Great Games

While the Assad family rulers were as dictatorial and undemocratic as any of the neighbouring Arab monarchies, they did not pander to religious extremism as was done by the likes of Saudi Arabia or Turkey which fanned fundamentalism and nurtured 'friendly' militias. If anything, the Bashar Al Assad led Syrian military was at the forefront of taking on (and successfully countering) the scourge of the Al Qaida or later, ISIL. Ironically, while the US was supposedly against religious extremism of ISIL et al, it counterintuitively targeted Assad's Syrian forces

- RUPINDER SINGH

The term "Great Games" (inspired by the French term Le grand jeu suggesting risk, chance and deception) was coined in the 19th century to frame the rivalry between the competing British and Russian Empires over dominating Asia.

The British wanted the vast arid lands and steppes of the Central Asian Region to become a strategic buffer to protect its crown jewel i.e., the Indian Sub-Continent. Naturally, places like Afghanistan were given to vested interests, intrigues and much bloodlust.

It could be well argued that the surreptitious concept of "Great Games" was, and is, equally applicable to the ancient and civilisational land of "Al-Shams" or modern day Syria.

It has been yet another region that has been given to relentless ravages, raids and competing agendas of foreign powers for eons. It is only natural for one of the oldest capital cities of the world i.e., Damascus, also poetically called "City of Jasmine", to have been the epicentre of fierce competition, aspirations and machinations.

From the Romans, Macedonians, Persians, Babylonians to the Phoenicians, to even latter-day Egyptian, Ottoman, French, English, Italian and German overlords ~ this land has witnessed relentless attempts to control its narrative.

Proximity to the Biblical/Abrahamic land and multiplicity of foreign invaders bestowed it with unprecedented diversity that includes religious and ethnic citizenry who could be Muslim (both Sunni and Shia e.g., Alawite), Christian, Druze, Kurd, Armenian etc., Ironically this diversity enabled many competing foreign powers to usurp certain denominations and turn them into their proxies to do their bidding.

The problems of foreign interests are so deep rooted that many regional and global powers still fancy Syria as their "backyard". For example, just before its independence in 1945, it was under the Ottoman-ruled French Mandate.