The problem with wars is that they rarely stay local. They suck other powers into their vortex, and spin refugees out into the world. But more recently, the opposing sides have grown increasingly hazy; it’s not always clear who’s fighting who, or where, or why.

That’s why conflicts beyond our own borders matter so much – more than just ideologically. And it’s why foreign policy is such a heavy responsibility.

The Syrian civil war has ended just in time for International Migrants Day on 18 December. If ever a country was synonymous with the word ‘refugee’ nowadays, it has to be Syria. 7.2 million people were internally displaced, and a further 6.2 million fled elsewhere. Just over 30,000 Syrians became refugees in Britain. Remember the columns of people walking across Europe? And the boats; the boats that just keep on coming.

“They’re not our problem!” cried many in Britain. Sadly, it was one of the least obnoxious of many truly appalling responses. And also one of the most misguided: Britain was not blameless in the root causes of Syria’s war, which is why I believe we bear a responsibility – beyond the purely humanitarian – to offer sanctuary to its refugees.

The war affected Britain deeply as it raged brutally for over 13 years. Alongside other international events, it indirectly fuelled a backlash against refugees. This was compounded by the Conservative government’s theatrical inability to deal with either asylum-seekers or the revolt against them. It polarised society; cost taxpayers unnecessarily; emboldened the far right; and culminated in violent rioting on our streets. It has also led to a tilt to the right across global politics.

And it’s not over yet. The ending of the Syrian war will have significant implications for Britain.

The internationalisation of conflict

Wars draw in foreign powers for all sort of reasons. There are proxy wars; false-flag operations; internal sectarianism; tensions with neighbours; existing alliances or disputes; the responses of NATO and other coalitions. And of course there is history – especially of the colonial variety.

Britain’s legacy in the Middle East is inglorious. We’d been meddling for centuries when, in 1916, a pair of British and French diplomats took a ruler, drew a line on a map, and carved the region up between them ahead of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. We seized control of the land on one side; France took the other. What gave us the right?

The Sykes-Picot line, named for those diplomats, paid scant regard to ethnic, linguistic or tribal considerations. It should have been obvious – but time and again, the resulting instability has bitten Britain in the derrière. Hard. The line helped create the conditions for the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts, among others. It exacerbated tensions which led to the development of strongmen, political purges and the erosion of democracy, helping to pull the Arab Spring into the region and laying the ground for the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

“This blessed advance will not stop until we hit the last nail in the coffin of the Sykes-Picot conspiracy.”

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi speaking in 2014

Enter Russia

What began as a civil conflict in 2011 rapidly exhausted Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The opposition fought back fiercely; early rag-tag groups joined forces with military deserters, who refused to kill their own neighbours, bomb their own towns and commit atrocities. Together, they formed the Free Syrian Army. Hundreds of other groups also sprang up, but all lacked the skills, weapons and cohesion needed to defeat the regime.

Funding began pouring in from some Gulf states, which formed their own blocs to support different rebel factions – favouring the more Islamist groups. One of the strongest of these groups was al-Nusra Front, which later joined with al-Qaeda (more on al-Nusra Front later.) Amid the chaos, ISIS sidled in from Iraq to the east.  

By 2015, an overwhelmed Assad had to ask Russia, a long-standing ally, for air support. But asking Russia to get publicly involved in a foreign war isn’t trivial – nor is piling in, if you’re Russia. You have to consider the reaction of the West.

But the West also wanted rid of ISIS. Britain’s parliament had already, in 2013, narrowly voted not to get involved in Syria. The conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya had left little appetite for military intervention, so we left it to Russia. (My personal view is that Western allies should have destroyed Assad’s air force as it sat on the ground, early in the war. Assad’s key advantage was air power – the one thing the opposition never had. Early meddling of the right kind could have ended the war much sooner, and saved many lives.)

Russia became deeply entrenched in Syria (as did Iran, but that’s a whole other story). The appeal may have been to stave off the construction of a trans-Syria gas pipeline, which would threaten Russian energy sales. It also allowed sabre-rattling Putin to reassert Russia as military power – possibly setting the scene for invading Ukraine, which would deliver yet more refugees to Europe. It all became a humiliating miscalculation.

“The Russian invasion of Ukraine happened because the world gave Vladimir Putin a free pass in Syria.”

Atlantic Council, 2022

Rushing to fill a vacuum

Ultimately, Ukraine’s impressive resilience depleted Russia, and Vladimir Putin could no longer fight wars on two foreign fronts. With Syria a low-stakes distraction, and Ukraine the ultimate indicator of Russian self-image and foreign policy, Russia pulled back from – but not out of – Syria at the very time that Iran-backed Hezbollah was consumed by the Israel/Gaza conflict (Hezbollah pulled out of Syria in early December). Seriously weakened, and already a weak puppet of Putin, Assad fled to Moscow – finally a refugee himself.

This was the perfect moment for the rebels, in the form of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to rise up. They did it with stunning speed and conviction, executing a plan which had been a year in the making.

But HTS grew out of al-Nusra Front (mentioned earlier), which was affiliated to al-Qaeda. And that’s why the Syrian conflict may be far from over; peace is not always peaceful. Scuffles lie ahead for the control of Syria, just as we’ve seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel is already making significant incursions into Syria, well beyond the Golan Heights.

Just how extremist is Islamist HTS? What’s their game plan? They are proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK and many others. How does Britain conduct diplomacy with Syria under such circumstances?

In fact, diplomacy is one of the big losers in this sad story, having achieved almost nothing in Syria. Even the Syrian opposition had only managed to keep the war going, rather than winning. It was only when foreign actors – fighting their proxy wars – became distracted and dizzied by more recent events that the war was able to change course. Without the events in Ukraine and Gaza, it is arguable that HTS could not have seized the day.

The outlook

Russia fuelled a civil war which should have ended much sooner. Untold numbers died, suffered hideously, and were displaced. The war tore at Britain’s parliament and our communities. The ‘migrant problem’ shifted domestic and foreign policy across swathes of Europe. It is one of the factors which has polarised our society over the past 10 years: how many of us, on meeting someone new, now prefer to know their views on refugees, Brexit, and Donald Trump before we feel safe giving voice to our own thoughts?

Meanwhile, Russia has also kept itself busy by influencing elections in the USA and UK, poisoning people on British soil, carrying out cyber-attacks against Britain, turning London into a centre for money laundering, and snuggling its oligarchs up to the British financial system in a way that ”cannot be untangled”.

Britain needs to be smarter about Russia, that is clear; but how will we respond when Trump’s attitude towards Russia is likely to be worryingly capricious? And although Putin dealt his country a humiliating blow in Syria, Russia’s influence is not necessarily unwelcome there, even now.

The axes which drive stability in the Middle East are shifting again; Iran and Israel more locally, plus Western allies and Russia. Oil, influence and potentially reconstruction contracts are the prizes at stake.

So Britain should have been cleverer about Syria, too. Not just over the vote in parliament in 2013 – because it would have been obvious that Russia, long present in Syria, would become entrenched militarily – but stretching back to Messrs Sykes and Picot, and beyond.

Meddling in things you don’t understand will always come back to haunt you.

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