By Mark Taliano

 

In 2016, elected Syrian President Bashar al-Assad presciently cautioned that,

“Their plan was to undermine the constitution and then unleash absolute chaos—chaos that could only be resolved by imposing an ethnically and sectarian-based constitution. This would turn us from a people united by their homeland into fragmented groups, each clinging to its sect and seeking help from outsiders against its own fellow citizens and brothers ….”

“A sectarian system turns citizens of the same country into enemies and rivals,” he said,

“And wherever there are enemies and rivals, each side will seek allies. In such a scenario, those allies will not be found within Syria—or within any homeland, for that matter—because relationships [between these groups] are driven by suspicion, hatred, and resentment. That’s why the ally is always found abroad, and that’s where the colonial powers step in.”

 

Sectarian chaos and balkanization have always been the imperial plan for Syria. As is happening now, imperialists including Zionists will justify further criminal occupations using the fake pretext of protecting Syrians from each other.

The criminal Western political class and colonial media will omit from their discourses that it is precisely their actions, their Regime Change War, their Timber Sycamore Operation, their unilateral coercive measures, their support for al Qaeda and ISIS that have created the disaster which has befallen Syria in the first place. Nor will they mention that the catastrophe was all by design.

French international lawyer and political consultant Arnaud Develay reminds us that both Washington and Israel have endorsed the al-Sharaa “government” and describes the imperial deception of further occupations and bombings and invasions beneath the pretext of “protecting minorities” as Kabuki Theatre. This is a variation of the “White Man’s Burden” imperial theme.

 

One of the greatest ironies in all of this is the fact that the elected al-Assad government, overthrown by Empire’s takfiri terrorists, always protected and represented minorities in Syria, always fought AGAINST Empire’s sectarian, takfiri terrorists. This was a hallmark of Syria’s former secular, pluralist, democratically-oriented government.

What does the sectarianism look like since the al-Sharaa/al-Jolani junta was installed?

First, the HTS/al Qaeda gangs committed genocide against mostly Alawites on the coast of Syria, murdering them, displacing them, stealing their homes and properties.

Now they are committing massacres against Druze populations, in the south of Syria, and Zionists in response are bombing Syria yet again, this time hitting targets including the Ministry of Defence and the Presidential Palace.

 

Former President Assad’s warnings were well-founded and accurate. Syria, as a formerly independent nation-state, can no longer defend itself from colonial monsters intent on its destruction and exploitation. The fabricated sectarianism will continue to destroy Syria, and colonial masters, not Syrian citizens, will likely decide Syria’s fate, for the foreseeable future.

“Order from (manufactured) chaos” will be an abiding imperial strategy.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. He writes on his website where this article was originally published.

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Copyright © Mark Taliano, Global Research, 2025