Conflicted S3 E8 - The State of Syria

Thomas Small Aimen, you're not a fan of the Lord of the Rings, are you?

Aimen Dean Of course, I'm a fan. You know, my favourite character was always Sauron.

Thomas Small Oh, Aimen, that can't be true. Surely, it's – it's – it's Samwise Gamgee. Come on. Everyone loves Sam.

Aimen Dean Come on. Like, what? A doofus gardener? I mean, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. For me, Sauron. Sauron was always the most intriguing character in the entire trilogy.

Thomas Small You have an insatiable thirst for power, Aimen.

Aimen Dean Absolutely.

Thomas Small What about The Silmarillion? Did you ever read that book?

Aimen Dean Yeah. I mean, it was just a little bit of, you know, history of the Lord of the Rings, where you learn about the Elves and the Maiar and the Valar and whatever and all of that. And then, I got lost completely.

Thomas Small Oh, dear. I'm afraid that our listeners in this season of Conflicted will be feeling the same way every time we go to the Bronze Age. 'Cause I was thinking – I was thinking that, like, the main storyline is the Lord of the Rings. But every time we go to the deep past, it's going to The Silmarillion. But oh, my goodness. Now I'm afraid they might hate it. 

Aimen Dean They do. 

Thomas Small All right. Let's get into it.

This episode, Aimen, is all about Syria. But before we launch into Syria's past, what's going on in Syria right now? It's not in the news as often as it used to be. Has the civil war ended? Is it a stalemate? Like, how much of Syria does Bashar al-Assad's government in Damascus actually control?

Aimen Dean Well, I can – I can – I can tell you that the war in Syria is – is in – in some sort of hiatus. Like, you know, it has taken a sabbatical, you know, for – for a better use of a word. At the moment, Bashar al-Assad is controlling rough, let's say, about roughly two-thirds of Syria. And in that two-thirds of Syria coexist two competing powers here. First is Iran and its proxies, whether it is Hezbollah or the Iraqi Shia militias stationed in Syria or the Afghan and the Pakistani Shia militias stationed also in Syria, and they are part of a global Qudz Force. So, this is one part, you know, of the equation.

The other part of the equation, you know, will be the Russians. And so, the Russians and the Iranians, they have—. You know, they exist. They coexist in the semi-harmonious zone of influence within the two-thirds that Bashar al-Assad controls.

Thomas Small I see. So, two-thirds of the country, Bashar al-Assad, Iran, and Russia control. And what about the other third?

Aimen Dean The other third is, well, divided. I mean, one-fifth, you know, of Syria as a whole is controlled by the Kurds known as the YPG or the PYD depending basically on who you ask.

Thomas Small The Kurds, they are mainly focused in the Jazira, that – that area of north-eastern Syria that's between the Tigris and Euphrates. Is that right?

Aimen Dean Yeah. Al-Hasakah, Deir ez-Zor. All these places. Like, you know, I mean, so, this is where, you know, where – where the Qamishli is, where the Kurds are based. And that is, to some extent, an American zone. You know, the Americans are mostly based there. And that is where the oil is, by the way.

Thomas Small I see.

Aimen Dean So, yeah. You see, like, you know, I mean, you Americans, wherever the smell of oil is there, you just can't resist. Can't you, huh?

Thomas Small And what about the rest? What about the rest?

Aimen Dean Okay. So, the belt, which is the west of the Aleppo countryside, all the way to Idlib, passing by Afrin, that is controlled by the Turks and by their proxy jihadist groups, such as HTS and PTI, the, you know, which is the party of the Turkish, you know, Islamic, you know, Turkistan whatever, which is the Uyghur party that is stationed there.

Thomas Small I see. So, how would you describe Syria at the moment? I mean, does it – does it work? Does it run? I mean, what would it be like to be there?

Aimen Dean It is a semi-functioning failed state. That's the best way I can describe it.

Thomas Small A functioning failed state. I like that description. "A functioning failed state." In my view, that description would apply to all of Syrian history, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, as we hope to demonstrate.

Aimen Dean Indeed.

Thomas Small Actually, that reminds me. We were meant to be talking about a clash of civilisations in the Middle East, and whether that can help us understand the conflicts going on there today. And I think the stories we've been telling—and it hasn't been very linear, I admit—of the late Ottoman colonial and Cold War periods do shed a lot of light on that theme of clash of civilisations.

In episode three, on Saudi Arabia, we indicated ways in which the sharia law and traditional ideas of Islamic governance and jurisprudence differ sharply from the modern norms. There you have, in one local forum, a civilisation. Let's call it Islamic.

At the end of episode four, on Russia, I laid out the Cold War ideological fault line between the West and the Soviet Union. Each side was championing a specific version of modernity, which each understood to be universal in character. As far as I'm concerned, this is another civilisation: modernity. And despite its universalist pretensions, it is essentially Western.

Over the following three episodes, on Iran, Egypt, and the Holy Land, we showed the different ways in which Western modernity forced its way into those countries, aided and abetted by the colonial powers, by the CIA, by local modernisers with big ideas, and by European settlers with nationalist ambitions of their own.

Today, we're talking about Syria. It has been described as a fulcrum of geopolitical hegemony. A bit like Ukraine, interestingly. A fulcrum of geopolitical hegemony in the Middle East. For that reason, for thousands of years, Syria has been fought over and smashed up by invading armies from all directions, making it a somewhat amorphous patchwork of tribes, regions, and cities practicing a wide variety of religions. More than perhaps anywhere else, Syria's road to modern nationhood has been strewn with conflict, which we'll explore through the prism of our continuing journey across the Cold War Middle East.

Ready, Aimen?

Aimen Dean I was born ready.

Thomas Small Right. The first question is: What is Syria? What is Syria? How do we define it?

Aimen Dean What definition you want? Do you want the Greek definition? Do you want the Roman definition? Do you want the Arab definition? Which definition you want?

Thomas Small We can start with a sort of geographic definition, because geography is destiny. So, there's this thing. It's called the Dead Sea Rift, and it runs north-south along the eastern Mediterranean, the Levantine coast. It's a fault system where the African plate meets the Arabian plate. And this is fascinating. They're both moving in the same direction towards the northeast.

Aimen Dean An Arabian plate and an African plate. That, you know, that sounds to me pretty much like, you know, bringing ugali, you know, and you mixing it, like, you know, I mean, with feta cheese. And that's it. Like, you know, I mean, you end up with—.

Thomas Small I have no idea what you're talking about.

Aimen Dean You're talking about plates, man. Plates.

Thomas Small Tectonic plates, my friend. Tectonic plates.

