Why didn't Syria matter?

A reflection on suffering in places that just don't count.

This citizen journalism image from the Aleppo Media Center (AMC) shows people searching debris of destroyed buildings after Syrian government forces airstrike, Jabal Bedro, Aleppo, Feb. 19, 2013.

Recently in the magazine, Joshua Treviño addressed, parenthetically, the many people around the world who ask why a war in Europe has so compelled the world’s attention even as horrific wars in Africa and the Middle East grind on without overmuch troubling the world’s sleep.

In my view, the answer is obvious. I have no patience for people who see our university campuses as hotbeds of racial injustice. A micro-aggression short of a light barrage of Russian artillery is insufficient for me to give a damn. But if you’re looking for real prejudice and ethnocentrism in the West, it’s the difference between the way we viewed the war in Syria and the way we view the war in Ukraine.

Alex Christie-Miller, a journalist who was like me living in Turkey when the Syrian war began, and who has been reporting on the war in Syria since, sums up emotions many of us feel:

Alexander Christie-Miller @AChristieMiller

Watching Ukraine after the slow motion car wreck of Syria’s revolution, I have several feelings: dread at what Putin’s war machine will do next, elation at the Russians getting their asses handed to them, hope at seeing the world care, bitterness that it didn’t care about Syria.

The bitter irony is that after Syrians themselves, we are the biggest victims of our prejudice. Had we taken Syria’s agony as seriously as we now take Ukraine’s, we would have ground Russia’s economy to a standstill years ago—and we wouldn’t now be fighting a war in Ukraine. 

Joshua, however, argued that the strategic significance of a war in Europe accounts for the difference in the world’s attention: 

The grand-strategic phenomenon of the past three centuries is the extent to which world history unfolds as a reaction and response to Europe. It is undeniable in the twentieth century as the World Wars and the Cold War gripped the planet. In the nineteenth century, the mechanisms of empires and colonialism etched themselves upon mankind. … In the eighteenth century we get back to more meaningful and large-scale non-European agency—the Qianlong Emperor answered to no one—but it was still a time when a small colonial encounter between Europeans powers in the far Alleghenies could plunge the whole world into war. 

Thus, he argues, Europe matters, and matters uniquely:

Kyiv descended into ruin carries with it consequences that Mosul in rubble does not. That is not a statement of differential humanity. We have an obligation to regard the lives of Iraqis as possessing as much value as those of Ukrainians, in deference to the equitable love of God for each. The statement is a recognition of differential cultural, political, and strategic significance. This much should be obvious: no one, after all, discussed the prospects for escalation to nuclear exchange when Mosul fell.

I agree with every word he wrote. Historically and strategically, war in Europe matters more. But this is compatible with the other, more obvious explanation. Among the reasons it matters more is that the world cares about it more. We don’t believe the lives of Iraqis—or Syrians—possess as much value as those of Ukrainians. If we did, we would have been discussing the prospects for escalation to nuclear exchange not when Mosul fell (because it fell to primitive bandits who didn’t have nuclear weapons), but when Aleppo was ground to rubble—as Mariupol, Chernihiv, and Kharkiv have been. 

The Syrian war has claimed half a million lives. The vast majority were killed by Russia, directly or via their proxy, Assad. The only country that could have stopped the slaughter was the United States. We would have wrangled together some kind of coalition to do it, but we would have been the ones doing the heavy lifting. 

The notion was an absolute non-starter. I don’t have to rely on my fallible memory to recall how it was viewed at the time and what people said. I know exactly what people said because I wrote about it at the time. In 2016, for example, I wrote:

Aleppo is now a hellscape reminiscent of the Battle of Stalingrad. Even by the horrifying standards of the Syrian war, the past week’s events Aleppo represent a new level of depravity. Russian and Syrian government airstrikes killed more than 300 people, most of them civilians and many of them children; more than 250,000 civilians are trapped. They’re under attack by the Syrian military and by thousands of foreign militiamen commanded by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah fighters, and Russian ground troops; and they’re under bombardment by heavy Russian and Syrian air power—the most sustained and intense bombardment since the beginning of the war. A genuine Axis of Evil, if anything ever was, has emerged from this. Most of the civilians are, according to the Violations Documentation Center in Syria, being killed by Russians.

