Doing research in conflict-affected areas carries particular challenges and risks. In this video edition of the podcast, researchers working in borderland regions of Asia, the Middle East and Africa share their experiences and approaches to conducting fieldwork. Key challenges include engaging with diverse actors, maintaining local networks, and establishing trust with respondents. Our experts also share their thoughts on researchers’ positionality in the bigger picture of conflict response and reduction, and how the pandemic has enabled us to think about data collection in new ways.
This episode features:
Joseph Diing Majok, an anthropologist and researcher at the Rift Valley Institute in South Sudan. His work is focused on the borderland regions between Northern Bahr el-Ghazal state in South Sudan, and Darfur and Kordofan in Sudan.
Seng Mai Maran and Hkawng Yang from Kachinland Research Centre in Northeastern Myanmar at the border with China. Their recent fieldwork examines the nexus between post-coup conflicts and illicit activities in Kachin State, focusing on the impacts on borderland communities.
Kheder Khaddour, a non-resident scholar at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. His research centres on civil-military relations and local identities in the Levant, with a focus on Syria.
Tabea Campbell Pauli is a senior programme officer with The Asia Foundation’s XCEPT programme, and can be reached at [email protected]. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, not those of The Asia Foundation.
Syria’s south is caught precariously between two realities. On one side, there is Israel’s resolute campaign to neutralize border threats, particularly after the traumatic Hamas attack of October 7 last year. On the other, there is Iran’s growing entrenchment in Syria’s southern border regions, especially Quneitra Governorate, which is aimed at securing geopolitical leverage in the region. Unless there is a significant change in the current status quo, there could be a military escalation down the road that again undermines regional stability.
Looking at southern Syria after Syrian government forces returned to the region in 2018, one can’t help but notice an irony. The deployment of the army and security forces was largely premised on an understanding among Russia, the United States, Israel, Jordan, and the Assad regime in Damascus allowing for their return, but on the condition that Iran and its allies would not return with them. Moscow was to guarantee the arrangement. However, today what we are seeing, instead, is a contest for domination of the south in which Iran has accumulated power while Russia and the Assad regime have lost ground.
The war in Ukraine, which has compelled Moscow to reallocate its resources and refocus its energies, has been the main cause for the relative decline of Russian sway. Russia had a multifaceted presence in Syria. It played the role of active combatant, with personnel on the ground; it had an influential diplomatic role in negotiations to resolve the Syrian conflict; and it played a unique intermediary role, brokering agreements among stakeholders who otherwise had no direct communication with each other, which enhanced its leverage.
The agreement to return government forces to the south in 2018 was a byproduct of this unique position. Yet since then, Israel and Iran have exploited the erosion of Moscow’s influence. At the same time, there has also been a continious decline in the strength of the Assad regime. This has resulted from a combination of factors, including U.S. sanctions, Syria’s continued isolation at the regional level, and the systematic breakdown of the Syrian state as a consequence of the uprising.
The outcome of this disastrous situation has been visible both economically and politically. For example, the Syrian pound was valued at SP3,600 to the U.S. dollar on the day Russia began its offensive in Ukraine, and now it hovers just below SP14,000—a depreciation of approximately 290 percent. Another sign comes from Suwayda, where the Druze community—historically not aligned with the opposition—has been staging continuous protests against the regime since August 2023 for failing to provide security, stability, and basic services, among other things. The authorities have not been able to quell these protests. Meanwhile Arab countries, chiefly Jordan, are also concerned about developments in the south, but have little ability to influence the course of events there.
Though Iranian influence may be rising, Tehran does not exercise control over the south, while facing numerous obstacles there. Israeli opposition is the most significant. Israel has continiously targeted Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah officials since 2013, with more than 240 strikes across Syria. Iran has also faced local pushback. In Daraa and Suwayda Governorates, the population is largely hostile to the Iranians, who have progressed in a limited way in these areas. Data collected by the author on Israeli airstrikes between 2013 and February 2024 show that Daraa and Suwayda were targeted far less frequently—only seven times—than the hundred or so times Rural Damascus Governorate was targeted. This indicates that Israel doesn’t consider Daraa and Suwayda to be substantial threats.