Aimen Dean Oh, okay. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

Thomas Small The Arabian tectonic plate and the African tectonic plate meet along the Dead Sea Rift. They're both moving in the same direction, toward the northeast. But the Arabian plate is moving faster, pulling away from the African plate ever so slowly. So, there's this rift in the land. That's the reason for the distinctive geography of the Eastern Mediterranean, where, after a narrow coastal plane, you have rippling strips of high mountain ranges and plunging valleys, including the Jordan Valley, which, at the Dead Sea, is the lowest spot on Earth.

So, if we're talking geography, we have to think in these terms. Mountains and valleys. Good places for lots of different—I don't know—minorities to hide out.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. I mean, Mount Lebanon, you know, was historically, since fourteen, fifteen years ago, always as a refuge for all sorts of fringe religious sects to go and hide there and flourish there.

Thomas Small Muslim and Christian.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. And other, you know, neo-founded religions like the Druze and others. So, that is why Mount Lebanon was always, you know, such a refuge for these minorities.

Thomas Small Not just Mount Lebanon. So, Greater Syria, we can think of as – as basically a large plateau, quite arid, that is hemmed about by mountains. The Taurus Mountains in the north. So, that's the Southern part of Anatolia. And then, there's these mountain ranges. First, the Amanus Mountains or the Nur Mountains. And that was largely populated with Armenians.

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small Then, you have a little gap. And then, you have the al-Ansariyah Mountains, which were populated by Alawites. And then, you have a little gap. And then, as you said, you have Mount Lebanon with Druze and Maronites. And the Anti-Lebanon Mountains on the other side of the Bekaa Valley. Druze and Sunnis there. Another gap. Mount Carmel. Jews and Christians. Another gap. And then, the Judean Hills stretching down into the Sinai.

So, it's a very undulating sort of landscape down that strip. But then, on the eastern side of that strip, desert.

Aimen Dean Well, Syria is not just only about, you know, hills and valleys and mountains. You know, we have to talk about the people who inhabit these hills, valleys, and mountains. And these are the Central Semitic people.

Thomas Small The Central Semites.

Aimen Dean Yes. Central Semites.

Thomas Small So, that's sort of like Canaanites, Ugaritic speakers, Aramaic speakers, Hebrew speakers, and, of course, Arabic speakers. These are the Central Semites.

Aimen Dean And that is why these lands are called Bilad al-Sham, because it's named after Sam or Sham as he is known in the Bible, the son of Noah, the biblical figure from the flood. So, that is why the land there is called Bilad al-Sham.

Thomas Small The forefather of all the Semites.

Aimen Dean Indeed. Including us, by the way. 

And talking about, you know, a, you know, city that is specifically called al-Sham by the local inhabitants of Syria, you know, in modern times, it's Damascus, you know. You know, whenever you hear a Syrian, you know, "Oh, I just traveled, you know, to al-Sham."

"Well, you live in al-Sham."

I mean, you know, he said, "No, no, no. We call Damascus, the city itself, we call it al-Sham. And all the surrounding suburbs is called al-Sham."

Interestingly, Thomas, do you know that Damascus is, in fact, the oldest inhabited, continuously inhabited, capital city in the world? It was built in 5000 BC. So, it is seven thousand years of being a capital city. Unbelievable.

Thomas Small Well, in fact, what do we mean when we say "capital city?" A very long time ago, it was the capital of a small principality known as Aram Damascus. But – but, really, it wasn't a major capital city until it became the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate, the first big caliphate of Islam.

Aimen Dean Indeed. But still, it was always the most important city in the province of Syria for the Greeks, for the Romans. And, of course, it was always around, you know, as a important city, you know, that controlled significant amount of land around it. So, it was always a city state in its own, but also a capital of a larger entity.

Thomas Small Yeah. That's the word. City state. And in fact, it was one of many city states that dotted Syria: Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Tripoli, Latakia, Antioch, Tyre, Sidon.

Aimen Dean Beirut.

Thomas Small What else? Beirut. So many cities that are very ancient and that really ruled themselves for many thousands of years. They may have been incorporated into other imperial entities like the Romans and like the Umayyads. But actually, the Bilad al-Sham, Syria was, for most of its history, run as a collection of independent city states who were largely left to rule themselves.

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small Okay. That's Syria defined. But as you can see, it's like I said before. Syria is a rather amorphous concept.

But let's get back to the Cold War. Let's get back to where we left off a couple of episodes ago. Because at the moment, we're aiming at the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Those wars were mainly between Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. We've covered Egypt and Israel. And today, we're going to focus on Syria. We're putting our ducks in a row as it were. Or we're trying to at least.

Now, listen, the Arab world in the 1950s is about as complex, confusing, and convoluted as could be. It's been described as a game of multi-dimensional Cold War chess. We're doing our best to streamline the story. But pay attention, 'cause we'll be jumping around a bit. All right?

Now, first, a recap, a reminder of the Middle Eastern Cold War dynamic of the late fifties at the moment of Egyptian President Nasser's ultimate triumph when he defeated the Western powers and Israel during the Suez Crisis in 1956. Recall, when Eisenhower came to power in '53, he condemned European colonialism and supported nationalism. But he also feared that the Soviet Union, by manipulating nationalist feelings in the Third World, would turn the Third World communist.

Aimen Dean And Eisenhower wasn't actually paranoid, to be honest. I mean, Stalin, before his death in 1953, he was doing everything he could in order to turn the Arabs against the West, including America, by, you know, painting them as just an extension of the colonial West, the old colonial West, and he was trying his best to bring them into the Soviet camp.

Thomas Small Iraq and Jordan, at that time, were both monarchies under Hashemite kings. So, they were aligned with Britain. And Saudi Arabia, under its new king, Saud, well, it was sitting on the fence and playing a rather tricky game. But Egypt was committed to pan-Arab nationalism. Egypt's nationalism was worrying enough for Washington. Remember how Nasser bought weapons from the Soviet via Czechoslovakia in 1955? But then, Nasser declared his neutrality in the Cold War. He didn't want to side with the West or the Soviets. He wanted Egypt to be independent. Neutrality wasn't anti-Soviet enough for Eisenhower.

Aimen Dean Oh, yeah. Because the Americans—I'm sorry to say it, Thomas—always have this mantra, which is "You are with us or against us." "My way or the highway."

Thomas Small This was definitely true during the Arab Cold War. I mean, Eisenhower was certainly convinced that Soviet influence was dangerously on the rise, especially after Egypt's victory in the Suez Crisis brought Nasser closer to the Soviets.

