Given the fog over the collapse of the Syrian government (which unlike the fog of war, seems likely to thin in the coming week or so), it seemed useful to provide concrete information on one element of how Syria got where it was and what might happen next: the massive exodus of its population. Syria went from a pre-war population of about 22 million to its current level. Various official sources, presumably using data supplied by Syria, have estimated it at around 23 million in 2023.1 That does not seem credible in light of the level of flight, which again from official sources which would not have a propensity to overstate, exceeds 10 million, as we will unpack below.
Many here may recall the much ballyhooed Syrian refugee crisis of 2015-2016, when the Merkel government offered to take in about 1 million. This was one of those schemes that only an economist, or perhaps also a chemist, would love. Syria did have a highly educated population and Germany, a worker shortage. On paper, this could be a good if very messy match, since providing housing, language training (and better yet, some effort at cultural assimilation) and job matching would be a huge task. But neoliberal government have been made feeble by design in undertaking large-scale initiatives like that. So rather than messy, the results fall more in the “cock up” category. And it is seldom acknowledge that the refugee influx has played a large role in the rise of the anti-immigrant and typically anti-war so-called extreme right wing in Europe.
Even with European governments being willing to accept refugees, the influx was overwhelming. Recall that some Greek islands became holding tanks, with observers reporting inhuman conditions there.
A recap of the levels at major recipient countries. First from Politico on Europe:
What a difference a decade makes.
In 2015, when 1 million refugees, many of them from Syria, made their way across Europe, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed them all, famously announcing: “We can do this!”
Since then, nearly 4.5 million Syrians (nearly a fifth of the country’s pre-war population) have made their way to Europe, fleeing a now-stagnant civil war and an interminable humanitarian crisis. Nearly 1.3 million Syrians were granted international protection in the EU between 2015 and 2023.
As of October 2024, there are more than 3 million registered refugees of the Syrian Civil War in Turkey, which hosts the biggest refugee population in the whole world. In addition, about 75,000 Syrian nationals reside in Turkey with a residence permit.
Wikipedia also points out that there are nearly 240,000 Syrian nationals who have become Turkiye citizens. It seems probable that a reasonable proportion of them also left Syria as a result of the war. Right after the Gulf War, as reported on Australia’s state broadcaster ABC, the middle class in Iraq decamped, almost en masse. They would have the cash and the credentials and perhaps also the connections to leave quickly and have some hope of landing well.
In addition, Türkiye more so that other Syrian refugee destination, has a high concentration in border areas, which would facilitate non-registered refugees living there. The text of a 2022 tweet in Turkish suggests the number of unregistered migrants is large:
'de kayıtlı ve kayıtsız toplam 5.3 Milyon Suriyeli var.
Türk milletine soruyorum;
5.3 Milyon Suriyeli için ne yapılmasını istiyorsunuz?— Ümit Özdağ (@umitozdag) July 20, 2021
There are 5.3 million Syrians in Turkey, both registered and unregistered.
I ask the Turkish nation;
What do you want to be done for 5.3 million Syrians?
The 20.5% bar is for granting citizenship; 79.5% wanted them sent back. This is admittedly an online poll, hence the sample isn’t so hot. But even allowing for that, there does appear to be strong anti-Syrian-migrant sentiment in Türkiye.
Türkiye has been working on expelling unregistered migrants. From BirGun in 2022 via machine translation:
“In July 2022, a total of 25,781 irregular migrants and 570 organizers, 5,103 of whom were at sea, were captured,” he said.
“The number of Syrians returning to their country has reached 514,358,” he said. “As of today, the number of Syrians registered in our country is 3 million 652 thousand 633 people.”
So 4 million Syrian war-related migrants in Türkiye looks like a conservative assumption.
Now to Lebanon. Again from Wikipedia:
Given the estimated population of Lebanon at 5.9 million, the 1.5 million Syrian refugees make Lebanon the country with the highest number of refugees per capita – with one refugee for every four nationals.
And Jordan, this time from the Carnegie Endowment in 2024:
Over a decade after the start of the Syrian civil war, Jordan still hosts nearly 1.2 million Syrian refugees.
UNHCR estimates there are an additional 270,000 Syrian refugees in Iraq.
UNHCR does not list Syrian refugees as being in Iran. As Aljazeera noted in 2015:
There is one glaring case of a Muslim country that is heavily involved in Syria but has yet to accept a single Syrian refugee, and that is the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iceland, which has a population of just over 300,000 residents, has accepted scores of Syrians, but not a single refugee has been admitted to Iran.
Russia has taken in only a small number of refugees from Syria. As this paper explains, Russia draws a strict line on economic migrants versus asylum seekers, and takes a dim view of the former.
If we take the figures above, including the pretty-sure-to-be-low 4 million estimate for Türkiye, we have:
4.5 million Europe
4.0 million Türkiye
1.5 million Lebanon
1.2 million Jordan
0.3 million Iraq11.5 million Syrian refugees total
Wikipedia estimates an additional minimum of 580,000 deaths in the conflict. Again, compare that to a pre-war population of 22 million.
Even though there is reason to think that some Syrians started to return after the civil war ended in 2019,2 cuts in support to Syria would tend to increase economic pressure and thus departures. Again from the Carnegie Endowment:
At the end of 2023, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) announced that it was shutting down its food program in Syria, which supports 5.6 million people, including those displaced in the country’s northwest. This comes as USAID and the State Department roll out further reductions of at least 30 percent in U.S assistance for Syria, which includes aid for Syrian refugees—a move that is expected to be mirrored by other European donors.
