The regional struggle for Syria

Two years after the beginning of an uprising against President Bashar-al-Assad, Syria is gripped by an ever deepening civil war that is having a significant impact on the entire region. Regional states have emerged as driving forces in the conflict, while they are also battling to contain the impact of tensions rapidly spilling out across the wider region.

In a new report - The regional struggle for Syria - ECFR brings together a collection of essays explaining the competing interests and ambitions of the key regional players. The eight pieces look at the Gulf States, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, the Kurds, Lebanon and Turkey.

In an introductory essay the report’s editors, Julien Barnes-Dacey and Daniel Levy, map out the nature of the unfolding regional conflict, identifying its roots in the struggle for hegemony unleashed by the 2003 Iraq.

Having opened the door to an ascendant Iranian-led and Shia-dominated axis, the Syria war now represents an opportunity for regional Sunni states to reverse this order. Syria has become the battleground for this broader strategic conflict, with devastating, and increasingly sectarian, effect. Other states in the region are complicating the mix with their simultaneous pursuit of more narrow interests, whether they be the strengthening of particular rebel groups, the defence of Israeli security interests or the establishment of an autonomous Kurdish region.

Although the conflict is first and foremost a domestic struggle, it has also become the epicentre of a wider struggle with major implications for the shaping of a region in flux, significantly complicating prospects for a political resolution aimed at stemming the fighting.