So, Eisenhower produced his famous doctrine, the Eisenhower Doctrine, in January 1956. It stated that America will intervene militarily in any Middle Eastern country threatened by international communism. And as far as he was concerned, Arab nationalism was now such a threat, which is ironic, because, as we've seen, America had already intervened several times in the internal affairs of Middle Eastern countries. 

In 1952 in Egypt, when the CIA helped overthrow King Farouk. 

In 1953 in Iran, when the CIA helped overthrow Muhammad Masonic. 

But in fact, as early as 1949, the CIA helped to overthrow a democratically-elected president of a Middle Eastern nation. 

Do you know which nation, Aimen?

Aimen Dean Who else? Syria.

Thomas Small Syria was the first Arab country to win its complete independence from a colonial power. In Syria's case, from France, in 1943. Well, partially in 1943 and then fully in 1946. Still the first, though. Syria's first president was Shukri al-Quwatli. 

Aimen, tell us about Shukri al-Quwatli.

Aimen Dean Shukri al-Quwatli. What I can say about him? First of all, he's an aristocrat. You know, that is important to say. That he was a descendant of a – a noble Hashemite family that came from the Hejaz, from Mecca, in the eighteenth century and settled in Damascus. And worked for the Ottoman. That family worked for the Ottoman empire. One of his grandfathers, Hasan Pasha al-Quwatli, you know, who was the chief of all the traders and, you know, chief of the commerce actually in Damascus for the Ottomans. And yet, despite this privilege and coming from an aristocratic family, he actually was a early proponent of Arab nationalism, even during Ottoman time.

Thomas Small Ah. So, he believed that the Arabs should be independent of the Turks. So, he was a sort of pan-Arab before pan-Arabism.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. I mean, from the beginning. I mean, he was—. Clearly, he showed such potential. And he was all the ways opposing all forms of colonialism, whether it is the Ottoman, as well as British and French.

Thomas Small And for that reason, he actually hated monarchy. He believed that the Arab monarchies were tools of the colonial powers.

Aimen Dean Even though the Arab monarchies, most of them are Hashemite at the time, and he's a Hashemite. And yet he stuck to his principles. No. No monarchies.

Thomas Small So, back to the CIA coup in Syria, 1949. The war with Israel was still raging. Arab losses were causing widespread discontent inside Syria, and President al-Quwatli called on the army to crush protests there. He was adamant against any negotiations with Israel. Unlike Egypt and Jordan, they were negotiating armistice agreements.

Now, Syrian General Husni al-Za'im, the leader of the Syrian forces in the war, had long had designs on a military coup. And in early 1949, he approached a CIA officer at the American embassy in Damascus to sound out the US for support.

Aimen Dean And the reason, Thomas, why the US really disliked Shukri al-Quwatli can be summarised in one word: the Tapline. Now, what is the Tapline?

Thomas Small The Tapline?

Aimen Dean The Tapline is an oil pipeline that will go from the oil fields in Saudi Arabia in the east, on the waters of the Gulf, passing through Jordan through Syria into Lebanon. And from there, the oil will be exported to the West. 

Now here's the problem is that, you know, Shukri al-Quwatli, disliked monarchies so much so that he didn't want, you know, an oil pipeline passing from Saudi Arabia through Jordan, two monarchies he disliked. You know, he considered them to be the Stooges of the West. And they will pass through Syria. That pipeline will pass through Syria into Lebanon. So, he didn't like to play ball.

Now, you know what happened when you have oil, someone doesn't like to play ball, and America involved in one sentence. Do you know what's going to happen?

Thomas Small Well, I mean, in addition to the Tapline, America had its general worries at the time that democracy would lead to pro-communist sympathies. So, it's not really in keeping with – with America's ideals. But al-Za'im therefore had a good – a good audience in the embassy. He said, apparently, according to his own memoirs, "There is only one way to start the Syrian people along the road to progress and democracy: with the whip."

Aimen Dean Typical. That's very typical.

Thomas Small I mean, pretty prophetic words. I think a certainly fateful one.

Aimen Dean Indeed.

Thomas Small The US gave General al-Za'im the go-ahead. And on the 30th of March 1949, he launched his coup. President al-Quwatli was overthrown and exiled to Cairo. That's important. Keep that in your mind. With al-Za'im now in power, the Tapline was approved. Internal order was restored, and an armistice with Israel was agreed. 

General al-Za'im's coup was the first coup out of nine that Syria would go through between 1949 and 1970, when the infamous Hafez al-Assad came to power. Or maybe even more, I mean, honestly, there were so many coups that scholars can't even agree on the number.

Aimen Dean Do you know that between 1946 and 1966, Syria had twenty governments and five constitutions?

Thomas Small Oh, poor Syria.

Aimen Dean Yeah. They give the Italians a run for their money, man.

Thomas Small It's certainly a sign that Syria's nation building project wasn't going well

Aimen Dean Indeed. Absolutely.

Thomas Small Okay. So, there you have it. 1949, the CIA helped overthrow President al-Quwatli, the first of its many attempts to control political processes inside Middle Eastern countries.

Now we started by talking about the Eisenhower Doctrine of 1957. And the first test of that doctrine was where? You guessed it. Syria. To understand how we're now going to zoom out back to the regional dimension. Throughout 1949, Israel signed separate armistice disagreements with the Arab states.

Aimen Dean Yeah. I mean, there were several demilitarised zones or DMZs as they call them. I mean, the, you know—. Along the Golan Heights with – between Israel and Syria. Along the, you know, the West Bank, and around east, west Jerusalem between Jordan, which now occupied the West Bank and Israel. And you have along the border in the Negev and the Sinai deserts, between Egypt and Israel. These were, to some extent, policed by the United Nations, you know, Peacekeeping Forces. They were some of the earliest peacekeeping forces were ever deployed to the, you know—. Anywhere around the world, actually, early on in the United nations.

Thomas Small Well, they weren't policed very well, because over the following years fighting broke out between both sides, between the Israelis and the Arabs, in the demilitarised zones, including with Syria. And with Syria quite badly in 1951. These were part of what Israeli history calls the Border Wars. Back and forth, tit for tat raids.

What's more Egypt, which had occupied the Gaza Strip during the 1948 War, remained in possession of Gaza.

Aimen Dean Well, Gaza is always on the news these days. It's been always on the news for as long as anyone could remember. Actually, if you are, you know – you know, listening to this podcast and you are in your eighties, then in the 1950s, you would still have heard about Gaza all the time. Because, you know, in 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, you know, you always hear about raids by Palestinian militants supported by the Egyptian military, as well as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood launching raids against Israel, you know, in those days. It was always in the news then.

