Syrian switch triggers toxic
omens By Carl O Schuster
HONOLULU, Hawaii - Reports out of the
Middle East suggest the Assad regime has removed
chemical weapons from their main depots,
triggering speculation that Damascus may be
considering their use against the rebellion
sweeping across that country.
Washington
has warned the regime against doing so but some
Middle Eastern sources say the move was intended
to protect them from possible seizure by rebel
elements. However, Sky News reported on Saturday
that "intelligence sources," claimed the weapons
had been moved to the Homs Region. Homs is both
the center and primary recruiting ground of the
current anti-regime rebellion and where military
forces of current Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad's father
killed thousands during a previous Sunni-based
uprising against the regime.
If Sky News'
sources are accurate, the weapons are being
positioned for potential use against the rebels.
Militaries trying to prevent a system's capture,
move them away from enemy lines, not towards them.
That probably explains Washington's warning the
regime against using chemical weapons on the
rebels. China, Iran and Russia have remained
silent but any Syrian employment of chemical
weapons would be a major embarrassment for those
governments, whose support has sustained the
regime throughout the fighting and in China's and
Russia's case, prevented unified international
action against Damascus.
Little is known
about Syria's chemical arsenal and the regime has
never employed them. Most analysts believe Syria
developed the weapons to deter Israel from
employing its nuclear inventory. That
justification has no relevance to the current
situation, but with defections increasing; and
sanctions biting into the regime's capacity to
sustain itself and fight the opposition, President
Assad is at least considering ways to end the
rebellion quickly and decisively. He or some of
those around him may believe chemical weapons are
a means to achieve that. Looking back at Iraq,
they probably noticed that Saddam Hussein's use of
sarin gas greatly facilitated his campaign against
the Kurds. The international community did little
other than protest at the time. However, the world
has changed since then and Syria's strategic
circumstances today differ radically from Iraq's
in the 1980s.
There is no Cold War
underway today with contending ideologies
competing for allies in the Middle East. Also,
Syria is not the bulwark against a pariah regime
the international community sees as a threat to
regional stability; a status Iraq enjoyed in its
war against Iran. Quite the contrary, Syria is an
ally of that very same pariah regime, Tehran,
which is pursuing a nuclear program in the face of
the international community's opposition. Syria's
de-stabilizing impact on Lebanon and support to
Hezbollah all but eliminates any geo-strategic
considerations that may lead countries to overlook
it employing prohibited armaments against its
citizens. Chinese and Russian diplomats may be
highlighting those differences in any ongoing
discussions with their Syrian counterparts.
At the moment, there is no unifying call
for the West or the UN to intervene in Syria like
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization did in
Libya. Employing chemical weapons against the
rebels will change that dynamic and the regime's
calculation of its next move must take that into
account. But regime survival concerns will have
precedence over any fears of international
intervention. Moreover, Assad appears to be taking
solace in the fact there is little appetite for
intervention in Syria. Although some analysts have
noted Libya was neither the hard nut nor Muammar
Gaddafi's opposition the potential hotbed of
militant Islam that intervention opponents feared.
Assad knows that Syria's internal demographics and
communal history have more in common with Iraq
than Libya, albeit in reversed roles.
Like
Gaddafi and Hussein, Assad leads a minority regime
but there are as many differences as parallels
among the countries. Although Libya's society was
divided along tribal and ethnic lines, the vast
majority of its citizens adhered to the moderate
Sufi or Senussi branches of Sunni Islam. More
importantly, Gaddafi's tribal power base
constituted less than 5% of Libya's population and
the tribes that allied with him, only numbered
another 25-35% and supported him for self-serving
purposes. That support evaporated in the face of
air power and a changing domestic power balance.
Moreover, no tribal group in Libya enjoys a
plurality, much less a majority in the country.
Accommodation and cooperation have marked
traditional inter-tribal relations in Libya
outside the country's eastern territories, where
frictions and an irredentist movement remain a
concern.
Finally, Gaddafi sent thousands
of Libyans to study in the West and recruited
foreigners to teach in his universities and
schools. He probably believed he was building a
technological foundation for Libya's future under
the leadership of his descendants, but he also
inadvertently imported Western ideas and created a
middle class with political aspirations. Those
factors are not prevalent in Syria.
Syria's demographics are similar to
Iraq's, only with the communal roles and
percentages reversed. The Alawite minority that
Assad represents is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam,
a key factor in Iran's support for the regime and
its relationship with Lebanon's Hezbollah and
Iraq's Shi'ite-based political parties. Alawites
number about 12-14% of Syria's population and
enjoy the support of another 10-12%; the country's
small Christian, Assyrian, Kurdish and Druze
communities who view the regime as their primary
protection against the disenfranchised Sunni
majority.
Although many Syrian elites have
been educated in Europe; the regime preferred Iran
and Russia for its citizens' higher education
needs. The Sunni Arab majority, about 74% of the
population, has tribal elements but the divisions
within that community primarily lie between those
who've benefited from the regime and the vast
majority who have not. The former group provides
some of the regime's military and civil service
leadership. In fact, many of the recent defectors
consist of Sunnis serving the regime. More may
follow, which may be driving the regime's attacks
on defectors' home areas. Assad probably hopes
punishing families and communal areas will deter
future defections. Inducing such fears only works
over the short-term and tends to harden opposition
attitudes.
The Muslim Brotherhood, which
has led two previous uprisings over the last 40
years, is the best organized of the Sunni-based
opposition groups. Their commitment to democracy
or democratic principles is limited at best. But
they may be tempered by Syria's largely secular
society in a fashion not unlike that which has
played out in Egypt. Certainly, intervention
proponents will present that as a likely outcome
of any regime change facilitation. Opponents will
note the Egyptian Brotherhood's statements and
early actions as portends of what Egypt will
become. The reality is that any Syrian regime
change probably will not be a cheap or
comparatively clean as Libya's nor as expensive
and deadly as Iraq's. As with any other
predictions, the future will remain uncertain
until it arrives.
What is clear; however,
is that Syria's sudden movement of its chemical
weapons indicates the regime is becoming
increasingly insecure about its future and at
least considering what it must do to survive. In
so doing, Assad has also presented the
international community, particularly the UN, with
a need to determine its future course as well.
Hopefully, Assad's calculations will err on the
side of moral pragmatism. Unfortunately, that is a
choice desperate dictatorships rarely make.
Carl O Schuster is a retired
United States Navy Captain based in Honolulu,
Hawaii. The views expressed here are his own.
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