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Syria

Understanding President Trump’s Decision

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“Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established…“
Romans 13:1

Posted: Dec 31, 2018
To understand the complexity of the situation in Syria, we have to understand that it is a war between the Sunni and Shi’a Muslims. [Click here to read more about who these Muslims are.] The Syrian war started at the time of the so-called Arab Spring in 2011 when protesters demanded the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad. His family, of the Shi’a Alawite-sect of Islam, has held the presidency in Syria since 1971. No one could have anticipated at that time the level of violence, trauma, and devastation that would result from that uprising for over seven years.

The conflict has been fought by different rebel groups and militias against the Assad regime, and against each other. With the rise of ISIS, It has expanded to include international powers such as Russia, Iran, some European nations and the United States.

Since then, Syria has been nearly destroyed, and the region was thrown into turmoil. Cities have been reduced to rubble by regime bombing, which had the far-reaching ramifications to nations around the world. Threats posed by terrorism, the migration crisis, and refugees. The number of casualties is too big to count, which is estimated at about half a million, and millions of refugees and internally displaced people, also too many to count.

The US started fighting ISIS in 2014. Much of the US operation in Syria has been waged by warplanes flying out of Qatar and other locations in the Middle East. After the airstrikes and increased fighting capacity of the allied ground forces, ISIS was degraded.

Fighting everyone all the time, ISIS lost their border areas, supply lines and communication, resources, and influence, they were finally driven from most of its territory in Syria’s north area.

In the beginning, then US president Barack Obama, assuming that Assad was going to fall anyway, took the side of the demonstrators and called on Assad to step down. However, Assad did not fall and didn’t step down. With the help of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, He is still on the winning side. Not wanting to risk direct conflict with the Russians, the US accepted the fact that they (the Russians) are there to stay.

Assad who has lost territory, men, resources, and independence has gotten weaker through the years of fighting, but is still stronger than any of his opponents and rivals.

President Trump said that the United States was doing the work of other countries, including Russia and Iran, with little in return. He thinks it’s time others fight their own battles, and that US troops have no business in Syria since accomplishing their mission of helping fight ISIS.

Trump is true to his campaign promises to bring the 2,000 US troops back home. He wanted to do it earlier this year but gave in to his advisors not to pull the troops out of Syria before a peace agreement could be reached to end that country’s brutal civil war, and to keep them there to back up the Kurdish fighters and the Arab SDF militias (Syrian Democratic Forces) in their battle against ISIS.

However, this outraged NATO ally Turkey, which views Kurdish YPG forces as being an extension of a militant group fighting inside Turkey. [Click here to read more about the Kurds.] Turkey is still a key strategic ally of the US. In a phone conversation between Presidents Trump and Erdogan on Dec. 14, the Turkish leader promised that his army would not cross the Euphrates. Also during the course of their discussion, Erdogan reportedly agreed to cancel his order of the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system and to purchase a package of US Patriot missile systems valued at $3.5 billion instead.

Turkey’s planned purchase of the S-400 caused a rift between NATO member Turkey and NATO. The S-400 is not inter-operational with NATO systems. Turkish use of the system could endanger the American F-35’s stealth systems.

The White House announced that pulling US troops out of Syria does not mean that the Americans are leaving the coalition against ISIS, but rather, now that ISIS lost most of its strongholds, the White House is “transitioning to the next phase of the campaign.”

The US and Iraq are in advanced negotiations for the deployment to the Iraqi-Syria border of the Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) – which drove ISIS out of Mosul. It would position US troops 30km north of the Euphrates River and near the Syrian border. “We will be watching,” promised Trump.

The US is planning to build a permanent base, including an air force base on the Iraqi side of the strategic Tanif pass. This will allow them to control the area and prevent Shi’a militia to cross over into Syria. This way, the US will still control the situation without physically having boots on the ground in Syria.

As the Sunni rebels regroup, what Trump’s move would accomplish is bringing back the balance of the Sunnis against the Shi’as. With the defeat of 95% of Isis, the US can concentrate on the fight against Shi’a Iran, with the proxy of the Sunni rebels and the Sunni Turkish army. That means that Sunnis will enlarge their independent state in Syria around Haleb. Sunni rebels and the Turkish army are deploying forces all the time from all sides.

When Israeli PM Netanyahu’s decision to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas last month and not go to war, after Hamas fired about 500 missiles at Israeli cities in one day, he was criticized by most of Israelis, who saw this as an act of weakness. Netanyahu said at that time that there was more hidden than meets the eye, and not everything can be exposed to the public. Now we realize that what the army was planning was an operation to expose the tunnels of Hezbollah in the north and avoid a massive invasion from the terror group into Israel.

Likewise, with Trump’s decision to pull out the 2000 US troops. We don’t see or know all the considerations in that decision. It will be unfolding as time and events go on.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw American forces from Syria will not affect Israeli policy and that cooperation with the U.S. “will continue in full”. Israel will “continue to act against Iran’s attempts to entrench itself militarily in Syria, and to the extent necessary, we will even expand our actions there,” said Netanyahu.

We know that the Lord has this situation well in hand. Of course, there is always more going on than meets the eye. “He who keepeth Israel neither slumbers or sleeps.” Please continue to pray for those decision-making leaders and the ones who influence them both in Israel and in your country. And pray for the soldiers who face enemies every day and need to know the Keeper of Israel in a personal way.

For the salvation of Israel and the nations,
In His love,
Simcha and Bella Davidov, Ashdod, Israel

The Syrian War: What is it Really About?