Thomas Small We actually referred to these raids in our episode on the Suez Crisis, because Israel would eventually choose to join France and Britain's invasion of Egypt, partly as a way of stopping these raids.

Anyway, in 1955, the year before the Suez Crisis, during one of these Palestinian raids from Gaza, an Israeli citizen was killed. When the culprit was in turn murdered by Israeli forces, he was carrying documents linking him to Egyptian intelligence. So, in reprisal, Israel launched Operation Black Arrow.

Aimen Dean That raid actually was led by none other than Ariel Sharon, who would later become—.

Thomas Small Oh, Ariel Sharon.

Aimen Dean Yeah. The prime minister of Israel.

Thomas Small Well, I – I – I think of Ariel Sharon as the guy who was on life support for, like, twelve years. And you always – you always ask yourself, "Is Ariel Sharon still alive?"

Aimen Dean No. He died. But, you know, he left behind him a legacy, man. Like, you know, I mean, the man had a very long history. And most of it—. It's—. It – it was in conflict with the neighbouring Arabs.

Thomas Small If you could say that again.

Aimen Dean Yeah. In 1955, I mean, he led that raid, into Gaza, you know, landing with—.

Thomas Small Operation Black Arrow.

Aimen Dean Exactly. Landing with a hundred and fifty of his paratroopers in Gaza, surrounded the Egyptian base near Rafa, and they killed thirty-eight, you know, Egyptian soldiers.

Thomas Small Oof.

Aimen Dean Of course, that operation had significant ramifications.

Thomas Small Yes. In Syria, Operation Black Arrow triggered a major policy change. So, since the coup in '49, six years earlier, Syria had been through four more coups and – and a major uprising that was crushed. The latest coup had seen a return to parliamentary democracy, and the new government was anti-Nasser, anti-leftist. 

Operation Black Arrow, though, caused the people to become fervently pro-Nasser, leading to further political turmoil.

Aimen Dean And guess what? There was someone in exile in Cairo who was reading, you know, the political scene there in Syria and reading the mood of the people and decided "now is the time." 

So, with, you know, support from Nasser himself and his intelligence services, you know, Shukri al-Quwatli, you know, the president who was toppled by a CIA coup, you know, returned back from exile in Cairo, landed in Damascus Airport, and announced, "I'm going to stand for president." And guess what? He won.

Thomas Small So, President al-Quwatli is back in power, and he immediately signed a joint defence agreement with Nasser, basically creating a mini-NATO. The agreement said an attack on one was tantamount to an attack on the other. 

Now, Nasser had bought his Czech weapons the month before. Syria would do the same the month after. This close cooperation and coordination between Egypt and Syria was really worrying to Washington. Something like a Soviet Alliance System seemed to be emerging in the Middle East, centring on Syria and Egypt. And so, at this point, in early 1957, Eisenhower announces his doctrine.

Aimen Dean Well, it is a fascinating speech, Thomas. And I – I definitely urge listeners, you know. Go on and read that speech. It really shed light on, you know, the, you know – you know, the fears the United States have during the – those dark, you know, years of the Cold War.

Thomas Small I was amazed at how clear and precise it is. How honest it is. You'd never hear a speech by an American president to Congress like it today. You know, it's intelligent and sophisticated. It contrasts very sharply with what we listen to these days.

Aimen Dean Indeed.

Thomas Small The doctrine, Eisenhower said, would "include the employment of the armed forces of the United States to secure and protect the territorial integrity and political independence of such nations requesting such aid against overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by international communism."

Now that's convoluted diplomatic speech for "If you think your neighbour is falling to international communism, tell us and we'll invade them." 

And – and because only Egypt and Syria were receiving weapons from the Soviet Union at the time, the doctrine was clearly targeting them.

Aimen Dean They worried that Eisenhower and the wider US administration at the time used to have is the fact that, through Syria, you know, two important oil pipelines were going: the Tapline, which we talked about before, which, you know, the former president, Shukri al-Quwatli opposed; and also another oil pipeline that was going from Iraq, a major oil producer, also going through Syria, you know, and then from there into the Mediterranean to export to the West.

Another thing also is the fact that some of the Gulf oil from Kuwait, from Saudi Arabia, from UAE, from Oman used to go through the Suez Canal. And who is now controlling the Suez Canal? Egypt. So, you have two countries with Soviet, you know leaning and sympathising governments you know, more or less putting their thumbs, you know, on the oil jugglers of the West.

Thomas Small So, keeping those countries free of Soviet control was of paramount strategic importance to the United States. My question, though, Aimen, is: Was there ever any real chance of communism taking hold in the Middle East?

We said before that Eisenhower wasn't paranoid. And it is true that the Soviet Union was pursuing a policy of convincing the Arabs to – to turn against the West. But I don't know. I don't really think that Arabs would ever really become communists.

Aimen Dean Well, Thomas, I – I – I somehow never believed that the Arabs had it in them, basically, to become a fully-fledged communists, whether Leninist or Bolsheviks or Trotskyites, you know. I mean, you know, I can't—. I just don't see it happening because of the fact that the Arabs, whether Muslim or Christian, they do have that tendency towards, you know, having God being central to their lives. I mean, you can't just, you know, take away your religion from everyday lives of the Arab people. And, therefore, the idea that somehow—somehow—you will end up with Arabs, you know, basically, like, you know, believing, you know, in the nuclear family being redundant or, you know, adopting a fully-fledged communist societies, no. It's never going to happen.

So—. But why did the US believe is – it was going to happen in the 1950s? I think because, you know—. And there were studies, you know, done at the time, which says that if the Muslim Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and other places, you know, were in fact incorporated, you know, into the Soviet communism, so will other Muslim societies.

And what happened with the Tudeh Party in Iran and the, you know, some of the wider appeal that they had within Iranian Muslim society, that also scared the Americans into believing that there is a real chance for communism to spread into the rest of the Muslim world.

Thomas Small Yeah. I think you're right. I think that Muslims are too religious, really, to be swayed by atheist, godless communism. But when I read the – the text of the Eisenhower Doctrine and think about it, I sort of think, you see, here's an example of kind of Western modernity seeking to dominate the Middle East by invoking these universalist ideas of freedom and – and – and liberty and – and prosperity and progress. But it had to be on America's terms. 

You know, modernisation is westernisation. You know, because you can't—. I think you can't modernise without being Westernised. I think modernisation is a civilisation, and it clashes with Islamic civilisation.

Aimen Dean Not necessarily. I mean, I would say that if – if you go back to the Middle Ages, you know – you know, Western physicians couldn't have actually, like, you know, become physicians and actually, you know, involved in the medical sciences without having studied Arabic. So, at the end of the day, like, you know, I mean, to modernise is to Arabise, you know, in the Middle Ages, you know.

