Syria

There is a civil war going on that is at the same time being used as a power struggle between various religious factions of Islam and the countries that support them. In simple terms, everybody is fighting everybody for a whole lot of different political and religious reasons.

It started with revolts against the clan of President Assad, who ruled with dictatorial power and who has his power base in the minority tribe (and religious faction) of the Alawites. The majority of people in Syria are non-Alawites who religiously belong to the Sunni form of Muslim believers.

These people are usually painted as the 'moderate' rebels, although they are certainly not out to establish a western style, multi-party democratic system. The Syrian, Sunni rebels are only moderate in that they don't impose a reign of terror over the territories they occupy.

The Alawite clan of president Assad has friendly relations with other, Shiite Muslim groups. Iran is the major Shiite power in the region, so it actively supports Assad partly directly, partly through a "freedom fighter" organization it supports called Hezbollah. Russia also actively supports Assad, a) because his regime always had friendly relations with Russia and b) they don't expect a future Sunni leadership to be as friendly to them.

The Sunni Muslim rebels get support from othe Sunni Muslim nations like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other countries on the Arabian peninsula. And from the West which apparently and rather optimistically thinks that the rebels will insitute (after winning, of course) a multi-party, democratic and stable government that will be friendly to the West - in contrast to the largely pro-Russian present Assad government.

But most of all, the Sunni uprising against Assad brought in the also Sunni battle groups of IS. The problem with them is that they do institute a reign of terror in the regions they occupy they are totally anti-West and they are there not to help the 'moderate', Syrian Sunni brothers. Although they also want the downfall of Assad they want Syria for themselves to set up their own Islamic Empire.

So now the West is helping some of the rebels against Assad, the Syrian ones, but actively bombing other rebels, namely IS. It has no problem with the fall of pro-Russian dictator Assad, but on the other hand much fears the chaos that might ensue after his fall. Russia helps Assad and bombs mostly his Syrian rebels because it does not want a hostile Sunni power bloc along its southern borders in the future - and it sees that the West and others are already fighting IS. Iraq and Saudi Arabia support the uprising of their Syrian fellow Sunni Muslims but at the same time (half-heartedly) fight the also Sunni IS. And Saudi Arabia and Iran are basically using Syria as a battlefield in their own fight for supremacy in the region.

At the same time, the Kurds are fighting against IS which gets them training, arms and support from the West. But they are also fighting for autonomy or who knows, independence which is a reason that Turkey (also a supposedly Western ally) fight the Kurds.

This makes it understandable that in a situation like this President Obama very wisely is not committing any US ground troops there. Because before he knows what happens, they will be shot at from all sides: nothing unites Muslim warrior groups like the chance to use Western unbelievers for target and bombing practice.

Parties Involved In the current insurgencies you have five different parties all fighting for parcels of land in Syria and Iraq and the conflict bleeds over the border since there are Sunni Arabs and Kurds on both sides of the arbitrarily-drawn borders.

1. Government of Syria: (Only in Syria) Bashar al-Assad and the Government of Syria come from the Alawite minority which was historically discriminated against because their religion is a post-Islamic religion (even though Iran has "certified them" to be part of Twelver Shiite Islam). As a result, they do not want to cede power to the Sunni majority who will likely discriminate against them again as they had in the past. In contrast to most ethnic conflicts in the Middle East, many other Syrian minorities such as the Christians and Druze (another post-Islamic Religion) and the Shiite Muslims in Syria have thrown their weight behind Bashar al-Assad and the Alawites, preferring moderate Alawite discrimination to possible Islamic fundamentalism. They fear worse will come under Sunni-dominated rule, especially since while Assad was Secular, his opposition was Islamist and will likely rule harshly over non-Sunni religious groups.

Currently the Government of Syria controls most of western Syria.

2. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL): (In Syria and Iraq) ISIL is an extremist Sunni Islamist organization which used to have links to al-Qaeda before al-Qaeda condemned them for their barbarity. They are fighting to bring the Sunni majority into power, especially in Sunni majority regions of both Syria and Iraq, and impose a more fundamentalist view on politics. They consider themselves to be fighting the injustices and violence of the current Assad regime and the inequalities of the US-supported Government of Iraq. ISIL is primarily supported and armed by Saudi Arabia, but the US and UK have indirectly given ISIL millions of dollars and equipment since US and UK military vehicles and assets left to the Government of Iraq have fallen into ISIL hands (especially with the fall of Mosul).

ISIL controls significant amounts of land in Syria and Iraq and conquered much of its Iraqi territory in June 2014.

3. Government of Iraq: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is the leader of the Iraqi Government in Baghdad. His government is the only one of the three which has true recognition internationally and is seen as the legitimate leadership of Iraq. However, within Iraq, al-Maliki and his government are seen as Shiite sectarians who promote the interests of Shiite Arab Iraqis over those of Kurds and, especially, Sunni Arab Iraqis. The feeling of marginalization by Iraq's minorities is growing as al-Maliki has made the additional steps of inviting Iranian military assistance and allowing for the inclusion of Shiite militias as allies. The US is strongly considering assisting the Government of Iraq with airstrikes against ISIL. Kurds are nominally loyal to the Iraqi Government and have not militarily engaged with Iraqi national forces. The Iraqi Army is seen as unwilling to vigorously defend Iraq by both ISIL and the Kurds.

