influx of refugees with approximately 500,000 displaced people moving into the country since 2011” (Colling 2013). This made these countries take initiative to help the rebels so that their countries population size can return to its regular size and Syria can once again help benefit the Middles Easts economy.
Place is impacted by the people who live in it and the beliefs they have. When looking at the geography of Syria it is easy to notice that it has a very diverse group of people with dozens of religions and other specific groups. This explains why a rebellion against the countries government became something much bigger than the people going against a government they disagreed with. Once the spark of war began each group had other beliefs and ethics they wanted to fight for which lead to multiple groups being created, unfortunately including ISIS. Each group is fighting for a place to call home where they can spread their beliefs throughout the entire country of Syria.
The human interactions with the environment has been something Syria has struggled with prior to the war, with only a third of the land considered suitable for agriculture. “Syria has invested heavily in modernizing and expanding its irrigation systems over the last 50 years” (ctd4, 2013). Prior to the war the people of Syria were actually working to improve the environments sustainability so that conditions for its people were better. Due to the war a majority of the money that went through the country went towards the war which put the development of this irrigation system to the war. Obviously the war has had a very negative impact on the environment of Syria but once this war is over, regardless of who gains control, the country will struggle extremely with its agriculture and feeding its people.
Human Systems is influenced by trade and is the reason for highly populated cities, the highly populated cities like Kobane are now high-profile battlegrounds. This highly populated areas have become highly desired places of control. These cities have sadly become nothing more then rubble and unrecognizable structures. All sides fight to control these cities so that they can gain grown on their fight.
The Region is unified by the abundant amount of oil in its area. Its abundance of oil is what funds the governments fight and what allowed it to oppress its people to the point where they said enough was enough. It also allowed the fighting to gain momentum due to the contributions from other countries which were due to their interest in which side would gain control of the oil exports in the future. It can be argued that this rebellion may not have become such a significant global issue and it may not have led to the creation of groups like ISIS if it were not for the significant amount of oil this country has.
Political Setting
The Syrian war began with its people simply being fed up with their government being run by a dictator, overtime it has developed into a very complex political issue that involves several world powers including the United States and Russia. When looking back at the country prior to the war, it was a place where military power gave rulers places within the government and the people had no voice. It is that “during the rule of the two Assad, Syria made considerable progress. By the eve of the civil war, Syrians enjoyed an income (GDP) of about $5,000 per capita” (Polk, 2013). Syria was fairly well off as a country but the people were no longer willing to sit around and be controlled by the Assad regime.
Assad’s rule had a “lack of political participation, fear of public demands, and severe police measures, which made the regime appear to be a tyranny. This and its hostility to Israel lead to large-scale, if covert, attempts at regime change by outside powers including the United States” (ibid) Prior to the war the Unites States government felt that Syria was a country which was “supporting terrorism and occupying much of Lebanon as well as seeking chemical weapons.” (ibid). Many countries have kept an eye on Syria prior to the war and once it began foreign involvement was bound to occur very quickly.
Prior to the war many countries did attempt to gain diplomatic relations with Syria, “in 20110, the U.S. sent an ambassador to Syria” “the sanction aimed to diminish government revenues, particularly from oil exports, and to increase public opposition to the regime” (ibid). Unfortunately, this did not have much of an impact.
When the Syrian people spoke up against the government Assad made it clear that he had no intentions of giving up his power and responded with violence. On August of 2013 Chemical weapons killed hundreds of people, “western powers said it could only have been carried out by Syria’s government, but the government blamed rebel forces. Facing the prospect of US military intervention, President Assad agreed to the complete removal and destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal” (BBC News, 2016). Now as discussed earlier the war doesn’t seem to have a possibility of ending anytime soon with all of its foreign involvement. With countries benefiting from the cheap oil prices due to the war, they continue adding more fuel to the fire by arming more and more people in Syria. The UN has made many efforts to help bring this war to an end or at least regulate it but haven’t found much success in doing so, the UN has blamed this on the “Syrian government refusal to discuss oppositional demands” (ibid).
This war has caused the governments of many countries across the world to discuss the political issue of how many refugees they are willing to take in. This has had a significant effect on many European governments and had also caused the EU to take action. At first the Eastern European countries were open to their open boarder policy and welcomed the refugees, some countries apposed to this which created a very large debate between the EU, but the “November 13 attacks in Paris have thrown fuel on an incendiary debate.” (ibis). After the attack, Poland’s European Affairs Minister, Konrad Szymanski spoke out by saying “After the tragic events of Paris we do not see political possibility of respecting them.” (ibis). It is truly disturbing to see what a negative impact this war has had on the Syrian people. This war has created a uncontrollable mess between the different groups seeking power in Syria, due to the acts of terror of one of these groups, ISIS, the Syrian people wishing to flee the country struggle to do so because of the negative images that have been related to them. This war has had an incredible amount of effects on the world globally which could have possibly been avoided if Assad was willing to step down from power.
Syrian Civil War 