Thomas Small Hmmm. I think we're having a clash of civilisations right here, Aimen. I don't agree. I don't think that West – Western scholars reading Arabic texts to become better doctors is what I mean by modernisation or modernity. Modernity is about much bigger things. About individualism, about rationalism, about a secular state that dominates every part of your life. This is – this is a specific civilisational sort of impulse that runs counter to Islam.

Aimen Dean In a sense, yes. But really, you know, does religion prevent a civilisation?

Thomas Small No. No. I just—. No. Yeah. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that Islamic civilisation is different from Western civilisation.

Aimen Dean Exactly.

Thomas Small But that Western civilisation is modernity. It is modern civilisation.

Aimen Dean But you can always have modernity in a different flavour. You can have Islamic modernity. You can have a Christian modernity. You can have Jewish modernity. You can have a Hindu modernity. At the end of the day, you can have modernity whatever flavour you like.

Thomas Small Well, this is what this season of Conflicted is all about. I don't think we agree. But anyway, getting back to the story. After Eisenhower released his doctrine, Syria immediately denounced it. They weren't stupid. It clearly stated that if one of its neighbours asked the US to do so, the US would order its forces to occupy Syria. It accused the US of being an imperialist power.

Okay. Things really started to heat up from there. In July of that year—this is 1957—the Syrian defence minister flew to Moscow for talks. The Soviets were offering low-interest, long-term loans, low-cost weapons deals, and technical assistance without political strings attached. This is very different from the United States, who were always expecting the recipients of their aid to fall in line with their own political project, just like Nasser and the Aswan Dam. So, the Syrian defence minister goes to Moscow for talks, and these talks are a success. The Soviet premier, Khrushchev, announces a new, even bigger arms agreement, with Syria.

Then, the next month, mysteriously, three American diplomats are expelled from Damascus for alleged involvement in a conspiracy to overthrow the regime. And a few days later, the president of Syria appointed a man named Afif al-Bizri as chief of staff to the Syrian army. This really freaked out Washington.

Aimen Dean Oh, yes. Because Afif al-Bizri is a troublemaker. I mean, he is a full-fledged socialist. Without any hesitation. And he was always anti-Western, anti-colonialist, as well as being very anti-Israeli. I mean, he participated in all the wars that Syria participated in against Israel.

Thomas Small At a press conference, Eisenhower expressed grave concern. And the Syrians, two days later, had their own press conference. "Our policy is anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist," they said. "Not communist." They rejected the paternalism of the great powers.

And, Aimen, I can tell you, they had a point. I was reading some recently unclassified cables between the British foreign office and the state department. And when you read these cables, the way, especially the Brits, I must say, especially the way the British talk about Middle Eastern countries, it is very paternalistic. They're always being like, "Maybe we'll put this guy in power here. But that would piss off this guy. So, we have to make sure that they think this. But we choose to put this person in power here." Very like as if they're still in control.

Aimen Dean Well, it is the hangover of the empire, you know. But, you know—. But – but I can – I can tell you yes, to an extent, the Syrians were right to say, "Well, look, I mean, we are not communists." After, all the Syrians were always very entrepreneurial. I mean, just like their, you know, neighbours in Lebanon. They were always, you know, commercially-minded people.

Thomas Small Well, that's not how the communism hunters in the American government thought. In late August of 1957, a telegram was sent from the US embassy in Riyadh to Washington, and the language is frankly hysterical. It said, "The time is approaching, if indeed not already arrived, when Syria will cease to be effectively an independent nation, but will have been taken over, made into a Soviet satellite, having independence only in name. And it will reach out in efforts to subvert surrounding countries, thus propagating communist virus."

Aimen Dean Wow.

Thomas Small It's – it's amazing.

Aimen Dean I don't know. It sounds like a trailer for a movie directed by Senator McCarthy. I mean—.

Thomas Small After sounding out regional governments, the US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles reported to Eisenhower that Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey thought that Syria would fall to communism within sixty days if nothing were done to stop it.

Now, remember the doctrine. If a Middle Eastern country asks for military assistance against the Soviet puppet, the US will comply. The Turks were especially serious and were demanding a military solution.

Aimen Dean Well, Thomas, for – for Turkey, there was no question, you know, that they had, you know, this headache of communism. I mean, from the east, the Soviet Union, they don't want to have another Soviet satellite, you know, in the south. Because even to the West, you know, they have a border with Bulgaria, which was a communist country. They don't want Syria to become yet another communist satellite country. And that is why they did what they did.

Thomas Small Yeah. They began to concentrate troops at the Syrian border. And the US ostentatiously begins airlifting new armaments to Jordan, which the Soviet Union denounces as an American policy of conspiracy.

Aimen Dean Well, there were already conspiracies everywhere. I mean, you know, even the Iraqi prime minister at the time has, you know, suggested that "How about, you know, we just stage a false flag operation? You know, a – a little explosion at the pipeline, you know, stretching between Iraq and Syria. We can use it as an excuse. And then, yeah, let's invade. Let's, you know, get the US to support us."

Thomas Small In this increasingly tense environment, the Syrians made a bold move. They sent public letters to the governments of Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, asking if they'd been talking to the West about Syria. Those governments were forced to deny it. Otherwise, they'd piss off their own people for stabbing a fellow Arab country in the back. And they expressed their solidarity against Zionism and imperialism. Nonetheless, at the end of September 1957, the US sends a naval fleet to the Syrian coast.

Aimen Dean Well, this is where Nasser, you know, was able to gloat and to say, "I told you so. Just like the British, you know, sending the gunboat." Except this time, it's bigger American gunboats. America, just another colonial power as far as Nasser was concerned.

Thomas Small Right. America had shown its hand, and its navy was in the Levantine Sea. At this point, everything changes, and the Soviet Union gets the upper hand. First, Syria invites the Saudi king and the Iraqi prime minister to Damascus for a conference where they make a big show of unity. The Turks are angered. 

But on the 4th of October 1957, Sputnik is launched. This amazing event, the first satellite in space, would technically allow the Soviets to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile at the United States. The event was greeted by the Arabs as a sign that the USSR was technologically the West's equal, if not its superior, a big boost in Soviet prestige. 

A few days later, Khrushchev then reveals the US machinations about Syria in a New York Times interview, and he denounced this such imperialism and offers the US a world peace agreement instead. He then sends letters to Western European socialist parties, like the Labour Party in Britain, calling for a stance against any war in Syria. This wins Khrushchev kudos as a peacemaker. So, we see Khrushchev playing the diplomatic game perfectly, manipulating the Western media and exposing America's game playing for what it was. 

