Category Archives: Syria

The Destruction of Syria

Posted on September 8, 2012 | Comments Off on The Destruction of Syria

By Patrick Seale | September 2012|
Once one of the most solid states in the Middle East and a key pivot of the regional power structure, Syria is now facing wholesale destruction. The consequences of the unfolding drama are likely to be disastrous for Syria’s territorial integrity, for the well-being of its population, for regional peace, and for the interests of external powers deeply involved in the crisis.

The most immediate danger is that the fighting in Syria, together with the current severe pressure being put on Syria’s Iranian ally, will provide the spark for a wider conflagration from which no one will be immune.

How did it come to this? Every actor in the crisis bears a share of responsibility. Syria is the victim of the fears and appetites of its enemies, but also of its own leaders’ mistakes.

With hindsight, it can be seen that President Bashar al-Assad missed the chance to reform the tight security state he inherited in 2000 from his father. Instead of recognizing—and urgently addressing—the thirst for political freedoms, personal dignity and economic opportunity which were the message of the “Damascus Spring” of his first year in power, he screwed the lid down ever more tightly.

Suffocating controls over every aspect of Syrian society were reinforced, and made harder to bear by the blatant corruption and privileges of the few and the hardships suffered by the many. Physical repression became routine. Instead of cleaning up his security apparatus, curbing police brutality and improving prison conditions, he allowed them to remain as gruesome and deplorable as ever.

Above all, over the past decade Bashar al-Assad and his close advisers failed to grasp the revolutionary potential of two key developments—Syria’s population explosion and the long-term drought which the country suffered from 2006 to 2010, the worst in several hundred years. The first produced an army of semi-educated young people unable to find jobs; the second resulted in the forced exodus of hundreds of thousands of farmers from their parched fields to slums around the major cities. Herders in the northeast lost 85 percent of their livestock. It is estimated that by 2011, some two to three million Syrians had been driven into extreme poverty. No doubt climate change was responsible, but government neglect and incompetence contributed to the disaster.

These two factors—youth unemployment and rural disaffection—were the prime motors of the uprising which spread like wildfire, once it was triggered by a brutal incident at Dar’a in March 2011. The foot soldiers of the uprising are unemployed urban youth and impoverished peasants.

Could the regime have done something about it? Yes, it could. As early as 2006-7, it could have alerted the world to the situation, devoted all available resources to urgent job creation, launched a massive relief program for its stricken population and mobilized its citizens for these tasks. No doubt major international aid agencies and rich Gulf countries would have helped had the plans been in place.

Instead, the regime’s gaze was distracted by external threats: by the Lebanese crisis of 2005 following the assassination of Rafiq Hariri; by Israel’s bid to destroy Hezbollah by its invasion of Lebanon in 2006; by its attack on Syria’s nuclear facility in 2007; and by its bid to destroy Hamas in its murderous assault on Gaza in 2008-9.

From the start of Bashar al-Assad’s presidency, Syria has faced relentless efforts by Israel and its complicit American ally to bring down the so-called “resistance axis” of Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah, which dared challenge the regional dominance of Israel and the United States.

Syria had a narrow escape in 2003-4. Led by the Pentagon’s Paul Wolfowitz, the pro-Israeli neocons embedded in President George W. Bush’s administration were determined to reshape the region in Israel’s and America’s interest. Their first target was Saddam Hussain’s Iraq, seen as a potential threat to Israel. Had the United States been successful in Iraq, Syria would have been next. Neither Iraq nor the United States has yet recovered from the catastrophic Iraqi war, of which Wolfowitz was the chief “architect.”

Syria and its Iranian ally are once again under imminent threat. The United States and Israel make no secret of their goal to bring down both the Damascus and Tehran regimes. No doubt some Israeli strategists believe that it would be greatly to their country’s advantage if Syria were dismembered and permanently weakened by the creation of a small Alawi state around the port city of Latakia in the northwest, in much the same way as Iraq was dismembered and permanently weakened by the creation of the Kurdish Regional Government in the north of the country, with its capital at Irbil. It is not easy to be the neighbor of an expansionist and aggressive Jewish state, which believes that its security is best assured, not by making peace with its neighbors, but by subverting, destabilizing and destroying them with the aid of American power.

