856729

research-article20192019
SGOXXX10.1177/2158244019856729SAGE OpenTan and Perudin

Original Research

SAGE Open

The “Geopolitical” Factor in the Syrian

April-June 2019: 1­–15
© The Author(s) 2019
DOI: 10.1177/2158244019856729
https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019856729

Civil War: A Corpus-Based Thematic journals.sagepub.com/home/sgo

Analysis

Kim Hua Tan1 and Alirupendi Perudin2

Abstract
This study analyzes the key attributions of the Assad regime’s failure to end the protracted Syrian Civil War. It analyzes why it
has taken the Assad regime so long to win back most of its territory despite tremendous support from Iran and Russia against
fragmented oppositions who received jaded, half-hearted Western assistance. The article adopts a corpus-based, thematic
analysis approach and uses primary and predominantly secondary data to examine Syrian domestic politics, as well as regional
and global geopolitics. It explores how the three main geopolitically related themes contribute to the state of Syria as of mid-
2018. The findings point toward several issues, including the regime’s dire manpower shortage, a severe lack of economic
and social wherewithal, and Assad’s hard, inflexible stance on negotiations in addition to his corruption and brutality, which
are among the key reasons for the current state of the Syrian conflict.

Keywords
Syria, geopolitics, corpus, civil war, Assad

The conflict in Syria has been going on for almost a decade.
What started in the spring of 2011 as a demonstration asking
for reform descended rapidly into a violent civil war, and it
drew in regional forces and extra-regional involvement.
Unlike other Arab uprisings, Syria’s uprising turned into the
prolonged quagmire of a civil war. The rebel forces have so
far been ineffective in toppling the Assad regime. There has
been a fierce sectarian contest between the Shiite forces led
by Iran and the Sunni camp backed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey,
and Qatar; the entry of the Islamic State (ISIS) into Iraq and
Syria; Kurdish fighters’ participation; and Western and
Russian military intervention. The Assad regime has received
strong external support from Iran and Russia and indirect
support from China. Their support has enabled the Syrian
forces to maintain control over key populated areas, regain
some lost territories, and resume a position of strength to
negotiate for peace, should it choose to do so.
Meanwhile, the Syrian rebels were fragmented with the
regional backers themselves divided, which resulted in not
having a coherent strategy while simultaneously fighting
ISIS. Moreover, Western support could be seen as lackluster
even after the usage of chemical weapons by the Assad
forces. The Western forces have also seemed to shift their
focus to fighting ISIS. Despite all of these obstacles for the
opposition, either the Assad regime could not end the armed
rebellion or it seemed to be taking a long time to end it.
Could the key factors be within Syria’s internal politics or
through regional or even global geopolitics? The analysis
clearly indicates a strong argument that Syrian domestic pol-
itics contributed more to Assad’s inability to end the conflict.
Likewise, regional geopolitics prevented Assad’s ability to
end the conflict but at a lower scale. However, global geo-
politics favored Assad’s survivability. Thus, the highest con-
tributing level in descending order is domestic politics,
followed by regional geopolitics and global geopolitics.
To determine the reasons behind the current state of Syria,
an analysis was conducted by examining Syrian domestic
politics, followed by regional geopolitics and last, global
geopolitics. According to the arguments on the factors in
each level of analysis, this article can determine how each
political situation level has helped or prevented Assad from
ending the rebellion.
Limitations of the Study
As the Syrian War is ongoing at the time that this article is
written, this study does not aim to predict the outcome of the
conflict and does not give a detailed chronology of the
events. It is also limited to the period from 2010 (the start of
1
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia
2
Ministry of Defence Brunei Darussalam, Brunei Darussalam
Corresponding Author:
Tan Kim Hua, Fakulti Sains Sosial dan Kemanusiaan, Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia.
Email: kimmy@ukm.edu.my

