Hello again! I’ve been doing some reading on the countries of West Asia, slowly going over each of their individual histories as well as just trying to understand this region in general since I haven’t really gone into it too much before. I’ve finished up on Iraq and Afghanistan (Blowback pod is great for that) As well as some focus on Iran after recent events. However I’m struggiling to find good resources on Syria that isn’t just liberal throat gurgiling. Do you guys have any book reccomendations or pointers? I enjoyed reading the replies on my last post on Ukraine and the replies were all so well done I thought I’d ask again but for Syria. Thanks :)
I’ve been reading a bit of “The Fate of Third Worldism in the Middle East” and although it focuses on Iran and Palestine, they talk about Syria plenty. If you want pics of the book, PM/DM me
Sure sounds great! I’m not so sure how to DM you though… how do I go about doing that?
I heard a really interesting claim from Laith Marouf the other day. He said that Russian planes bombed Assadist and Hezbollah forces when they had pushed HTS back from Hama or Homs.
I do remember hearing about Russian air strikes and people expecting them to be a game changer because of where and when they happened but then everything got dramatically worse.
Its all pretty weird but if it is true it does make the events make more sense in my mind. I remember having the impression HTS was on the ropes and then suddenly they had won. If Russia bombed the counter attack it would make a lot of sense.
I do have issues with Laith’s credibility. His heart is in the right place and he has better access to Hezbollah than most people but on several occasions he has made really dubious claims that didn’t pan out. So now I’m just confused.
Sorry but that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
Nothing about the fall of Assad makes sense to me.
World War in Syria by AB Abrams is an in-depth, albeit slightly outdated, primer on Syria. It is available for free download on Anna’s Archive.
Thank you I’ll give it a read!
The socioeconomic policies of Assad jr. represented by the austerity measures and the espousal of neoliberalism is what led, to a great extent, to the uprising in the first place. I don’t have book recommendations, but I did find two interesting articles from a Marxist/leftist POV that discuss this exact matter, and which include a rich bibliography and citations that you can look through.
https://aljumhuriya.net/en/2017/09/21/socio-economic-roots-syrias-uprising/
https://www.rosalux.de/en/publication/id/39149/syria-the-social-origins-of-the-uprising
Thank you that’s very useful!
