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Great write up, and important things to remember going forward, and when addressing criticism of the system.

After reading this, I had some concerns and thoughts about the Federation, myself. I did a little write-up for my own self-reference, but I'm thinking it might be fruitful to share here.

Don't know whether it'd be considered off topic, but I think this kind of discussion is always useful.

Some of it is a little dated now, and perhaps not entirely relevant to this discussion, but here's what I wrote:


>Firstly, I must state that I found the book enlightening and informative. But particular issues have been playing on mind that I feel should be addressed in order to ensure the democratic confederalist system transcends the paradigm of the war itself, and becomes a legitimate entity in some kind of post-war Syria.

>I find it most appropriate to deal with the individual issues separately, as follows:

>The deification of Abdullah Ocalan - Reading the authors’ observations on democratic confederalism, one of my primary concerns was with the seeming deification of Abdullah Ocalan by Kurdish activists and, more significantly, the YPG/J. The personality cult that seems to exist around Ocalan, in Northern Syria, will only feed critics who denounce the Federation as a ‘Kurdish cult’. Holding Ocalan in such high esteem also contradicts democratic confederalist values of equality between people and a rejection of hierarchy. Even though Ocalan’s importance is primarily spiritual, and his thoughts on the dem-con ideology is inseparable from the project, it risks alienating non-Kurdish elements that might otherwise seek a dialogue with the Federation or see the benefits of entering into a similar confederation.

>PKK ties - Continuing on from my concerns about the deification of Ocalan, another significant obstacle to attracting a wider base of support for the Federation comes from its relationship with the PKK. It is inappropriate to label the YPG, or indeed the PYD (or indeed, TEV-DEM) an ‘arm’ or ‘offshoot’ of the PKK. But it is also impossible to deny that without the PKK the Federation would not exist. PKK affiliates (armed and political) provided logistical support to the early revolutionaries, and earlier councils models in Kurdish Turkey inspired the Syrian council system as it is today. Going forward, the ideal would be for the Federation to denounce all ties to the PKK or, failing that, to distinguish between the PKK’s armed and political wings. Though this is highly unlikely, more must be done to promote the Federations distinctly Syrian identity, to defer from criticism from (primarily) Turkey that the PKK and Federation are one in the same.

>Transparency - Another principle of democratic confederalism is transparency with the people. To this end, regular publication of the canton’s demographics and council makeups may help to dispel criticisms that the Federation is ‘Kurd-dominated’ or ‘Kurd-centric’. Furthermore, the Federation should go above and beyond to promote and publicise inclusion of Arabs within the council system. The Democratic Council might also do well to regularly restate its commitment to a unified Syria. This will help to detract criticisms that the Federations backers are separatists. Also linked to this is the need to be more transparent about actions taken against ENKS. Some inclusion of more Islamist-orientated political parties would also help win over some popular support, in this regard. The Federation's highly secular outlook might prove problematic going forward if it excludes genuinely popular, grassroots Islamist movements.

>Disband all military councils west of Euphrates (with exception of Raqah) - In another move to ease western (primarily Turkish) concern over SDF ‘aggression’, disbanding the Jarablus and al-Bab military councils, as a sign of goodwill, might go some way to improving the Federation’s relations with its neighbours.

>Disband/reorganise Asayish - Centre of most scandals within the Federation, the Asayish are difficult to independently oversee and regulate during wartime. Their arbitrary arrests and lack of transparency provide fertile opportunity for political opponents to claim discrimination. Human Rights Watch notes multiple war crimes accusations made against Asayish. In order to rebuild trust between communities and police, Asayish will need to be replaced, and all members re-organised. Those against whom accusations have been made should be handed over to international courts.

>Education boards - One of my main concerns when reading the book, was that education was too loosely regulated. Whilst it may not be a problem at the moment, without a centralised education system, the education system is vulnerable to subjective influence from a number of groups. The book focuses on the reclamation of ‘Kurdish’ education (Kurdish culture, Kurdish language) and brushes over the wishes of the Arab populations. To this end, more must be done to ensure the impartiality of the education system, and prevent it becoming too influenced by parents. In the west, at least, educational autonomy has proved dangerous as common narratives are allowed to creep into historical paradigms (we are taught what is commonly accepted, not what is necessarily true). Without a radical overhaul of the education system, I would feel the introduction of educational boards (who work with the educational committees) to be the best way of ensuring political neutrality prevails in schooling up to the age of 16.