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2 SAGE Open
the Arab Spring) to the middle of 2018. It focuses on why the
Assad regime took a long time to regain its territories and is
unable to end the armed rebellion in the Syrian Civil War. It
does not attempt to independently study whether by remain-
ing in power thus far, Assad has already been successful or
otherwise.
Literature Review
A review of the literature on the Syrian conflict reveals a few
key areas commonly used as approaches to discussion. These
areas are domestic politics and regional and global geopoli-
tics that either affect or support the warring sides. The litera-
ture review in this article takes another approach by grouping
the discussion under four key headings, namely, the (a)
Assad regime, (b) Syrian rebels, and (c) external support for
the Assad regime, and (d) external support for the Syrian reb-
els. These are the key areas that contribute to the survivabil-
ity of the Assad regime and why it took the Regime a long
time to win back its territories in the Syrian Civil War.
The Assad Regime
The Assad regime’s own forces comprise different armed
groups that operate independently alongside the presence of
foreign fighters. The structure is increasingly civilianized
and privatized, and it lacks centralized control.
Landis predicted that the regime would survive until 2013.
Of course, Assad survived well beyond 2013, but many
regional and opposition leaders predicted Assad’s downfall in
a matter of months. The article “Why the Assad Regime is
likely to survive to 2013” focused on Assad’s survivability,
whereas most of the other literature addresses the opposition,
ISIS, and outside intervention. Emphasized in Landis’ study
were four reasons to back his prediction, namely, the regime’s
strength (militarily), the opposition’s weakness, foreign inter-
vention, and sanctions and economic decline (Landis, 2012).
The regime’s strength lies in the loyalty of its command, with
key posts filled by loyal Alawites and Baathists. Historically,
the regime has also shown resilience by its willingness to
resort to brutal measures to stay in power.
After multiple observations of the fall of the dictators in
Tunisia and Egypt, discussions about Assad revolved around
these dictators’ intentions to execute harsh responses. These
dictators had executed harsh responses soon after the upris-
ings broke out beginning in March 2011. The Assad regime
particularly framed the uprisings as terrorist campaigns led
by Islamist extremists (Heydemann, 2013). The regime has
also filled the upper ranks of the military and security appa-
ratus almost entirely with stubbornly loyal Alawites. The
regime uses a network of informal nonstate actors with fam-
ily or sectarian ties that could carry out functions without
scrutiny or accountability.
From the above review, it is evident that a gap exists in
terms of explanations regarding why despite the portrayed
strength of the regime and the support given to it, no detailed
explanation has been given to clarify the incapability of the
Assad regime in defeating the rebels. This aspect merits fur-
ther scrutiny.
Syrian Opposition
A detailed analysis of Syrian’s fragmented opposition indi-
cates that the Free Syrian Army’s failure led to the prolifera-
tion of many other groups. Cooperation among these groups
has so far not reflected any solidarity, cohesion, or a central-
ized command (Abboud, 2016). Efforts have been made to
unite them but have not yet worked.
Likewise, Hokayem (2013) wrote about fragmented
armed oppositions and pointed out key differences between
the Syrian opposition and the Libyan opposition. The author
emphasized the key attributes of the Assad regime and how
they were used to defy many predictions of Assad’s down-
fall. These attributes include cohesion, effective strategies,
military adaptation, and proven regime security methods.
In addition to the above points, Abboud (2016) also wrote
about how ISIS has fought against both the regime and the
Syrian opposition. ISIS has managed to gain control over
large swathes of the country and the economic levers of the
civil war. Its control of the oil and gas fields and supply
routes that linked the rebels’ reinforcement route was a sig-
nificant achievement. This show of strength brought in
increasing intervention from regional and international pow-
ers. How has ISIS’s involvement in the Syrian issue weak-
ened or strengthened Assad? This has not been adequately
discussed by the author in his work, which poses a gap in the
literature in need of further analysis.
External Support for the Assad
Regime
The interplay between the regional powers present in this
conflict, namely, Iran that is supporting the regime and on
the other side, Saudi Arabia and Qatar that favor the opposi-
tion, was consistently highlighted by Hokayem (2014). Their
support has fused into this conflict, with elements of identity
politics (sectarian) and geopolitics (regional hegemonic con-
test) clearly evident between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran’s
entry into the conflict quite clearly has the intention to sal-
vage a beleaguered ally of 30 years with the ultimate aim of
preserving its influence in the Levant. An interesting point
raised is that there were signs of division among the elite in
Tehran on the merits of staunchly supporting Assad as it cost
Iran US$15 billion to US$19 billion in direct support to the
regime between 2011 and 2014, aside from hampering its
détente with the West.
Along the same lines, Abboud (2016) discussed the same
issue of regional powers’ involvement. He touched on how
Hezbollah’s support is significant to the regime’s survivabil-
ity. Nonetheless, their involvement was not primarily due to
Tan and Perudin
sectarian reasons (although this was not unimportant) but
rather due to secure arms supply routes from Iran through the
regions in Syria that were compromised by the rebels’
control.
The Syrian conflict is more than just a sectarian contest
between Saudi Arabia and Iran but rather is a reflection of
“shifting geostrategic dynamics.” Interestingly, scholars
have pointed out that only 37% of Iranians support Tehran’s
backing of the Assad regime (Berti & Paris, 2014). This is an
important fact that much of the literature does not highlight.
How can the Iranian government sustain its support of an
unpopular cause and for how much longer?
Rogers and Reeve (2015) pointed out that the Russian air
strikes were mostly targeted against rebels rather than ISIS,
which indirectly enabled ISIS to gain ground against the reb-
els. Again, this leaves open the question on the relationship
between the strong backing for regime forces and their inca-
pability to end a civil war.
In an article entitled “Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview
and U.S. Response,” Blanchard, Humud, and Nikitin (2015a)
opined that although Russian intervention supported the
weakened Assad regime, the intervention might have instead
improved unity among the opposition and attracted more
recruits to join the anti-Assad cause. In this light, it is impor-
tant to further examine how this intervention might have
indirectly strengthened the rebels. Nonetheless, Russia’s
intervention was based on the invitation of the incumbent
government and on the pretext of attacking ISIS. This gave
the Russians greater legitimacy compared with the United
States’ intervention.
All of the issues above need to be examined further to
gauge how sturdy, durable, or “endless” the external support
to Assad was and to link the answers to the other question of
why the Assad regime could not capitalize on the significant
support given to it to defeat the divided rebels.
External Support for the Syrian
Rebels
The divergences between Saudi Arabia and Qatar that sig-
nificantly impacted the armed opposition’s coherence were a
puzzle. Why they, the Sunni powers of the Middle East,
could not put aside their differences and focus on removing
the Shiite obstacle that comes in the form of the Assad
regime.
Many in the West have deemed that Sunni extremism
poses a greater threat than Shiite radicalism. This remark
may also need further research to link it to explain the argu-
ably tame Western interventions toward toppling Assad
(Hokayem, 2014).
Harkey’s (2014) essay entitled “Turkey’s Syria
Predicament” is a deeply researched review of Turkey’s
involvement in this conflict that included the facilitation of
arms, supplies, and fighters into Syria. Turkey faced a
dilemma with ISIS fighting the Kurds; Ankara wanted to see
3
the Kurds weakened, but ISIS’s entry invited regional and
Western intervention that dragged Turkey along. The article
also emphasizes the differing priorities between Ankara and
Washington in addressing the conflict, especially with ISIS’s
entry. This is a useful point of argument for further research
to examine the extent of unity or division among the rebels’
external backers.
The dividing of Sunni backers into two regional camps,
namely, the Pro-Muslim Brotherhood (Qatar and Turkey)
and Anti-Muslim Brotherhood (Saudi Arabia), led to reper-
cussions on the diverging support for the opposition (Berti &
Paris, 2014). This view echoes what Hokayem wrote in his
essay as indicated above. Another interesting point that this
article highlights is that the instability and polarization in
Syria had meant trouble for the West as it provided a breed-
ing ground for radicals and extremists. In the absence of a
strong alternative to Assad either from the regime or the
opposition, the West might be reluctant to depose Assad and
instead prefer to negotiate with him as only a strong leader
(just as Saddam Hussein before) can supress radicalism,