And as its Arab allies now take a step back, the wind is knocked out of America's sails. The first test of the Eisenhower Doctrine showed how toothless it was in the face of geopolitical reality. And on the 13th of October 1957, Egyptian troops land at the Syrian coastal city of Latakia to a rapturous welcome. Nasser was made president.

Aimen Dean This explains why the Syrian flag, you know, today, you know, got two stars. It is the Syrian flag that was actually created for the United Arab Republic. The United Arab Republic actually, the flag, remained to this day in use as the official flag of Syria. The two stars are Egypt and Syria.

Thomas Small It's alleged that President al-Quwatli warned Nasser, "You have acquired a nation of politicians. Fifty percent believe themselves to be national leaders, twenty-five percent to be prophets, and at least ten percent to be gods."

But Nasser tried his best. He imposed centralised dictatorial rule centred almost on a cult of personality of himself. Only authoritarian centralised control would make the ungovernable Syria governable. All Syrian leaders after him would agree.

Right, Aimen. Syria and Egypt in union. Seems weird, doesn't it? But it's not. If you take the widest possible historical view over the past three thousand five hundred years, for the vast majority of that time, Syria, or parts of it at least, and Egypt, or parts of it at least, we're politically united in some way. I mean, the vast majority of time. Like, ninety-five percent of the time.

Aimen Dean Yeah. They were either part of the you know, Greek empire. You know, whether they were part of Seleucid Empire or whether they were part of the Ptolemaic Empire, the Umayyads, the Byzantines, the Romans. You know, the Abbasids, the Fatimids. I mean, we could go on and on and on about them being provinces within an empire, within the same empire,

Thomas Small It goes all the way back to the Bronze Age, to the seventeenth dynasty of Egypt. That's when the Egyptian empire was established, by conquering Syria and incorporating it into Egypt.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. So, they were always together as part of an empire.

Thomas Small History doesn't really repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Sometimes, eerily so. And here's a historical rhyme for you. If, in 1958, Nasser came from Egypt and imposed upon Syria, a modern one-party dictatorship replete with all the usual instruments of state oppression—secret police, propaganda, centralised economic planning, and so on—then, the modern state itself in any form was also imposed upon Syria by a strongman from Egypt way back in 1831.

You know who I'm talking about, right, Aimen?

Aimen Dean Muhammad Ali Pasha.

Thomas Small You got it. If you remember, back in episode six, the one on Egypt, we talked about Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and how that event marked the onset of modernity in the Middle East. After Napoleon withdrew from Egypt in disgrace, a power vacuum opened up there. And after several years of fighting, Muhammad Ali Pasha was the last man standing. We mentioned him in episode six. An Albanian warlord from Northern Greece and the Sultan in Istanbul had sent him to Egypt to fight the French. But he stayed. By 1811, he'd become the master of Egypt. And over the next twenty years, he'd increasingly rule Egypt not as the Ottoman sultans vassal, but in his own right.

This power grab culminated in 1831, when Muhammad Ali's modern army, which he'd built up with European help, invaded and conquered Syria.

Aimen Dean I think what Muhammad Ali learned from the French and, you know, under Napoleon is that, one, you need to abolish feudalism in the traditional sense that the feudal lord is the one who provides you with the military, you know, conscripts. No, no, no, no, no. You have to establish a professional army. You conscript from the population directly, bypassing the feudal lords that the Ottoman Empire used to rely on. And also, you know, just get rid of the idea that you have a special elite of force called the Janissaries. He basically, like, you know, I mean, also abolished, at least within Egypt, the reliance on the Janissaries as a force. So, he was really building an army according to European, you know – you know, line of thinking when it comes to, you know, a military reorganisation.

Thomas Small That's right. He had built a modern state—autocratic, bureaucratic, with this huge conscript army. Very different from the Ottoman model.

Now, Aimen, why do I bring this up, you may ask? Well, because we're not here just to narrate the Cold War for the hell of it. We're trying to understand the Middle East, specifically the conflicts that plagued the Middle East. And, you know, for goodness sake, look at Syria. It's been through an absolutely nightmarish civil war where sectarian violence erupted on a huge scale, waged on all sides, and all in the name of either overthrowing or supporting an absolutely disgusting dictatorship, one that is more or less operating according to the Nasserist model with modifications.

And as I suggested before, though we may disagree about aspects of it, I believe this conflict is the consequence of a civilisational clash between Western modernity on the one hand and the Islamic tradition on the other, and that this clash is not just spiritual, but concrete. The modern state, a piece of modern Western technology that encodes the basic principles of Western civilisation, was imposed upon the Middle East, upon Syria. It was an unstoppable force. But this is the point. Islamic civilisation is an immovable object. And the meeting of the two causes sparks like two pieces of flint banged together. And it was brought to Syria by Muhammad Ali and was then built upon by the Ottomans, by the French during the Mandate, by Nasser, and, eventually, by the Ba'ath Party, which continues to rule Syria horribly to this day.

Aimen Dean This is why, Thomas, I believe that modernity can only exist in the Middle East within the framework of monarchy. And I know, like, you know, many listeners will be, you know, groaning and saying, "Oh, no, Aimen. Again? Come on."

But seriously. If – if you look at any of the fact that the royal family of Saudi Arabia, they've been around for about three hundred years. The royal family of Oman have been around, like, you know, for five hundred years. If you look at the royal family of Bahrain, been around for three hundred years. Kuwait, Qatar, and, of course, the Hashemite ruling families, you know, especially in Jordan and Morocco. I mean, they've been around for centuries and centuries. And the reality is that these monarchies, the eight monarchies of the Arab world are the most stable out of all of them.

I'm not talking about just because of oil, money. I mean, Jordan doesn't have any, and, you know, Morocco, it, for certain, it doesn't have any oil. 

But, you know, it comes back to the fact that what is a king in the Arab, you know, mindset? It's just nothing but the glorified tribal leader. And, you know, the tribal system could actually evolve to incorporate modernity. But, you know, that is why the nation state that is built within the framework of monarchy seemed to have fared better than nation states built on a Western political framework, if you see what I mean.

Thomas Small I do see what you mean. And I think this is something that we do agree about. You know, we're going to talk about this more in the next episode, in which we talk all about the Hashemite monarchies of – of Iraq and Jordan and other places.

And – and, you know, listen, I don't mean to romanticise the pre-modern state in the Middle East. One thing about traditional Islamic governance that was, in a way, its blind spot or at the very least a weakness that modernisers have been able to exploit was its inequality. Non-Muslims were second class citizens.