But Iran has had some successes as well, namely in the highlands of Quneitra that remain under Syrian control and overlook the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Iran and its allies have been able to consolidate their position in this region. Geographically, its rugged, mountainous terrain allows for concealment, facilitating militia operations and movement. Quneitra’s proximity to the Lebanese border, which is under Hezbollah control, and southern Rural Damascus Governorate, where Iranian influence is pronounced, has further confirmed the broader region as a nexus of Iranian-aligned activity.
In addition to this, local dynamics in Quneitra during the Syrian uprising created openings for Iran and its allies. Between 2015 and 2018, the Sunni extremist group Jabhat al-Nusra controlled the area and threatened the small Druze and Christian populations. In response, these communities forged ties with Iran and, especially, Hezbollah for protection, allowing the Iranians to retain a foothold on the Quneitra front throughout Syria’s conflict. That is likely why, since 2013, Quneitra has been the second most frequent target of Israeli strikes, being hit 30 times.
What gives a strategic edge to Iran in the south is the disorder that followed the return of government forces in 2018. The security situation has remained precarious and there is a growing illicit economy, both of which have created an environment conducive to the expansion of Iranian influence. Iran’s experience in operating in such settings in the Middle East is unparalleled. In principle, the Assad regime and its institutions should have had the advantage, given their local knowledge. However, they are resourceless, have lost the mechanisms of control they had before 2011, and are now greatly dependent on Iran.
Interestingly, after the start of the Gaza war last year, Russia stepped up its presence along the Golan Heights by establishing several observation posts. This presence could increase pressure on Iran or help mitigate an Iranian-Israeli confrontation in southern Syria, even if Moscow cannot replace or undo Iranian influence. Russia is not only dependent on Iran because of the Russian war in Ukraine, it has also failed to create a strong network of local proxies tied with patronage networks like Iran has done. Therefore, if Iran continues to reinforce itself near the occupied Golan, or deploys more weaponry there, a conflict with Israel may become inevitable.
This article was originally published on Diwan, hosted by the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
Since 2011, the conflict in Syria has transformed the country’s border areas. In most of these, Syrian sovereignty is now contested to varying degrees among local, national, and regional actors. These dynamics have led to a situation in which a variety of political centers (other than Damascus) have come to exercise influence over borders. Though there are stark differences among these border regions, they all have in common the fact that they are entities outside Damascus’ control, each with its own economy, security, and even ideology—effectively, de facto cantons.
Controlling Syria’s borders has always been a central aspect of the Assad regime’s power. However, given its loss of influence over many of its borders—added to its merely tentative authority over those border areas controlled by allies—what we are seeing today in the country is a significant long-term transformation in the way Damascus operates. It is unlikely that the regime will restore state sovereignty over these border areas anytime soon. Rather, in the coming years developments there are likely to be determined by local and regional actors, and the interactions between them.
Multiple variables will affect the outcome of these interactions. These can be placed into three broad categories: demographics, or more specifically the fate of the displaced and refugees; markets, or what might be called cross-border economic relations; and security. Given the likelihood that Damascus will be unable to restore full control over its border regions, the question is whether efforts to resolve the Syrian conflict should not encompass a wider range of local and regional actors, while also focusing on demographics, markets, and security? Such questions are what a group of Carnegie scholars hope to address in a forthcoming paper.
The movement of people has played a major role in border regions, notably the north. But these trends have also been characterized by a paradox. The regime has pursued a policy of reducing hostile populations under its control by allowing for the creation of large areas where it has a limited presence, or none at all—such as Idlib Governorate near the Turkish border. But this has also undermined the state’s sovereignty over these territories. Northeastern Syria, where the regime has allowed an entire segment of its population, namely the Kurds, to create a self-governing entity is equally representative of such an approach.
As cross-border markets and economic ties have developed, they have transformed, and in some cases even replaced, prewar market relationships in particular areas. Control over such relationships had also constituted a major factor in the Syrian state’s power before the conflict. New economic ties, as seen in the town of Sarmada, for instance, have tied border regions more closely to Türkiye than to Damascus. This development represents another aspect of the deterioration in Syrian state sovereignty over these areas.