The United States and Israel are not Syria’s only enemies. The Syrian Muslim Brothers have been dreaming of revenge ever since their attempt 30 years ago to topple Syria’s secular Ba’athist regime by a campaign of terror was crushed by Hafez al-Assad, Syria’s president at the time. Today, the Muslim Brothers are repeating the mistake they made then by resorting to terror with the aid of foreign Salafists, including some al-Qaeda fighters flowing into Syria from Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and other countries further afield. The liberal members of the Syrian opposition in exile, including several worthy academics and veteran opponents, are providing political cover for these more violent elements.

Some Arab Gulf States persist in viewing the region through a sectarian prism. They are worried by Iran’s alleged hegemonic ambitions. They are unhappy that Iraq—once a Sunni power able to hold Iran in check—is now under Shi’i leadership. Talk of an emerging “Shi’i Crescent” appears to threaten Sunni dominance. For these reasons they are funding and arming the Syrian rebels in the hope that bringing down the Syrian regime will sever Iran’s ties with the Arab world. But this policy will simply prolong Syria’s agony, claim the lives of some of its finest men and cause massive material damage.

America, the dominant external power, has made many grievous policy blunders. Over the past several decades it failed to persuade its stubborn Israeli ally to make peace with the Palestinians, leading to peace with the whole Arab world. It embarked on catastrophic wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It failed to reach a “grand bargain” with Iran which would have dispelled the specter of war in the Gulf and stabilized the volatile region. And it is now quarrelling with Moscow and reviving the Cold War by sabotaging Kofi Annan’s peace plan for Syria.

There can be no military solution to the Syrian crisis. The only way out of the current nightmare is a cease-fire imposed on both sides, followed by a negotiation and the formation of a national government to oversee a transition. Only thus can Syria avoid wholesale destruction, which could take a generation or two to repair.

Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press). Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale. Distributed by Agence Global.

http://www.wrmea.org/archives/515-washington-report-archives-2011-2015/september-2012/11356-the-destruction-of-syria.html

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Posted in EU-Syria, Lebanon, Middle East Geopolitics, Russia, Syria, Syrian Opposition, Turkey, US Middle East Politics, US-Syria

Why political endeavors to solve Syria’s crisis always fail?

Posted on September 2, 2012 | Comments Off on Why political endeavors to solve Syria’s crisis always fail?

DAMASCUS, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) — Syrian analysts and experts have been divided over finding a main reason behind the continuous faltering of the numerous international and regional endeavors that originally aimed to find peaceful solutions to Syria’s prolonged and intractable crisis.

As some blame the administration of not abiding by its international pledges, others hurl accusations at the fractured opposition for not keeping its end of the bargain, while still some others blame the lack of international consensus of being the major reason.

Several initiatives have been put forward — the foremost of which is the one by the outgoing UN-Arab League joint special envoy Kofi Annan, which has called for a cessation of violence by all parties in a bid to pave the way for a political dialogue to settle the simmering tension.

At the beginning, all parties said they will comply with the plan, which has taken hold for hours before the clashes and the urban fighting kicked off once again. But both sides later assigned blame on one another for the failure of the cease-fire.

Annan’s initiative has been preceded with several Arab proposals in addition to regional and international ones. However, none of them succeeded in curbing the violence or bridging the widening crack between Damascus and the rebels.

Yahya Salaiman, a political researcher, expressed his pessimism toward all the various proposals, pointing out that “all endeavors carried their seeds of failure within them.”

Speaking to Xinhua, Salaiman attributed his disappointment to the “content of each endeavor, because they either lack a clear working mechanism for their implementation or they are disconnected from the fever of the Syrian reality and all its contradictions, or the bias of the countries that are sponsoring those initiatives to a certain party in the conflict.”

He said the partiality of the sponsoring countries lead to the infanticide of the initiatives.