Adding to the stress in Syria before the government collapse, Professor Mohammed Marandi reported in a fresh interview on Dialogue Works that there are now 500,000 Lebanese refugees in Syria.
Some quick observations:
Frist, commentators, in particular Alexander Mercouris, have made much of the fact that Assad repeatedly rejected requests by Erdogan to meet and negotiate a solution to the situation in Syria, despite considerable pressure from Russia and Iran. Recall that Türkiye occupied what it no doubt liked to depict as a buffer zone in western Syria.
Assad appears to have taken untenable position in the face of the arm-twisting of his critically important backers. However, his stance appears less unreasonable if this account is accurate. Note I have not verified the sourcing. From Lavieja in comments at Moon of Alabama:
This is being blamed on Assad for being obstinate in refusing talks with Erdowan, which supposedly could have avoided the destruction of Syria, but it is not the case that negotiation with Erdowan would have avoided this. As Kevork Almassian explains on “The Gaggle”and talk show, to have accepted negotiations with Erdowan, Assad had to accept the precondition that Syria must immediately accept the refugees in Turkey back into Syria. Assad told Erdowan that what was first needed to be negotiated was that Turkiye support an effort to gain agreement from US to return land of Idlib province or Golan Heights, because Syria would need a place to put the refugees. Otherwise he foresaw the further, unsupportable destabilization of Syria, which, having had its oil and wheat stolen for years by US, and the country also having been prevented from rebuilding without a centavo from Turkey or Russia who yet insisted Assad make the deal in the form Turkey wished to impose, as I said –immediately receiving 1000’s of refugees with no place or provision for them. Which Syria could not handle under circumstances and would destabilize it from the start. He had good reason to reject this ‘deal.’
This account also suggests, as would be logical, that Syria and Türkiye were communicating, whether via sherpas or back channels. It is typical for groundwork to be laid before national leaders meet, even very friendly ones like Xi and Putin.
Professor Marandi further contends that Assad could not meet Erdogan without de facto recognizing his occupation of part of Syria.
If the information by Kevork Almassian is accurate, it makes Assad’s repeated rejection of talks with Erdogan seem not like ego or obstinancy, but choosing what he saw as the less bad of two wagers. He could accept a huge wave of returning migrants, which would have put an already-distressed Syria into a tailspin. That in turn would have facilitated another regime-change campaign or re-stoking of the war. So rather than accede to that, he gambled that he could carry on. Mind you, he lost a country, but he appears to have made it alive with his family to Russia and presumably has enough loot stashed in secret accounts to live at least adquately.
But the fact that Assad knew, or should have worked out, that Erdogan was bent on destabilizing Syria meant Assad should have given top priority to securing his position. Instead, we are told that Assad eased out some of his seasoned commanders and installed cronies.
Second, even if Türkiye tries pushing its Syrian migrants back into Syria, the normal pattern after governments collapse and jihadis or warlords take over is net emigration. 1.6 million Afghanis left for Iran and Pakistan after the Taliban took over in 2021. The two nations have launched programs to send them back. Iraq had large departures over its long war with Iran and as a result of the US Operation Desert Storm, and that pattern continued with the removal of Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War. On a quick search, I have yet to find great estimates, but Wikipedia puts that wave as in the hundreds of thousands. For some color on what typically happens, let us turn to Amnesty International in 2016 on Libya:
“World leaders, particularly those who took part in the NATO intervention that helped to overthrow Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi in 2011 have a duty to ensure that those responsible for the horrors that have unfolded in Libya in its wake are held to account,” said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International.
“Over the past five years Libya has descended deeper into the abyss of human rights chaos, amid lawlessness, rampant abuse and war crimes by rival armed groups and militias, and the rising threat posed by the armed group calling itself Islamic state (IS). Restoring the rule of law must go hand in hand with justice for widespread crimes and vital humanitarian support. The world must not fail Libyans in their hour of need.”….
Today Libya is plagued by clashes between rival militias and armed groups and is split between two governments – neither of which has effective control on the ground. A proposed Government of National Accord put forward this week by an internationally-backed presidency council is yet to be voted on by the House of Representatives. Parts of Benghazi, where crowds of protesters gathered in 2011, has been reduced to rubble.
The scale of abuse is staggering. Forces on all sides have carried out hundreds of abductions, taken hostages, tortured, ill-treated and summarily killed detainees, and launched indiscriminate attacks on residential areas in some cases amounting to war crimes.
This pattern has already started:
Made it out of Syria for the time being. Chaos rules, looting, thuggery and thieving. Gets the US Israel stamp of approval because this is what they believe in. Going through the border was a mash of gunfire, infighting and looting from every single shop and market. Terrorists on…
— Vanessa Beeley (@VanessaBeeley) December 8, 2024
Third, let us not forget that the US and Kurds control the oil-rich and agriculturally productive northeast. From The Future Perspective of Kurds Sovereignty Over Northeastern of Syria:
The areas under the control of the Kurdish forces are of great economic importance for Syria. The importance of this issue holds great significance for the preservation of underground oil and gas resources, as well as water resources. Agriculture and arable land are also important for the Syrian government.
Bread is the main food item in the diet of Syrians, and al-Hasaka province in the northeast is still considered as the main reservoir of wheat production in this country. This province plays an important role in Syrian agriculture due to its favourable climate and water reserves. It is considered the “Syria’s strategic material reservoir” and accounts for 36% of wheat production in the country.