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The real issue in Syria is the fight between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims.

To understand the complications in the Middle East, we must understand the biggest conflict within the Muslim world: the big divide between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims.

The Sunni-Shi’a conflict started 1,400 years ago, after the death of Mohammed in 632 AD. The prophet died without appointing a successor, which led to an argument among his followers. The argument was about who would be the next leader, whether he should be directly related to Mohammed’s bloodline or not. The Sunni’s believe that the Prophets’ trusted friend and advisor, Abu Bakr was the first rightful leader of Muslims or “caliph”, while Shi’as believe that Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali was chosen by Allah to continue the rule. Eventually, both held the title – Abu Bakr first until his death, and after him two other caliphs who were assassinated. Ali became the fourth ruler. After Ali, a massive split occurred over who should rule next and dominate Islam. While Sunni Muslims argued that it should be their interpretation of Islam which follows the Sunnah (ways of Mohammed), Shi’as argued that Ali was the rightful first caliph and only his descendants could claim to be the true leaders of Muslims.

Sunnah is the body of traditional, social, and legal custom and practice of the Islamic community, based on the verbally transmitted record of the teachings, deeds and sayings, silent permissions (or disapprovals) of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (kind of Islamic oral law and Halacha, a path, a way, a manner of life). The Quran, the holy book of Islam, and the Sunnah make up the two primary sources of Islamic theology and law of the Islamic prophet that Muslims follow.

The tension is intensified by the Hadith, a narrative in which the prophet Muhammad said, “My Muslim community will be divided into seventy-three sects and all of them will be in the Hellfire except one.” Inevitably both Sunnis and Shias claim to be the one “pure” Islamic sect; hence a Sunni-Shi’a split creating two denominations up until today, wherein each has developed its own unique culture, doctrines, and schools of thought, with a range of moderate to extremist followers in both.

Sunnis are largely focused on the power of their God in the physical world, while Shi’as look more toward the rewards of the afterlife.

The majority of Muslim people in the world are Sunni.

The vast majority of the Muslims in the world are Sunni, amounting to as much as 85% of the religion’s adherents. They are spread all over the globe – from Morocco to Indonesia – and make up the dominant religion in North Africa and the Middle East. Only Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan and Bahrain have a Shi’a majority, although there are also significant Shi’a populations in Yemen, Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, and Qatar.

The divide between the Sunni and Shi’a branches of Islam is both ancient and still highly consequential today.

The Kingdom of Bahrain, which is backed by Saudi has long been ruled by the Sunni House of Khalifa, even though there is a Shi’a majority in the population. Many of the insurgent groups in Iraq today– including the Islamic State terror group – are Sunnis.

The current civil war in Yemen has become a sectarian proxy war, with Iran backing the Shi’a Houthi rebels who overthrew the country’s Sunni-dominated government, while a Saudi-led coalition has since intervened to reinstall the Sunni leadership.

Syria, which has a Sunni-majority population, is ruled by President Bashar al-Assad and his family members of the Shi’a Alawite-sect. The fighting that began as an anti-government rebellion has taken on sectarian overtones. That has spilled over to Iraq, which is Shi’a-majority and has a predominantly Shi’a government but is increasingly troubled by Sunni rebels. And the region’s major powers have long pushed sectarian interests, with Shi’a-majority Iran on one side and Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia on the other.

Who Are the Kurds?

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In the 16th century, after prolonged wars, Kurdish-inhabited areas were split between the Safavid and Ottoman empires. From then until the aftermath of World War I, Kurdish areas (including most of Mesopotamia, eastern Anatolia, and traditionally Kurdish northeastern Syria) were generally under Ottoman rule. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Allies contrived to split Kurdistan among several countries. However, they were forced to accept Turkey’s conditions in the peace treaty. Turkey was willing to give up much of its empire’s territory in favor of setting new borders for the modern Republic of Turkey, which included parts of Kurdistan, leaving the Kurds without a self-ruled region. Other Kurdish areas were assigned to the new British and French mandated states of Iraq and Syria.

In the 1970s, a group of radical Kurdish nationalist students led by Abdullah Öcalan in Turkey formed the militant group called Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan (PKK). PKK adopted the Marxist political ideology, with the goal of founding a separate independent, Marxist–Leninist state known as Kurdistan. The PKK fought an armed struggle against the Turkish state for cultural and political rights and self-determination for the Kurds in Turkey. PKK tactics were based on ambush, sabotage, riots, protests, and demonstrations against the Turkish government, and it has continued its guerrilla-type militant offensive for over thirty years. Turkey and the International community has listed PKK as a terrorist organization.

The YPG was formed in 2004 as the armed wing of the Kurdish leftist Democratic Union Party. It expanded rapidly in the Syrian Civil War. A sister group, the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), fights alongside the YPG. The YPG is active in northern and eastern Syria.

In early 2015, the group won a major victory over ISIL (ISIS) at the Siege of Kobanî, where the YPG began to receive air and ground support from the United States and other coalition nations. Since then, the YPG has primarily fought against ISIL (ISIS), as well as on occasion fighting other Syrian rebel groups.

Several western sources have described the YPG as the “most effective” force in fighting ISIL(ISIS) in Syria. A light infantry force, the YPG has limited military equipment and few armored vehicles.

The YPG has been criticized by Turkey for its alleged support for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), especially since a rebellion in southern Turkey began in 2015. Turkey has designated the YPG as a terrorist organization, and in 2018 Turkey captured most of the Afrin Canton area in Syria from the YPG.