For his side, Ammar Rifai, vice-chairman of the oppositional al- Ansar party, said the proposed initiatives are “theoretically ambitious,” but noted that “it’s practically inapplicable.” He held the Syrian government responsible for the failure of most of the initiatives and accused it of non-complying by the items of the plans that it officially agrees on.

However, Sharif Shahadeh, a Syrian parliamentarian, disagreed with Rifai and contended that the Syrian government has abided and committed to all its pledges, holding the Syrian opposition the responsibility for the whole fiasco, as “it doesn’t accept to lay down the weapons and keeps on applying foreign agendas needless to say that is already scattered and fragmented.”

Shahadeh told Xinhua that “every initiative holds its own mines that blast it fast.”

He gave the latest Egyptian initiative as an example, saying it has been buried alive after Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi gave his blistering speech on Syria at the Non-Aligned Movement summit held recently in Tehran, in which he branded Damascus as ” oppressive” and urged the world countries to side with the Syrian opposition.

Morsi has recently proposed that Iran take part in a four- nation contact group including Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia that would mediate in the Syrian crisis.

Meanwhile, Shahadeh said that all the previous plans have not been that different than the Egyptian one “because all of the countries that have sponsored them are actual parties of the conflict and hold grudges toward the Syrian resistive and patriotic regime.”

Even though all endeavors have been rendered useless, the international community seems to keep pressing with the political approach despite some voices that have called for imposing buffer zones in Syria.

The latest move by the United Nations to keep with the diplomatic efforts is the appointment of veteran troubleshooter Lakhdar Brahimi as a new special envoy to Syria, replacing Annan who resigned last month after the failure of his mediation.

Brahimi on Saturday officially became in charge of picking up where his predecessor Annan left off in mediating the intractable Syrian crisis.

The Algerian figure discussed with Chinese officials Saturday the prospect of the Syrian crisis. He, who will pay visits to several regional and international capitals to garner support for his efforts, is also expected to set foot in Syria by the end of the current week, according to sources who told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Hasan Abdul-Azim, a prominent opposition leader, told Xinhua in a recent interview that the solution to the 18-months-old crisis in Syria does not rest in efforts of the UN and Arab League envoy but the achievement of a workable consensus among regional and international powers.

Also, Luai Hussain, head of the opposition current “Building Syrian State,” agreed with Abdul-Azim that any true and workable solution requires a wide-scale international effort and a consensus between the superpowers and regional ones as well.

He said the Syrian crisis is more complicated and intractable that makes the sole act of a certain organization insufficient to unravel it.

Experts believe that had the international community was sincere about solving the Syrian crisis without being biased to certain parties, the Syrian bloody crisis would have already been solved.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2012-09/02/c_131822745.htm

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Posted in EU-Syria, Middle East Geopolitics, Syria, Syrian Opposition, Turkey, Turkey-Syria, US Middle East Politics, US-Syria

Seven Syrian myths

Posted on August 31, 2012 | Comments Off on Seven Syrian myths

By KORAY ÇALIŞKAN |

Syria has been turned into a domestic policy debate. There are such low comments as: “Kılıçdaroğlu is supporting Bashar al-Assad because he is also an Alevi.” There are caricatures drawn, like: “A tiny Alevi minority is exerting genocide on Sunnis.” These inappropriate comments are fed by myths created on Syria. These myths are the following:

1 – Alevis are oppressing the Sunnis: It is true that the Nusayris are powerful political elite in Syria, even though they are a minority. However, the majority of Syria’s political and economic elite are Sunni. Most of the bourgeoisie and the upper middle class are made up of Sunnis supporting the regime. There is also Sunni domination among the middle class. Just to make it clear, it is the product of some people’s imagination to say: “Alevis are oppressing the poor, victimized Sunnis.”

2 – Bashar al-Assad is like Slobodan Milosevic: He is not. This opinion, which is based on an intellectual laziness similar to the leftist tendency to regard every authoritarianism as “fascism,” confuses firing against armed opponents and people with genocide. Bashar al-Assad is a dictator, but he is not a genocide-maker. He is not any worse than Mubarak or George Bush. Actually, Bush caused more deaths.