So will the Kurds finally win a Kurdistan? The jihadists can’t want that, given the importance to them of this wealthy area. Erdogan presumably is even more opposed.
Things are too fluid to merit giving this idea, or other possible partitioning of Syria much thought this early, even though we must note that Israel is moving apace with occupation.
But we can see that this civil war illustrates, as Lambert pointed out, the long-term consequences of Western colonialists arbitrarily setting up countries in the Middle East, with little regard as to the ethnicities of the various groups within them and whether they had any hope of getting along reasonably well. Despite both Saddam Hussein and Assad engaging in often brutal methods, they also succeeded in tamping down on internal schisms. Even those like Craig Murray, who go to some lengths to depict Assad’s shortcomings, also point out that a big reason he was able to stay in control as long as he did was he was a defender of Syria’s minorities. And like Libya, it’s not hard to see that even though many can legitimately say they suffered under his rule, the next chapter is sure to be worse for the nation.
_____
1 Some sources provide more realistic figures, as in showing a population decline. But even those are way off in their tally of the refugee flight. For instance, Statista is an order of magnitude low on the number of refugees who went to Europe:
After peaking at 21.4 million people in 2010, Syria’s population would see a rapid decline during the civil war, as widespread conflict, massacres, and destruction would lead to significant fatalities and a mass exodus of refugees from the country, with several million migrating to neighboring Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan, and another several hundred thousand ultimately migrating to the European Union. As a result, the population of the country has declined greatly, falling from over 21 million in 2010 to just under 17 million by 2018. However, as the fighting has gradually decreased in intensity and refugee rates have levelled off, the population of Syria has slowly began to grow again. In 2020, Syria is estimated to have a population of 17.5 million people.
2 The Assad regime was not welcoming to returnees. One assumes a justification was that the refugees were indeed bona-fide asylum seekers, which means opposed to his regime, as opposed to fleeing the chaos. From Wikipedia:
The Law No. 10 issued by Bashar al-Assad in 2018 has enabled the state to confiscate properties from displaced Syrians and refugees, and has made the return of refugees harder for fear of being targeted by the regime.[a] Humanitarian aid to internally displaced persons within Syria and Syrian refugees in neighboring countries is planned largely through the UNHCR office. UNHCR Filippo Grandi has described the Syrian refugee crisis as “the biggest humanitarian and refugee crisis of our time and a continuing cause for suffering.”
Thanks for working the numbers.
This is insane.
Especially with governments in Europe completely unprepared, unwilling to act and incompetent.
On one of the state radio call-in shows it has become rule that the listeners are better informed than the invited guests who are supposed to be the experts. But people don’t need experts to grasp the grim reality any more. And they called and named names. The host tried his best.
No surprise people are fed up with such headlines:
Telegraph writes:
Syrian rebels may be removed from UK terrorist list
Pat McFadden says proscribed status of Abu Mohammad al-Jolani and his group, once aligned with al-Qaeda, to be reviewed
“https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/12/09/syrian-rebels-may-be-removed-from-uk-terrorist-list/
new statement by German Ministry for Immigration as reported by daily Süddeutsche Zeitung:
“Federal Office stops decisions on asylum applications from Syrians
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) is temporarily stopping decisions on asylum applications from Syrians. This was stated by an agency spokesperson in response to a request from the German Press Agency (dpa). Der Spiegel had previously reported.
The regulation does not apply to so-called Dublin procedures, in which another EU country is responsible for the asylum procedure, said the agency spokesperson, but to all applications for which the situation in Syria is decisive. There are currently more than 47,000 asylum applications from Syrians pending, 46,081 of which are first-time applications. Syria has been one of the main countries of origin for asylum seekers in Germany for years.
Due to the unclear situation in Syria, the Federal Office can leave asylum applications from the civil war-torn country pending for the time being. One possibility now is to “reprioritize” the corresponding applications, a spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior told dpa. They would therefore be pushed down the pile of Bamf employees. However, asylum applications are always individual decisions, and the security situation in the country of origin plays a role.”
Not sure how many Syrians are in the U.S. I had breakfast at a diner in a small Central PA town café yesterday morning. The owner who I regularly chat with told me 3 of his kitchen staff are from Syria. He said they are hard workers but don’t discuss politics. I hope I can chat with one of them next weekend when I go for my regular brkfst.
That would be very helpful, thanks!
Many thanks for putting together the list of the numbers of refugees from Syria and where they may be.
There are some high-profile people of Syrian descent in Chicago, when I was still there about five years ago. There was a Syrian/American charity that supported mainly educational institutions and schoolkids, in Syria and as refugees in Turkey and Jordan. I gave donations and did research about refugee movements: My numbers square with your numbers.
In short, half the population of Syria has left the country. Yet the U.S. media never even touch this subject.
With regard to Iraq, which suffered many of the same problems as Syria, the best estimate that I saw was that half of the population was displaced after Gulf War II. The implication of many figures that I saw was internally displaced. No one seems to know how many have returned to their original homes: As we see, crimes against the civilian population just don’t matter.
Likewise, Ukraine, most likely halved. Half the population has fled, with the largest group of refugees going to Russia.
I am reminded of the adage: If you don’t want to have your borders overwhelmed, avoid wrecking the economies and governments of the neighbors. You’d think our betters would get that….