Security, however, remains the main issue that will shape the future of Syria’s conflict in the country’s border regions. Over the last decade or so, Syria has seen the emergence of a number of parallel security orders—Turkish, Iranian, and American—each within specific geographical zones of operation and influence. While these may differ from each other, they too have all greatly eroded the sovereignty of the Syrian state and regime.
The Turkish security order has established effective self-defense zones and reshaped local power structures in parts of the north where the Turkish military has a presence. The more fluid Iranian model has connected Iraq to eastern and southern Syria and Lebanon through the promotion of local, pro-Tehran militias. The example of the crossing with Iraq has shown how Iran uses such passageways for its militias, allowing it to exert regional influence, even as it expands its sway over armed Arab tribal groups in the area. The United States also has a presence in eastern and northeastern Syria, as well as in the Tanf base near Jordan, which began as part of American participation in the coalition to fight the Islamic State group. For the foreseeable future, Damascus’ ability to restore its sovereignty in all these border locations will be virtually nonexistent.
The conflict in Syria has completely destroyed the country’s national framework, with local-regional having risen on its ruins. These ties have expressed themselves across all of Syria’s borders. The established approaches to resolving the crisis are therefore no longer useful today. The Geneva process, which assumed a political transition would take place within a Syrian national framework, is unrealistic. Not even the local deals that emanated from the security-focused Astana process between Iran, Russia, and Türkiye are effective. Neither takes into account the radical transformations that have shaped Syria’s political, social, and security structures since the war began. Until a new approach is tried, one that includes an effective local element within new regional equations, Syria will remain in limbo, at the expense of both its sovereignty and a society devastated by war.
This article was originally published on Diwan, hosted by the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
Harith Hasan is a nonresident senior fellow at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, and a resercher at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies. His research focuses on Iraq, sectarianism, identity politics, religious actors, and state-society relations. He has just published a paper at Carnegie, titled “Iraq’s Development Road: Geopolitics, Rentierism, and Border Connectivity,” on the Iraqi project to build a port, road, and railway infrastructure in Iraq to connect the Persian Gulf to Türkiye and beyond. It is to discuss his paper, and the broader regional implications of the Development Road, in a context of growing regional competition, that Diwan interviewed Hasan in early March.
Michael Young: You’ve just published a paper at Carnegie on Iraq’s Development Road project. Why did you choose this topic and what do you argue?
Harith Hasan: This topic is important for two reasons. First, there is growing interest, both in the region and globally, in developing new routes for cross-border international trade, to the point where the Middle East today is an arena for geoeconomic competition between China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and counter projects supported by the United States, including the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, which recently gained prominence in light of the Gaza war and Ansar Allah’s attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea. In this context, interstate and interregional trade corridors are increasingly intertwined with geopolitical alignments.
Second, Iraq, like several countries in the region such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Gulf states, is witnessing a shift in interest toward megaprojects and cross-border trade. After years of ethnic and sectarian divisions, the ruling elite is trying to look for new sources of legitimation, and here the idea of “development” is back again in the national discourse, but in a different way from the period of populist, socialist developmentalism during the 1960s and 1970s. The new model is more inclined toward open markets, integration into the global economy, and the expansion of service sectors. The Development Road is also tied to what has finally become a widespread belief that Iraq needs to diversify its economy and sources of income away from a complete reliance on oil revenues.
MY: What are the main obstacles to the project inside Iraq, and outside? In your judgment, given these obstacles, what are the chances that the project will be implemented?
HH: There are many obstacles to the fulfillment of the Development Road that suggest Iraqi ambitions may be inflated. These include rampant corruption, mismanagement, and the attempts of ruling groups to capture the state and its resources in ways that fragment state institutions and inhibit the government’s ability to orchestrate smooth planning and implementation. Also, the factional nature of Iraqi politics and the country’s frequent fluctuations facilitate short-term calculations, which tend to sideline long-term projects.
Even with Iraq receiving $8–9 billion per month from oil exports today, thanks to the rise in oil prices, there are doubts about the state’s ability to finance and implement such a megaproject, especially given the level of corruption prevailing nationally and the direction of resources to finance an ever-larger public sector and public subsidies. The obstacles also are tied to the potential for insecurity and instability in Iraq, which could chase away investors or countries seeking to benefit from the Development Road. And, perhaps most important, Iraq will have to find a place for itself in the midst of regional geoeconomic and geopolitical rivalries, as competing trade connectivity projects are being put forward. These include, as I noted earlier, China’s BRI, the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, as well as Iran’s ambitions to become a platform for transregional trade.
MY: How likely are leading Gulf states to support Iraq in ensuring the Development Road project succeeds, particularly given Iran’s considerable influence over Iraq? Which Gulf states are more likely to help in this regard, and why?
HH: Currently, Qatar seems to be the main Gulf state interested in helping to advance the project, partly due its dire experiences during the blockade imposed on it by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain in 2017–2021, which led the Qatari leadership to consider alternative routes for trade. Also, Qatar has strong ties with Türkiye, its main regional ally before and during the blockade. Türkiye supports the Development Road enthusiastically because it serves as a shortcut to the Gulf and meets Ankara’s ambition of being a hub for global trade connections.
The UAE is also a potential partner, especially as Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has sought its help in managing the Faw port, which represents the cornerstone of the project. This could work well with the UAE’s interest in expanding its presence in Iraq and sustaining its status as a key global player in managing or controlling ports. However, the UAE may also be less inclined to participate in the project because of the potential of Faw port to become a rival of its own ports, and because of the influence of Iran-allied armed groups in Iraq that are hostile to the UAE. More importantly, given the attention surrounding the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor during the Gaza war and the possibility of a second Trump administration in the United States, the UAE may prefer to wait before committing to such project.
Finally, Kuwait considers the Faw port to be a competitor of the Mubarak al-Kabeer Port it is building on Boubiyan Island, whose construction sparked tension between Iraq and Kuwait. Some of this was related to the maritime borders dispute between the two countries, but it was also due to Iraq’s view that the Mubarak al-Kabeer Port would harm the prospects of the Faw port. These disputes led to the suspension of work at the Kuwaiti port for a time, but in July 2023 the government announced a resumption of work there.
MY: The Development Road comes at a time when China is pushing its Belt and Road Initiative. In what way are the two projects contradictory or complementary, particularly as Iraq was a major recipient of Chinese funds allocated to the BRI?
HH: Iraq’s place in the BRI has raised major questions at home, where observers and activists have wondered whether the Development Road is linked to, or separate from, Beijing’s aspirations. In 2021, Iraq emerged as the largest beneficiary of Chinese allocations to the BRI, receiving $10.5 billion out of a total of about $60 billion. Before that, Adel Abdul Mahdi’s government had agreed with China to establish a joint fund in which the value of 100,000 exported Iraqi barrels of oil per day would be used to pay for Chinese loans and investments in reconstruction and development projects in Iraq. Indeed, the “turn toward China” has become part of the political rhetoric of some Iraqi political factions, especially those close to Iran, which have presented this as a means of confronting U.S. hegemony.
However, in practice, Iraq does not occupy a key position in Chinese plans to benefit from regional connectivity projects. Beijing’s widely proposed land route passes through Central Asia and Türkiye, not through Iraq. Therefore, the Iraqi government has portrayed the Faw port as a complementary project, providing a new sea route that can also serve China and emerging economic powers in Asia, presumably shortening the time period, and costs, of trade with Europe. But even here, Iraq faces fierce competition from neighboring countries. Some of them are more established in international trade, port management, and shipping, such as the UAE, and some of them have the ability to disrupt Iraq’s plans to implement the Development Road, such as Türkiye, Iran, and Kuwait.
MY: How do you think such transnational infrastructure and connectivity initiatives will affect Middle Eastern borders in the future? Will they turn border areas into zones of collaboration, or will they lead to heightened competition between states?
HH: The fact that rival geoeconomic connection projects are being put forward in the Persian Gulf and broader Middle East suggests that, instead of achieving their stated goal of promoting economic integration and cooperation, these projects may in fact exacerbate political antagonisms. Iraq has a long history of border disputes with most of its neighbors, and in Iran’s and Kuwait’s case these have triggered wars and invasions. Therefore, efforts to increase the economic value of border zones through new ports and road networks could aggravate latent tensions and lead to further conflicts. That may be another reason why the great aspirations surrounding the Development Road might never be met.
This article was originally published on Diwan, hosted by the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