which seems to be a greater threat than a secular dictator.
Could this explain the somewhat abated support given by the
West throughout the conflict?
Hokayem identified the good relations that Turkey and
Qatar had with Syria just before the uprising. These countries
miscalculated the fact that they had leverage to press Assad
for minor political reform. They underestimated Assad’s
resolve to brutally crush the Syrian uprising. Assad refused
the mediation and saw it as undermining his regime’s rule.
Before long, events moved swiftly with Turkey overturning
its policy of zero problems with neighbors to soon become a
transit ground for the flow of arms and fighters. Saudi Arabia
and Qatar soon armed the Syrian opposition, but they seemed
to lack an understanding of Syria’s terrain, society, and
expertise to conduct intelligence operations. Iran saw this as
an opportunity to strengthen its position, and it thus stead-
fastly backed Assad. In short, the unpreparedness of Turkey,
Saudi Arabia, and Qatar played a role in widening the scope
and in prolonging the conflict, which benefited Assad.
In addition, the Arab League’s failure to broker peace in
late 2011 also played a role. The Arab League adopted a res-
olution that condemned violence and called for dialogue.
This was soon violated by the Syrian regime, which was con-
sequently isolated by the Arab League. Part of the failure was
because the Syrian opposition was too divided to pose a
strong, united front to negotiate with Assad. Why did Assad
not use his position of strength to negotiate with a divided
counterpart to attain more gains rather than agreeing to a
peace agreement?
Yassin-Kassab and Al-Shami (2016) in their book Burning
Country emphasized the United States’ duplicity as they only
openly intervened when ISIS attacked Syria. The United
States not only attacked ISIS but also other Islamist groups
that fought against Assad. What astounded the frustrated
Syrians was that the United States did not engage with
4 SAGE Open
Assad’s forces who were brutal to the populace—the root
cause of the conflict—but instead, vehemently attacked the
Jihadists, that is, the symptoms. This surely proves that to the
United States, the Jihadists were their greater priority, even
as the civil war went on.
Blanchard, Humud, and Nikitin (2015b) also discussed
the attacks on ISIS by the US-led coalition. Although the
Syrian opposition that fought ISIS welcomed the attacks,
they also questioned why the United States did not want to
take military action on government forces that were also
committing atrocities.
A dilemma that the United States faced is that greater,
more offensive campaigns against ISIS might take pressure
off Assad’s forces, whereas the collapse of Assad’s forces
may enable extremists to bring mayhem. The United States’
program to train and equip the opposition also came under
scrutiny following reports that the weapons provided to the
opposition might have fallen into the extremists’ hands. The
lack of the United States’ effective response toward the
Russian attacks on anti-Assad forces also caused criticism
that demanded greater and less restrictive U.S. commitment.
This hesitance, as opposed to Russia’s decisive intervention,
also made it less appealing to the opposition and their
regional backers who demanded the United States to train the
rebels for offensive operations against the regime. All of
these issues indicate that Assad is supported strongly enough
but is still incapable of winning. This issue merits further
scrutiny as to its linkage to Assad’s incapability to end the
rebellion.
In the monograph, “Syria and the Islamic State, The
Project on Middle East Political Science,” Schulhofer-Wohl
stated that the United State’ hesitancy to coordinate regional
backers and provide effective and timely financial and mili-
tary support was central to the fragmentation and radicaliza-
tion of the rebels. This echoes Blanchard et al.’s view that the
West, especially the United States, is indecisive, is selective,
and only gives piecemeal support to the cause, which con-
tributed to the fragmentation and proliferation of the armed
rebels. This view could be further analyzed as this shows
another gap in explaining how Assad is incapable of ending
the rebellion despite the hesitant U.S. support.
The United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC’s) perma-
nent members were divided on the issue, with Russia and
China being consistently supportive of the Assad regime,
whereas the remaining three countries favored a regime
change. United Nations (UN) Special Representative Kofi
Annan’s proposed peace plan in 2012 failed partly due to its
exclusion of Syrian representatives and the dearth of sup-
port from key regional players. Another UN Special
Representative, Lakhdar Brahimi, also proposed a peace
plan in 2014. It was also botched due to the divisiveness of
the Syrian opposition, which caused insufficient representa-
tion. This further proves the extent of the opposition’s divi-
sion that the Assad regime could have exploited, but it did
not exploit it due to its inability to defeat the opposition
politically.
Theoretical Framework
This article looks at a few concepts relevant to the Syrian
conflict, namely, civil war, proxy war, regime security, and
neorealism.
Civil wars have been described as conflicts with three crite-
ria, specifically, (a) fighting between agents of the state and
organized, nonstate groups that seek to take control of the gov-
ernment, regional power, or change government policies
through violence, (b) at least 1,000 people were or have been
killed over the course of the conflict, with a yearly average of
100, and (c) a minimum of 100 were killed on both sides
(including civilians attacked by rebels; Fearon & Laitin, 2003).
Civil wars have also been seen as conflicts that result in
at least 1,000 battle-related deaths per year (Collier, Hoeffler,
and Söderbom, 2004). In Collier et al.’s study, the mean or
average duration of a civil war is approximately 7 years.
They also argued that the duration of civil wars is related to
the ethnic fractionalizing of the warring parties. Polarized
societies generally cause longer civil wars as the costs of
coordinating a rebellion in very diverse societies are
extremely high.
As the Syrian Civil War arguably also constitutes a proxy
war, it is also essential to look at it in terms of the proxy war
concept. The key components of a proxy war as expounded
by Mumford (2013) are a (a) provision of manpower, (b) pro-
vision of material, (c) provision of financial assistance, and
(d) provision of nonmilitary assistance. He also identified
three consequences that result from a proxy war, namely, (a)
dependence in the long run between the benefactor and the
proxy, (b) elongation and/or intensification of the original
war, and (c) conflict that spills over beyond the initial bound-
aries or that causes unintended blowback for the participants
once a war ends.
In relation to the application of the Proxy War concept, as
the Syrian conflict is seen to be affected both regionally and
globally by the system’s structure, Kenneth Waltz’s theory of
neorealism is also referred to. This theory suggests that the
structural or international system rather than human nature
determines the anarchical nature of states and that anarchy
prevents states from cooperating with one another. Thus,
states seek their interests according the logic of self-help.
This results in states wanting to maximize power and, in
turn, causes an imbalance of power. The uncertainties of
other states’ future intentions lead to a lack of trust among
states, and this gives rise to security dilemmas. Thus, the key
concepts of structuralism, balance of power, and security
dilemmas are deemed to be best to describe not only the
fighting between the regime forces and the opposition but
also the dynamics of the regional and international actors
involved in this civil war.
Tan and Perudin
In relation to this research paper, the structural system of
Middle East geopolitics has caused anarchy and security
dilemmas and, in turn, competition and the balancing of
power. First, geopolitics in the form of the Arab uprising phe-
nomenon that has toppled one dictator after another forced
Assad to give his all to remain in power (which is his primary
interest and security dilemma). Second, the sectarian divide
results in regional bipolarity where offensively competing
and balancing powers fight through their respective proxies in
the Syrian Civil War. Consequently, the international com-
munity is also dragged into this divide, with Russia on one
side supporting Assad and the United States and European
states on the other side supporting the opposition.
Third, as this study also inevitably examines regime sur-
vivability, it is appropriate to consider the concept of weak
states “insecurity dilemma.” This concept of insecurity is
self-perpetuating whereby every regime’s effort to secure its
security (survivability) provokes greater resistance. The state
fails to convince its population that armed resistance is
wrong or counterproductive. It also fails to physically disarm
and control its rivals. This, in turn, creates an insecurity spi-
ral, that is, armed groups engage in self-help strategies. In
this weak state context, the ruling elite use the government
machinery primarily to continue their rule. Therefore, the
concept of “state security” and “regime security” becomes
indistinguishable.
For clarification, this article operationalizes the “ending
the rebellion” terminology to mean “ending major fighting
between regime forces and rebels” either by the “victory of
regime forces defeating the rebels to then continue the regime