Half the people of Syria have not left the country:
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/syria-population/
Why be so disingenuous?
Well this is a fascinating site, thanks
It’s got a six year forecast. Look at Ukraine
Yea, fascinating how wrong it is. It says: Ukraine Population (LIVE) 38,354,495. And it increased to 38,354,497, while I did copy-paste. In order to win the war, they just need to keep up the pace of whatever they are doing. Send more money!
Dear Sir, I have a bridge in Syria to sell you. As you can see on your link, it’s a budding nation with high population, and you would be making great investment, no disingenuation. Even more bridges available in Ukraine, since the population is bigger, and growing by the minute.
Thank you, sarmaT
I’m sorry my data link didn’t meet your high standards. Perhaps, you could enlighten the rest of us with a link to your data sources showing “Syria has lost half of its population over the past several years.”
I’ll pass on your bridge, thanks.
You’ll pass on my bridge, but keep on buying whatever US government (and CIA, CNN, et al.) keep selling. Good luck with your future investments.
As an aside, I’m starting to appreciate why the Israelis were in Ukraine… wild how this is playing out. Gives the global conflict a different perspective, down to those RAND studies as misdirection, and Israel’s “9/11” as the match. As if the goal was nuclear war, and Ukrainian ‘sovereignty’? Entire US government yelling “Kill the orcs! Kill the orcs!”, it’s been an absolute cartoon.
From a strategic perspective, this is impressive.
From a humanitarian perspective. Wow. Only cost a million Ukrainians, who knows how many Russians, a few thousand Israelis, and an entire ethnicity, but even Hamas stopped counting, so maybe I should too.
And if you don’t take that seriously, per Vanessa Beeley: Hamas is reportedly ‘celebrating the freedom of Syria’.
I can’t imagine what Emma, Hezbollah, and Ansarallah make of that… much less Palestinians…
Hamas (Sunni) was never an ally of Assad (Alawite, Shia branch). Emma, Hezbollah, and Ansarallah know that. Also, Hamas creation was supported by Israel/USA/UK/etc in order to remove PLO, and prevent any peace deal, and give justification for future ethnical clensing and genocide. This chaos is intentional.
Per the RAND report, one of the angles of attack against Russia was weakening Syria. It was judged as not likely. Their playbook is working out better than expected.
Can the Mujahideen magically rebuild the devastated Syrian economy with Allah’s help? I do not think so. The labor force is gone. Western governments and investors are not going to finance “terrorists,” and U.S. troops are not going to leave the oil fields.
In the end, Assad was a pretty lucky guy. He escaped alive (probably with attaché cases full of dollar bills) from a failed state that no one could govern.
Until Russia, wanting to keep its bases in Syria, agrees to send the Assads back for a show trial as a term and condition of such keeping.
Not going to happen.
Just like they’ve sent Snowden back.
Western governments and businesses have been in the “business” of funding and ‘supporting’ terrorists for decades. Remember the Mujahideen in Afghanistan back during the Soviet Afghan war?
Also, how many times has America stabbed the Kurds in the back so far? One more time would be Standard Operating Practice by now.
Assad’s real worry now will be security. Being yet another fallen autocrat living in quiet “retirement” in the territory of his main backer does not automatically confer safety.
Oh, according to the news he’s planning to open ophthalmological practice in Russia. He is a qualified MD, after all. I guess his dad told him to get a proper occupation before trying out this autocracy thing, in case it turns out not to pay off…
He was never expected to take over, but his elder brother, the heir apparent died, I think maybe in a RTA.
Saw on the news how they featured all these Syrians in different countries celebrating the fall of Assad and how there will be freedom in Syria finally. They featured countries from around the world. They even had a ‘touching’ interview with this girl here in Oz who said her Syrian father died a week ago and never saw the liberation. But when all is said and done, how may from this Syrian diaspora will actually pack up and move back to Syria under the new government. Very few I wager.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/CnkvMWujWrx7
Irishman asks Syrians in Dublin celebrating Assad’s overthrow if they will now return to Syria
I loved how it stopped dead the person with the helpful explanation of the celebration and why. Took them several long seconds to pull up uncertain economic situation, because going back was not on their agenda and they didn’t even think somebody might ask.
Given the above how false is Trump’s recent statement that “we are on the sidelines and have nothing to do with this.” He kept the US in Syria and even stated outright that we were there to grab the oil.
Trump may not want to run the world but he sure does love the rest of the world’s “stuff.” Over to you Venezuela.
Trump does not want to run the world. Others should run themselves, and pay the racket.
Is this a joke? I’ve been having difficulty telling recently, and your handle creates a strong dissonance.
Every joke I make is based on real-life events.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909–1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U10p3Tn9V5Y
Donald Trump: US left troops in Syria ‘only for the oil’
I can appreciate the art.
“Syria did have a highly educated population and Germany, a worker shortage. On paper, this could be a good if very messy match, since providing housing, language training (and better yet, some effort at cultural assimilation) and job matching would be a huge task.”
I doubt de-industrializing Germany has a worker shortage.
Please bother reading the post carefully. This was when Merkel was chancellor.
Yes, I saw. My comment was referring to now.
So to be precise: “I doubt de-industrializing Germany has a worker shortage now.”
On the current situation last week Heiner Flassbeck spoke of 12M out of work Europe-wide .
We have a German unemployment rate of 6%.
The number of available work places in Germany dropped from 800k to 600k.
While this year unemployment rose by 120k.
