If Syria was a Bar Fight

Mike Benitez

Syria, Middle East

The roughest bar in a rough neighborhood, a bar called Syria has problems.

Author’s Note: I doubt any problem in history ever had a lone culprit. Sometimes one of the best tools is to approach the problem from not only a different angle, but a different lens, to truly comprehend the breadth, depth, and context of the issue at hand. Consider this an attempt at a comedic low-brow approach to understand a very serious high-brow, multi-faceted problem rooted in clashing ideologies.

The roughest bar in a rough neighborhood, a bar called Syria has problems. Its owner, Assad, is a tyrant who over-charges, under-pores, and abuses its patrons in the worst ways – Assad simply despises happy hour. Everyone knows it’s best to just avoid the street Syria is on altogether. Eventually there are no new patrons, and Assad won’t let anyone leave because then his bar will go out of business. So the suppressed patrons revolt and start a bar fight.

Whereas most fights eventually die down, this one does not. The patrons love their bar, just not the owner or management. Resolved to save their neighborhood bar, they send their wives and girlfriends out through the back alley entrance while the stronger patrons remain behind to fight Assad.

The coalition police department dislikes Assad, but has no desire to go into the bar to help the patrons. Although Assad is a horrible owner, the police department isn’t in the bar business. It learned that lesson the hard way in 2003 when it unexpectedly assumed ownership of the bar next door, Iraq. They took the bar from the owner, instantly fired all the staff, but had no business plan. It took forever to get out from under it – the memory is fresh and the debt remains.

Instead, the coalition police start to sneak the patrons brass knuckles and broken bottles through open windows – weapons that show just enough support, but not enough to end the fight. The problem is the coalition isn’t really sure who is in the bar fighting, and they don’t want their weapons falling into the wrong hands. That was another lesson learned. A long time ago a fight broke out between two bars nearby, Afghanistan and Russia. To repel Russia, one of the police (the U.S.) armed the nasty Taliban biker gang in Afghanistan so they could fight in proxy for the U.S., who was in the middle of the longest staring contest in history (the Cold War).