rule over all of Syria” or “resorting to concrete negotiations
between both sides of combatants in peaceful conditions.”
Application of the Corpus-Based
Methodology
Three main themes were identified from the literature. To
confirm these themes, the study corpus, including the tran-
scripts of interviews of prominent leaders by international
media, books, monographs, essays, journals, and news, was
compared with a reference corpus. Significant keywords
were then compared against the themes or results obtained
from the interviews.
These main themes identified from the literature as appro-
priate to address the issues are domestic Syrian politics and
regional and global geopolitics. To confirm the significance of
these themes, 117 files (study corpus) of approximately 1.8
million tokens including the transcripts of interviews of prom-
inent leaders by international media were contrasted with a
reference corpus. The results show that there is a correspond-
ing relationship of keywords and themes, that is, domestic
politics, regional geopolitics, and global geopolitics.
The results are shown below to illustrate the significance
of the keywords generated by running the articles against the
5
reference corpus by using Wordsmith (a corpus tool). The
highlighted keywords are the keywords deemed to be related
to at least one of the themes.
Data Collection
The primary data used in this study were from face-to-face
interviews and via email. The subjects targeted for the inter-
views were diplomats, analysts, and academic experts. All
interview questions were first validated to determine whether
the set of questions were understandable, answerable, and
relevant.
The bulk of the resources for the research are secondary
data from books, monographs, essays, journals, and news
that were later compiled and converted into text files to form
the study corpus.
Study Corpus
In all, 117 files were used to form the study corpus; the size
of the corpus is approximately 1.8 million words, and the
reference corpus is the Reuter Corpus Volume 1 (RCV1).
RCV1 is an archive of manually categorized newswire sto-
ries made available by Reuters Limited for research pur-
poses. To generate a keyword index (for the words that are
unusually frequent in a study corpus), a study corpus is com-
pared with a huge reference corpus. The primary data used in
this study were from interviews (face-to-face or email). The
main targets of these interviews were diplomats, analysts,
and academic experts. However, the bulk of the resources for
the research are secondary data from books, monographs,
essays, journals, and news. News on war is in abundance in
the media (Ibrahim, 2010; Ibrahim, Mustaffa, Ahmad, Kee,
& Mahmud, 2013). The collection of data was conducted
through library research in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Some
secondary data were also obtained from the Internet.
Data Analysis
Ashaari and Maideen (2017) proposed that identifying
themes is a useful procedure to identify the key factors of an
issue. In this article, the themes of this research were derived
from a survey of the relevant literature and interviews, where
arguments are generally and consistently grouped into simi-
lar themes. The significance of the themes is then confirmed
by using the corpus-based methodology. The study corpus,
that is, articles and interview transcripts, is run for keyword
significance against a reference corpus (or general corpus) to
check whether the words or phrases, metaphorical or other-
wise (Ibrahim & Mohamad, 2005), that comprise the themes
are unusually frequent and significant. High log likelihood
statistics are a good indication of significance. Words are
checked for the appropriate themes by examining their
occurrences in the context of the articles (the concordance
6 SAGE Open
function in a corpus analysis) and confirmed by using the
UCREL semantic tagger for themes.
Corpus Analysis Results
The output of the corpus analysis in Table 1 indicates the
significance of the keyness index (column g). This confirms
the significance of the geopolitical themes, whether domes-
tic, regional, or global, in terms of the key players and their
roles. Column b shows the frequency of the top 100 key-
words in the study corpus. Column e shows the frequency of
the keywords in the reference (general) corpus. Column g
shows the keyness or significance of the keywords. These
keywords’ relevance to each theme is highlighted in columns
h, i, and j.
Discussion
The geopolitical factor is indeed crucial in the analysis of the
Syrian Civil War from domestic to regional and global
politics.
Regarding the proxy war concepts explained by Mumford
(2013), regional and international backers of both warring sides
have clearly provided manpower, materials, financing, and
even nonmilitary support such as propaganda. As to the conse-
quences of this proxy war, at the time of this writing, the civil
war is still going on, but it can already be seen that the depen-
dence between the benefactor and the proxy is prolonging and
even intensifying the conflict from its original clashes, as evi-
denced by the use of chemical weapons, ISIS’s entry, Russian
intervention, and Turkey’s increasingly active participation.
Although the fighting has yet to spill beyond Syria’s boundar-
ies, there is clearly a “spill in” with regional countries involved
in some way. Moreover, although the conflict is still ongoing,
unintended blowbacks have already occurred, for example, ter-
rorist attacks in Western cities, the downing of a Russian air-
liner, the refugee crisis in Europe, and so on.
The Syrian conflict fits into the concept of a civil war as
expounded by Collier et al. (2004), as the casualties recorded
are certainly considerably above 1,000 deaths per year. At
the time of this writing, the Syrian Civil War has already
exceeded 5 years and will most likely reach the 7-year aver-
age duration of civil wars. More importantly, the polarization
of the warring parties, especially among the rebels, contrib-
utes to prolonging the conflict. Coordinating the rebels is
certainly a key challenge as their fragmentation is the fore-
most issue of the conflict. This conflict also meets the three
criteria of a civil war as described by Fearon and Laitin
(2016), with fighting between the government regime and
the rebels who seek to remove Assad from power. As to the
number of deaths on both sides, the conflict has more than
met the requirement of 100 deaths annually.
The Middle East’s enduring structural divide between the
Sunnis and Shiites and the power rivalry between Saudi
Arabia and Iran are featured more distinctly in this conflict
compared with other Arab Spring rebellions. This shows that
neorealism is indeed central to driving the outcomes of this
conflict. Such structural conditions are so strong that the
Syrian uprising of 2011, which was initially not seen as sec-
tarian in nature, quickly morphed into a prolonged civil war
strongly characterized by sectarianism. At a global level,
neorealism is evident in the “East–West” rivalry, that is, with
the United States and Europe on one side and Russia and
China on the other. This relationship is also manifested in the
Syrian Civil War: first, in Russia and China’s veto against
Western-sponsored proposals to the UN to take actions
against Assad regime and second, with the Western states
supporting the rebels and Russia’s direct participation in its
support of Assad. This divide has continued throughout the
civil war and even hindered meaningful efforts to end it
through peaceful negotiations. Such is the influence of the
international structural system on this conflict.
Overall Effects of Syria’s Domestic Politics
on the Civil War
Bashar Assad’s regime attempted a reform but has yet to suc-
ceed. The regime was corrupt with cronyism and bias toward
the Alawites and was thus further losing support from Syria’s
Sunni majority. It reacted brutally to the 2011 uprising,
forced increasingly more people to be opposed to the regime
and alienated the regime internationally. Assad’s hard stance
in rejecting any talk of power transition has effectively
closed any possibility of ending the conflict through negotia-
tion. The regime forces have lost significant manpower due
to casualties, defections, and draft dodgers. This makes it dif-
ficult for the regime to capitalize on the effective Russian
aerial attacks by launching massive ground offensives to
defeat the rebels.
Previous patterns of minority rule in the Middle East have
demonstrated that such regimes will fight to the bitter end;
thus, the Assad regime will also fight to the maximum and
bring everyone down with it. Therefore, the regime is not
interested in stepping down as this would be suicidal. This
would close the door for the consideration of power transfer
negotiations or alternatively, asylum arrangements; there-
fore, a requirement that Assad steps down would only pro-
tracts the conflict. The regime’s brutal strategy includes the
use of chemical weapons and air attacks on civilian locali-
ties, which further alienates it from the populace and, in turn,
hampers its recruiting efforts.
The number of rebels of at least 100,000 is sufficiently large
to extend the conflict, although it may not be a factor in a deci-
sive win. In addition, the rebels comprise as many as 1,000
groups, which means that they can attract a wide spectrum of
sectors that range from urban seculars to extremists to join their
fight to further use the virtually endless supply of rebel man-
power to thus prolong the conflict. The economy before the
war was bad enough for the Syrian people. The sanctions and
damages caused by the fighting have further devastated the
Tan and Perudin 7

