UN veto takes Syria nearer civil war

The stalemate over Syria in the UN Security Council is leading the beleaguered country in one direction: a civil war. It was as if the double veto exercised by Russia and China was preordained because Moscow was acting on its belief that it was an assault on Syrian sovereignty,

the Assad regime was fighting for its life and a newly invigorated Arab League, despite its fissures, was proposing that President Bashar Assad step down in favour of his deputy and form a national unity government.
The Syrian Army and security services are, of course, the main strength of the Assad regime. It is largely officered by the minority Alawites to which the family belongs and the powerful security services are headed by the President’s younger brother. The short point is that the future course of action is not the President’s alone but that of the close family and clan and they know that any other course but suppression means their death or banishment.
What lent drama and urgency to Saturday night’s Security Council session was news from the city of Homs in which hundreds of civilians were reported to have been killed by a major Syrian Army offensive with heavy weapons. US President Barack Obama issued a strong statement and as Russia stuck to its guns, all other members barring China (India had its own earlier reservations but voted in favour) were convinced that the least bad option to stem the massive killings of civilians was to back the only plan on the table, that of the Arab League.
What had been haunting Russia and China, and to a lesser extent India, was the Libya precedent in which the Security Council authorisation to save civilians was converted by Western Powers and Nato into a licence to tilt the balance in favour of the beleaguered rebels on the point of defeat through a massive air intervention and some smuggling of weapons and mentoring of rebels. By any impartial count, it was a great stretch of the original resolution.
In Syria’s case, regime change was factored into the UN Security Council’s resolution although the actual deposition of President Assad was not specifically mentioned to respect Russian sensitivities. The pattern followed was the Yemen formula devised by members of the Gulf Cooperation Council led by Saudi Arabia, although President Abdullah Saleh prevaricated for long before agreeing to cede power and go to the United States for medical treatment.
However, there are other geopolitical factors riding on the Syrian crisis. Syria has been the only traditional Arab ally of Iran and provides Tehran access to both the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon and Hamas on the Gaza Strip. Besides, there is the Israel factor and the inevitable full support Washington offers to anything Tel Aviv might choose to do to safeguard its perceived self-interest. Over the decades, American ability to influence Israel in line with US interests has diminished greatly and, more often than not, it is led by the nose by Israelis, conscious as they are of their power to demolish a US President through their power over Capitol Hill, the Christian Right and the influential American Jewish lobbies.
As the gale force winds of the Arab Spring have buffeted the region, Israel has felt that its best policy would be to behave like a porcupine because anything it would do would hurt its interests. But Tel Aviv has been plotting the alternatives it has with an eye on the future. It was, of course, sorry to lose Hosni Mubarak because he was the kingpin of the whole post-Camp David structure, the Egyptian Army receiving an annual subvention of $ 1.3 billion. In a sense, Israelis will be sorry to see President Assad go because he has been equally assiduous in refraining from rubbing Israelis the wrong way, discounting the rhetoric.
It is now pretty clear that though the UN Security Council stalemate dooms Syria to a further period of massive blood-letting, the days of President Assad are numbered. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov is planning to visit Damascus to persuade his host to begin a new initiative more mindful of the lives of his citizens. But President Assad’s hands are tied. The only way he can retain his throne is by force and with the bulk of his countrymen and women having decided that they have had enough, there is nowhere the President can hide.
Unlike Libya, Syria is very much the heart of the Arab world with its strategic location and Syrian Golan Heights remaining under Israeli occupation. There is also the ethnic and tribal nature of the country with the minority Alawites living with majority Sunnis and a substantial Christian population. It was the strong dictatorial hand of the Assad family that has kept the peace among the different sects while keeping the family Shia sect at the top. The non-Sunni sects are feeling nervous over the future shape of things.
The Russia-US rupture over Syria, which has led to sharp exchanges between them, is unlikely to have a long-term impact on their relations but it has brought about a temporary freeze. In a sense, Russia backed itself into a corner. It is no longer credible — if it ever was — to buy the Syrian government’s argument that the turmoil was entirely due to “foreign-armed bandits”, and there seems little scope to persuade President Assad to find a new opening because anything less than his departure will no longer satisfy the majority of his people.
The temper of the Arab world and much of the rest of the world can be gauged by the demonstrations — many of them violent — held outside (and sometimes inside) Syrian embassies around the world. Despite the many setbacks the Arab Spring has encountered since a fruit vendor in Tunisia set himself alight, the Arab world has changed irrevocably. It cannot be patched up and put back in place. Syria’s friends must make President Assad understand the new reality — the sooner the better.

The writer can be contacted at snihalsingh@gmail.com