Syria From The Great War To Civil War

John McHugo's book focuses on 1920-2015 and provides a clear and concise overview of Syria's history over the period. Syria’s population is about 92% Arab, but it has many religious factions who have not always got along. Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire until 1919 and was under French rule 1920-1946. Since 1970 it has been ruled by the Assad family. McHugo speaks Arabic and first visited Syria in 1974 while studying for a graduate degree in Islamic history in Cairo. He then became a London based lawyer and spent a lot of time in the Middle East.McHugo argues that the actions of the West since 1919 have often destabilized Syria and made it difficult for it ever to become a normal country. The main aim of the Syrians has been to keep the country free of foreign domination. He argues that Syria has no reason to trust the West and that is why it has often allied itself with Moscow. American commentators still believe that the US has a role to play in solving the problems of the Muslim world and countries like Syria, but this book makes it clear that we are no longer seen as honest brokers by the Arabs. The US has always supported Israel and Israel is viewed as a hostile foreign aggressor by the Syrians.McHugo tells us that the Assad regime has been brutal and corrupt and that its security services have even tortured children. Syria has seen a lot of bloodshed, before and during the recent civil war. He suggests that getting rid of Assad would be a good start, but does not support partitioning of the country since this would require ethnic cleansing and would result in more bloodshed. He suggests that for the foreseeable future the country is likely to be run by warlords.The Ottoman Empire was dismantled by the Allies and in 1920 France was handed a Mandate by the League of Nations.to rule the country. Most Syrians did not understand why the French had been sent to rule them. The French were hostile towards Islam. They wanted to eradicate the religion and prevent democracy taking hold. They were brutal and unpopular. McHugo believes that the French made a mess of running the country and did not improve the lives of its people. The French hoped to again rule Syria after WW2, but the Syrians wanted them gone. The French carried out a massacre in 1945 and lost the support of Britain. France was kicked out of the country in 1946 and they abandoned Syria. Syria needed help and guidance with its new democracy but it was on its own.The global Cold War tussle between the US and the USSR turned Syria into a pawn. The Saudis have regularly meddled in the country’s affairs and tried to put their own man in charge in 1955. The US tried to organize a coup to overthrow the Syrian government in 1956 and failed. Syria was democratic until it merged with Egypt in 1958. The Assads were able to take control of the country in 1970 because they had the backing of the army. The Ba’ath party supported the country’s new leader, Hafez al-Assad, and Syria became a one-party state. Hafez ruled until 2000. His son Bashar rules today.Syria is made up of many different religious factions: Sunni Muslims (75%), Christians (10%), Druze (3%), and Alawites (11%). Ba’thism was perceived by the Bush Administration as evil, but Michel Aflaq, its main thinker, was a Christian. The London Times described him in 1959 as “the Ghandi of Arab nationalism.” Ba’thists originally advocated socialism and cared about the poor and complained about the selfishness of the elite. McHugo claims that the various Syrian factions peacefully co-existed at one time. The French practiced divide and rule and introduced sectarianism. The Assad family has continued this practice. The Assads are Alawite, which is a branch of Shi’ism. The Assads have only trusted other Alawites to run the army and the security services. The Assads turned the country into a police state and like the French saw Islamic militancy and democracy as twin threats to their rule.Things started to go wrong for Assad in 2011, when authoritarian rulers were being overthrown during the Arab Spring. The Assads had improved literacy and the number of university graduates. However, unemployment was 65% among those aged under 25. This created a lot of educated young people who were dissatisfied with their lot and wanted change. The Ba’athists still believed in socialism but the government was unable to create enough jobs. Ba’athists had no idea how to run a modern Western style economy. The war in Iraq, and the flood of refugees into Syria created further strains. The Arab Spring was the spark which set things off.The point of no return for the regime started in 2011 when its security services started shooting demonstrators. This quickly escalated into a civil war. McHugo describes the various groups involved in the fighting. Assad is supported by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah. Syria had supported Iran in its war with Iraq in 1980, much to the dismay of the rest of the Arab world. Hezbollah believes it is fighting against American and Israeli hegemony in the region. The Russians want to show that they are players again on the world scene and can’t be pushed around. McHugo highlights the power struggle between the revolutionary Shi’ism of Iran and the Wahhabism of the Saudis, which began in the 1980s. The US, Saudis, and Qataris all back factions in the conflict. The fighters on the Sunni side defect from one faction to another.McHugo argues that Islam is not well understood in the West. According to McHugo, extremist groups like ISIS and al Qaeda are not Islamic. He believes that honesty, justice and mercy are core Islamic values and indiscriminate violence is not. It is not Islamic to execute Christians who won’t convert to Islam. Neither is killing Shia Muslims because you view them as heretics. McHugo argues that ordinary Syrians have traditionally supported a more moderate form of Islam than the Saudis. He believes that ISIS also contains too many foreign nut jobs to emerge as a credible long-term government in Syria.The book was published in 2015 and there was a popular theory at the time that the regime was working with ISIS to kill off the moderate Muslim groups. If the various Sunni factions are fighting each other that is good for the regime. The antics of ISIS also discredits the whole Sunni opposition to Assad in the eyes of the international community. The regime is probably betting that an ISIS victory won’t be acceptable to the West. Assad seems unable to reconquer the whole country, but McHugo believes he can carry on more-or-less indefinitely, with the help of Russia and Iran. This is a history book and explains how we reached the current situation but does not offer any real solutions. He suggests that only Syrians can stop the fighting but at the moment there is too much foreign meddling to allow that to happen.