Table 1. Keyness of Themes.

Reference
Corpus Reference Keyness/ Domestic Regional Global
Keyword Frequency % Texts frequency Corpus % Significance politics geopolitics geopolitics

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h) (i) (j)
Syria 2,746 0.92 114 6,564 24,840.00
Syrian 1,825 0.61 112 3,276 17,352.78
Assad 1,198 0.40 97 850 12,972.45 x
Regime 1,574 0.53 95 6,097 12,925.71 x
Isis 548 0.18 45 141 6,505.27 x
Conflict 753 0.25 83 10,110 4,454.47
Aleppo 331 0.11 58 21 4,191.54 x
Al 917 0.31 96 26,482 0.01 4,095.32
Opposition 1,082 0.36 88 54,487 0.03 3,710.08 x
S 2,762 0.93 99 493,621 0.23 3,511.77
The 21,366 7.20 117 10,039,638 4.74 3,439.19
And 9,171 3.09 117 3,438,067 1.62 3,156.96
Forces 828 0.28 96 34,641 0.02 3,122.48
Hezbollah 231 0.08 43 17 2,912.26 x
Military 867 0.29 102 50,470 0.02 2,742.31
War 885 0.30 103 56,405 0.03 2,653.83
Russia 863 0.29 79 57,631 0.03 2,515.20 x
Groups 668 0.22 83 30,243 0.01 2,420.92 x
Sectarian 274 0.09 38 884 2,336.64 x
Sunni 277 0.09 45 968 2,323.69 x
Assad 180 0.06 8 9 2,293.45 x
Putin 166 0.06 28 0 2,181.78 x
Fighters 360 0.12 55 4,977 2,109.24 x
Nusra 150 0.05 43 0 1,971.48 x
Qaeda 147 0.05 38 0 1,932.05 x
Of 10,348 3.48 117 4,676,412 2.21 1,908.85
Un 300 0.10 42 3,871 1,796.78 x
Syrians 175 0.06 48 208 1,772.55
Jabhat 130 0.04 30 0 1,708.61 x
Intervention 397 0.13 63 12,688 1,696.60 x x
Civil 470 0.16 72 21,658 0.01 1,687.70 x
Iran 444 0.15 78 18,970 1,656.53 x
Damascus 235 0.08 67 1,732 1,654.24 x
Bashar 141 0.05 70 47 1,641.88 x
Turkey 466 0.16 71 23,040 0.01 1,612.77 x
Idlib 119 0.04 30 0 1,564.03 x
Kurdish 300 0.10 37 6,784 1,477.90 x
Homs 125 0.04 43 36 1,471.87 x
Islamic 351 0.12 77 12,001 1,455.48
Armed 356 0.12 61 15,024 1,336.26
Obama 100 0.03 33 0 1,314.30 x
That 3,224 1.09 117 1,128,376 0.53 1,313.64
Pyd 99 0.03 5 0 1,301.16 x
Support 644 0.22 93 78,183 0.04 1,209.37
Isil 91 0.03 14 1 1,184.98 x
Alawite 89 0.03 29 1 1,158.74 x

(continued)
8 SAGE Open

Table 1. (continued)

Reference
Corpus Reference Keyness/ Domestic Regional Global
Keyword Frequency % Texts frequency Corpus % Significance politics geopolitics geopolitics

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h) (i) (j)
Regional 414 0.14 57 30,406 0.01 1,135.59 x
Political 600 0.20 81 74,252 0.04 1,107.70
Jihadist 82 0.03 23 0 1,077.72 x x
Actors 132 0.04 34 582 1,052.94
Russian 511 0.17 61 55,639 0.03 1,052.30 x
Arab 344 0.12 58 21,515 0.01 1,042.75 x
Is 2,902 0.98 114 1,090,145 0.51 979.15
As 2,298 0.77 115 791,255 0.37 973.04
Rebel 295 0.10 59 17,179 932.40 x
Uprising 154 0.05 40 1,925 931.52
Iraq 379 0.13 80 33,004 0.02 925.72 x
Weapons 244 0.08 52 10,867 891.40
Areas 363 0.12 69 31,545 0.01 887.94
These 573 0.19 79 87,127 0.04 868.03
Army 366 0.12 74 35,775 0.02 820.77
Ypg 62 0.02 13 0 814.86 x
Humanitarian 179 0.06 40 5,278 791.98
Western 404 0.14 78 46,682 0.02 791.59 x
Lebanon 243 0.08 45 13,709 782.06 x
Unsc 59 0.02 5 0 775.43 x
Has 1,766 0.59 115 605,657 0.29 754.22
Jihadists 57 0.02 15 0 749.14 x x
Hama 65 0.02 34 26 745.48 x
Muslim 101 0.03 30 720 717.16
Such 501 0.17 77 80,722 0.04 713.74
Have 1,598 0.54 112 539,169 0.25 709.53
Latakia 63 0.02 32 35 700.36 x
Fighting 267 0.09 72 21,590 0.01 686.77
Libya 144 0.05 35 3,617 680.70 x
In 7,818 2.63 117 4,111,496 1.94 671.45
Alawites 51 0.02 16 0 670.29 x
Resolution 186 0.06 38 8,667 663.91 x
Kurds 123 0.04 23 2,285 651.70 x
Ahrar 55 0.02 14 16 647.13 x
Battlefield 84 0.03 32 453 639.49
Terrorist 127 0.04 40 2,792 632.36 x x
Arabia 176 0.06 48 8,276 625.25 x
Saudi 246 0.08 53 20,259 624.83 x
Authoritarian 89 0.03 17 676 621.48 x
Militias 86 0.03 31 586 617.83 x
Thus 144 0.05 39 4,757 606.33
Sham 75 0.03 16 331 598.12
Extremist 87 0.03 22 731 591.16 x x
Their 1,004 0.34 102 297,648 0.14 589.62
Civilians 141 0.05 47 4,934 578.46
(continued)
Tan and Perudin 9

Table 1. (continued)

Reference
Corpus Reference Keyness/ Domestic Regional Global
Keyword Frequency % Texts frequency Corpus % Significance politics geopolitics geopolitics

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h) (i) (j)

Kobane 43 0.01 5 0 565.14 x

Allies 159 0.05 59 7,511 563.51 x x
Sanctions 178 0.06 35 10,924 545.58 x
Levant 46 0.02 19 13 542.38 x
Even 378 0.13 77 60,773 0.03 539.67
Shia 50 0.02 20 38 536.90 x
Iranian 157 0.05 48 8,412 520.04 x
Or 943 0.32 95 292,237 0.14 505.69
Raqqa 38 0.01 16 0 499.43 x

The significance of the shaded regions are in column g. Column g showed keyness or significance of the keywords. This is a confirmatory measure to
the findings from the interviews etc. The shaded regions are the ones deemed related to at least one of the themes i.e. domestic, regional or global
geopolitics, and selected for discussion. ‘X’ indicates where the keywords fit into the 3 themes.

