Research & Commentary Results

Conflicts in the Middle East, especially the Syrian conflict, are stretching the humanitarian community more than ever before. There are almost 60 million displaced people around the world, the largest exodus in recorded history; nearly a quarter of whom are from the Middle East, with 20% from the Syrian conflict alone. As the region generating the most displacement and the host to the largest number of displaced persons, the Middle East presents unique challenges for the international community, including donors like us at USAID.

If the hallmark of al-Qa‘ida was to execute simultaneous spectacular attacks to advance its strategic momentum, the month of Ramadan in June and July showed that the Islamic State (ISIS) is taking this tactic to a new level. Yet the extreme amounts of blood shed during the holy month will likely ultimately weaken ISIS, as tribes and other groups in Syria and Iraq, even more appalled by the organization’s barbarism, unite against it.

The Middle East Dialogue on New Political and Security Dynamics Shaping the Arab Region met in Beirut May 30-31 to consider the situation in Syria, which has deteriorated further since the last meeting of the Dialogue in Berlin last December. Violence has risen, government-controlled territory has been lost to both opposition and extremist forces, Syrians are suffering and the Syrian government is reaching the limits of its military and civilian capabilities.

“What’s going to happen to the Syrian refugees?” This was the question I asked of everyone I met during a recent trip to Lebanon and Turkey to research Syrian displacement. Without exception, those I asked—government and UN officials, academics, business and NGO representatives, Syrian diaspora groups, and Syrian refugees—responded with the same answer: “I don’t know” (or sometimes “‘God only knows”). When pressed, almost everyone said that the war in Syria would continue for the foreseeable future and that more people would likely leave or try to leave.

Probably the most important group fighting the Syrian regime now is Ahrar al-Sham (Free Men of the Levant), a Salafi group fighting mainly in the north but also in central and southern Syria. Contrary to Western reports suggesting that the al-Qa‘ida-linked Nusra Front led the battle to capture the northwestern Syrian provincial capital of Idlib last March, Ahrar had more fighters in the battle—a fact demonstrated by its predominance in the subsequent military oversight council established for Idlib.

In the last few weeks, the Syrian Druze have been a focal point in significant fighting on the ground. If their role in the fighting continues, or even if it changes, the Druze will likely have a profound impact on the trajectory of the Syrian conflict.

For decades, most refugee crises followed a pattern: A war erupted, usually in a poor country, and beleaguered civilians staggered across the nearest border. The United Nations organized a response, rich nations footed the bill, and aid groups sent in workers to tend to the needy. Even in extreme cases, such as the mass exodus from Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion in the 1980s, the crisis was largely confined to the country at war and a few immediate neighbors.

Despite the barrel bombs and chlorine gas, despite the threat from extremists—both religious and political—and despite the punishing dearth of resources, Syrian civil society continues to provide and protect. Though relatively little is written about it, Syrian civil society is remarkably active.

After more than four years of war, former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford sees a fragmented country emerging, with six or more fluid and shifting zones of control:

**An Alawi/Hezbollah-controlled area along the Lebanese border and the Mediterranean coast, backed by Iran and Russia;

On June 22, members of the Druse minority in the Israeli town of Hurfeish threw rocks at an ambulance believed to be transporting wounded Syrian Jabhat al-Nusra rebels to medical care in Israel. The following day, a similar incident in the occupied Golan Heights resulted in the killing of one wounded rebel, also of Nusra.

Three months ago CIA Director John Brennan told a Congressional panel that the administration fears the fall of the Assad government in Damascus, as it could lead to “Islamist extremists, including the Islamic State, Jabhat al-Nusra, and al-Qa‘ida elements within Syria to seize power from a collapsed regime.” I heard similar fears during a Congressional hearing I attended June 17.

This contingency planning memorandum was first published by the Council on Foreign Relations Center for Preventive Action. View the PDF version here.

The United Nations has played a critical role in Libya’s modern political history, starting with a stewardship process that led to independence in 1951. It prepared a partial stabilization plan after the 2011 NATO intervention, which unfortunately was not imposed as a precondition for that intervention, and established an essential humanitarian channel to the outside world following the revolution. But for the last months, UN attempts to broker a unity government via its Libya envoy, Bernardino León, have worked against this legacy.

Since March 2011 Syria has gone through a traumatic process that has strained the ethnic, sectarian, and social fabric of the country—almost all that makes Syria a unified state with a people who share a common history, goals, and aspirations—to beyond the breaking point. Much of the country lies in ruins today, and its cultural heritage has been a deliberate casualty of the conflict from its earliest days.

How are Iraq and the United States responding to the capture of Ramadi by ISIS?