3 – The Free Syrian Army (FSA) is the only option: It is also a myth that the FSA will bring democracy. You may decide for yourself whether or not to believe that an army with the financial and military support of Saudi Arabia (the biggest enemy of the human rights struggle in the region and in the Middle Eastern revolutions, and which like Israel is an authoritarian theocratic regime), and also with all kinds of acrobatics from the CIA, is going to bring democracy.

4 – Military opposition is the only chance: It is not. It has not been from the beginning. The FSA, which was hastily organized outside Syria, which smeared the revolution with violence intentionally and willfully, and which disregards the unarmed opposition, is actually not even the last chance. It is a problem created at the beginning, whereas it should have been a symptom that emerged as a result. There is a civilian opposition in Syria. There are dozens of groups and opposition organizations who do not distinguish between the outrage of al-Assad and the atrocities of the FSA, maintaining a distance to both. These groups have true democratic reflexes, and believe in civilian will, administration and opposition, and who are afraid that their country will become like Iraq. Three days ago, 20 of these organizations gathered in Damascus and explicitly told the FSA to stop clashes. Take a note of the emphasis.

5 – A buffer zone is a must: Those who shouted: “Our door is open. Run away from al-Assad and come to us,” those who did not let national deputies inside those camps, are now saying: “We cannot manage this crisis anymore; the United Nations should take over.” Before even having tended the wounds of Van, we are flirting with giant mirrors in pursuit of becoming a little United States. We miss that declaring new zones, be it a buffer zone or a no-fly zone, is a similar construction activity that happened to Iraq 10 years ago. Why are people running away from al-Assad? Because that militia named “free” is attacking the al-Assad army. Al-Assad then attacks them, and also, indeed, the people caught in between. The civilians then run away, and so you step in to protect the civilians. Does that sound familiar?

6 – It will not affect the Kurdish issue: After the capture of Öcalan, the most serious shift in the issue, of course, came with the Syrian crisis. Actually, Turkey became Syria’s domestic problem. Young Kurds are now distancing themselves from the logical solution that could be summarized thus: “We want education in our mother tongue and we should be able to call Diyarbakýr ‘Amed.’” Time is running out. The state is losing the Osman Baydemir generation with each passing day. On the one hand, it says it is against the independence of Kurds, while on the other hand it serves the de facto formation of a Kurdish state with every step it takes. Then it hopes that “Barzani will manage our Kurdish issue.”

7 – Our Syrian policy is good: I wonder if there is need for an explanation of this. Some things are definitely not going right. If we cannot do anything at a time when the country we have the longest border with, Syria, is being dragged into chaos with an undetermined end, like Iraq, we at least need to revise our 2023 dreams.

koray.caliskan@radikal.com.tr

Koray Çalışkan is a columnist for daily Radikal in which this piece was published August 31. It was translated into English by the Daily News staff.

September/01/2012

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Posted in Religion, Syria, Syrian Opposition, Turkey

Five reasons for Assad’s regime resilience

Posted on August 30, 2012 | Comments Off on Five reasons for Assad’s regime resilience
August 30, 2012|
There are five reasons why Bashar al-Assad’s Baathist regime survives, says a prominent observer.

Regional and international strategic rivalries reinforce the stalemate; the regime has exported the crisis to its neighbors, the complexity of the end game; the divided opposition; and the regime’s retention of a significant base of support, writes Time’s Tony Karon.

“Assad retains the fierce loyalty of a hard core of Alawites, a community that sees its own fate tied to that of his regime, fearing at best, disenfranchisement, and at worst, brutal retribution, should the Sunni-led rebellion triumph,” he notes:

Far from being ground down by the attrition of more than a year of full-blown civil war, the regime’s core fighting forces remain more determined and fanatical than ever. Indeed, as the International Crisis Group recently noted, the regime’s control has at once diminished and hardened,  its will and capacity to fight fueled by the sectarian character of the civil war.

Observers have expressed concern that the West’s failure to support democratic elements within the opposition is playing into the hands of radical Islamists.