Syrian economy and social services, which makes it difficult
for the regime to conduct decisive military campaigns and to
rule controlled areas effectively. The regime’s brutal strategy of
targeting medical facilities and the civilian population is also
not helpful in winning mass support and recruiting youth,
which thus protracts the ongoing civil war.
The opposition’s composition of various groups also
makes it difficult for the Assad regime to satisfy their needs,
should the regime wish to make reforms or negotiate seri-
ously. More recently, the rebels have proved that they can
unite operationally through evidence of some progress on the
battlefields. If such cohesiveness continues, it will make it
more difficult for the regime forces to defeat the rebels.
The bad and unjust economic situation prior to the civil
war has further deteriorated with the addition of sanctions
and conflict. Effectively, the Syrian economy is terribly dam-
aged, which makes it difficult for the Assad regime to control
the state and finance its counter-insurgency campaigns.
Assad’s stubbornness in not considering a power transi-
tion through peaceful negotiation narrows the chance of end-
ing the rebellion through peaceful means. Moreover,
narrating or framing the conflict as an act of counter-terror-
ism also restricts the common ground for negotiation.
The only few key arguments from the perspective of
domestic politics in support of the regime is first, the badly
fragmented opposition. Second, the opposition leadership is
in exile, incoherent, ineffective, or cannot agree on a political
strategy. Without continuous cohesiveness and coordination,
the rebels stand little chance of toppling Assad.
A comparison is made of the arguments on Syria’s domes-
tic politics, whether they tilted toward helping Assad to end
the rebellion or made it harder for him to end it. A tabular
format is used below (Table 2) for the ease of comparison of
the above arguments.
Although the opposition’s fragmentation was a significant
weakness that Assad should have capitalized on, there were
other overwhelmingly greater arguments that occurred in
Syria’s domestic politics that could have prevented Assad
from being able to end the rebellion. In particular, the dire
manpower shortage and lack of economic and social facili-
ties made it extremely difficult for the Assad regime to seize
the opportunity.
Regarding the insecurity dilemma, the regime suppressed
the development of credible opposition, including resorting
to the use of brutal measures. The Arab Spring that saw the
fall of many Arab dictators provoked greater resistance as
seen through growing protests. Eventually, the regimes failed
to convince the population at large that armed resistance is
counterproductive, which caused the armed groups to resort
to self-help (not cooperating with the government) to achieve
their demands for reforms. Indeed, the regime elites used all
the government machinery available to maintain rule, includ-
ing the use of chemical weapons and barrel bombs. From the
Syria government’s view, the security of its state was equiva-
lent to the Assad regime’s security, that is, they were
indistinguishable.
Overall, Syria’s domestic politics have contributed more
to the Assad regime’s inability to end the armed rebellion.
Although this section has focused on domestic politics,
the international structural system has greatly affected the
internal politics of Syria. Both sides have relied heavily on
outside powers to be able to wage war effectively. The realist
nature of the structure provided immense effects to each war-
ring side. In fact, the neorealist or structural nature was the
main driver that led to the morphing of the protests into a
violent, prolonged civil war.
As the conflict was considered to be a form of a “proxy
war” played by competing outside powers who took sides
10
Table 2. Comparison of the Arguments on Syria’s Domestic Politics.
Arguments that show that domestic politics have enabled
Assad to end the rebellion
(a)
•• Fragmented rebels
•• Support from proregime, independent armed groups
•• Lack of established domestic political opponents as a
credible competitor to Assad
•• Opposition leadership in exile, ineffective, disunited,
and divergent on political strategy
to support the regime or the rebels, it is worth examining
how the geopolitics surrounding Syria has affected this
conflict. The next section will discuss whether the regional
political situation and involvement as a whole actually
helped Assad to end the rebellion or was otherwise.
Overall Effects of Middle East Geopolitics
(Regional) and Interventions on the Civil War
There are three key regional forces shaping the Syrian con-
flict, namely, the Arab Spring, sectarianism, and ISIS. The
Arab Spring, particularly the downfall of Mubarak (Stacher,
2013) and Gadhafi, gave rise to Saudi Arabia’s prominence.
This enables Saudi Arabia—the leading power against
Shiites and the West’s close ally—to interfere in the Syrian
conflict, which, in turn, brings in its sectarian nature. The
SAGE Open
Arguments that show that domestic politics have not enabled Assad to end
the rebellion
(b)
•• Assad’s corrupt regime, cronyism, and bias toward the Alawites—
significantly losing the Sunni majority
•• High involvement of independent armed groups, which moves decision
making away from the regime leadership
•• Pre–civil war economic decline and poor economic policy that neglects
the rural populace; thus, a significant lack of support for the regime
•• Framing the conflict as counterterrorism allowed brutal measures,
sidelined reforms, and restricted the chances of negotiations
•• Significant manpower shortages of regime forces due to casualties,
defection, and draft dodgers
•• Assad’s complete rejection of any proposal of a power transition, which
virtually closed any possibility for negotiations
•• The pattern of minority rule in the Middle East shows that the regimes
will fight to the bitter end, which therefore protracts the conflict
•• Many different rebel groupings (1,000 groups) attract a wider base of
the population (Islamist, secular, urban, rural, middle class, etc.), not just
a few sectors
•• The rebel’s strength of 100,000 was large enough to prolong attrition—
one third of the regime forces’ initial strength
•• A wide variety of opposition made it difficult for the Assad regime to
satisfy their needs, if the regime wished to make reforms; likewise, it
was difficult for peace negotiators to satisfy the needs of these various
groups
•• Lack of rebel leadership gave rise to Sunni’s appeal, which increased the
sectarian effect and, in turn, prolonged the conflict
•• Occasional unity among rebels that resulted in greater achievements
made it more difficult for the regime forces to defeat the rebels
•• Economic collapse due to sanctions and war further reduced support
for the regime; it was also difficult for the regime forces to sustain
the war without outside support, as it was difficult to recruit and pay
soldiers and attract youth to join, enhance the capability of the regime
forces to beat the rebels more decisively, or win the hearts and minds
of the population to effectively govern areas recaptured from the rebels
•• Damaged basic health services and education were detrimental to the
regime’s rule and the efforts to win the people’s support
success of the Arab Spring in toppling other countries’ dicta-
tors has inevitably made Assad very unpopular internally and
internationally, especially with his brutal reactions to the
2011 uprising.
The shift to a sectarian divide from the initial political upris-
ing has caused an unlimited supply of fighters for each side to
thus prolong the conflict. In the Sunni majority region, supplies
of rebels (who are mostly Sunnis) are much more, which there-
fore makes it more difficult for the Assad regime to win.
One of Assad’s greatest supporters is Iran, which pro-
vided enormous assistance in the form of arms, training,
financing, political support, and even military personnel.
However, signs of Iran’s exhaustion can be seen from its
offer of asylum to Assad. In addition, Iran also has other
commitments, particularly in Yemen. However, Hezbollah
also sends its fighters to fight for Assad.
Tan and Perudin
On the rebels’ side, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey pro-
vide significant support by sending arms, financing, and
political propaganda, in addition to being entry points to
Syria. Unlike the regime’s side, the supply of arms to rebels
is limited for fear of the sophisticated weapons falling into
extremists’ hands.
Regional support for the rebels increased following
Russia’s attacks, with a supply of antitanks and proposed
supply of anti–air weapons. Moreover, recently, the rebels’
cohesion has shown improvements as indicated by some
combined operations conducted by different rebel groups.
Saudi and Qatar’s diverging interests in their support for
the rebels have led to fragmentation, which makes them less
effective militarily. This is in addition to the West’s restric-
tion of the supply of arms to the rebels, whereas the regime
faces no such restriction from Russia or Iran. The Saudi–
Qatar split also means more difficulties for negotiation medi-
ators to meet these backers’ demand (through their proxy