>Economic agreements w/centralised body - To me, the book’s weakest point is in its assessment of the Federation’s economy. What kind of centralised body will take shape in post-war Syria is yet to be seen, but it will undoubtedly need to develop a relationship with the Federation in regards to oil distribution across the country. An area rich in oil, like Jazyra, again must co-ordinate with a centralised organisation in order to ensure the fair distribution of natural resources to as many civilians as possible. In order to ensure this, the Federation - in any future negotiations - must push for regulations, such as price-capping in future sales, in exchange for oil. This way, natural resources are distributed as evenly as possible, with a safeguard against exploitation by outside bodies.

>For all its strengths, the book fails to really look deeply into how successful the system of governance is. Instead, its authors are too preoccupied with saying how wonderful everything is, without giving us a clue as to how the actual civilians view it. Save for some examples of economic co-operatives (TEV-DEM’s spin on kibbutz, I suppose), the book fails to paint a real portrait of life in the Federation’s cities, aside from its descriptions of the governing system. It also fails to look critically at the system, instead painting opposition with one broad stroke - as though it were one big anti-PYD conspiracy.

"Banned from youtube"

Because that is censorship and people that favor censorship tend to exploit people with terrible tendencies and whom have terrible views to escalate information control. I don't think many people like Assad, but SANA is still a valuable resource for study because it shows a propaganda narrative/channel.

​

"certified Jihadi extremist channel"

​

Which means what? Who gave them this certification? Sounds like this is more of a personal thing. Do I support sunni extremists? Of course not. But I am not going to pretend that Regime linked groups or Hezbollah is any different. Both of them operate Youtube channels. I'd assume you would be upset if they are shut down. Hezbollah in particular, has been very good at not only getting information out, but also being able to create narratives that appeal to some Western audiences. Of course, they lost a lot of their shine when they went into Syria but still. I remember reading stuff from the "Electronic Resistance" years and years ago, maybe even when Bush was in office.

​

https://twitter.com/resistanceer?lang=en

​

OGN is actually pretty interesting and useful for people that are actually interested in MENA studies, which is why this sub was created. It wasn't created to be filled with trolls posting blanket generalizations because they look at the Syrian conflict like a sports match. The interviews that OGN provides gives people a glimpse into the mindset of the individuals that are over in Syria. Its also why books like "The Exile" are so good and informative. Just because you or I do not like what the person says or did does not mean it should be censored.

​

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XBQ7ZL8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

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This particular individual has been in Syria since 2013, he has a long history and is a pretty interesting character, despite having some pretty nasty views (which again, is par for the course of all groups in Syria).

​

I am honestly surprised at the discussion in the comments, I thought it was going to be basically shitposts. It seems that there are at least a few here that actually want to have a discussion.

So- in terms of learning Arabic, Rosetta Stone offers at least one program, of varying levels, but unless you only want to learn enough Arabic to order food and hail a taxi, it's not really sufficient at all. In my personal opinion, Arabic is a very hard language for Westerners to learn, and my biggest struggle throughout the course was the very rigid grammatical structure. Even with teachers in front of me and the availability of a tutor, Arabic grammatical structure has always been difficult for me, especially in reproducing it. And for this, it's definitely important to be learning it in person, I think, to query "Why?" and "How does such and such fit?"

I think it would be very difficult to learn any amount of useful Arabic solely through online learning. That said, it's certainly not impossible. A really useful text would be "All The Arabic You Never Learned the First Time Around" by James Price, but it's no longer in print. The PDF is available online (at that site) but to buy the book is $300 (which KILLS ME! because I had three copies of it from DLI and don't know where any of them are).

But before you can dive into that, it really is necessary for you to understand the script. The script can seem overwhelming, but I learned it in a matter of a couple days. It's really simple once you figure out how to read from right to left instead of left to write. I can't point you to a specific website to use, but Google will yield you a TON of sites, and YouTube has videos that go over the sound and look of each letter. If you treat Arabic writing like cursive (nearly all letters connect to each other in a given word) it's much easier. When I first started I would write the corresponding English letter (when there was one) over each Arabic letter and accustom myself to reading hte English letters backwards, eventually transitioning to just reading the Arabic letters themselves backwords.

Once you have the alphabet down, you'll need to learn diacritics (little marks that indicate what vowel sound something makes), and for this, an in person class is really strongly a plus. Diacritics only exist in the Qu'ran and when you're learning Arabic, afterwards they disappear and just become implied (a native automatically knows where they would go and as a student it sort of becomes second nature as well).