Aimen Dean Well, there was no question about it. That the laws of the Ottoman Empire in particular and the application of these laws in the provinces, whether Syria or regions, or elsewhere, were discriminatory against minorities, religious minorities, whether they were you know, Christians, whether they were Druze, whether they were Jews, or whether they were Shia, even, you know. So, you know, this is some things that, you know, we cannot escape. It was part of history.

Thomas Small Traditional Islamic civilisation was unequal and socially hierarchical. Muslims were an elite cast above the rest. And what I find interesting from the perspective of what we're talking about now is that this discrimination gave European powers their way in over several centuries. European powers were able to leverage their growing power over the Ottoman sultan by posing as protectors of Christians.

Aimen Dean Yeah. The French protecting the Catholics in Lebanon and Syria. The Russians protecting the Orthodox Christians in Syria and Lebanon and Iraq. I mean, yeah, unfortunately. That was the way through which these powers were able to meddle in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire. If the Ottoman Empire just, you know, did not discriminate against anyone, you know, then these people wouldn't need protection and, therefore, they would have protected their internal affairs.

Thomas Small Yes. And once the modern state, even at the time of Muhammad Ali, introduced the principle of equality into a civilisation that for so long had been stratified with Muslims on top and everyone else beneath them, two major things happened. First, intercommunal tensions exploded as Sunni Muslims sought to retain their historic privileges over other communities and some non-Sunnis began forging closer alliances with foreign powers, then with the local authorities. 

And second, having been divided for so long, the people of Syria were forced to ask themselves, "What brings us together?" You know, after all, the modern state is one. It is centralised. It not only equalises. It homogenises. They were forced to reckon with tough questions. 

What are we? Who are we? Are we Syrians or Arabs? Or are we Damascenes, Aleppans, Latakians, or Muslims, Christians, Druze? What brings us together?

That answer was not quickly forthcoming.

Aimen Dean Remember that four centuries of Turkish Ottoman rule had, you know, a significant effect, you know, of changing the ethnic and sectarian landscape of Syria and Lebanon, you know, to the point where even there are many Lebanese, you know, Hashemite families converted to Christianity in order to avoid the, you know, the forced conscription into the military by the Ottomans.

So, you know, there you have it. So, the problem is that—.

Thomas Small We welcome all converts, Aimen. I don't care. If you want to convert to Christianity to escape the army, you're welcome.

Aimen Dean As long as you become my confessor, Thomas, then, yeah, I will. I will consider it.

Thomas Small Imagine—.

Aimen Dean So—.

Thomas Small Imagine, dear listener, imagine hearing Aimen Dean's infection. Holy moly, I don't know what dark memories haunt your heart, you former spy.

Aimen Dean Oh, indeed.

Thomas Small Anyway, you were saying.

Aimen Dean You will need lots of antidepressants after that, anyway. So – so – so – so – so, for me, I – I would say that, you know- you know, after four centuries of Turkish Ottoman rule, I would forgive the Syrians for becoming collectively schizophrenic about their identity. Like, you know, "Who are we?" The trauma of it.

Thomas Small Well, all those questions of identity exploded into real crisis during the Arab Revolt. Now we're going to talk about the Arab Revolt that helped bring the Ottoman empire to an end next time. What we'll say for now is what is today Syria was given to France to rule as a mandate. The locals didn't like it. They rose up against the French, but they were crushed. The French ruled, in my opinion, scandalously badly. I mean, even worse than the British, I think, by far in the Mandate.

Aimen Dean Well, look, I mean, this is a problem with the French, is that wherever they ruled, they really screwed up, whether it's Vietnam, Algeria, you know, and, of course, like, you know, I mean, in this case, Syria. And why? Because it was called mandate. It should have been "womandate." And then, you know, the Arabs would have been happy and, you know—.

Thomas Small Oh, man. That's a bad joke.

Aimen Dean Sorry. I couldn't – I couldn't resist.

Thomas Small Well, the French, when they ruled Syria, they based their rule on the model they had pursued in Morocco, which they also ruled, you know, where they encouraged the subject population to identify primarily with their tribe or with their religion. The French actively moved away from encouraging the building of a Syrian nation.

Aimen Dean Well, I mean, that is exactly what they were trying to do in Algeria. That's what they tried to do in Vietnam. And, of course, basically, that is exactly what they were doing in Syria. They were not exactly, you know – you know, pursuing a policy that would actually, you know, bring in a greater harmony in the end. They were actually pursuing short-sighted policies for short-term stability over long-term stability.

Thomas Small Especially since they favoured minorities against the majority. I mean, this led the French army of the Levant to have a disproportionately high number of Christians and non-Sunni Muslims, Alawites, Druze mainly. And, you know, this – this would have massive consequences down the line.

Aimen Dean Exactly. And this is what the British used to do actually in India. They were always incorporating minorities into their, you know, British military in order to—.

Thomas Small And in Iraq, as we'll find out next week.

Aimen Dean Indeed. And Iraq also. So, this divide-and-conquer is a colonial textbook, you know, tactic, and it's going to haunt Syria for a very long time to come.

Thomas Small Keeping Syria divided meant that it remained a collection of city states, really, under the French. And this would also bedevil Syria long after it won its independence. Political parties were often regional-based. They pretended to be ideological, but they were really just like regional power networks. Their foreign policy was often based on the sort of economic ties that these regions had had during the Ottoman period: Aleppo with Iraq and southern Turkey, for example, or Damascus with Egypt and Arabia.

Aimen Dean You know, one of the things I always talk to people about is the fact that, geographically even, you know, it was stupid. Just like when the British carved Iraq and they incorporated Kurds and, you know, Shia and Sunnis together. You know, they – they did the same with Syria and Jordan. Because the Arabian Peninsula, many people think that it really ends, you know, with the borders of Jordan and Iraq meeting at the northern tip of Saudi Arabia. No. The Arabian Peninsula go all the way, you know, to the Euphrates peninsula. You know, to the northern Syria.

Thomas Small The Arabian desert really is like a—. It's like an ocean of sand …

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small … compared to which the mountains of Syria, southern Turkey, and the rivers of Iraq are like the shores. And then, this – this – this ocean of sand moves southward all the way to Yemen.

Aimen Dean Exactly. And that is where the extension of the tribes, the Arabian tribes, especially like, you know, Shammar and al-Uqaydat, al-Baggara, al-Jubur. All of these tribes extend all the way north to Iraq and Syria. Anbar, al-Nineveh, and Deir ez-Zor and Palmyra, you know. So, the – the Badiyat al-Sham. As they call it, the Sham Desert or the Desert of Syria. You know? 

