The crises in the region: the political economy of the conflict

The decline in interest in political settlement in Syria, and in the region as a whole, came alongside an unprecedented explosion in the economic situation. The acceleration of the US sanctions regime, which is based on the philosophy of protectionism and the trade war, with this explosion made things look radically different from them earlier this decade, when regimes collapsed as their rights were undermined. political legitimacy, in terms of representation and others. Political corrections, at the time, did not take into account the economic nature of these regimes, and were limited to personalizing criticism and protest, reducing the matter to a confrontation with dynasties or families, or in the best of cases with the political-party structure in which these systems were protected. The political avenues that emerged after the chaos that occurred under international auspices, in turn, did not realize the importance of the economic issue, and the rupture of the settlement that could cause its explosion, since it was not adopted as a possible basis for a solution , among other possibilities (political, constitutional, etc.). She is very sick and light. The breakdown of these routes, including the military and geopolitical ones (Astana, for example), brought the economic issue back to the fore, but not as an axis to overcome obstacles to settlement or solution, but as a de facto situation that was ignored for a long time, before it erupted regionally, starting from Lebanon. And it begins to undermine the economies of these countries, one after another, in an unprecedented way, even in the worst stages of the war.

The case of Turkey
The geopolitical perspective, in this sense, is no longer sufficient to address the crises in the region. Even countries that seem to be advancing politically and militarily in proportion to their regional weight (Turkey, for example), are actually “in a state of hesitation” economically, as the Turkish economy suffers its worst stages, in terms of collapse. of the currency and deceleration of growth rates, in a production system that does not exist. With the exception of the tourism and service sectors, and some manufacturing and food industries. The collapse of the Turkish lira to record levels weakened confidence in the national insurance and savings system, and the demand for safe havens, especially gold, increased dramatically and unprecedentedly, as this sector witnessed, due to the crisis, of growth not known for decades and therefore unprecedented in profits. All this, in a country that is not subject to the sanctions regime and is an ally of the West, geopolitically and militarily, then how if the situation is different, and the country does not enjoy the Western protection umbrella at all levels. The expansion in the region in this regard towards Libya first, and then Greece, is an expression of a crisis rather than a surplus of power, and even if this is in Turkey’s long-term interest, the economic situation that is deteriorating it will not quickly allow the regime there to translate its “victories” at home. Because there is no political economy for this expansion, unlike what happened with the rise to power of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Turkish state, at that time, did not need to seek natural resources outside its borders to ensure political stability for a decade or more, and the political system, even in its authoritarian form under Erdogan, was able to make the stability of the Turkish lira. a focus of development, attracting Investments from here and there, and the production of “added value” for this economy that depends entirely on imports and has no income channels to mention.

The Syrian economic situation is no better than that of its Iranian and Lebanese counterparts, who are equally subject to the sanctions regime, but it is linked to a long-term agreement.

It was knowledge of the size and nature of the country’s economy that allowed Erdogan and his party to achieve this kind of political hegemony conditioned on a prior understanding of how to achieve prosperity from a similar economic model. And this size has not changed now, neither he nor the nature of economic activity in Turkey, until a man takes this step that conflicts with the nature of the political economy of his country. What is meant here is the insufficient resources necessary for a similar conflict at the regional level, since the Turkish economy lacks real productive sectors that generate wealth and value, and therefore allows the construction of an economy of conflict or a limited war. of resources. Originally, it lacks the rents that, in similar cases of economic collapse or a significant drop in GDP growth and exacerbation of debt, could be the way out until the economy returns to normal. This objectively contradicts the fabrication of a conflict in the region over resources, but the need for the latter seems to be greater from Erdogan’s point of view, and so we see him expanding at the expense of his Atlantic ally, Greece, taking advantage of superiority. Turkish military, and from the “margin of the Greek presence” in “NATO” by analogy. For Turkey, with “a simple exception” is the position of France and behind it the European Union. The Turkish adventure appears according to this “calculated” fact, due to its dependence on the Atlantic umbrella to organize the dispute with Greece over the exploration file, but the deterioration of the economy does not allow this shock to continue. This is clearly expressed in the general state of panic, not because of the “war” itself, but because of the lack of a political economy for it that can be relied upon in the battle to diversify resources at the regional level.