He said wages in Gemany/Europe increased by 2% annually between 2010-2022.
While the European Central Bank publicly supports union demands for higher wages due to alleged worker shortage (which Flassbeck is opposed to.)
What you see on TV are medium and small companies saying they find no qualified workers.
In how far that is true structurely or only selective reporting I dont´t know.
“What you see on TV are medium and small companies saying they find no qualified workers.”
When it’s get ready to ooen the borders time, they say that in the USA.
Ask what qualifications are being looked for that all of a sudden nobody has time to train for.
The de-industrializing is also a reference to what seems to happening now at a faster pace in Germany.
How many have been killed or died due to the Biden harris policies?
How many lives have been negatively affected because the US hated some government? And to what end? I don’t believe what happed in Syria is going to have any sort of stability or peace.
I hate to say it but when Biden cheers it’s probably bad. And while the NYT cheers the outcome, I expect the rest of the world to see yet another overthrow by the US.
If we hadn’t been putting huge sanctions and steeling their oil and cutting off their food supply, but instead had been supportive, maybe people’s lives would have been better?
Im not following the news about it too closely as things are changing so fast. But the next days weeks months will show us the direction of things in greater detail
The last time Germany experienced a genuine worker shortage was in the sixties. Even during the okay-ish phases that followed it never even came close to one. What companies, especially the dreaded non-unionized family-owned Mittelständler, are crying about is the prospect (!) of having to pay modestly higher wages for people that are able to both pass a drug test and not be a general liability.
Germany has a use for skilled workers, not necessarily just highly-skilled professionals, just normal Fachkräfte. There is absolutely no thirst for raw man-power. There are no coal mines anymore that depend one them, merely the highly exploitative service economy.
And that’s a problem, because the education level of Syria has suffered under Bashar’s neoliberal assault. The highly-educated creme de la creme does still exist, an artifact of better times, but is not comparable at all to the lumpenized and salafized underclass of the East Goutha slums (a result of Assad’s economic policies). Large numbers of those showed up as well and they are unexploitable for capitalists and a major headache for their host societies.
Would it have been possible for Germany to manage this episode better by taking a social dirigiste approach? Yeah, probably. Could the influx of a large number of culturally starkly divergent refugees have been a downright beneficial event? I highly doubt it.
As I indicated, that was not how Merkel saw it. Even though she was trying to rationalize a humanitarian move, the report at the time in the Western press on the caliber of public education in Syria differ from yours. The Syrians were depicted as on average well educated. Remember this is now ten years later, and the average young to older working age adult would have completed their education a bit to quite a while before 2015.
Now all of that is putting aside the elephant in the room of the language barrier.
I would say every wave of immigration from West Asia or the MENA region to Germany was something each chancellor would have loved to avoid (they were even lukewarm about importing Anatolians), but they couldn’t do so without breaking with the Transatlanticist creed – and that would be utter sin, just unthinkable.
And if there something you can’t (well, or don’t wan’t to) avoid, you will find ways to rationalize it so that it appears to be something that’s actually good, something you would have done anyway.
One of those rationalizations (by her and the journalustic profession) was that the highly educated Syrians would boost our economy, solve our healthcare crisis and alleviate demographic troubles. Again: it’s not like highly educated Syrians don’t exist. They do and they get along just fine. Those were, however, a minority.
Merkel also tried to use it as a national PR opportunity, a way to generate soft power. (apparently that was something deemed necessary in the aftermath of the German-led ruination of Greece). A new, open, liberal Germany -a proper lodestar and leader of Europe.
Lastly, she was a masterful political animal. She was able to rule Germany for more years than the so called Tausenjährige Reich existed. She did so by sabotaging potential heirs and rivals and, being a rather perceptive person, catering to ascending societal trends. The second 2010s were the decade when virtue-signaling pseudo-leftism became popular in Germany. Morphing into a refugee-friendly conservative carried little risk and leeched voters the Greens. And so she did it.
All of that is to say that she never believed any of this. That’s how she adapted to a situation she couldn’t change and publicly sold it. If you really believe that’s how she saw it back then, then you (imho) fell for her Theaterstück.
Sorry, there is contrary evidence and your core claim is nonsensical.
First, there is absolutely no reason for Merkel to have volunteered to take a million Syrians. She could have made as much PR noise about a mere 200,000, which Germany would have been able to manage much better. At a minimum, it would have been vastly less hard to house and feed them.
Second, Merkel has allowed her sentimentality to influence her actions. She was famously, and controversially, trying to help Greece’s Tsipras during the 2015 bailout negotiations. She was even reported as trying to coach him, as personally fond of him, and was even described in treating him as a surrogate son. This was when the German public was hostile to cutting Greece any slack. And you try to say she is not sentimental?
Third, your “Transatlanticist creed” re taking in refugees is a fabrication. Please find a single Davos top figure who has advocated taking refugees from war torn countries. There was no pressure from the US to take refugees, FFS. The US broke the much larger Iraq and took no mind of the mess that resulted.
The fact that you have to invent from whole cloth that Merkel as subject to non-existent pressure to the degree that she acted in a way that she knew was against her interests is absurd.
So your view of Merkel is notably incomplete.
As much as I am horrified over the Merkel era and even more over the fact that many “educated” are still fond of her, to an extent the “sentimentality” really did apply to this decision. However sentimental or not, humane or not, it conveyed a remarkable lack of foresight. Even more considering that soon after Syria started to implode – that is 2 years befor the refugee “crisis” hit Eurrope – NGOs warned over what would happen. She did nothing to prepare. So what is her “sentimentality” worth one asks.
