On OpenDemocracy.net, Eckart Woertz writes that the fate of Syria is in its food economics:
By 2010, well before the war, the UN estimated that 3.7 million Syrians suffered from food insecurity. It was this disenfranchised rural constituency that turned against the regime first. …Without food imports and food aid Syria would face famine today. …
This leaves many Syrians with savings, foreign aid and remittances of relatives to procure their goods of daily needs, unless they can rely on theft, ransom and political transfer payments from abroad. Economies of looting can become a permanent feature of a country as Somalia has shown. As the government is exhausting its currency reserves and cannot fulfill vital economic functions like food provision any more, entrepreneurs of violence are taking over. Warlordization could accelerate.