Provision of technical assistance and even arms are needed to prevent extremists from filling a political vacuum, said Zalmay Khalilzad, a former US envoy to the UN and a board member of the National  Endowment for Democracy.

The US has offered to provide communications equipment and other forms of non-lethal assistance, but refuses to supply arms, at least openly.

With the formation of the Syrian Support Group, exiles and their allies have taken the initiative.

“If you keep giving people videos and cameras and satellite equipment so they can document how they are getting killed, it won’t stop the killing,” said Louay Sakka, one of the group’s eight board members, referring to the American aid. As for Mr. Assad’s loyalists, he added, “it’s only the language of force they understand.”

The New York Times reports that…

While maintaining good relations with the Obama administration, the group has also been a critic of the administration’s approach, with added credibility because of its ties inside Syria. Dr. Danan, for example, said President Obama’s warning that any use of chemical weapons by Syrian forces would be “a red line” that could provoke intervention amounted to a “green light” for Mr. Assad to use as much conventional force as possible.

Administration officials say that outsourcing the supply of money and arms to the rebels maintains a crucial distinction that keeps American military fingerprints off a conflict that has already turned into a bloody civil war.

“It’s not for us to determine what the donations are used for,” said one official, who requested anonymity to discuss administration thinking, describing a plausible deniability that might not be plausible to all. “It could be for medical supplies.”

Arguably, Assad’s strongest asset is, as Karon notes, the opposition is not only deeply divided, it also lacks a clear strategy:

When France’s President François Hollande urged the Syrian opposition earlier this week to form a transitional government in exile that France and other Western governments would immediately recognize as the legitimate government of Syria, he seemed to have forgotten one of the golden rules of French cuisine: You can’t reheat a souffle. …. The idea was quickly pooh-poohed by U.S. officials, who branded it “premature” given the consistent failure of Syrian opposition groups, over 18 months of rebellion, to create a single unified leadership.

Washington’s response was immediately slammed by Syrian National Council (SNC) leader Abdelbaset Sieda, who accused the U.S. of indecisiveness, but his complaints would have been undermined by the fact that his group’s longtime spokeswoman Basma Kodmani resigned from the SNC on the same day, declaring that it had failed to earn “the required credibility and did not maintain the confidence of the people”. Indeed, despite its support from the French government and Turkey, the SNC appears to have been largely sidelined, having failed to win the support of unarmed opposition groups on the ground, or of the various armed formations that fight under the Free Syrian Army banner.

Besides having no umbrella political leadership, the rebellion also appears to have limited military coherence, with hundreds of disparate fighting formations making their own decisions at local level, and Islamist fighters — some of them foreign — making an increasingly visible showing.

http://www.demdigest.net/blog/2012/08/five-reasons-for-assads-regime-resilience/

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Posted in EU-Syria, Iran-Syria, Syria, Syrian Opposition, Turkey-Syria, United Nations, US Middle East Politics, US-Syria

Iran’s role in Syria’s war makes a quick conclusion unlikely

Posted on August 20, 2012 | Comments Off on Iran’s role in Syria’s war makes a quick conclusion unlikely

Ranj Alaaldin |A ug 21, 2012

Syria’s Bashar Al Assad is still in power, although he is hardly “president” of a country in anything besides name. The opposition forces have shown signs of fracturing and in some areas are losing ground as the regime fights back to regain territory. The international community grows more wary of intervention and is losing faith in both the military capabilities of the opposition fighters and in their true intentions.

Recent developments may have given the regime reasons to be optimistic, despite continued fighting in Aleppo and the assassination of top leaders. Opposition forces have been complicit in a number of atrocities and human-rights abuses, undermining their efforts to obtain further technical, military and financial support from outside Syria.

An array of disparate groups are now fighting the government’s troops including, most worryingly, Islamist extremists who are taking control of the uprising. These extremists, who have been known to fly Al Qaeda’s flag, also are among the most effective of opposition fighters, and probably will be prominent if and when the regime falls.