Once you can read simple words and sentences, then you'll be able to replicate them online (I use Arabic Keyboard and copy and paste them into Google Translate to get a (reasonably accurate) translation of a word you do not know.

Similarly, once you can read Arabic words (whether you know their definition or not) you should get two dictionaries. An Arabic to English dictionary, specifically Hans Wehr makes the best Arabic-English dictionary in the world (in my opinion) and an English to Arabic dictionary, I prefer Al-Mawrid and the linked one there is the cheapest Arabic-English dictionary I know (as well as being used by the Defense Language Institute).

From there, I would strongly suggest finding someone who gives Arabic lessons or enrolling in an Arabic course. If you're done with college or can't take it at your school, look into a community college. MANY of them offer at least one or two Arabic classes, and those would be extremely helpful in getting your feet wet at learning Arabic.

I hope some of this helped!

Edit: final note- there are actually several subreddits dedicated to learning Arabic, but I have not used any of them. You might try stopping by /r/learn_arabic/ and see if they have any advice!

You're looking at it too much through a lens of contemporary politics as a gradient, rather than political theory and Islamic philosophy.

If you'd like to read a good introduction to this stuff, I would recommend Albert Hourani's "Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939".

A very very basic summary: For the longest time, Sunni jurisprudence developed in tandem with Arab autocracy. In that philosophy, a ruler was legit to the degree that he enforced peace and war, and ceded the traditional spheres of social justice to the religious authorities. In this context, multiple schools of exegesis developed who interpret Islamic thought: So-called Madhabs. Wahhabism, while superficially similar, is not a form of Salafism but a school of Hanbali interpretation that favors textualism over more flexible modes of exegesis. Saudi Arabia does not like Salafists because they are by nature hard to control. In the early 19th century then, as the West set out to conquer the Islamic world, Arab thinkers came to reinterpret their faith and politics in the light of modernity. These early luminaries, the socalled Islamic Modernists, argued that believers should return to the text and interpret it individually according to their reason and needs. Instead of adhering to old traditions that had brought Arab society to its knees, they were supposed to follow the example of the early Muslisms (thus "Salafists"). This is the birth of Salafism as a modern political ideology. Some of these thinkers included theorists of theocracy such as Rashid Rida, others secular republicans and womens-rights activists like Ali Abdel Raziq. They were nonetheless all Salafists.

(All of these are broad strokes obviously)

The primary foundation of democracy is independent reasoning. Salafism returned the individual and his faith to the center of Islamic politics much like Luther and the Potestants had wrought control of Christianity from the Church.

For anyone interested in learning more about Saudi Arabia, I highly recommend this book, written by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist with in-depth knowledge of the country.

As a frequent traveller to Saudi Arabia and the wider Persian Gulf region, I can attest to the book's observations. As Winston, from Orwell's 1984, once said: the best books are those that tell you what you know already.

AQI is literally ISIS, it's leader (Zarqawi) took orders from AQ until he wanted to go along a different route, Bin Laden advised him to not be so harsh on a population and not target shia's but Zarqawi didn't listen and that's when they became the Islamic state. It's possible AQ has guys ready to go set up shop in Iraq post ISIS but I dunno they know they're not really wanted their and this round the gov in Baghdad is going to try and reel Mosul and Anbar a lot closer than it had post 2003 to ensure nothing like ISIS happens again.

If you're interested this book goes into great detail http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-ISIS-Apocalypse-Strategy-Doomsday/dp/1250080908

I'm sure this is the book I was thinking about: https://www.amazon.com/ISIS-Inside-Terror-Michael-Weiss/dp/1941393578/ref=cm_cr_othr_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

I haven't read it but I heard it's good. While it goes into a lot of detail regarding Zarqawi and Al Qaeda, it unfortunately peddles the same old "all the tons of Iraqi Baathists who made ISIS" conspiracy theory.

Anyways, it is safe to say it is the greatest exaggeration of the 21st century. Several former officers with no known affiliation with the former Iraqi govt or Baath party being exaggerated to legions of high ranking Baath party members is nothing short of pure sensationalism.

I wouldn't even put those officers close to the most important factor for ISIS's growth either. Nouri Al Maliki's time and authoritarianism, Zarqawi, the US's complete mishandling of Iraq from 2003 to the present, Bashar Al Assad's mishandlings (also speaking of Al Qaeda links, Assad supported Al Qaeda during the Iraq War), and the Syrian civil war are what ISIS grew and thrived from. Not a guy who was removed in 2003 and had spent his 35 years as de facto and de jure leader of Iraq smashing terrorists and jihadists.

