An Update on Syria and the Climate

I’m currently in the process of writing a Bible prophecy article. It’s going to take some time to write, but I hope to get it done in a short period of time. In the meantime, there are two news stories that I would like to highlight today which I think are fairly important. One story is about the escalating situation in Syria and the other story is about the weather.

The Return of La Niña
Recall that some meteorologists blamed the recent droughts in Texas and other unusual weather events around the world this past year on an unusually strong sea surface temperature anomaly called La Niña, which is when the sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific are colder than normal. Here is how the U.S.’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) characterized the recent La Nina.

The strong 2010-11 La Niña contributed to record winter snowfall, spring flooding and drought across the United States, as well as other extreme weather events throughout the world, such as heavy rain in Australia and an extremely dry equatorial eastern Africa.

La Niña conditions ended in the month of May; leaving climate forecasters uncertain about what kind of weather patterns many parts of the world would see in the coming months. Some forecasters talked about a return to La Niña conditions later on in this year while others talked about the possibility for sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific to become warmer than normal (El Niño conditions).

The uncertainty ended yesterday NOAA issued a statement announcing that La Niña conditions have returned and that La Niña conditions are expected to strengthen in the coming months. The following image shows the unusually cool waters that are present again in the equatorial Pacific (click here if you are unable to see the image below):



The return of La Niña is very bad news for Texas and other drought-stricken areas because it’s a continuation of the conditions that contributed significantly to their ongoing droughts. Unsurprisingly, forecasters now expect drought conditions to continue in Texas for an extended period of time with the return of La Niña.

There are a lot of variables that influence the weather beyond sea surface temperature anomalies like La Niña (like the amount of volcanic dust in the atmosphere). Therefore, it’s unlikely that weather conditions on a certain day in late 2011 or early 2012 will be exactly like they were on the same day in late 2010 or early 2011. However, with the return of La Niña, do not be surprised if some weather-afflicted areas of the world continue to experience extreme/unusual weather conditions.

A State of War in Syria
The second important story is that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has reportedly declared a state of war in Syria as he has ordered the general mobilization of Syria’s Armed Forces for a major military operation against Syrian cities which have large concentration of anti-Assad protesters. The move represents a huge escalation in the Assad regime’s attempt to silence protests against the regime since it had been relying on a limited number of units previously to repress the protesters.

• I think this story is important because I think we may soon see whether there are going to be large-scale defections from the Syrian Army to the anti-Assad regime side.

Recall that one of things I mentioned as a key item to watch in Syria is the possibility for a major rise of Sunni defections from the Syrian Army. Here is what I wrote concerning the importance of the Syrian Army in determining what happens in Syria:

Some analysts believe that Assad will be able to continue to fend off the anti-Assad protesters as long as he has the support of the Syrian Army. At the moment, the Syrian Army has not turned against Assad outside of some defections.

The Alawite-Sunnis dynamic in Syria has the potential to play a role in weakening the Syrian Army’s support for Assad.

• Recall, the Assad regime is affiliated with the Alawis, which is a small religious group (affiliated with the Shia branch of Islam)-comprising between 10 to 12% of the Syrian population. Meanwhile, the majority of Syrians follow the Sunni branch of Islam.  

• Although the Alawite dominate the Syrian Army’s leadership, 9 of 11 Syrian Army divisions primarily consist of Sunni troops (the other 2 divisions consist primarily of Alawite). The defections that have taken place so far have come from the predominately Sunni divisions.

If Sunni troops begin to grow tired of Assad’s crackdown of fellow Sunnis and begin to defect in mass to support the (predominantly Sunni) protesters, Assad’s ability to crackdown on protesters could weaken markedly and the Syrian opposition’s ability to resist Assad could strengthen significantly.

• Therefore, Assad could be in a lot of trouble if a lot of army defections begin to take place.

The Assad regime has tried to minimize the number of Sunni defections through intimidation tactics and by limiting the role of Sunni troops in operations against the anti-regime protesters. However, the limited role of Sunni troops in military operations against anti-regime protesters appears to be a thing of the past now that the Syrian Armed Forces have been mobilized for this upcoming, major military operation.

• The likely participation of a lot of Sunni military units in this upcoming, major military operation could be a test of how loyal many Sunni troops are to Assad or how sympathetic they are to the anti-regime protesters since they’ll probably be asked to attack their own people in many cases.

I do not know what the outcome is going to be, but it appears the Iranian regime is becoming worried about what the outcome could be. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently called on Assad to begin negotiating with the Syrian opposition. Ahmadinejad’s call to negotiate likely reflects the Iranian regime’s growing concern that the Assad regime may not be able to survive much longer by relying exclusively on repressing its people. The fall of the Assad regime would be a huge loss for the Iranian regime.

I hope everyone has a good weekend. I plan to work some more on writing that article and plan to study the Bible some more. I'll also keep track of the news just in case anything significant happens.