Last week, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta accused Iran of helping to train and assist militia forces inside Syria, to relieve regime army units fighting the rebels. The claim followed reports that several officers of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard were among the 48 hostages seized by rebel fighters in Damascus, and a recent claim by a senior Iranian commander that Iranian forces were active in Syria.

This is bad news for the opposition and its international backers, since Iranian military support will probably stiffen the regime’s resolve and, at the least, prolong the conflict.

Active Iranian military advisers help the regime in two ways.

First, Iran can teach Syrians what few states know how to do effectively: defeat armed, non-state entities such as the ragtag groups now engaged in urban warfare. Iran knows all about such groups; it has created, trained and armed insurgent groups of this type for more than three decades – and with effect, as US and British forces found out in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. If anyone knows the tactics of such groups, Iran does.

The Syrian regime can also draw some confidence from recent events in Iraq, and Iran’s role there. Many Shia militias, battle-hardened from fighting against US and British forces, were under the guidance of Tehran’s military commanders. Some of these groups are still intact.

Shia militia leaders have claimed credit for forcing the British out of Basra in 2007, and the US out of Iraq in its entirety in December. Those claims are debatable, but the fact remains that these militias are still in Iraq, while the Americans and the British have gone.

The second role of Iranian-organised and -trained militia forces in Syria will be to have a chilling effect on potential foreign intervention, including a possible no-fly zone or humanitarian safe havens. If western powers believe that Iran is operating in Syria, they will be wary that an intervention could open a Pandora’s box for regional stability and the possibility of a proxy conflict.

It is clear that a large-scale intervention now threatens to lead to a protracted war – that would require taking on the diehard elements of the Syrian army, which could be supported by Iranian-trained militias and, possibly, even Iranian forces. The recent hostage-taking of Iranian “pilgrims”, who rebels claimed were Revolutionary Guard, indicates a growing likelihood that Iranian advisers will become directly involved.

If the Syrian regime does fall, a proxy war could turn into a protracted civil war, stoked and prolonged by outside forces. The claim by Iran is training a militia army makes a bloody sectarian civil war more probable, somewhat similar to what happened in Iraq between 2006 and 2007 – a conflict in which Iran played a significant part. In the absence of a commitment of western or Nato forces, the better comparison might be with Lebanon’s civil war, which lasted more than 15 years and resulted in over 150,000 death.

Syria’s opposition fighters, so far, have had a tactical advantage as a loose-knit, dispersed militia force that has stretched the regime’s forces and depleted its resources over a year of conflict. However, the rebels may soon be fighting an enemy that is acquiring comparable military advantages, with the help of an experienced ally that knows this kind of warfare well. Iran has a well-organised military model and possesses sophisticated weaponry. It might substantially turn the tide in this civil war.

 http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/irans-role-in-syrias-war-makes-a-quick-conclusion-unlikely

Ranj Alaaldin is a senior analyst with the Next Century Foundation, a conflict-resolution NGO based in London

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Posted in Iran, Syria, Syrian Opposition

Ceasefire only solution to Syrian crisis – opposition activist

Posted on August 14, 2012 | Comments Off on Ceasefire only solution to Syrian crisis – opposition activist

Published: 14 August, 2012, 18:25|
The only path to peace in Syira is a ceasefire, yet a proxy war backed by outside groups is holding both the Syrian government and the opposition hostage, Syrian political activist Abdul-Aziz Al-Khair says.

Khair has been an opposition supporter for over a decade in a country that’s now torn by violence.

Oksana Boyko: He was a critic of the Syrian authorities long before it was safe to do that, spending 14 years in prison for his political activism. Doctor Abdul-Aziz Al-Khair, a prominent member of Syria’s domestic position is joining us now on RT. Thank you very much for your time, sir.

Abdul-Aziz Al-Khair: Thank you for receiving me.

RT: Syrian opposition has so many faces at this moment: there are bearded men with Kalashnikovs, there are some people who are trying to direct the uprising from abroad. You represent grassrootopposition. Do you think that your longtime goals for this country, the future that you envisage, is actually being served by ongoing clashes?

