After the utter collapse of the Eid
al-Adha ceasefire attempted by the United Nations
envoy Lakhdar Brahimi a couple of weeks ago, it is
even more obvious that there isn't much time to
stop the Syrian civil war. Nor is it likely that
the latest reshuffles of the rebel leadership,
inspired from abroad and decided on during a
meeting in the Qatari capital Doha last week, will
produce a meaningful change in the dynamics on the
ground.
Unless the deeply divided
international community acts quickly and in
concert, a repeat of the Lebanese civil war in the
1970s and 1980s is likely to follow. The chaos is
growing. Already around 36,000 have died and
hundreds of thousands have sought
refuge in neighboring
countries. Last week, the flood of refugees
reached 11,000 in a single day.
While
negotiations over the fate of Syria continue -
away from the limelight and, according to credible
reports, through the mediation of Turkey and
others - the civil war is quickly becoming
entrenched. Moreover, there is some evidence of a
gradual shift in the approach of the international
community towards containing the violence inside
the country rather than stopping it outright.
Syria, which was plagued by domestic
instability for decades before the Assad family
came to power, now finds itself at the
intersection of powerful and complex international
interests. This turns it into a lucrative proxy
battlefield where many of the future geopolitical
intrigues of the Middle East - such as a wider war
between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims - may unfold.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's
minority regime finds itself ever more isolated,
appointing new governments every month or two.
Increasingly it appears that even its power base,
the Alawites, support it out of fear rather than
out of loyalty. As one Alawite activist told the
Washington Post, "Assad is not representing the
Alawites; he is using them." A recent shoot-out in
the home town of the president's clan, involving
his cousin, backs this observation.
The
Syrian army is in the process of quickly
degenerating into a sectarian militia, and in
parallel to it Assad is cultivating (with help
from Iran) a number of Alawite and other
paramilitary forces. His strategy, described by
Foreign Policy Magazine as "counterinsurgency by
atrocity", has had the effect of ripping apart the
country's social fabric and destroying the
possibility of a peaceful transition.
For
their part, the rebels are divided, infiltrated by
foreign jihadists, and ever less representative of
(or welcome by) large segments of Syria's
population. "The city of Aleppo has not really
joined the revolution," a fighter recently told
the Associated Press, while reporters witnessed
civilians in the key northern commercial hub
pelting the rebels with broken glass. Different
rebel militias control different parts of the
Syrian countryside, where warlords have set up
effective fiefdoms and are profiting from
smuggling, extortion and kidnappings.
The
divisions that have plagued them for over a
year-and-a-half are not likely to disappear after
last week's restructuring of their main political
organizations. It is hard to hide the bitter
rivalry at the top between the Syrian National
Council (SNC), itself an umbrella organization,
and the newly created "National Coalition for
Revolutionary Forces and the Syrian Opposition"
(in which the SNC holds only about a third of
seats).
In an attempt to rebrand and
reinvigorate itself, the SNC chose a leftist
Christian opposition figure, George Sabra, to lead
it. Sabra's appointment was intended to allay
international fears of jihadist influence, and his
communist past also sparked some speculation that
the SNC may be hoping to court Russia (until now
an ally of Assad).
The mushrooming of
militias and political organizations is paralleled
by diverse foreign influences. Assad survives
mostly with the help of Iran, Russia and China,
while the rebels receive large donations from the
Gulf. The Syrian president's military machine is
still strong, but the war costs him approximately
US$1 billion a month, as Jordan's King Abdullah II
revealed in an interview with CBS. These
operations are bankrolled by Iran, which has also
reportedly sent its operatives and technology such
as drones. [1]
Not only are the different
countries at odds with each other, but most seem
internally split on how to proceed with Syria.
According to the influential intelligence analysis
firm Stratfor, for example, the Iranian leaders -
the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard Corps -
may have divergent interests concerning the fate
of the Syrian regime.
Russia, too, is
vacillating, as recent statements by Russian
officials indicate. Its massive weapons deal with
Iraq last month suggests that secret negotiations
with the American administration may be underway
over its role in the Middle East, but its ties
with Syria and Iran are deeply-rooted and reflect
its fundamental geopolitical interests. (Iraq's
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has canceled the
US$4.2 billion arms deal with Russia, involving
attack helicopters and mobile air-defense systems,
after "suspicions over corruption" surfaced, CNN
and other media reported at the weekend.)
In United States policy circles, the
strategy of "leading from behind" is grounded in
the experience in Iraq and Afghanistan (and the
financial crisis), but within that paradigm, two
arguments have emerged: some argue in favor of a
more forceful intervention, pointing out the
dangers of doing nothing (including a Bosnia-style
argument that jihadist influence among the rebels
will grow if the US forfeits its ties with them).
Others caution against getting mired in a Syrian
quagmire.
Turkey has supported the Syrian
rebels but has more recently tried to facilitate
talks between the broader camps in the Middle
East, first over Syria and subsequently over the
Iranian nuclear program. According to some
accounts, Egypt is also playing an active role in
this diplomacy. In many ways, if an international
peace plan for Syria materializes in the future,
Turkey and Egypt would be best placed to send
peacekeepers - they are the largest Muslim
countries in the region, and both have
long-standing ties with the different segments of
Syria's population.
Ankara faces its own
set of issues. The effective creation of a Kurdish
entity on its southern border (some argue, a
precursor to a wider Kurdish state) after
pro-Assad forces pulled out of much of northern
Syria has turned its original "buffer zones" plan
on its head. It faces a steep challenge should it
choose to intervene militarily, and although its
army is larger than Syria's, it has little
experience enforcing a no-fly zone while the
Syrian air defenses are much more extensive than
its own. According to Turkish journalist Eyup Can,
for example, Syria has an estimated 4,707 air
defense missiles, while Turkey has 178.
"Though Saudi Arabia can see the risk to
the region of having Syria remain in a prolonged
state of civil war," Stratfor writes in another
recent report, "it also does not want to see a
broader understanding between Washington and
Tehran develop out of the Syrian crisis, an
understanding that could strain the US-Saudi
relationship. If negotiations gain traction in the
coming months, Saudi Arabia may end up being more
of a spoiler than a facilitator."
Compounding this confusion, the
instruments and institutions of international law
have failed time and again in addressing the
conflict. Despite credible evidence of war crimes
on both sides, the argument has prevailed that
indictments would make it even harder to stop the
violence.
Despite various threats, the
United States and its allies in the UN Security
Council have refrained from using Resolution 377
("Uniting for Peace") against Russia and China,
perhaps unwilling to put into question their own
veto power and perhaps uncertain of the backing
they can receive at the General Assembly.
At the same time, experts caution that
urgent international action is needed if the
bloodshed is to stop. Peter Wallensteen, a leading
peace researcher at the University of Uppsala and
the director of the Uppsala Conflict Data Program,
said in a telephone conversation that an arms
embargo enforced by regional countries, broadly
similar to the ones imposed on Liberia and the
Ivory Coast in the past, might help, but
emphasized that an immediate and coordinated
response by the international community was
crucial.
"It's increasingly an
internationalized civil war," he said, "and as we
know from previous history, the more
internationalized, the longer the conflict will
be. So there is an interest in finding a way out,
and quickly. Otherwise this will turn into another
Afghanistan."
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