When you think about it, the same people who were trumping the Al Qaeda claims still haven't let up to this day. Yellow journalists and some bruised pro-war conservatives are the reason why this current theory even came about in 2014 and into 2015.

Kyle Orton is probably the best example of neo-conservatives who never quite let the Iraq War go and and still trying to justify it. Orton claims that the government's Islamic concessions and reforms (something most other Muslim countries were doing in light of the Islamic revival and which even European countries are doing nowadays too; and do note Iraq today is almost entirely run by Islamist parties) was a deliberate conspiracy to create ISIS. Of course it is nonsense, but people will try to link anything. Orton literally states Saddam gave us ISIS. He's also claimed in another post that ISIS would have came up without the Iraq War or anything else because Saddam created it. Suffice it to say, there is good reason why when anything of Orton's gets posted on this sub, it gets slammed by people of all sorts of factional and political leanings, including American conservatives.

Similar people/journalists/bloggers in other camps and places are also the reason for the cropping of the "Assad made ISIS", "USA made ISIS", "Russia made ISIS", "Gulf countries made ISIS", and for a long time, the most popular conspiracy theory in Iraq was the USA, Israel (sigh), and Gulf countries created ISIS. The Iraqi parody of ISIS "Al Dawlah Al Khrafa" makes fun of this theory.

>50 good boy points to /sg/. Don't spend it all on tendies at once, kiddo (be flattered, that's fam).

Well color me tickled, never thought I'd run into a fellow r/tendies poster on a board devoted to SCW discussion . . . err I mean fuck your normie nuggie R2REEEEEE doctrine!

>The "REEE get off my sub" stuff in my earlier reply probably wasn't helpful. I'm annoyed by the GanjaGremlins and elboydos who have become so common and voluble on this sub, just like I'd be annoyed if a bunch of "Bush did nothing wrong" neocon circlejerkers showed up. Hopefully you aren't in that category.

I'm definitely not in that category dude, I'm a regime supporter and I hope Assad wins this war but I'm not blind to what the regime has done in terms of atrocities, I just think they're the lesser of the evils we've been presented so far. And I agree with most of what you said about limited cross border incursions to attack IS in Syria, that does have some support in customary state practice lately. I'm 100% positive that occupying land in this context is still illegal given traditional customary IL forbidding such forms of intervention in the civil wars of other nations.

I'd love to dork out on history and law with you further but I'm currently in the middle of exams and our response chain is growing to novella sized lengths. Anyway if you want to know the sources for my arguments the 2009 EU fact finding mission on Georgia is a good place to start (second report) where it used customary IL to show the illegality of the Russian intervention on behalf of South Ossetia and another source is this Bible of international humanitarian law:

https://www.amazon.com/Law-Armed-Conflict-International-Humanitarian/dp/0521870887

Definitely worth checking out if you're into learning about IHL jus ad bellum and jus in bello, because a lot of what we are discussing as you said is not formally settled law. This book does an excellent job of showing the current state of the law on the issues we're discussing, I wrote my law journal paper on the Russian intervention in the SCW last year and cited this book more than any on these issues.

If you want to learn about how Iran got to where it is today / events that shaped it's views I think Modern Iran by Nikki Keddie. You don't get that "YOU MUST HATE IRAN THEY ARE EVIL" junk in it. You just get how Iran sort of came to be in the modern era.

The Coup is a great Book to expand on exactly how Iran/U.S. relations got messed up. Long story short the CIA overthrew their democratically elected leader, and ever since then they have been pissed, but this goes into detail about it and does a great job explaining everything.

If you want to watch some documentaries. I HIGHLY recommend you watch "Bitter Lake" that explains Saudi's rise to power/Afghanistan and how things got messed up.

Another interesting documentary is the The Man who Changed the World about Khomeni

Those are pretty good starting points to understand Iran.

I disagree with your assessment of the Brotherhood. During my time in Egypt, Jordan and Palestine I spent a lot of time with Ikhwanists - including some of their clerics at Azhar who now rot in jail or worse. The Brotherhood is a huge and diverse organization with many parts genuinely advocating civic democracy. You will disagree, but I think the Sisi coup was a horrific mistake that will come haunt people. So far there is simply nothing to substantiate the notion that Erdogan is anti-democratic. The exiles and old urban CHP elite likes to cry foul at every little thing, but truth is that there is hardly any part of Turkish society that isn't more free and prosperous today than it was before Erdogan came to power. There's a reason a good part of the HDP swing moved to AKP. I have been to South East Turkey (including Cizre, Silopi, Diarbakyr) both in the 90s and very recently. Erdogan will fall when the old Kemalists come up with a genuinely modern party that has a broader base than 70s etatism (and import substition industrialisation) and national chauvinism of the CHP.