AK: Well, it’s really important, and a clever question, thank you for that. It’s not easy now to decide what we’ve struggled for a long time to achieve in Syria is within hand reach nowadays. Because too many complications happened in the uprising of Syria. The uprising started peacefully for democratic goals, freedom and dignity. But then there was a curve, because the regime decided to treat those wishing all by military means and thus forcing Syrians to hold arms, to defend themselves at the beginning. And then there was a chance – really an important chance for extremists and the opposition to enlarge their forces and to gain support from some regional states – and maybe global, as well, international, I mean. And that’s where the things started to get worse and worse.

But we still stick to hope – because we have to, and we’re still fighting to gain a peaceful political process in order to preserve the Syrian people aims from the uprising.

RT: Do you have any specific idea how you can start this political process – because everybody’s talking about the reconciliation – but nobody knows how to carry this out.

AK: We’re trying to sort out any kind of understanding, any kind of agreement on the international scale to convince all the political parties involved, including the Americans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Europeans, Turkes, Iranians and Gulf States – that now it’s the situation that everybody is losing. And the result of the situation – if it goes on – will be a loose, loose situation. No one will benefit from that. That’s why everybody must cooperate to convince the military groups, first of all the regime, second – arm groups of the opposition. It’s high time, indeed, come to a ceasefire – and to start negotiations about what to do and how to arrange some peaceful future for the country. Of course, this includes the President and his family must step aside at least for a while. And power must be passed on to some acceptable person (from the regime), acceptable to the regime, and acceptable to the opposition as well to start a transitional period, in which some new constitution and some new legality will be established in the country.

RT: If those transparent elections that you are envisaging, would result in the current President Assad getting the majority of votes – would that be acceptable to you and, I guess, most importantly – would that be acceptable to the world?

AK: Once any person accepts the principles of voting and the voting is really legal and transparent, everyone must accept the results, the outcome of the elections.

RT: You spent 14 years in prison and definitely you have an extra grind with the Assad’s family. Why are you not among those who are carrying arms at this point? Why are you not fighting him?

AK: First of all, I’ve been studying and practicing politics for decades. And I came to the conclusion, which is the only logical conclusion, that arms will lead to the destruction of the country and not to democracy. It is a harmful way, it is useless and it will support the extremists on both sides. That is why from the very beginning it was very clear for me and for others that peaceful struggle is the only way towards a democratic future of the country.

RT: You know, in Western eyes the home grown civil opposition and armed groups are perceived as allies. Given what you’ve just said why haven’t you or groups who support you been more vocal in trying to distance themselves from using terror for achieving political goals?

AK: Among the armed opposition you have different political goals and different political attitudes. I believe many groups through the armed opposition declared they will be in favor of a political process on certain terms and conditions, while others would not respond to this. We have some Salafists, some Islamic extremists who have their own agendas. So, among the civil and peaceful opposition there are really connections with some armed opposition groups. And there is a common understanding among them not to harm the civilians and not to attack any infrastructure establishments. And it is only legal to use arms to defend lives and civilians.

RT: From the very beginning you have been strongly against international intervention into Syrian affairs. And one can argue what we have now in Syria is a form of covert military intervention because you have flow of arms going through your borders. So, even you admit that there are some foreign nationals fighting the Syrian army in the north. What do you think is more damaging: the open “Libyan-style” military intervention or covert but still lasting intervention in the form of supplying arms?

AK: The “Libyan style” is a completely imaginary if you try to apply it in Syria, it is impossible. All the circumstances are different – the Syrian, the regional and the international circumstances. What happened in Libyan cannot be repeated in Syria – that is number one. Number two – yes, day after day the struggle and the fight in Syria is becoming some kind of a proxy war. Day after day the regime and the armed groups in the opposition are becoming more and more hostages in the hands of their allies, they are losing their independent decision, they cannot apply what they think or believe in because they need support in arms, in ammunition, financial support, etc.