The response? A selection:

• “Show me the President worthy of calling the troops out for somebody else’s craphill country, while we are invaded and displaced at home. Screw Syria. Screw Putin. Screw Europe too.” 

• “Not my circus.  Not my monkeys.”

• “If you think that American blood and bullets are just what is needed to make things better in Syria, well, I don’t know what to tell you. No.”

• Not to sound harsh, but why? Why is the mess in Syria an urgent problem for the US? Yes, it is a terrible humanitarian problem. I can see why Europe might view it as a problem, especially since they can’t seem to get their act together regarding refugees, but why is it an urgent problem for the US? Is it because Russia might gain influence in Syria by helping Assad win? Assad was a Russian client before the civil war. If he wins with their help and he falls under their influence again, nothing will have changed from the status quo ante. Is it because Syria has become a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists? Apparently there is some truth in that for Europe, but not for the US, at least yet. … On the whole, the US Middle East policy (other than our support for Israel) has been a disaster. We need to stay the heck out of these civil wars, other than maybe sending small arms to everybody. There are no good guys in Syria. It is a cesspit and their is no reason for us to take a bath in it.

• Want to know why no one discusses [the Middle East]? We’re sick of it. We’re sick of its politics, we’re sick of its ungrateful populace, sick of its psychotic dictators, sick of the antisemitism and Christian persecutions, sick of the medieval clerics and their stupid followers, and sick of the roving packs of gang-rapists and jihadis they export to the western world. And the rotten core, the worst element of the Middle East, is ISIS—it’s the purest essence of everything wrong with the place and with Islam. That’s who Putin is fighting. That’s who would control Syria now if Putin hadn’t gotten involved. I know the stacks of dead aren’t a good look, but I’m sorry, we have Putin to thank for stemming the tide and doing what no one else wanted to.

The latter comment is especially interesting. The idea that Putin was fighting ISIS in Syria was Kremlin propaganda, and an unadulterated lie identical in form to the Kremlin’s lie now that the Russian military is in Ukraine fighting Nazis. Indeed, if you replace the word “ISIS” with “Nazis,” you have exactly the formula that Kremlin propagandists now promulgate. You’ve probably read something like this on social media: 

… the rotten core, the worst element of Europe, are Nazis—it’s the purest essence of everything wrong with the place. That’s who Putin is fighting. That’s who would control Ukraine now if Putin hadn’t gotten involved. I know the stacks of dead aren’t a good look, but I’m sorry, we have Putin to thank for stemming the tide and doing what no one else wanted to.

It is gratifying that, at least, thank God, that Russian propaganda about Ukraine isn’t working beyond the Carlson-Greenwald red-brown axis. Most of the world sees clearly that Ukraine isn’t under Nazi control. They understand the difference between the statement, “There are neo-Nazis in Ukraine” and “All Ukrainians are Nazis.” Ukraine undeniably has a cohort of neo-Nazis, but their numbers are small and their influence nugatory; per capita, the United States has quite a few more.

This time, the world hasn’t been quite so taken in by Putin’s lies. Apart from an unregenerate handful of tankies on the far right and left, everyone with eyes to see can tell that Russian troops are not fighting the Nazis—they are the Nazis. 

Russian propaganda about Syria was analogously vile. It was just as obviously, transparently, and preposterously a lie, and every bit as offensive. But unlike their propaganda about Ukraine, their propaganda about Syria was wildly effective. Around the world, people believed that Russia was fighting ISIS, God bless them, and we had “Putin to thank for stemming the tide and doing what no one else wanted to.”

This view was not confined to insignificant comment trolls. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is now the leading left-wing candidate in France’s upcoming presidential election, said on February 2016, on a prime time talk show on France 2, that he “congratulated” Putin for his action in Syria. When his stunned interlocutor asked if he meant that he was “for what Vladimir Putin is doing,” Mélenchon replied, emphatically, “Yes.”

The interviewer told him, correctly, that the Russian military had shown no interest in hitting ISIS positions and was instead focusing its efforts on wiping out opponents of Assad’s regime. Mélenchon denounced these objections as lies and nonsense. The Putin Party line tripped and trilled right off his tongue. Another interviewer noted that Putin was killing civilians. “What you say does not correspond to the facts,” Mélenchon insisted. He called for the world to join Russia in an “international military coalition to beat Daesh.”

