Syrian horrors set to plunge new
depths By Victor Kotsev
There is every indication that the
cynicism with which both the regime and most of
the foreign-backed rebels disregard the suffering
of the Syrian people is a cover for their own
moral degradation and desperation. Unfortunately,
it is still impossible to either verify or dismiss
reports of a large-scale massacre in the Syrian
city of Homs, where the government forces
conducted a crushing offensive, pushing the Free
Syrian Army out of the Bab Amro neighborhood
Wednesday night.
Meanwhile, as the great
powers continue to wrangle about possible ways to
reduce the violence, there are rumors of new
diplomatic initiatives being in the works. (On
Thursday, the United Nations Security Council
unanimously demanded "immediate and unhindered
access," though the statement released carries
much less legal weight than a resolution would.)
It is important to watch both the Friends of Syria
group (whom the Syrian government has dubbed
Enemies of Syria) and Russia, which may conceivably
change its tune after
the upcoming presidential elections Sunday.
The latest United Nations casualty figures
claim that at least 7,500 people have died since
the start of the protests a year ago; this
includes, in all likelihood, hundreds if not
thousands in Homs. So far, however, phrases such
as "war crimes" have been used only very
cautiously by Western leaders, and strictly for
propaganda purposes. Part of the reason is that if
President Bashar al-Assad is officially indicted
for war crimes by the International Criminal
Court, he will be more likely to fight to the end
(like Libya's Gaddafi did); should he come on top,
moreover, the West would find it extremely
embarrassing to maintain relations with him. It
would basically have shot itself in the foot.
Yet there is an even more fundamental
reason for this relative silence: so far there has
been no conclusive evidence of a systematic
massacre. Despite progress in modern technology,
which in theory should have reduced greatly the
time that the world can be kept in the dark about
such events, we find ourselves much in the same
place as three decades ago, in early 1982, when
rumors of a massacre in the Syrian city of Hama
made the rounds but nothing could be confirmed for
months [1] (later estimates of the number of
killed still vary greatly, usually ranging between
10,000 and 40,000).
Eerily, it was the
current Syrian president's father, Hafez al-Assad,
who ordered the slaughter in 1982, and his
father's brother, Rifaat, who oversaw it.
Reportedly, the president's own brother, Maher
al-Assad, was the commander of the troops who
entered Bab Amro on Thursday.
Yet there
are considerable differences between today and
1982. The regime, for one, has changed, and has
distanced itself from its official Ba'athist
ideology and political program. Consider the
following account of that shift, offered two years
ago by a Syrian who spent many years in prison at
the hands of the regime, and retold for an
English-speaking audience, ironically, by an
Israeli history professor:
Whoever listens carefully to the
regime's spokespeople, says Saleh, notices the
change, too: Syrian state nationalism is now
openly preferable to pan-Arabism, which is just
declarative. Instead of praising the socialist
command economy, privatization is hailed.
Moreover, the Syrian army once had political
commissars whose job was to provide "moral
guidance," but not any more. Indoctrination has
gone bankrupt not only in the army but in the
entire system of education. [2]
The
rebels are considerably different from those in
1982, as well, although some basic similarities
apply: for example, some of the identity fault
lines in the country, such as Sunnis facing off
against Alawites, seem to have remained. The
confusion on the ground and the lack of unity
among the opposition also ring familiar, and one
can expect the same kinds of recriminations that
followed the rebellion 30 years ago to surface
again at some point (to this day, for example,
many Syrians accuse the Muslim Brotherhood, which
took the lead back in the day, of betraying them).
The Syrian opposition has been anything
but united, with further splits happening at a
crucial moment in the last days. "The
international community has made it clear that the
opposition must fully unite before it can receive
the support it needs to overthrow the al Assad
regime," the influential US-based global
intelligence company Stratfor wrote several days
ago. "However, as the recent creation of the SPG
[Syrian Patriotic Group] shows, the Syrian
opposition will likely face continued fracturing,
making it increasingly difficult to receive
crucial international support." [3]
On
Thursday, following the defeat in Homs, more signs
of discord showed, and yet another rebel military
council was announced. According to the blog of
Syria analyst Joshua Landis, this caused "uproar
among fighters in Syria and Turkey." [4]
Many Syrians have reportedly lost faith in
both sides. A few excerpts from the riveting
account of Stephen Starr, a journalist who spent
the last five years in the country, illustrate
this well:
I asked my local shopkeeper why the
authorities are not breaking up the protests.
"Do you watch Tom and Jerry?" he
replied. "Here it is the same; they are playing
a game." … "We are not used to this,"
Damascenes constantly told me. They see Homs and
think that nothing is worth the same devastation
visiting their own streets and homes.
… Although perhaps inevitable, the
militarization of the opposition has been the
greatest disaster of the uprising. The regime
has exploited this fact by granting visas for
dozens of foreign journalists to make the case
that the regime is, in fact, fighting armed
gangs. … Bearing witness to a country falling
apart is a sobering experience. Cars don't stop
at traffic lights or for traffic police.
Security officers manning checkpoints slip their
hands into cars' glove compartments without
asking. But when I speak to Syrians, the most
troubling aspect - though few appear to realize
it - are the growing divisions between them.
[5]
The basic reality on the ground,
then, is that opposition is not only outgunned and
outnumbered, but also lacks support and is
hopelessly fragmented. It is facing a government
that has superior force at its disposal, but is
isolated both internationally and domestically,
its core support base less than a quarter of the
population. (This is if we count all Alawites,
Christians, and Druze as Assad supporters which is
a generous estimate.)
Reportedly, some
Sunnis, who are the majority of the population,
still support the regime, and this could be a
reason why Bashar al-Assad might choose a gentler
approach than that of his father. If the civil war
which is simmering, however, explodes into true
sectarian conflict, it will be a situation
fundamentally similar to South African Apartheid,
where the government can hold out for a certain
amount of time, but is doomed down the road.
The isolation of the regime is underscored by the recent defection of the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which until last year was allied closely with Assad [6]. The dire straits of the rebels, on the other hand, are demonstrated by their wide outreach, spanning even the Russians and the Israelis. [7]
Any way we look at it, the future of Syria appears bleak. We can only hope that the reports of a massacre in Homs are exaggerated, and that Bashar al-Assad chooses a different path from that of his father.
Regardless, however, the main question is shifting from who will win in the short term to whether anybody can win in the long run.
It is important to pay attention also to the international realities. An argument can be made that at least some of Russia’s posturing at the United Nations (the veto it imposed, together with China, on the Syria resolution last month) was designed for domestic consumption, given the presidential elections on Sunday. Prime minister Vladimir Putin is expected to win, but his extraordinarily graphic macho campaign [8] has faced unexpected resistance. If all goes according to his plan, he will likely be more flexible and open to bargaining soon, and might even be tempted to see the weapons he sold to Syria tested as a salute to his next term at the helm.
It could even be that the Syrian regime mounted its offensive in Homs in anticipation of its changing fortunes at the UN Security Council, where another draft resolution will reportedly be introduced soon.
Ultimately, perhaps, Yemen provided the most hopeful model that could be used in the Syrian crisis. However, there are few idealists in international diplomacy, and being as it is that the Syrian crisis is most likely bundled together with several other issues, including the Iranian nuclear program and the NATO missile defense shield in Europe, the wellbeing of the Syrian people is extremely unlikely to be the top priority of those doing the bargaining.
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