By Chris Kanthan

Although the Syrian war is almost over, many Americans still don’t understand what transpired over the last seven years, because the mainstream narrative has been an embarrassing mix of propaganda, half-truths and lies. Three versions of the conflict are presented here and the reader can choose the one that makes the most sense to them.

Disney Version

Once upon a time, a country called Syria was ruled by a ruthless dictator named Bashar Al-Assad. He was a cruel man who gassed his own people. His actions caused a civil war in Syria. America and Europe tried their best to stop the devastating civil war, and even generously accepted many Syrian refugees. Eventually America went to Syria, defeated ISIS, and is now trying to restore stability.

This above version is quite popular among many Americans and Europeans.

High School Version

Oppressed by Assad’s brutal regime, the Syrian people longed for freedom and democracy. One day, people started protesting in a small city. In response, Assad killed many peaceful protesters. However, this backfired and the entire country was engulfed in protests. Soon a civil war broke out, which led to millions of refugees fleeing Syria.

America was appalled and, for humanitarian reasons, decided to help the Syrians who were fighting Assad. When Assad gassed his own people, America intervened and removed all his chemical weapons. Unfortunately, Assad managed to gas innocent civilians again after a few years. Then, America went to Syria, defeated ISIS, and is now trying to restore stability.

The above version is presented in most mainstream media.

College Version

Simply put, the Syrian “civil war” is an illegal, proxy war waged against Syria. In defiance of international laws, many countries have been sending weapons and terrorist mercenaries into Syria for the last six years (if you want to gain a deeper understanding of who wants to topple Assad and why, please read my article: “Chaos in Syria: Part 1 – Three Motives and Seven Countries”.

2011

In early 2011, US/UK special forces used Jordan’s military base to organize protests against Assad in a border town called Daraa. With Muslim Brotherhood’s organizational skills and Saudi Arabia’s deep pockets, violent protests spread thru Syria. Soon, an organized and armed militia known as Free Syrian Army (FSA) was created by the outsiders.

After the fall of Gaddafi in late 2011, deadly weapons such as Stinger missiles and Sarin gas were shipped from Libya to Syria, via Turkey. Even with all this help, FSA couldn’t win the war. At this point, NATO and Neocons wanted to bomb Syria, but Russia and China vetoed the motion in the UN, so the war of attrition moved on to the next phase.

2012

In early 2012, someone dialed Al Qaeda (referred to as AQ or AQI in government documents). Zawahiri, AQ’s top leader, called for help and experienced Islamic terrorists from all over the world rushed into Syria. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, received an email from her chief adviser, saying that “Al Qaeda is on our side.”

Al Qaeda rebranded itself as Al Nusra, and fearsome weapons such as grenade launchers, mortars, tanks and anti-tank missiles started pouring into Syria via Turkey and Jordan.

The CIA spent $100,000 to train each rebel. Billions of dollars were wasted once again on terrorists.

Watching the Western media, one wouldn’t know that we were supporting Al Qaeda or how heavily armed these “rebels” were.

Western media and politicians also stuck to their talking points and referred to all these fighters as “moderate rebels.” However, many of them are ruthless Islamists who use suicide bombers, behead even children, and commit unspeakable atrocities. They are also religious fanatics who seek out and kill Christians and Shiites. I describe this in details in my book, Deconstructing the Syrian War.

At this point, the Syrian war stopped being a civil war and turned into an invasion. A Pentagon memo warned against this reckless policy and precisely predicted the rise of groups such as ISIS. Obviously the memo was ignored by the White House and other officials.

2012 was also the year when the refugee crisis started to become real. By the end of the year, almost 200,000 people had fled Syria. In the coming years, it would swell to five million.

2013

When FSA and AQ failed to oust Assad, the powers-to-be started recruiting Sunni extremists in Iraq. In April 2013, ISIS was officially created. In the next year, these barbaric Salafists would capture much of eastern Syria.

This was also the year when Obama’s red-line was crossed – use of chemical weapons by Assad. UN experts who went to the site soon found that it was actually the rebels who had likely used the chemical weapons. The report was quickly drowned by the Western propaganda machine.

2014-2016

The next two years were just repetitions of the daily brutality of war, with ISIS making huge gains in the east. Whenever the rebels started to lose, either more weapons would flow in, or Israel would fly into Syria and bomb the Syrian army.

In late 2015, the Syrian government sought Russia’s help. Within a month, Putin weakened ISIS by destroying most of the oil tankers that ISIS was using to transport oil to Turkey. By the end of 2016, the Syrian government had the upper hand – Aleppo was liberated from Al Qaeda, and ISIS was running out of cash and morale.

2017

2017 was turning out to be a great year for Assad. By March, ISIS had lost over three hundred towns to the Syrian army.