I'm not going to spend much time with the conspiratorial nonsense in the link you posted. The Brotherhood suffers a lot of diseases, but it's not this sinister cabal of hateful people. The Ikhwan is - like most movements founded at the time - an attempt at Islamic modernism that has spawned a wide variety of institutions, ideas and practices. They are neither hidden or malicious. The whole "Islamofascism" idea (I also respect Hitchens and consort) betrays a dangerous ignorance of the origins of both fascism and Islamism.
Just to be clear, I despise Hamas (and support the Israeli military in its position) and its associates, but let's be serious here.

If any party in the modern Middle East is explicitly modeled on German fascism it is the Baath and their now allies in the SSNP. Arab nationalism derives almost all its ideas from German right Hegelians (the first time I studied Schelling and Herder was indeed at an Arab university), and all its institutions from national socialism and later the Soviet Union. Early Islamic modernists are similar in this effect in so far as they emulate the nationalists. This is a process many third-world countries went through in their struggle against imperialism, adopting the fascistic notions of self-determination through strength as a form of national emancipatory ideology. Similar trends can be found in India for example, where much of the early independent elite was objectively pro-Hitler.

Back to Syria, Faylaq ash-Sham and many of the former "Shield" formations that merged into various FSA and IF groups are much closer to the Brotherhood than Ahrar which has significant Salafist streams within it.

In the end this all boils down to whether or not certain people may be included in an eventual political process and, in turn, who needs to be suppressed. My position is that in order to stabilize the situation you need to include all parties who do not immediately pose a threat to the international order and who have significance on the ground. That includes at least part of Ahrar. The process is already working with AAS shifting positions on negotiations leading more hard-line elements to split off.

A great book on the Bortherhood in Syria today is Raphael Lefevre's "Ashes of Hama". And the standard work on the origins of modern political ideology in the Middle East is Albert Hourani's "Arab Thought in the Liberal Age, 1789-1939" to be followed by Fouad Ajami's "Arab Predicament".

Depends on how much in-depth you want them to be, and if you're more into 'general politics', or into 'military-related affairs'.

For really good understanding of how Syria came into being, and what events and processes shaped it early on, you might want to read:

• A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle that Shaped the Middle East, and
  
  
• The Great Syrian Revolt: And the Rise of Arab Nationalism
  
  
• Syria: A Recent History
  
  Given your German flag, you might add
  
  
• Damaskus: Oase zwischen Haß und Hoffnung for a 'general overview'. This small volume is covering general Syrian history since ancient times until early 1990s. Similarly good (i.e. 'for general orientation'), is
  
  
• Die Araber
  
  Now, since much of recent Syrian history is dominated by the Syrian military, you might need some read in this regards. Ideally, there would be an English translation for the best - most detailled, most in-depth - book on history of Syrian armed forces, Pesach Malovany's big volume tittled something like 'Out of the North an Evil shall break Forth' (sorry, all the links I used to have to its publisher are down) - published (like, sigh, so many really good Israeli books on Arab-Israeli wars) in Hebrew only. But there is none. Word is that this might get translated to English by the University of Kentucky, sometimes next or the year after.
  
  Some might suggest you Arabs at War. Regardless how comprehensive, when it comes to Syria I find it hopelessly obsolete, onesided and largely based on 'battlefield heritage' (see: hear-say). Indeed, although anything than 'Syria-related', I found Egyptian Strategy for the Yom Kippour War much more useful for studying the Syrian military during the October 1973 War (and even after!).
  
  Namely, that one is largely based on Egyptian documentation captured during the October 1973 War, and cross-examination of related Egyptian and Syrian military literature.
  
  A 'short-cut' of sort (i.e. avoiding collecting all of these books) would be to go for the Arab MiGs books... though this is in turn an own series of six volumes, covering the history of Arab air forces at war with Israel in period 1955-1973.
  
  Good thing about these books is that they're based on hundreds of interviews, authentic publications (including several by top Syrian military commanders), and whatever documentation the authors managed to get. They're providing really unique insights: far from merely counting aircraft, describing their markings, or discussing claims, they're descibing political backgrounds, arms deals, training (including outright fist-fights between top Syrian pilots and Soviets supposed to instruct them), organization, tactics, weaponry, foreign influences (in the case of Syrians, this was foremost Czechoslovak and not 'Soviet' by nature, and in this regards these books are well-supported by - between others - loads of original documentation from Czech National Archives) etc.
  
