HOW TO END THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR AND ITS REFUGEE CRISIS - A POSSIBLE SCENARIO
HOW TO END THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR AND ITS REFUGEE CRISIS - A POSSIBLE SCENARIO

Summary/Abstract: The Syrian Arab Republic was established after the World War I; administrated initially by the French, the country became independent in 1946 (CIA, 2019). Hafiz al-Assad, member of the Baath Arab Socialist Party took power through a military coup in 1963 (CIA, 2019);his government headed by a single Party declared the state of emergency that would last for 48 years. When Hafiz al-Assad died, by 2000, his son Bashar al-Assad became president by popular referendum. Maintaining the state of emergency allowed al-Assad to retain strict control of security forces and all social and political sectors. The late 2010-early 2011 civil unrest, known as the Arab Spring, spread like wildfire and blew its ‘wind of change’ across Northern Africa and the Middle East. Butin Syria, the protests did not echo nationwide; the security forces suppressed them quickly. In March 2011 however, following the arrest and torture of a couple of students who had written anti-Assad messages on a wall, the situation escalated and protests broke out again. In an attempt to defuse the situation, the security forces opened fire and killed four people. It was the beginning of Syrian civil war, which “has produced over 140,000 dead, hundreds of thousands wounded, and almost half of Syria’s population displaced, either internally or in refugee camps on Syria’s border” (Amos, 2014). This article focuses on describing the existing situation and a desired end state, defining the problem and developing a possible approach to end the Syrian civil war and its refugee crisis.

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