When he said this, in 2016, it had long been obvious to anyone in possession of a map that no, Russian airstrikes were not annihilating ISIS. Russia probably did kill ISIS fighters, given the indiscriminate nature of their bombing, but if so it was unintentional. What’s more, it was also clear by 2016 that the civilian toll of Russian airstrikes was not only monstrous, but deliberate, with sites such as clearly-marked hospitals bearing the brunt.

There was, moreover, a real international military coalition to beat Daesh. But since it was led by the United States, not Russia, and since Americans, unlike Russians, are by definition imperialists, Mélenchon wanted no part of it.

He has paid no price, politically, for enthusing over the worst war crimes the world had seen since the Second World War. Why not? Because Syria didn’t matter.

Until quite recently, Mélenchon was consistent. Russia, he said, was right to invade and annex Crimea: “The ports of Crimea are vital for Russia’s security,” he said. Russia was merely “taking protective measures against an adventurous putschist power, in which the neo-Nazis have an utterly detestable influence.” So eagerly and fluently does Mélenchon echo the lowest of Russian propaganda rags that one suspects he must be on their payroll, except that he’s not: It’s his opponents, Le Pen and Zemmour, who are actually on the payroll; Mélenchon does it for free. It’s hard to say which is worse. In any event, Mélenchon—a few days ago described warmly in The New York Times as “fiery,” “a skilled orator,” and a “veteran politician”—was speaking for many when he said, with conviction, that he didn’t give a fig for Syrian lives.

But the appalling images from Ukraine have forced all three of these worthless stooges to backtrack. “I am on the side of Zelensky against Putin,” said Mélenchon grudgingly. Le Pen allowed that the war had “partly changed” her view of the Russian president. Zemmour even made a grave video to express his disappointment with the invasion. Of course, they had to backtrack. You can’t campaign on a platform of dead bodies, raped women, brutalized children, and flattened cities.

Except that you can. No one took back a word they said about Syria—if they even said so much as a word.

Why? Was it because Russia’s atrocities weren’t filmed, the way they are in Ukraine? Certainly not. 

One journalist recently had the audacity to say that the war in Ukraine was the first to be livestreamed. Had he been living with his head under a rock? Of course the Syrian war was livestreamed—the catalogue of video evidence of the crimes of the Syrian regime and the suffering of the Syrian people was just as extensive as the catalogue emerging from Ukraine; what’s more, it was disseminated to an indifferent world for years.   

Was it because Syrians didn’t tell the world, the way Ukrainians do, that they were just normal people, people like them, who wanted to live? Were they not witty enough, winsome enough, brave enough, kind enough to animals, did they not make enough videos? Definitely not. 

Was the war too confusing? Was it too hard to figure out who were the aggressors and who were the victims? Certainly not. The aggressors were the ones torturing and killing the civilians; the victims were the civilians who were dying. It wasn’t difficult at all to figure out the difference between reality and the Kremlin line. But it worked all the same. 

It’s true that Westerners have had recent, bitter experience with jihadis, on their own soil. This perhaps primed them to believe propaganda both from Russia and from ISIS that served to reinforce one another. ISIS sought to portray itself as more significant than it was and indeed as the true voice of all Syrians; Russia strove to equate all of Syria with ISIS—a match made in hell. Perhaps that’s why both succeeded in their propaganda aims. Perhaps, too, the difference is that the Syrian war was a civil war, and civil wars, notoriously, are confusing. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine broke a rule so fundamental to international order—do not invade your neighbor—that no one can be confused.  

Still, the Syrian war—which continues—destroyed an ancient nation, the survivors’ lives have been scarred irreparably, the daily lives of Syrians are characterized, still, by unimaginable suffering. Russia entered the war to rescue its failing client, Bashar al-Assad, in 2015. With Russia’s help, Assad turned eastern Aleppo into a kill zone, besieging, starving, and bombing its 300,000 residents into submission. They continued to use this tactic throughout the war. They have not stopped.

Please note that the items I list below are from the past week. They are not from Ukraine. They are from Syria. What is the difference? It’s certainly not the aggressor. The only difference is that the victims are Syrians—and that is why these stories are not on the front page.