Which reminds me – while may be coaching Tsipras – she unleashed the god-awful Schäuble as an attack dog on Varoufakis.
p.s. Greek film director Costa-Gavras adapted Varoufakis´s “whistleblower” book based on his secret recordings of the negotiations into a movie titled like the book that was factually banned in German cinemas. Rumour says German diplomats made a few calls on the behalf of “Wolfgang” (this was a claim by film critics):
“Adults in the Room”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adults_in_the_Room
trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbzqUBRVQms&list=PLKAr3J9xxa4k04FOHOpVCrbOATs0AjNGv
Not a good film but interesting. It ends with a dance choreography where Merkel and the other heads of state convince Tsipras with dancing moves to join her and the other leaders. He eventually joins the dancers. Which marks the moment of betrayal. So much for her “tutelage” used there.
Wonder if Mercouris spoke about this back then. In case his show already existed.
I’m not defending Merkel. I was critical of her even in the era when she was widely lauded. The Syrian refugee decision (or at least to take in so many) was at best not at all thought out (as we have said repeatedly, witness the complete lack of adequate planning) and looks based on highly wishful thinking and misplaced charity. Some of the German refugee camps were reported to be horrible.
“I’m not defending Merkel”
I know.
Sorry if my style implied it.
I wonder if anyone else was noticing something analogous between Bashar al Assad and Zelensky?
In the end, both faced the prospect at they had little choice but to negotiate from a position of great weakness vis their adversaries: Zelensky vis-a-vis Russia, Assad vis-a-vis Turkey. In a way, both sought to avoid having to negotiate with their adversary by building up “diplomacy” with other powers. Zelensky vis-a-vis the West; Assad with the Arab powers. The analogue isn’t exact of course: Zelensky was first encouraged to fight; Assad was always advised to negotiate. Zelensky, apparently, had less constraints in negotiations in the early going, while Assad faced much bigger constraints from get go, apparently. Either way, eventually, negotiatioin would have meant significant undermining of stability in domestic politics one way or another and not a desirable option, if they could rely on foreign help. And, most notably, the same people who thought Zelensky should have negotiated also think Assad could have saved his government by negotiating (at least in the short term.)…
Tried to post a longer reply, but I think maybe NC doesn’t like the link I was trying to use from Euromaiden Press, which is a Ukrainian propaganda outlet. I’m not sure Zelensky ever had much wiggle room to negotiate though – I just ran across something called the “red line memo” which was evidently given to Zelensky in 2019 and told him in no uncertain terms what he could and could not do as president, what he may have said during his campaign be damned. It was signed by a host of NGOs. many with presumably US backing. The memo is easy enough to find with a search but I won’t try posting it here again.
In short, it makes it look like Zelensky’s job was to start the war, not negotiate any ending to it.
Thanks for this post concerning an important aspect of the Syrian situation.
Any ideas about US possible involvement to prepare and allow this swift development?
I agree that the refugee issue in Türkiye must be the driver of the sudden collapse of Assad. The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham mujahideen didn’t just wake up the morning of the Hezhollah-Israel ceasefire and decide to be an effective fighting force. However, it appears that morning the Syrian Army decided to give up.
Türkiye, Iran, and Russia are the major players in western Syria and have been engaged in discussions since the 2017 Astana peace process. Pretty clearly these powers have come to some accommodation after the decapitation of Hezbollah and Russia and Iran withdrew their support for the Syrian Army. Without Russian and Iranian support the army couldn’t continue.
Russian foreign minister Lavrov said yesterday that the Russians are keeping their base at Tartus, which was the main incentive for supporting the Assad government. This would have to be with the cooperation of Türkiye. Their next move will likely be to kick the Americans out of Kurdistan, benefiting both Türkiye and Iran.
The problem is Türkiye reneged on its ceasefire commitments. So how good is its word now?
The Foreign Ministry also said, in statement of the sort I have never seen from a great power:
https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1986189/
So there was no deal with Russia.
Russia’s biggest protection for its military assets is that the jihadi forces in total are apparently not that large, 30,000 as reported by Gilbert Doctorow based on reports on Russian TV.
All that the Russian Foreign Ministry is saying is that Russia “was not a party” to the “talks” between Assad and “a number of participants in the armed conflict” over the peaceful handover of power. Assad may well have had those “talks” at the instigation of Russia. Continued denials of Gen. Gerasimov’s alleged recent call leaked by JCS-chair Gen. Charlie Brown suggest that Russian operational security is quite good.
Over the weekend Ha’aretz reported that 70 percent of the arms seized from Hezbollah during the recent Israeli incursion into Lebanon weren’t Iranian after all — they were of recent Russian manufacture, many still wrapped-up in boxes stenciled for delivery to the Syrian Army through Tantus. This suggests (to me, at least) that the Russians may have become quite cross about the Syrian Arab Republic corruptly profiting from selling-off arms donated by the Russian Federation. I wouldn’t double-cross the Russians.
I don’t think that Doctorow would disagree with me. Those 30,000 mujahideen didn’t all of a sudden defeat the Syrian Army. The Syrian Army all of a sudden gave up. Why? It’s certainly a logical conclusion that they had been told that Russia was cutting them off from air support and arms shipments due to Assad and his generals war-profiteering from selling-off arms that the Russian Federation was sacrificing on their behalf that might have been better employed in defending their existential war with NATO. It is also very important to the Russian leadership to keep Israel on the sidelines in Ukraine — massive amounts of Syrian weaponry donated by Russia winding up in the hands of Hezbollah was not a good look.
