Quote: (11-10-2015 07:44 PM)xpatplayer Wrote:
Quote: (11-10-2015 05:44 PM)el mechanico Wrote:
No matter how much I try to read I don't understand Muslims or Islam.
Is the Hassad guy good? His family looks like a normal kinda American one why would he implode his country?
Its all about politics and power. Too complex to explain in a post (you need to understand the last 100 years of the region's history), but the gist is that al-Assad is a liberal Arab (his wife grew up as a white girl in London).
He didn't care much about religion, until the crazies started killing his soldiers. He's an eye-doctor, not a politician so he just bombed them hoping they'd go away. But he killed civilians so more people joined the crazies. Now you have a full-blown civil-war.
The guy isn't too politically savvy, but he's powerful, because his father stated that he was to be President after he died. The guy is a typical beta doctor. He's not a negotiator or politician, which is why he hasn't made significant compromises.
He wants a Syria where he's in power, but doesn't know how to create power other than by force. Most Syrians from the city support him because they are culturally more Western than old-school Muslim.
Yes he's a beta doctor. But the paramount mistake on his part was not crushing the rebellion as soon as it started. Unlike what the Western Media outlets reported, Assad was actually open for negotiation and discourse.
Shit hit the fan when protesters started bombing police stations and assassinating local government officials. Assad was stuck. His brother Maher Al-Assad who is more Alpha decided to send in the army to crush the minor rebellion. (Which any country would have done. Can you imagine how the US would react if were governors being killed and cops beheaded?)
At this point, the US Administration( McCain and Hitlery) decide to push the narrative that Assad is massacring his own people. Fair enough!
The real problem starts when Saudi Arabian, Qatari and Kuwaiti media outlets start reporting that Assad( who is an Alawite Shia Muslim) is massacring Sunnis.
This is when 40,000 radical sunni foreign fighters start flooding into Syria mainly from Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Dagestan ,Chechnya, Morocco and Libya. So the so called "Syrian rebels" believe it or not are around 50% foreigners.
As for Assad having support only in big cities is wrong. Assad's support is the following.
1) The Coastal Areas of Syria especially the governorates of Latakkia and Tartous. These two provinces are Assad's heartland since his Alawite Shia co-religionists live here. There is almost a cult-like following of Assad in there regions. They represent 15% of Syria's population.
2) Like you mentioned all the big urban centers of Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama.
3) 10 % of Syrias population is Christian. He's got their unanimous support.
4) The southern provinces of As-Suwayda, Daraa and Quneitra who are inhabited by Druze. They were pro-rebel in the beginning until the rebellion got hijacked by Islamists.
5) Although they are currently under the control of ISIS, people in the Eastern Province of Deir Ez-Zor are very pro-Assad. This is because the province is mostly desert inhabited by Bedouin Arabs who are more Mesopotamian(Iraqi) than Levantine. They used to be marginalized by the elites in Aleppo and Damascus until the Assads came to power and offered Baath-ism as an equalizer ideology.