• Syrian government besieges Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo;

• Syrian regime, Russian forces escalate attacks in Idlib amid stalled war in Ukraine;

• Four children were killed by pro-Assad artillery as they returned from school. Two more were injured;

• Russian and regime forces continue to bombard the villages and towns of the southern and eastern Idlib countryside and western and southern Aleppo, causing the death and injury of dozens;

• Regime forces and Russia killed five civilians from one family (two children, two women and a man) and a man and a woman were injured, targeting their home with a mortar shell in the town of Maara Naasan in northest Idlib;

• On March 23, the regime forces intensified artillery and missile shelling on Maarat al-Naasan and a number of other villages close to the frontlines in Idlib countryside.

We knew full well what was happening to Syria. We knew it at the time. By “we,” I mean anyone who wanted to know. But Europe and the United States were forthright in their insistence that nothing could be done and it didn’t even merit much news coverage.

“America,” I wrote in 2012, “It’s time to stop focusing on Syria—Oh, wait.” I was replying to an article by Robert Kaplan arguing that we needed more focus on Mexico and less on Syria. “I’d heartily agree with the whole article,” I wrote, “except that I see no evidence that anyone is focusing on Syria in the first place.”

It’s not true that we did nothing at all in Syria. Hapless, strategically-blundering, and misguided throughout our strategy may have been, we backed quite a few rebel groups in Syria who were shot like fish in a barrel by the Russians. 

The right was forthright in its insistence that Syrians weren’t worth the healthy bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier. The left opposed intervention because—if I recall rightly?—it didn’t think we should be in the business of bombing brown people.

If anyone tells you now that no one could have predicted Putin would be emboldened by our failure to stop him in Syria, don’t believe him.

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I spoke recently to my friend Adnan, a Syrian exile who lives in Paris. We spoke at length and subsequently decided that our conversation was one we wished the rest of the world had heard. So we recreated the dialogue and I’ve just published it in the magazine. I hope you’ll read it.

When the Syrian regime began cracking down on peaceful protestors, he wasn’t even in Syria: He was working as a wealth manager for HSBC in Dubai. All the outside world knew about what was happening in Syria—including him—was what it was seeing from amateur cellphone videos posted by the protestors.

He joined the revolution. Like most Syrians, he joined the revolution because he wanted human rights in his own country. He wanted democracy—in his own country. He wanted freedom, in a place he could call home.

He decided to work on independent media development in Syria:

I believed that if people had a chance to speak and be heard, peacefully, common sense would prevail. I’m not saying I was wrong, but I sure didn’t realize back then it would mean we’d have to fight a war against Assad, ISIS, Iran, Russia and God-knows-how many militias who poured into the country from all over the world, all at the same time.

I started with a project to get funding to purchase satellite phones and other telecommunications equipment that I arranged, surreptitiously, to be transported to Syria with truck drivers. I quickly realized, though, that this was a pitifully inadequate solution.

That’s when I had the idea of starting a media organization in Aleppo. So in September 2012, I co-founded the Aleppo Media Center, with six other people. The center was the most significant group delivering high-quality reporting about events in Aleppo—until Russia destroyed the city in 2016. The center also filmed The White Helmets, which won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2017. I also co-founded Radio Hara, a local radio station in Aleppo, and Lamba Media Productions, a local production house.

The story doesn’t have a happy ending, as readers know. Eventually, after living in Turkey, he accepted the French Embassy’s offer of political asylum and moved to Paris in March of 2018. Now he’s getting an MBA at INSEAD.

I asked him what he wanted the world to understand. He said,

By definition, democracies are very fragile, especially in their inception phase. The Syrian revolution was a grassroots liberal movement, but that’s also why it was so chaotic. Still, it survived at least ten years against all of those powers. I have no doubt that one day it will prevail, when all the external pressure is lifted.

I think it’s important for your readers to realize that liberalism and democratic values don’t always emerge in a linear way. The world needs to start thinking of more innovative ways to protect democratic movements and help them ascend to power instead of blaming the victims for their own deaths.

We talked for a long time, about a lot of things—Syria, Ukraine, Putin, Obama, Biden, red lines, US foreign policy, and how the world decides what it cares about.

Then we recreated our whole conversation in writing, afterward, because we both thought, maybe, at last, the world might think about Syria and ask “Why didn’t it matter?”

Why didn’t it?

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If you’re thinking about this question, here’s one last link. I wrote it after the horrific massacre at Charlie Hebdo, into which I had the misfortune of walking. Paris, I wrote, was worth a mass.

But so were the 2,000 people slaughtered by Boko Haram in a single day. And there was no mass. No one even blinked.