Doctorow’s viewing of Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovyov also confirms that the Russian Federation doesn’t intend to vacate their bases in Tantus or Khmeimin. If there wasn’t a “deal,” how could they be so confident of that?
I would not recommend double-crossing the Russians. Wonder what’s waiting for Assad in Moscow? I don’t think he’ll be driving his Ferraris any time soon…
https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a63135491/syria-president-bashar-al-assad-flees-country-leaves-behind-giant-car-collection
Huh? Did you read the “extremely concerned” in the very first line?
This is an extremely strained theory. It has been WIDELY noted that Russia was furious with Assad. to the degree that unusually, no Russian official has mentioned his name for weeks, even as the jihadi attacks was on. and even in interviews (one with Lavrov by Aljazeera) There is NO reason to think Assad was carrying any water for Russia.
Assad was so desperate that it was reported that he tried getting the US to intervene with Assad, both State and via Orban to Trump. The Trump outreach is apparently why Trump made his statement that what happens in Syria is not our affair.
To add: John Helmer, who has contacts that have knowledge of the thinking of the Russian General Staff, say that Russia would have to fight to keep its bases and describes what would be required. That is absolutely inconsistent with any deal. The post further describes widespread recriminations within Russia for failing to get in front of the Syria situation, again inconsistent with a deal.
Finally, it appears that the cohort that is advocating abandoning the bases is winning:
https://johnhelmer.net/the-russian-general-staff-kremlin-discuss-holding-the-latakia-sanjak-to-defend-bases-agree-to-withdraw-under-turkish-safe-passage/
Matt Taibbi:
“If you were one of the two people who thought that Joe Biden would stay in power longer than Bashar al-Assad, then congratulations! You win a pre-emptive presidential pardon and a one-way ticket to Moscow.”
Because of the Israeli desire for “land without a people”, any refugees from the South (and I include Damascus) are going to be discouraged from returning. More likely they will be bottled by Turkey and the US into heated ethnic ghettos in the North or East, awaiting the inevitable next civil war to sparked off when the Syrian state-lets need to be lawn mowed. The ones in Europe will remain there.
This is all academic. The most likely outcomes is another period of chaos and slaughter sparking yet another wave of refugees. Directed into Lebanon I would say.
I don’t know about that: if Israel pulls a trick like that again, they risk open conflict with Turkey, a much more connected and closer foe than Iran (since they basically share a border now.) In fact, I fully expect that al Golani will formally demand the return of his ancestral lands to Syria now that “there’s no readon for further conflict between Israel and Syria,” or some such thing. In fact, since Bibi and his friends shot off their mouths so much, I figure that they can dig up stuff that Netanyahu himself said to thst effect. (I can only remember what he said to Iranian(exile)s, but I think he said something similar to Syrians. Heck, Golsni might even offer to let Gazans settle in the Golan if Israel cedes the territory.
Of course, suvh demands will be refused and that would be the point. Then Israel might try recruiting Syrian minorities as proxies, like they did with the SLA, and, fwiw, they might even succeed with some: the Druze, Alawites (ironic!), and the Kurds are rather analogous to the Maronites in Lebanon (although it should be remembered that even they didn’t go full pro Israel or anti Syrian, but complex deals with them all). The bottom line is that I don’t think Israel can buy security in chaos-ridden Syria by hiring proxies, and their current invasion of Syria shows that they understand this, that they can only trust their own soldiers.
But I think this makes a Turkish-Israeli clash in some form inevitably, possibly very soon. Turkey, then, might invoke Art 5 just for lulz, as the final kick to knock down the rotten edifice of NATO. So, ironically, Netanyahu, rather than Putin, could be the destroyer of NATO (and Israel, too, but we already knew the latter.)
This is sort unrelated to the article, can anyone comment on the horrific images coming from Sednaya. It has made me re-think how I feel about Assad’s govt. Do yo think Russia will comment on this matter?
Horrific images coming from CNN, and Zelensky 2.0 (he/him).
You did not know Assad’s government was authoritarian and oppressive? Of course, his security forces mostly detained, tortured and killed communists and Islamists, which is why USA was quick to “rent” their services in the Iraq occupation aftermath.
Russia very likely considers Seydnaya as a Syrian internal matter, and if they bother to comment, you can expect it along those lines.
Certainly the US knows all about the torture in Syria. That is why twenty years or more ago they sent terror suspects there so that they could be tortured on their behalf and so keep their hands clean.
US knows all about the torture in World, because it’s mostly done by its “allies”. Competition is not allowed.
It doesn’t have to be outsourced to other countries. The US is quite well versed at torturing its own populace in its own prisons:
(This is going to be a long post.)
From:
Ehab Elmaghraby and Javaid Iqbal, Plaintiffs
v.
John Ashcroft, Attorney General of the US
Robert Mueller, Director of the FBI
Michael Rolince, Former Chief of the FBI’s International Terrorism Operations Section,
…
(Other defendants from NYPD, US Bureau of Prisons omitted)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT AND DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL
NATURE OF ACTION
1. This is an action brought by Plaintiffs to remedy the brutal mistreatment and discrimination each Plaintiff suffered while in the care, custody and control of the Defendants. Plaintiffs ELMAGHRABY and IQBAL are Muslim men from Egypt and Pakistan, respectively. In the months after September 11, 2001, Plaintiffs were detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center (“MDC”) in Brooklyn, New York. Plaintiffs were arbitrarily classified as being of “high interest” to the government’s terrorism investigation after September 11th, and accordingly were housed in the MDC’s Administrative Maximum (“ADMAX”) Special Housing Unit (“SHU”).
