Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, the world's attention has been focused on the conflict in Syria's largest city, Aleppo. Due to the nature of the conflict and the number of factions vying for control in the region the politics of the civil war are often as confusing as they are interesting. The war is framed as a brutal dictatorial regime fighting against rebels who are in it for their freedom, it's a classic underdog story. As is often the case in international politics, however, the truth is much more insidious than that.
The rebels in Syria, backed by the US and its NATO allies, are not as benign as they may seem, while the somewhat democratically elected government of Syria, backed by its allies in Russia, have reacted with unwarranted brutality toward critics of its regime. The views that a person may have of the events in Syria are very much influenced by which source they choose to get their news from. For example, U.S. news stations often play up the atrocities of the Assad regime while ignoring the misconduct of the forces they support. On the other hand Middle Eastern news agencies tend to focus on the fact that Assad came into power through a democratic election while ignoring the regime's constant mistreatment of political dissenters. The major opposing force in the Syrian civil war is a coalition of rebel groups supported by the U.S. Many of these groups, and the combatants that make them up, are linked either directly or indirectly to hard-line Islamist groups also operating in the region.
During the early stages of the civil war the rebels were mostly deserters from the national army of Syria who created a group called the Free Syrian Army. These militants operated with little to no central structure and, due to pressure from the West, were eventually assimilated into a new group known as the Supreme Military Council. The SMC was created in order to control the actions of the rebels groups operating in Syria, but has done little to stymie the fundamentalist sentiment in the ranks of the troops under its command. Due to this lack of centralization in the Syrian rebel groups, organizations such as the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant have taken advantage of the chaos in the region. These groups are using the violence both as a cover for their own terrorist acts and as a recruitment tool.
The hands of the Syrian government are not clean in this matter either, however. The event often regarded as the catalyst for the civil war was the arrest of 15 children for painting anti-government graffiti in the city of Daraa. The government's disproportionately harsh reaction to this act and to the community's outcry against the arrests is what led to the rise of anti-Assad sentiment across Syria. There is also a great amount of concern about the legitimacy of Bashar al-Assad's position as president of Syria. The Assad family has been cornering elections in Syria for decades, and the election of Bashar al-Assad seemed to confirm both Western and Syrian fears that the democratic process of the country was corrupt at best, a farce at worst. This lack of confidence in the electoral system is another factor that led to the civil war.
It is difficult to say who has the moral high ground in the conflict. The Syrian people have a reasonable cause for rejecting the rule of Assad's government, however their cause as been co-opted by radicals and recklessly violent militants with the support of western countries. This type of neo-liberal imperialism is not a isolated occurrence and the civil war in Syria has become little more than another proxy war between NATO and Syria's Russian and Turkish allies. The only people involved in the conflict that can be said to be innocent are the civilians of Syria's largest cities who are caught in the crossfire. Organizations, such as the White Helmets, that are dedicated to preserving human life in the war are the only ones who can be commended for their involvement in the Syrian civil war.
