{"id":7782,"date":"2013-07-25T14:17:32","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T14:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=7782"},"modified":"2013-07-25T14:17:32","modified_gmt":"2013-07-25T14:17:32","slug":"syrias-endgame-an-alawite-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=7782","title":{"rendered":"Syria&#8217;s endgame: An Alawite State"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_7788\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7788\" style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/alawitestate.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7788\" alt=\"Alawite State?\" src=\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/alawitestate.jpeg\" width=\"250\" height=\"202\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7788\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alawite State?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As Syria\u2019s Civil War goes from months to years, the sectarian nature of the conflict becomes ever more clear. With international arms dealers benefitting greatly from the conflict, it might last still longer.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Islamist factions that dominate the rebellion depend on the support (or at least acquiescence) of Syria\u2019s Sunni majority, whereas the Assad government relies on the Shi\u2019ite (and mostly Alawite) minority.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As the war drags on and stalemates, however, it is setting the stage for similar sectarian bloodletting as was seen in Iraq. The rebels are clearing Alawite villages in the north, while the Assad government is setting the stage for similar \u201ccleansing\u201d to ensure an Alawite majority around the southwest.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It\u2019s not just idle speculation about the eventual division of Syria. President Assad has reportedly even approached Israeli officials in the past year to ask them not to intervene if the government attempts to form an \u201cAlawite state\u201d by relocating the displaced villagers into the Golan Heights.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">From the southern part of the Homs Province down into Golan, a contiguous Alawite state with a border to Lebanon could be a fall-back point, giving Syria\u2019s Alawite majority ties to the Shi\u2019ites in neighboring Lebanon. While the war is a long way from over, a division of Syria into Sunni and Alawite states could end up being the endgame. &#8211; antiwar.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Syria\u2019s Civil War goes from months to years, the sectarian nature of the conflict becomes ever more clear. With international arms dealers benefitting greatly from the conflict, it might last still longer. The Islamist factions that dominate the rebellion depend on the support (or at least acquiescence) of Syria\u2019s Sunni majority, whereas the Assad &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=7782\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Syria&#8217;s endgame: An Alawite State&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[4292,366,198],"class_list":["post-7782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-alawite-state","tag-civil-war","tag-syria"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/alawitestate.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7789,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7782\/revisions\/7789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}