Syria Burning: A Short History of a Catastrophe.

• Author: Hossam, Aya
• Position: Book review

Syria Burning: A Short History of a Catastrophe

By Charles Glass

London: Verso Publications, 2016, 192 pages, $13.25, ISBN: 9781784785161

Since the commencement of the Syrian uprising in March 2011, which would thereafter change the existent regional order in the Middle East, many have endeavored to understand the nature of this conflict. There is a debate whether it is a promising revolution or a devastating civil war. In Syria Burning: A Short History of a Catastrophe, Charles Glass conducts his inquiry into the Syrian civil war.'

It can be said that his book is an autobiography, mainly based on his own experience and interpretation of Syrian history and current reality. Glass constructs his argument around conversations he had with many Syrian novelists, authors, activists, and ordinary people, rather than by conducting a casual or political analysis. He aims at providing an overview of the Syrian conflict by tracking the historical genesis of Syrian social and political history without detaching it from the surrounding political entities that existed since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The book discusses three main ideas. The first is that the situation now in Syria is not another shadow of the "Arab spring' popular uprisings; it is far from being peaceful demonstrations for it 'turned into civil war" (Glass, p. 36) as a result of the armed struggle among many sects of the opposition. That, in turn, paved the way for the rise of various fundamentalist and Jihadist movements such as FSA, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The second main idea of the book emphasizes the role of foreign state actors, such as the U.S., Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, in inflaming the war in Syria. They have contesting and contradicting interests in Syria, and therefore they support different local disputing parties. By doing so, they have deepened the dichotomies between Syrian factions in a way that has made any chances of political settlement a herculean task. Both anti-Assad groups and their allies and Assad's foreign allies have miscalculated the roughness and the protracted consequences of any attempt to overthrow the Assad Regime or sustain it.

The third idea argues that the armed dissent parties botched the 'revolution by engaging in religious and sectarian conflicts over accepting monetary support and military assistance from foreign powers pursuing their own strategic, oil, and arguably imperial interests, which...