Excellent and succintly written. Provides the reader with some idea of the very complex and convulated factionalism in that part of the Middle East.

I would highly recommend this book. Very readable and informative for someone who is not well versed in the history of Syria/Lebanon. Although it is somewhat long at around 260 pages, I read it in about a three days.This book reveals the unfortunate series of historical “straight-jackets” that have left the levant in the sorry state it is in today. From what I can see, McHugo’s book is the only thorough history of Syria available in the English language.

Syria is my father's native country. He never spoke about it since he left Syria in the 1940s and until his premature death in 1984. I never went there and everything I learned from Syria's history is from this remarkable little book by John McHugo. This book made me cry. It is sad to learn how this country is apparently inexorably descending the road to self-destruction. While my tears are trickling on my face, Syria is being teared up apart! I am just beginning to want to know more about my father's country precisly at a time when Syria risks to cease to exist.

Clear, straightforward telling of Syrian history from World War I to last year. Very informative in terms of understanding how things got to where they are today. Strong Iraeli partisans will no doubt object to McHugo's sympathy for the Arab-Palestinian cause, but I found a non-polemical presentation of that point of view eye-opening, albeit to some extent one-sided. Highly recommended.

Interesting look at Syria and lead up to todays troubles.

Good read so far.

Great book for people who want to separate fact from fiction about who is responsible for the debacle in Syria. If you don't read often and like to read TWEETS on important subjects, this book is not for you.

A great work and great book for the comprehension about Syrian history, not only political aspects, but also the social cleavages and economic apparatus

Das Buch ist gut, aber es behandelt sehr viele Dinge aus der Vergangenheit: Es startet im Osmanischen Reich und der eigentliche Bürgerkrieg ist eher kurz gehalten. Dazu greifft das Buch bekannte Ideen über Syrien auf, die sich bei Picard, Hinnebusch, Perthes, Seurat, Van Damme finden. Es bietet in diesem Sinne keine neue Idee auf, die Erklärung ist eine Zusammenführung bekannter Ideen. Teilweise ist es für den bereits mit Syrien vertrautem Leser langamtmig, teilweise bietet er neue interessante Details auf, etwa als vier Personen Präsident Hafez Assad über den Tod seines Sohnes Basil informierten und dieser dachte, es habe einen Militärputsch gegeben. Wer noch nie ein Buch über Syrien gelesen hat, kann vieles lernen, er kann aber auch bei anderen Autoren fundiertere und detailierte Darstellungen über dieses Land finden.

A well written and concise history of modern Syria. Easy to read and provides good insight into how the current tragedy in Syria came about.

A vivid narration of syrias history.

Drawing on firsthand experience of living in Syria, John McHugo has produced an informative analysis of the facts leading up to its tragic civil war. His detailed focus starts in the early twentieth century, just beyond the reach of living memory. When the Ottoman Empire crumbled after the First World War, a critical opportunity was missed to create, under King Faisal who had shown himself to be reasonably competent, an Arab state with the logical boundaries of Greater Syria, now divided between modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel and parts of southern Turkey. Instead, France and Britain were allowed to play imperial politics and carve up the territory along the notorious Sykes-Picot line, agreed in secret and, like too many other Middle Eastern borders, running across territories with no regard for ethnic groupings or geography.Although McHugo accepts that an independent Arab state established in the 1920s might well have lapsed into tribal and religious conflict, and acknowledges the corruption which has fed unrest, he makes clear the West's part in inadvertently bringing about the current crisis. The disproportionate support for the Israeli cause without ensuring justice for the Palestinians has had complex consequences, such as the provocation of Israel's occupation of Syria's Golan heights, and the influx of Arab refugees into partly Christian Lebanon. This set up explosive tensions which Syria sought to resolve at the cost of antagonising the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat rather than accept the Achilles heel of a weakened Lebanon through which Israel could attack Syria.Instead of seeking a comprehensive and statesmanlike approach, the West confined itself to a somewhat blinkered preoccupation during the Cold War with attempts to gain the upper hand over the Soviet Union in the Middle East. "Once America had both Egypt and Israel as its allies as well as friendly relations with numerous other Arab governments....it did not need Syria" - which reacted by obtaining vital arms from Russia.The author explains Ba'athism as an originally idealistic movement based on the three goals of unity, freedom and socialism - which of course must have been perceived as a threat by some Western powers. Yet when the Ba'ath party overrode elected politicians to gain power, it consolidated its position with nepotism and cronyism, thus undermining its founding ideals and reputation.McHugh devotes two chapters to Hafez al-Assad, one of the pragmatic, ruthless secular Arab leaders who kept tribal and religious differences in check in the final decades of the C20. His son Bashir al-Assad seems to have attempted a more democratic approach on gaining office, but been driven by the pressure of events to adopt a more brutal and authoritarian approach, with less skill than his father.McHugh ends on the bleak note that the most likely alternative to a victory by the regime is a descent into warlordism. The recent rise of Isis which has gained influence since the author went to press makes the effects of this anarchic outcome all the more grim. This book may sound like a depressing read at a time when Europe seems to be turning a blind eye to the political and economic chaos on its borders, but it has a positive effect in raising one's understanding of the complex chain of events, and increasing one's respect and sympathy for the Syrian people.