So, this is why, I mean, when the borders were created, these tribes were, you know, forcefully, separated from their natural, you know, borders, like, you know, from their brethren in the newly formed Saudi Arabia. So, that created also a greater division within both Iraq and Syria, as we will see later.

Thomas Small That's one example of the divisive nature of the European colonial period in the – in the Levant. And all of it taken together is why, after Syria won its independence from the French in the forties, there were so many coups in such quick succession.

We mentioned all the coups. Now, obviously this is going to come as a burst of info, but just to give you a sense, dear listener, of what we're talking about, as we said in March of '49, General Za'im, overthrew Quwatli, the president. That was supported by the US. 

And then, later that year, another general overthrew al-Za'im. That was supported by the British. 

And then, later that year, another general over through that general, and he ended up setting himself up as a kind of dictator. His name was al-Shishakli, kind of like a pre-Nasser Nasser, really. He ruled behind the scenes. 

But then two years later, in another coup, he overthrew the president and becomes the sole ruler. But then, he is overthrown two years later. And then, that person is overthrown a year later. 

Finally, you know, creating the conditions where Quwatli comes back, becomes president and, you know, negotiates the famous union with Egypt: the United Arab Republic.

Which brings us back to 1958 and the proclamation of the UAR. The UAR lasted only three years. Nasser's dictatorship wasn't what the Syrians had bargained for, neither the military nor the civilian leadership there. So, in 1961, they overthrew him.

But the damage had been done. And once the Ba'ath Party came to power in 1963 by, yes, another coup, military dictatorship would be the rule.

Aimen Dean This is where Syria started to enter this dark tunnel of Ba'athism based on sectarianism, marginalisation of the majority in favour of the minority, which, you know, the French did before. And now, it's coming back to haunt Syria. The alliance of the minorities is against the majority. And that will create festering grievances that will explode many years later.

Thomas Small We haven't talked about the Ba'ath Party, which is a massive oversight. We don't have time to talk about it now. We won't have time to talk about it next time. We—. Eventually, we will talk about the Ba'ath Party. But it is germane now to talk about the differences between the Ba'ath Party and Nasserism. They were both pan-Arabic nationalist movements, but there was a big difference. The Ba'ath Party had an international organisation with political offices throughout the region, organised in a way more like international communism, but with pan-Arabism as its goal.

Nasser didn't have this sort of organisation. Instead, his movement was really linked to his – himself, to his personality, the personality of Nasser. And the Ba'ath Party was not so linked. And there's an irony about all of this. You know, the – the reason that the United States turned against Syria, turned against Egypt, creating the sense by Egypt and Syria of being under siege, is because they feared a communist takeover.

But, actually, the reason why Syria and Egypt United was because of the Ba'ath Party was fearful of a communist takeover, and they thought that Nasser was the only man strong enough to prevent a communist takeover. So, when they united, immediately, Nasser launched a major crackdown on communists in Syria. He imposed his socialist authoritarian regime and, despite that, was immensely popular. This suggested that Arabness was more powerful at that point than Syrian seriousness.

Aimen Dean Exactly. And this is why, you know, for Syria, they went on a programme of something called Arabisation, you know, to the point where even the teaching of medicine in Syria became Arabised. You know, they have, you know, translated all the medical Latin terms into Arabic, and they were insisting on teaching every single scientific subject under the sky in Arabic.

Thomas Small That's funny. 'Cause earlier, you said that the West only got modern medicine because we translated texts from Arabic. And you're saying that the Arabisation of Syria in the modern period is by translating Western medical texts back into Arabic.

Aimen Dean Yeah. I mean, but – but – but nonetheless, in my opinion, you know, this actually made the Syrian doctors disadvantaged. I mean, they – they – they actually made them disadvantaged in comparison to other doctors around the world, because they have to catch up with the Latin phrases, you know, that they needed in order to, you know, practice medicine. It chose, you know, short-sightedness and pig headedness when it come to, you know, what the Arab nationalism was, actually.

Thomas Small Oh, poor Syria. You know, Aimen. I lived in Damascus for one very happy year in 2008, before the civil war. I was naïve then. I – I know now that the peace and harmony I felt as I traveled around was only surface deep. In fact, the country had been poorly governed for decades. Age-old rifts and modern resentments were festering, and outsiders as always were keen to intervene.

But when I was there, one of my favourite places to visit was a pilgrimage site halfway up Mount Qasioun, which is the mountain that towers above Damascus. The pilgrimage site is known as the Cave Of Blood. Maghārat al-Dam. This cave, according to Islamic tradition, is where Cain, the son of the first man, Adam, killed his brother, Abel. He lured him inside and killed him dead. The cave itself is meant to have cried out in alarm and shock at the sacrilege of the murder. And to this day, you can see a large tongue in the rock, stained red from the blood, frozen in an anguished cry.

The Bible and the Quran both agree that Cain murdered Abel out of envy. Cain, in some unexplained way, hadn't worshiped properly. And so, God rejected his sacrifice. But he accepted Abel's. So, in a rage, Cain killed him. After the murder, Cain is cursed. He builds the first city, Eridu, in Mesopotamia. And it is from his descendants that all the instruments of man's domination over other men originate: cities, agriculture, pastoralism, music even, writing, law, war.

I think the story of Cain and Abel pretty much sums up everything. There are two halves to humanity, to the human heart. One inclining toward truth, humility, piety. The other toward violence, control, pride. And the truly virtuous will always incur the wrath of the proud.

Traditional civilisations, for all their Cain-like flaws, recognise and even prioritise sometimes what the myth calls the Works of Abel. The modern state, on the other hand, valorises and prioritises the works of Cain and his descendants. And just as the myth teaches, in Syria, as elsewhere throughout the world, the growth of the modern state saw the death of Abel and everything he symbolises. That is a clash of civilisations.

What do you think about that little sermon, Aimen?

Aimen Dean For me, I slightly disagree. We still can have always, you know, benevolent civilisations. We can always have benevolent cities. We can always have benevolent industries. They are now able to present the romantic vision of the, you know, noble wilderness living. But you can't ask that of eight billion people, because there is no enough wilderness.

Thomas Small A typical Islamic response to my little Christian homily there, Aimen.

Aimen Dean You know, well, that's the, you know, difference between idealistic Christianity and realistic Islam.

Thomas Small Well, that's it. There you go. Next time, we focus on Iraq and also Jordan and the Hejaz. All things Hashemite.

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As always, thanks for listening. And do join us in two weeks' time for our next episode.

Conflicted is a Message Heard production. This episode was produced and edited by Rowan Bishop, with production support and fact-checking by Molly Freeman. Sandra Ferrari is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Matt Huxley.

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