For some at Syracuse University, the conflict in Syria is about more than whether the United States should intervene.

It’s about people back home.

For Rania Habib, an assistant professor of Arabic who grew up in Homs, the conflict destroyed her old school, and separated her from her family.

“The Syrian people are suffering,” she said. “Not the government, not the rebels.”

On Aug. 21, suspected government chemical attacks on suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus have prompted questions about whether the United States should take military action. President Barack Obama announced the United States should take military action in Syria, but left authorization to Congress.

This conflict is one that can be traced back to more than two years ago between the Syrian government, led by Bashar al-Assad, and its detractors. While many of the facts regarding the chemical attacks are disputed, many believe the ongoing conflict could have detrimental ramifications for the country and its people.

The conflict in Syria first began during the Arab Spring in 2011, when protests were flaring up in several Arab countries and governments were being forced out, said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, an associate professor of political science and founding director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

The anti-Assad protests in Syria were peaceful at first. That changed when the opposition radicalized, he said.

The opposition itself is fragmented now, containing secularists, religious fundamentalists and defectors from the Assad regime, among others, Borourjerdi said. The radicals, he said, have since pushed aside the initial moderate coalition.

Secretary of State John Kerry gave a speech on Aug. 26 justifying the United States’ conclusion that a chemical attack had happened in Syria, citing evidence such as the victims’ reported symptoms and firsthand accounts of organizations such as Doctors without Borders.

The Assad regime also blocked access to the site of the attack and destroyed evidence by shelling the area, Kerry said.

But the administration has no proof implicating the Assad regime in the attack, said Habib, the assistant professor of Arabic. Because of this, the United States doesn’t know what resources will be required for a military strike, or what the repercussions will be, she said.

Habib said she believes the reasoning behind the potential strike is based primarily on political and economic interests, such as control of natural gas supply in the area and a weakened Syrian state, which she said would make Israel feel more secure.

The rebels, she said, have only thrown Syria into chaos.

Habib said rebels told people to “not dream of coming back.”

Much of Alma Begic’s childhood has echoed the threats of the rebels.

The senior international relations and political science major fled Bosnia-Herzegovina as a child after the genocide broke out. She moved to four different countries before coming to the United States.

Now at SU, she’s working to organize an initiative to help Syrian refugees in Turkey.

Begic said Syrian refugees have already been coming into Syracuse, and that U.S. involvement in Syria may cause those numbers to rise in coming years.

The purpose of the initiative, she said, is to make people realize how those affected by the conflict in Syria and other countries have already woven themselves into the Syracuse community.

The countries surrounding Syria — Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan — have accepted the torrential influx of Syrian refugees since the conflict began, at the cost of their own resources.

Turkey’s open-door policy in particular has strained its ability to support the refugees — the refugee camps cost $1 billion, but international aid only brings in $100 million, Begic said.

Although she was critical of the U.S. involvement in Libya and Afghanistan, she said, there is a “real emergency” in Syria this time.

“We know the intervention by the U.S. will not change the tide of war,” Begic said. “There is no end in sight for this conflict.”

There are no two clear-cut camps, she said.

The point of intervention, she said, is to uphold an international agreement banning the use of chemical weapons — most likely through limited strikes.

“What bothers me about the discourse surrounding Syria is that I see people framing it in a way that’s so politicized, taking politicized stances, reducing the conflict to numbers that we’re not acknowledging that people are suffering on all sides,” she said.

Acceptance of this conclusion, and the idea of intervention on moral grounds, has been mixed.

An anti-intervention protest took place Monday evening on Marshall Street, where people from the community vocalized disapproval of the possible strike.

Among those there was Jeurje Alamir, a 33-year-old native of Damascus, left Syria at 18 with his older brother. He said he still has family in Damascus, but that they didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary the night the chemical attack was reported to have happened. The site of the attack, he said, is three miles from where his family lives.

Alamir, who currently lives in Syracuse, said he was part of the opposition at first, participating in protests against corruption in the Assad regime, before extremists joined in and changed his mind.

“We saw where the country was going,” he said. “And we woke up.”

Alamir and Habib, both of whom are Syrian, have different outlooks on the conflict. Alamir said he supports Assad and the future he wants for Syria is for it to go back to the way it was.

The Syrian people, he said, will come out stronger from the conflict.

But Habib was not so sure.

With all this suffering, she said, Syria may not be the same. She doesn’t believe the country will be able to rebuild on its own, noting that the Syrian economy is “broken.”

“We were self-content,” Habib said. “We didn’t owe anyone anything.”

But, she added, Syria also had no democracy and struggled with corruption. The Assad regime brought economic development and let her grow up with a sense of safety, but made people afraid to criticize the government, she said.

Families, too, Habib said, will be changed. She said she thinks the Syrian people, once “generous” and “welcoming,” will be hardened by the conflict.

Said Habib: “When a lot of people die, a lot of families will carry hatred.”

Published on September 10, 2013 at 3:01 am

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