  Finally, re. causes of the SCW: there is meanwhile a small myrad of related titles - with best example probably being a quite massive volume titled The Syrian Jihad: al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency. Where that title 'excells' is in showing 'local influence and flair' of the entire affair: in turn, that is often making it hard to follow. Right now, I wouldn't know a 'simplier', 'easier to follow' volume describing this affair, though (any recommendations are most welcome).

The latest generation is tightly controlled.

 

But first gen stuff is easy to obtain:

https://www.amazon.com/Leupold-172830-Tracker-Thermal-Monocular/dp/B01M0PGFQW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497104790&sr=8-1&keywords=thermal+vision

Even I could afford it at that price. I am thinking about impulse buying it.

 

edit: Here is another, Amazon's choice:

https://www.amazon.com/FLIR-Scout-Pocket-Sized-Thermal-Monocular/dp/B01APT3LF6/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1497104790&sr=8-3&keywords=thermal+vision

 

This is a bit out of my impulse buy price range, but it would be sweet to have:

https://www.amazon.com/Systems-Thermal-Riflescope-640x480-431-0007-05-01/dp/B00IIPK6F8/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1497104790&sr=8-10&keywords=thermal+vision

 

I believe this is a gen3 unit:

https://www.amazon.com/Systems-Thermal-Riflescope-640x480-431-0007-05-01/dp/B00IIPK6F8/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1497104790&sr=8-10&keywords=thermal+vision

Not sure which country you are from, but my understanding of Syria pre-Arab Spring is that it was (other than Saudi Arabia) maybe the most heavily controlled, 'totalitarian' systems of any of them. Lisa Wedeen's Ambiguities of Domination was a great survey of the pre-2012 political control system. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/022633337X?keywords=assad%20syria&qid=1453415444&ref_=sr_1_8&sr=8-8

Just a counterpoint to the idea that dissent could possibly be more monitored and quashed than ever before.

Read this article to understand why Patrick Cockburn's book isn't reliable:

http://pulsemedia.org/2016/03/02/reporting-and-mis-reporting-isis/

The article recommends this book for something that is better researched:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ISIS-Inside-Terror-Michael-Weiss/dp/1941393578/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

If you want an actual answer to this question, it is not enough to examine Assad's (and the regime's) conduct since the beginning of the uprising in 2011. You can only get the full picture if you understand the composition and the statecraft of the regime since Assad pere wrested power from his intra-regime opponents in 1970. Some books worth reading are Hinnebusch's excellent primer on the rise of the Ba'ath Party (and later, the Assad clan) to power (Syria: Revolution From Above), Hanna Batatu's classic examination of [Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics]
(https://www.amazon.com/Syrias-Peasantry-Descendants-Notables-Politics/dp/0691002541), Lisa Wedeen on the cultural and ideological methods the regime uses to maintain power (Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria), and Patrick Seale's highly readable book on Hafez al-Assad and his Struggle for the Middle East. A more recent work dealing with the economic underpinnings of the regime (Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience) is also worth your time.

In short, take a good look at the nature of the regime and its policies over the last four decades and decide for yourself whether it is incapable of committing the war crimes it is accused of. You could also go through the many detailed reports human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch have put together alleging regime crimes, most recently their report on the Khan Sheikhoun nerve gas attack and the regime's ongoing use of chemical weapons.

>if Assad wasn't a corrupt as he is - there wouldn't be enough pissed of Syrians to attempt to overthrow him in the first place.

I really suggest you to read "My house in Damascus" by Diana Darke, it was suggested to me by a good friend and it goes to great lengths about how corrupt Syrian society in general is, not specifically the government though that is what the book gravitates around.

>So Assad's corruption has the accumulated of evil of it all

I'll definitely agree that the government (isolating Assad is only a part of the problem) is guilty, but corruption really is only a small problem in comparison.

>but not with multiple different books.

You're out of luck then, your only hope at getting a solid basic understanding is reading at the bare minimum a few. I'd suggest reading one focusing on the Islamic State/AQI, one focusing on the Kurdish situation including Turkey and the PKK, one on the civil war (rebels vs regime), and one about the conflict in general.

Couple of recommendations

The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East

Revolution in Rojava: Democratic Autonomy and Women's Liberation in the Syrian Kurdistan

The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency