we are wolves24

October 25, 2017. PARCC Conversations in Conflict Studies Series. Brian A. Brege, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Syracuse University. An intricate, multisided conflict, framed as a rebellion against the tyrannical existing regime in Syria leads local rebels to seek to form an axis stretching from Lebanon to Iran. Imaginations fired by the prospect of overthrowing a long-despised foe and persuaded by a highly-educated exile’s critique, Western intervention begins with the covert supply of artillery and naval support. Threatened by an aggressively expansive Iran’s recent military triumphs in the region, a massive Turkish army delivers the decisive blow against Kurdish rebels in Aleppo, forcing the flight of a Maronite leader in Lebanon compromised by European patronage into exile in Italy. The eerie resonances of Syria in 1606-1607 with present trials and tribulations need not lead to fatalism or resigned sighs about the graveyards of empires, but they do call for attention to the role of enduring structures. Examining the role of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany’s military intervention in this earlier civil war, this presentation considers the contingent and structural features of the conflict that resulted in rebel defeat and devastation in Aleppo.