2. While in ADMAX SHU, Plaintiffs were subjected to a pattern and practice of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in violation of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eight Amendments to the United States Constitution, federal statutory law, and customary international law. Among other things, they were deliberately and cruelly subjected to numerous instances of excessive force and verbal abuse, unlawful strip and body cavity-searches, the denial of medical treatment, the denial of adequate nutrition, extended detention in solitary confinement, the denial of adequate exercise, and deliberate interference with their rights to counsel and to exercise of their sincere religious beliefs. They were placed in tiny cells for more than 23 hours per day, and strip-searched, manacled and shackled when removed from their cells. Plaintiffs were housed in the ADMAX SHU in the absence of adequate standards or procedures for determining that such a classification was appropriate, or that the classification should continue, in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
3. Plaintiffs were singled out for such mistreatment because of their race, national origin, and religion … (rest omitted for brevity)
4. As a result of Defendant’s misconduct, Plaintiffs suffered severe and permanent physical injuries, and severe emotional distress and humiliation. Plaintiffs now bring this lawsuit to redress these wrongs and to seek just and fair compensation.
(Rest of complaint omitted.)
see more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v_Iqbal
Iqbal was a Pakastani cable tv installer. The Feds grabbed him after 9-11 after he just happened to be downtown near the WTC, and he had someone else’s SS card (he was an immigrant without permanent citizenship.)
Iqbal asserted that he was tortured by prison staff on the orders of, and under policies written by John Ashcroft, Bush’ attorney general at the time.
The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, whereby, in 2009 in a 5-4 decision, they reversed the District Court ruling that the claim was sufficiently pled to go to trial (Iqbal’s arrest was the result of unconstitutional discrimination.)
Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter, and Stevens dissented.
John Roberts, the gift that keeps on giving …
(Iqbal was legally present in the US and applying for a green card through marriage to a US citizen. She ended up divorcing him and he was deported to Pakistan.)
Iqbal did later settle with the Government for $265k in exchange for dismissal of all claims.
Every first year law student learns about Ashcroft v. Iqbal in Civil Procedure. The main effect of the case is to make it more difficult for private citizens to bring suit over civil rights violations by the government.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/CpTKG6lwGJ5k
Prophet Zhirinovsky back in 2013 explains why Americans seek to overthrow Assad
Merkel had advice from a man named Gerald Knaus – do google him – George Soros is one of his patrons. Merkel was persuaded in 2015 that Germany should – much as Hungary did in 1990 – open the borders which at that time allowed GDR Citizens to escape into the West and led Egon Krenz to open the Berlin Wall which collapsed the GDR
It was an obligation on Merkel according to Knaus. Then women turned up with teddy bears to greet the young draft-dodgers from Syria and Afghanistan and convey a welcome that was misconstrued and has been most unfortunate for women in Germany.
In Syria the educated become doctors or engineers but the rest are functional illiterates as Germany has discovered and are long-term welfare queens.
As for the medics they must learn German and be approved at state level – there is no national certification as in U.K.. So a state short if medics may approve a Syrian doctor but he cannot move to another state without starting from scratch. He becomes indentured. Most spinal surgeons in East are Arabs – usually from Egypt or Lebanon but some are Syrian.
It takes 2-3 years to get through German bureaucracy to gain work. As for language integration courses they are full-time so if you get a job offer you are supposed to turn it down to complete language courses or earn your own bread and fail to complete the language course ! Germany makes life very unreasonable.
So it has become a standing joke that Germany imports neurosurgeons when most – according to Agentur für Arbeit do not even have secondary school education and that it at a Syrian level way below the sunken standards of a German Realschule. The Syrisn economy is very different from Germany snd much less capital intensive.
Germany does not really have a labour shortage. It has chronic over-manning and a burgeoning bureaucracy but with too many going to university for junk degrees in gender studies, media, sexology, tourism – because German universities do not select and the Abitur (a debased exam) has led to average students wasting time at university and dropping out. German Bundestag is full of student dropouts some having dropped out of several courses at several universities.
No one wants to do engineering so German industry hired Russians and Central Europeans who were better trained. It is known Russian engineers are higher grade than German. Syrian engineers do not make the grade.
The German Foreign Ministry had videos back in 2015 encouraging Refugees to come to Germany for work, houses, cars and milk and honey. Despite most Germans not owning a home or having any capital it was portrayed as a free gift by BAMF and created anger as single men were dumped in hostels and camps for years in places like Suhl.
Afghans flock to Hamburg – v dangerous now. Cologne and the Ruhr are also very safety challenged and the inner city shopping is dead. German cities resemble US or U.K. as shoppers – especially female – stay well away.
Germany does have the largest low-wage sector in Europe – €450 jobs – so few unionised pay jobs are available and no one wants to hire full-time workers.
Just a linguistic note: an ‘afghani’ is a unit of currency in Afghanistan. An ‘Afghan’ is a person or thing pertaining to Afghanistan. The confusion stems from ‘Iraq’->’Iraqi’, but Arabic and Pashtun are fundamentally different languages.