The cases of Iran and Syria
Other countries in the region, unlike Turkey, are in a state of self-defense against the US sanctions regime that is trying to suppress it economically. Iran is the most prominent example of this, and also the clearest example of how the global economic crisis affects its multiple and diverse presence in the region. Its ability to bypass and circumvent sanctions puts it ahead of Turkey, in terms of harmonizing the country’s political economy with war or regional expansion, but this is ultimately reflected in worsening economic indicators, even if the state there produces most of its needs, in addition to oil. . Attempting to suffocate goes beyond preventing countries from importing the oil that the country produces, which contributes the highest percentage of gross domestic product, to restricting all countries that trade with them, even in the context of importing food and commodities. necessary premiums for the industry. It is the same thing that is happening with the authority here, but in a different context, because the sanctions regime is more related to the political divide that occurs in the context of the ongoing crisis, as the United States claims that the regime is just a target, and that sanctions only affect the narrow circle close to it. Of course, what happens is exactly the opposite, the sanctions are designed as an integrated system, to which the legal framework of the “Cesar Law” was finally added, to make the productive process in the country completely impossible. All exchanges that are carried out abroad are subject to this system, and no exception is made, including raw materials for the pharmaceutical industry and some food industries, which is what caused these industries to falter, and that in sometimes leave the market. The loss of this share of GDP is not compensated by an equivalent or even more dollarization in the economy, as a result of the inflow of income in the remittances of migrants. Compensation is limited to restoring what we have lost in gross domestic product, as a result of war and sanctions, but in no way equates to the amount of workforce we have lost to the benefit of countries of asylum, which Ultimately it will be invested in the continuation of the capital accumulation that fuels the sanctions regime. That is to say, what we gain from that in terms of the immediate flow of income, we will lose again later, when the bulk of the production of this immigrant labor leaves, which in the Marxist sense is the product of the sale of labor force, in the interests of accumulation in the northern countries allied with the United States. In practice, income does not serve the economy in the long term, since it is not a productive activity that generates value. In the sense that it feeds the distribution channels, whether in the state, the private sector, or at the individual level, to the detriment of the productive structures that should focus more on this stage. It also replaces the dollar with the lira as a savings wallet, constantly creating a black or parallel market for hard currencies, even if there is demand for the lira, as a result of its continuous purchases.

conclusion
The Syrian economic situation is no better in this regard than its Iranian and Lebanese counterparts, who are equally subject to the sanctions regime, but is instead tied to them with a long-term agreement. This settlement, in addition to its suspended regional and international framework, lacks a vision or vision of the real needs of the country, at a stage that is witnessing not only plagues, economic collapses and climate changes accompanied by environmental disasters, but also transformations at the level. of the socioeconomic environment, which has not witnessed, even more stages. The war is violent and bloody. The ignorance of all this places the settlement in its current form, its frames and all its routes outside the movement of reality, which, although it does not produce new forces, by virtue of its exhaustion as a consequence of the massive migratory movement, but its developments they no longer correspond to the perceptions of the colonizing forces – with their two sides and opposition – that limit their interest. Simply correct political representation. And if you go further and connect your narrow political perspective with the economy of the country, you are only talking about the economy of reconstruction. It is an approach that still exists, but it must be updated in light of the economic and social collapse that the country has experienced, since the political economy of the settlement is no longer exclusively linked to this process, but to a broader range of thinking about the economic identity of the country from the complex and simultaneous crises caused by the US sanctions regime. .

* A Syrian writer

Subscribe to «News» on YouTube here