The Syrian knots

Of all the countries buffeted by the Arab Spring, Syria is the enigma that remains to be resolved. Even as it seems to be lurching towards a civil war, the resources of fellow Arab nations and the United States and European powers have thus far proved unequal to the task of bringing about a desirable end. And thereby hangs a tale.

Unlike the countries that have shed leaders — Libya’s leader literally bit the dust — Syria’s President Bashar Assad still keeps his chair as rioting, fighting and killings have become the order of the day. There are three basic reasons. While defections have taken place from the armed forces, the security services presided over by trusted men and kin remain loyal to the regime. The heterodox nature of the population, ruled by a minority sect, is a nightmare to contemplate in case of a full-scale civil war. Last, the country occupies a pivotal position in the region which is already in flames as winds of change have gathered into a storm.
The United States and other Western powers rode an Arab League resolution to launch a formidable air war on Libya ostensibly to prevent civilians from being butchered and brought about a regime change. In a new phase of activism, the League, which was little more than a talking shop, has finally imposed sanctions on Syria by a majority vote although two gaping holes remain in Iraq and Lebanon. This in addition to the sanctions imposed by the US and European powers. Turkey, ostentatiously assuming a regional role, has been brought into the ambit of the League in this instance.
Yet President Assad shows no sign of giving in. He has, of course, the support of Iran, the Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But the omens are hardly promising for the President and his regime, with the prospect of the UN increasingly coming into the picture. What has saved the Syrian regime so far is the sense of betrayal felt by Russia, China and other countries into how the UN Security Council mandate on Libya was hijacked by the West to convert it into toppling Col. Muammar Gaddafi.
Despite these advantages President Assad has been enjoying, he is living on borrowed time. The manner in which his regime has chosen to deal with the civilian, originally peaceful, dissenters by using his armed forces to shoot them into submission — the death toll is more than 3,500 and counting — has shocked the conscience of the world even in these blasé times. No one buys the Syrian line that it is the responsibility of armed forces from the outside.
The problem is that President Assad belongs to the minority Alawite Shia sect in a country of many more Sunnis, apart from Christians, Kurds and other tribes, and only the long dictatorial rule of the son and his father had kept the lid on religious and ethnic tensions and conflict. This can be no justification for dictatorship in the days of the Arab renaissance and Syria’s plight can only worsen in the days and weeks ahead. The longer President Assad chooses to stay his present course, the worse the outlook will be.
Turkey has already emerged as an actor in the Syrian drama. It has given shelter to Syrian refugees and Army defectors, has sponsored a dissidents’ gathering in Istanbul and is turning a blind eye, if not encouraging, to the activities of the so-called Free Syrian Army. Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been in the forefront of berating President Assad after the latter had turned down his pleas for exercising restraint. The two countries share a long border. This Turkish attitude chimes with the new activist mood of the Arab League led at present by the feisty, if pint-sized, state of Qatar. No wonder the ruling class in Syria feels it has
been betrayed by its Arab brothers.
Yet Syria continues to occupy a pivotal position in the region. Not only is it tied up with an Iran feeling besieged by the US, Western powers and Israel, but it is still banking on support from Russia and China to ward off the new onslaught. Given the way the wind is blowing, Moscow seems to be hedging its bets by talking to the Syrian Opposition, and Beijing will probably follow the Russian lead.
Unless President Assad has a miraculous change of heart, the prospect looks bleak. There will in all probability be larger defections from the armed forces, apart from the Alawite loyalists and the Assad kin. The borders in the Arab world are notoriously porous and arms and other supplies are being smuggled to the Syrian dissidents. Even peaceful civilians are taking to arms, given the brutality of the Army in training guns on unarmed men, women and children.
It will be the attempt of at least some countries, if not a majority, in the United Nations to avert a full-scale civil war leading to a horrendous bloodshed. The Arab League is particularly angry because although the Assad regime ostensibly accepted its proposal of a 500-strong monitoring team of civilians and military figures, it quibbled endlessly virtually negating the idea. Ankara is equally mad and the West has lost patience with the nature of President Assad’s behaviour in taming dissenters.
If the US and Russia cannot agree to a forceful UN role on how to resolve the Syrian dilemma, the issue will be decided by the two main antagonists at home at the cost of much bloodshed and many lives. It is in the nature of the UN system that the big powers tolerate only a weak Secretary-General in order to retain their primacy. A Hammarskjold or a Boutros-Ghali could have played a dominant role to untie the tangled knots that represent Syria today. Ban Ki-moon does not fit the bill of a muscular head of the world organisation.
In his memoir, Mr Boutros-Ghali has written about how his proposals, made at the behest of the major powers, to give the Secretary-General elbow room for manoeuvre in coping with emergencies was buried with faint praise.