opposition groups), even if Assad agrees with the mediators’
proposals.
ISIS’s invasion of part of Western Syria, aside from add-
ing another battlefront, increases Assad’s difficulty to regain
control of the state and inadvertently displays the regime’s
weakness. ISIS, unlike the rebel groups, will never be fea-
tured in negotiations and likely has no interest in them. This
closes the opportunity for Assad to regain the ground lost to
ISIS through negotiations. Thus, military action is the only
option left against ISIS.
Nonetheless, ISIS’s intervention has resulted in a shift of
focus to this new threat, especially following a string of ISIS
terror attacks on Western cities. Likewise, ISIS’s entry helps
justify Russia’s intervention, which is also used to attack
moderate rebels. ISIS also fights against the Syrian rebels
and indirectly helps Assad to defeat the rebellion. However,
ISIS has considerable income coming from the sale of oil,
taxation, extortion, and the black market, enabling it to sus-
tain the conflict and, in turn, preventing Assad from reuniting
all of Syria’s territories.
The arguments for both sides on whether regional geo-
politics as a whole cause more problems for Assad or other-
wise looks more balanced compared with the arguments
from the point of view of domestic politics. However,
regional geopolitics leads to more protraction overall, where
neither side is poised to win decisively.
From a regional geopolitical perspective, both sides of the
argument on whether the Middle East’s geopolitics and inter-
ventions have helped the Assad regime in ending the rebel-
lion are tabulated in Table 3. Synthesized from the above
arguments, the comparison is as follows.
Although there are strong arguments to suggest that
regional geopolitics have enabled Assad to end the rebellion,
overall, the situation in the Middle East has shaped the con-
flict into a protracted one with hardly any clear indication
that Assad can end it. Iran’s support is enormous and vital but
has begun showing signs of exhaustion. Meanwhile,
11
the rebels’ regional backers, although they have different
agendas, have continued to provide significant supplies to
match Iran’s support to thus enable the rebels to fight a pro-
tracted war; however, it is highly unlikely that they will be
able to overthrow Assad. The rebels are fragmented but have
proven that they can unite on certain occasions. The sectarian
nature of the conflict favors the rebels (volunteers) as there
are more Sunni Muslims in the region. ISIS’s involvement
has affected both sides, but it has considerable capacities to
sustain the conflict, which therefore denies Assad the com-
plete regaining of Syrian territory.
Regarding neorealism, the Middle East’s structural sys-
tem, particularly the growing sectarian (Sunni–Shiite) divide,
not only became the catalyst of the conflict at the beginning
but also has sustained it. The involvement of regional back-
ers also fits very well into the key components of the proxy
war concept. Regarding these components, the benefactors
(backers) have provided manpower, material, financing, and
nonmilitary assistance to their respective sides. As to the
consequences, they caused backer-proxy dependence, the
prolonging of the conflict and its spilling over boundaries,
for example, the ISIS attacks outside Syria.
Overall, regional geopolitics does not favor Assad as
someone able to end the rebellion.
The Syrian conflict is so complex that it is inadequate to
analyze regional geopolitics alone. Powers beyond the region
immensely influence both sides and have significantly
shaped the outcome of the conflict. Global geopolitics cer-
tainly affects the Syrian issue.
Overall Effects of Global Geopolitics and
Interventions on the Civil War
Western states especially the United States have supplied
arms, nonlethal aid, and training to the rebels. However, the
arms supplied are limited to not include advanced weapons,
especially anti–air weapons, due to the concerns that extrem-
ists may receive them. The West has also imposed the same
restrictions to the arms supplied by the rebels’ regional
backers.
Western sanctions contribute to the Assad regime’s diffi-
culty to be effective militarily or to rule the provinces under
its control. The West’s resistance to include Assad in peace
negotiations has narrowed the room for Assad to choose to
end the rebellion through negotiations.
The West’s involvement in this conflict is inconsistent and
lackluster. There seems to be lack of political will to inter-
vene directly, even after chemical weapons were used, to the
dismay of the rebels. Understandably, one reason for this is
the United States’ fatigue from the War on Terror.
Russia’s intervention in this issue is very significant.
Military air attacks have helped Assad’s regime forces to
regain ground. It also makes it more complicated if the West
later chooses to attack the regime forces for fear that it may
trigger a direct confrontation with the Russians. Russia’s
12
Table 3. Comparison of the Arguments for Middle East Geopolitics and Interventions.
Arguments that show that regional geopolitics have helped
Assad to end the rebellion
(a) (b)
•• Strong support from Iran: arms, training, military personnel, ••
financing, etc.
•• Significant support from Hezbollah ••
•• Saudi and Qatar’s divergence in their support for the rebels
have caused fragmentation among the rebels and have made ••
them less effective, which is something Assad could have taken
advantage of
•• Western restriction of the supply of arms to the rebels,
whereas the regime faced no such restriction
•• ISIS’s intervention shifted the Western and regional focus
to ISIS, especially following the ISIS terror attacks on
Western cities ••
•• ISIS’s entry justifies Russia’s intervention, which the
Russians also use to attack the rebels ••
•• ISIS also fights against the Syrian rebels
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
Note. ISIS = Islamic State.
intervention with Assad’s invitation ostensibly against ISIS
is difficult to dispute and indirectly helps improve Assad’s
image. Politically, Russia alongside China has vetoed pro-
posals at the UN to take military actions against Assad.
However, the Russian intervention can also be seen in the
light of geopolitical and domestic reasons such as to project
Russia’s image if not its power. Thus, the intervention is not
entirely for the benefit of Assad’s victory at all costs. Russia’s
early withdrawal can also be taken as a sign of unwillingness
to be militarily engaged for a long time period. Russia even
criticized Assad’s intention to recapture the entire country as
unrealistic. Thus, there is a possibility that Russia would
eventually phase out Assad.
Moving to negotiations, Geneva I failed due to a lack of
international seriousness seen through the exclusion of Assad
and the rebels in the negotiations. Then, Geneva II met the
same fate because it lacked inclusivity, especially on the
SAGE Open
Arguments that show that regional geopolitics have not helped Assad
end the rebellion
The Arab Spring gave rise to Saudi Arabia’s prominence as the
leading anti-Shiite power and popular Western ally
Arab Spring successes in other states made the Assad regime
irreversibly unpopular
The shift from the nationalist nature of the uprisings to sectarian
fighting made the supply of recruits for either side virtually limitless
and made the conflict more protracted and difficult to be ended
decisively. The Middle East being a Sunni-majority region ensured
that the supply of recruits on the Sunni side (rebels) is much
greater in number, which makes it more difficult for the Assad
regime to win
Iran’s exhaustion can be seen by its offer of asylum protection to
Assad and its commitments elsewhere, notably Yemen
Strong support (arms and finance) from Saudi Arabia and Qatar,
alongside support from Turkey and Jordan, makes Assad virtually
surrounded by states that oppose him
Increased regional support to the rebels in the face of Russian
intervention include the supply of antitanks and even a proposed
supply of anti–air weapons
Recent improved cohesion among the rebels
The Saudi–Qatar divergence creates a greater challenge to
mediators or Assad to satisfy these key regional backers of the
opposition in any negotiation
Turkey’s stance on Assad’s ousting and accusations of an ISIS–
Syrian regime tactical alliance
ISIS’s capture of large parts of Western Syria makes it difficult for
the Assad regime to regain control of the state and thus shows the
regime’s weakness. ISIS adds another front for the regime to fight
in addition to fighting against the rebels and Kurds
ISIS, unlike the rebel groups, would never sit at any negotiation
table and is likely to have no interest in negotiations. This closes
Assad’s opportunity to regain the grounds lost to ISIS through
negotiations. Only the military option is left
ISIS’s considerable income to sustain the conflict
rebels’ side, along with the lack of international political
will, the lack of offers (carrots), and the United States’
ambivalence. An initiative to have localized ceasefires called
“Local Freeze” also did not work for nationwide peace nego-
tiations due to a loophole that allowed combatants to simply
shift to other localities to fight. Meanwhile, Moscow’s pro-