The Government of Iraq controls much of the center and southeast areas of Iraq.

4. Kurds and the Peshmerga (Kurds): The Kurds, a Sunni ethnic minority (as opposed to a religious minority), are primarily aligned with the Government of Iraq, but are overall more concerned with protecting their minority in northern Iraq and Syria. Iraqi Kurdistan is the name of their autonomous democratically-elected governing council and the Peshmerga is the name of the militias that fight on behalf of that authority. Peshmerga forces, unlike the Iraqi Army, are seen to be incredibly loyal and ISIL has avoided attacking positions held by the Peshmerga for this reason. Syrian Kurds have also organized as a de facto independent polity. While both groups of Kurds support the idea of Kurdish unity, there have been difficulties uniting all of the Kurds under one banner.

Iraqi Kurds control areas in northern Iraq and Syrian Kurds control areas in northern Syria.

5. Free Syrian Army: (Only in Syria) The Rebels of Syria split between those who were more Islamist in their outlook and joined with ISIL (above) and those who are more liberal in their outlook and are considered to be interested in democracy. The Free Syrian Army is composed of those more liberal rebels, but they are weaker in the overall struggle than both the Syrian Government and ISIL. They are fighting to bring the Sunni majority into power and consider themselves to be fighting the injustices and violence of the current Assad regime and the atrocities of his father, including the Hama Massacre of 1982 which may have claimed as many as 40,000 civilian lives. Considering that Sunnis are the majority of the country, they do not understand why the minority Alawites and their Druze, Christian, and Shiite allies should dictate policy.

The Free Syrian Army controls limited areas in Syria.

Foreign Supporters Already, numerous countries have pledged their armies or funds to support the various groups. Iran, and its paramilitary proxy Hezbollah, have backed both the Iraqi and Syrian Governments since they are Shiite-aligned. Saudi Arabia has thrown its weight behind ISIL since both advocate for Sunni Fundamentalism. Turkey and some Western countries have provided some minimal support to the Free Syrian Army.

The massive amount of violence in Syria against civilians, perpetrated by the Assad Regime, Jubhat an-Nusra, and the Islamic State, which control the majority of Syria, have cause a large percentage of Syrians to flee the country. Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey have each taken 1.4 million, 1.9. million, and 2.3 million refugees, but all three have basically argued that they are strained and overtaxed by the refugees that they have taken in and cannot afford to take in anymore, resulting in them closing the borders or, in Turkey's case, turning a blind eye towards Europe-bound migration.

As a result, vast numbers of Syrians are taking the long march to Germany and Scandinavia where favorable refugee policies are present and where they do not run the risk of dying unceremoniously as might happen in Syria. Additionally, because of European kindness with regards to refugees, a number of economic migrants are also using the more lenient standards applied to refugees as opposed to migrants to pretend to be Syrians in order to get asylum. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has no exact statistics, but claims that a significant minority of the "Syrian Refugees" in Europe are Non-Syrian economic migrants, who should not benefit from the asylum procedures that migrants have to deal with, but are engaging in deceptive practices (such as burning their passports) in order to pretend to be Syrians.

The reason that many Europeans and Americans are hesitant to settle the million-or-so "Syrian Refugees" comes from two main factors: (1) that the governments of the various countries have not done any serious work to tease out economic migrants from actual Syrian Refugees, who should receive help and sustenance, and (2) the political and religious views of the migrants, regardless of whether they are legitimate refugees or not could have serious consequences for the national identities of a number of European countries. As a result of this failure to settle the refugees and actually determine a course for them, the refugees have been stuck in limbo in numerous refugee camps.

The massive amount of violence in Syria against civilians, perpetrated by the Assad Regime, Jubhat an-Nusra, and the Islamic State, which control the majority of Syria, have cause a large percentage of Syrians to flee the country. Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey have each taken 1.4 million, 1.9. million, and 2.3 million refugees, but all three have basically argued that they are strained and overtaxed by the refugees that they have taken in and cannot afford to take in anymore, resulting in them closing the borders or, in Turkey's case, turning a blind eye towards Europe-bound migration.

As a result, vast numbers of Syrians are taking the long march to Germany and Scandinavia where favorable refugee policies are present and where they do not run the risk of dying unceremoniously as might happen in Syria. Additionally, because of European kindness with regards to refugees, a number of economic migrants are also using the more lenient standards applied to refugees as opposed to migrants to pretend to be Syrians in order to get asylum. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has no exact statistics, but claims that a significant minority of the "Syrian Refugees" in Europe are Non-Syrian economic migrants, who should not benefit from the asylum procedures that migrants have to deal with, but are engaging in deceptive practices (such as burning their passports) in order to pretend to be Syrians.

The reason that many Europeans and Americans are hesitant to settle the million-or-so "Syrian Refugees" comes from two main factors: (1) that the governments of the various countries have not done any serious work to tease out economic migrants from actual Syrian Refugees, who should receive help and sustenance, and (2) the political and religious views of the migrants, regardless of whether they are legitimate refugees or not could have serious consequences for the national identities of a number of European countries. As a result of this failure to settle the refugees and actually determine a course for them, the refugees have been stuck in limbo in numerous refugee camps.