posal for a peace negotiation is clearly biased toward Assad
and was therefore also unaccepted.
Overall, global geopolitics only slightly favors Assad to
end the rebellion.
The arguments on whether global geopolitics has helped
Assad to end the rebellion or otherwise are summarized in
Table 4.
The comparison here is also somewhat balanced. Russia’s
political firmness was backed by its considerable military
intervention, and in contrast, the lack of Western political will
to intervene directly can be seen as not only tremendously
Tan and Perudin
Table 4. Comparison of the Arguments for Global Geopolitics and Interventions.
Arguments that show that global geopolitics have helped Assad
to end the rebellion
(a)
•• Western sanctions were ineffective in changing Assad’s
behavior or inducing massive defections
•• Inconsistent, lackluster Western policies toward Syria
•• The United States’ fatigue after the War on Terror
•• The West’s lack of will to intervene
•• The West’s limited actions when the Assad regime used
chemical weapons
•• The West’s limiting of the supply of advanced weapons
(especially anti–air weapons) to the rebels due to concerns
that Jihadists will receive them
•• Russia’s very strong military intervention to help regain
grounds
•• Russia’s intervention against ISIS to improve Assad’s image
•• Russia’s UN Veto
•• China’s UN Veto
•• Moscow’s proposal for a peace negotiation is biased
toward Assad
Note. ISIS = Islamic State; UN = United Nations.
favoring Assad but also providing a good chance for Assad to
win. The sanctions have affected both sides of the fight but
have affected Assad more, as a sitting government must prove
to be able to provide adequate economic and social services.
The supply of arms and training without advanced weapons
did not give a significant advantage for the rebels to win,
whereas Assad has enjoyed a virtually unrestricted supply of
arms. The elusive peace negotiations actually favored Assad
who had everything to lose and, in any case, reject any pro-
posal for a power transition—which is the central pillar for
any negotiation to move forward.
Thus, overall, global geopolitics are deemed to slightly
favor Assad in ending the rebellion.
Conclusion
The Syrian Civil War is an important, complex, yet unique
conflict that merits scrutiny and will in the future be a classic
civil war to be studied, similar to the Spanish Civil War. For
now, as the conflict is still ongoing and is quite fluid, not
many scholarly books have been written about it.
The conflict between the Assad regime and the Syrian
people is largely contained within the Syrian border; there-
fore, it is aptly categorized as a civil war. However, the con-
flict has caused enormous “spill in”: forces and material and
political support have “poured in from the region and glob-
ally on a scale had not been seen recently.”
It is difficult to single out or even zoom in on any par-
ticular aspects of the conflict to determine the main
reason(s) for the Assad regime’s incapability to end the
13
Arguments that show that global geopolitics have not helped Assad to
end the rebellion
(b)
•• Western sanctions made it difficult for the Assad regime to be
militarily effective or to rule the provinces that it controls
•• The West’s supply of arms, nonlethal aid, and training to the rebels
•• The West’s resistance to include Assad as part of the peace
negotiations
•• Russia’s intervention was for Russia’s geopolitical and domestic
reasons, not entirely for Assad’s victory
•• Russia’s early withdrawal shows an unwillingness to be militarily
engaged for a long time period and is a criticism of Assad’s
intention to recapture the entire country, which brings in the
possibility of phasing out Assad eventually
•• Russia did not give a blank check to Assad and might even phase
him out
•• Geneva I—lack of international will/seriousness, failure to include
Assad and the opposition in negotiations
•• Geneva II—lack of inclusivity especially on the rebels’ side, lack of
international political will, United States’ ambivalence, lack of offers
(carrots)
•• The “Local Freeze” was ineffective for nationwide peace
negotiations
conflict despite the seemingly obvious tremendous support
that it enjoys, whereas the rebels are not only fragmented
but are receiving divided regional backing and lackluster
Western support. This study addresses the problem state-
ment by examining the domestic, regional, and interna-
tional levels of analysis. Notwithstanding the interrelation
among these levels, this approach can at least identify
which level contains stronger arguments on Assad’s incapa-
bility of ending the civil war.
As seen at the regional and international levels, the geo-
political forces and intervention are quite balanced in either
the support of Assad’s success or his incapability of ending
the rebellion. The arguments almost cancel each other out. At
the regional level, the arguments for Assad’s incapability just
slightly outweigh the support of Assad’s success, and vice
versa for the global level. The divide is more distinct at the
domestic level, where the arguments for Assad’s incapability
far outweigh the support of Assad’s success.
It can be seen that the Assad regime is willing to go all the
way to remain in power, regain control of the entire country
and end the rebellion. The regime does not show any interest
in peaceful negotiations that discuss a power transition, which
thus severely restricts progress through negotiations. It can be
argued that the regime is willing to commit brutal and unlaw-
ful measures to end the rebellion as has already been proven
with the regime’s use of chemical weapons and barrel bombs
on civilian sites. Syria’s brutal response to Western sanctions,
especially the alleged usage of chemical weapons (nerve
agent sarin gas) in August 2013 at Ghouta constituted a war
crime according to the UN. The death toll has risen from more
14
than 1,000 to 4,000 casualties. This has strengthened the West
and their regional allies’ resolve to topple Assad. However,
even after the use of chemical weapons, the West did not
resort to attacking Assad’s forces directly. Geopolitics at the
global level generally favors Assad. Assad has framed the
conflict as merely counterterrorism and not a civil war, which
gives it space to take virtually any measure against the rebels
and allows it to brush aside the demands for reform or a
change in the government. If Assad has sufficient means to
push back the rebels and rule Syria as before, he will certainly
do so at all costs. Therefore, why, then, does Assad still fail?
This study therefore broadly deduces that the regime’s
own lack of manpower, effective command, inadequate eco-
nomic and social means, and the tendency of its brutal dicta-
tor who comes from the ethnic minority to fight to the bitter
end that act as the principal causes of Assad’s incapability to
end the civil war. Arguably, because of this, Assad could not
ride on Russia’s enormous direct military intervention and
Iran’s virtually limitless support to win militarily or negotiate
peacefully. It appears that the recent win in Aleppo is far from
a victory. For this reason, the regime cannot capitalize on the
fragmentation of the rebels, the divergence of regional back-
ers and the lack of political will from the West. No solution to
ending the war is in sight, although a federal solution may be
viable (Ibrahim, 2017). Thus, without the adequate means for
Assad to decisively win, the war can only be prolonged.
There is clearly a need to scrutinize more deeply or focus
academic studies on the Assad regime to help end the quag-
mire, as this study has identified the regime as the lynchpin
of the solution. By extension, it infers for diplomats a closer
examination of the regime’s mind-set or psyche that drives
not only domestic behavior but also foreign policies. These
findings also further prove that brutal dictators from ethnic
minorities tend to fight to the last to thus destroy everything
instead of negotiating a compromise or choosing to flee.
Clearly, there are strong arguments that Syrian domestic
politics has contributed more to Assad’s failure to end the
conflict. Likewise, regional geopolitics has been preventive
of Assad’s ability to end it but at a lower scale. However,
global geopolitics has favored Assad’s survivability.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support
for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The
authors received financial support for the research and authorship
of this article from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Research Grant
coded GUP-2017-079.
ORCID iD
Tan Kim Hua https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3787-5006
SAGE Open
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Tan and Perudin 15

Author Biographies Language Linguistics, Literature, The Southeast Asian Journal of

English Language Studies @ http://ejournals.ukm.my/3l.
Kim Hua Tan (an associate professor Dr (PhD)) is lecturing in
Corpus Linguistics and Language, Power and Ideology at Universiti Alirupendi Perudin (Colonel (U)) is the director of Personnel at
Kebangsaan Malaysia. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the 3L Journal: the Ministry of Defense Brunei Darussalam, Brunei Darussalam.