RT: Freedom can mean very different things to many different people. And the footage that we often get from the north, of the fighters often shouting “Allah Akbar”, there also reports that they are fighting for the creation of the Islamic state and my question to you – is there any danger that in search for greater political freedoms Syria may lose other forms of freedom – for example, social, religious gender freedom and all those other aspects of dignity and freedom?

AK: Simply, very frankly – yes, there is a possibility now and it was not created just now, it accumulated through days, that the Syrians may lose some of the freedoms that they are used to. It is a possibility. But there are other possibilities as well. That is why we say you cannot preserve you’re your right by just being afraid or wait. You must be active. We believe that the majority of Syrians will not choose any kind of religious state.

RT: I sometimes get an impression that here in Syria the hatred for the opponent within some people is stronger than the love for their own country. And they would rather be right then merciful to people around them. In the current circumstances and given your experience, how can you foster the spirit of reconciliation given how far this situation has gone already?

AK: Among some Syrians, not the majority of Syrians. Among the active Syrians now. The majority is not active yet. And I have a thought from time to time – what on earth is going on, how are we doing that. Yes, we are questioning ourselves. But I believe this is the reaction which will come to an end – sooner or later. Because it is not the real culture or the real soul of the Syrian history of the Syrian people.
http://www.rt.com/news/syria-opposition-activist-crisis-653/

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Posted in Middle East Geopolitics, Syria, Syrian Opposition

Syria: western diplomats lose faith in SNC to unite opposition groups

Posted on August 13, 2012 | Comments Off on Syria: western diplomats lose faith in SNC to unite opposition groups

US, UK and France seek to build more direct links with disparate rebels amid fears that Islamists are getting Gulf donations

, diplomatic editor
Monday 13 August 2012 19.12 BST

The US, Britain and France are scrambling to retain their influence with Syrian opposition groups amid fears that most support from the Gulf states has been diverted towards extremist Islamic groups.

Rising concern that an increasingly sectarian civil war could spread across the region, combined with reports of brutality by some opposition groups, and evidence that the best-organised and best-funded rebel groups are disproportionately Salafist (militant Sunni fundamentalists), has triggered an urgent policy change in western capitals.

Washington, London and Paris now agree that efforts to encourage a unified opposition around the exile-led Syrian National Council (SNC) have failed, and are now seeking to cultivate more direct links with internal Syrian groups.

Ausama Monajed, a British-based SNC member, conceded: “The SNC could have done a better job, a more effective job, in organising the forms on the ground, and now the key issue is to bring fighting groups together in some other framework. But that does not mean that the SNC will be sidelined altogether. It is still the biggest political grouping and has a political and diplomatic role to play.”

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, flew to Istanbul on Saturday to meet Syrian opposition activists and boost military and intelligence co-operation with the Turkish government to prevent the violence spreading across the border. Jon Wilks, Britain’s special envoy to the Syrian opposition, was also in Istanbul last week for a meeting with someone the Foreign Office described as “a senior political representative” of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), during which he stressed the importance of human rights and respect for minorities as a condition of future co-operation.

On Friday, the UK announced £5m in new non-military aid to Syrian opposition groups, pointedly insisting that all the recipients should be organisations inside Syria, therefore excluding the SNC. Clinton’s meetings in Istanbul were also intended to sidestep the exile group, on the grounds that it had little influence on events inside Syria.

“This was a conclusion the state department came to some time ago, and it is just now percolating through into policy,” said Joseph Holliday, an expert on the Syrian rebels at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

Both Wilks and the US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford – who was withdrawn from Damascus last October out of concern for his safety – took part in an unpublicised meeting in Cairo at the beginning of the month. The aim of the meeting, organised by the Doha centre of the Washington-based Brookings Institution thinktank, and attended by external and internal opposition groups including the FSA, was to set up a broad-based committee to hammer out a mutually agreed transition plan.

In France, the government of François Hollande is under intense pressure, particularly from former president Nicolas Sarkozy, to intervene directly on the side of the opposition.

Fabrice Balanche, a Syria expert at the University of Lyon, said the incoming foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, “realised that France had invested too much political capital in the SNC”. He said the new government had instead thrown its weight behind Manaf Tlass – a former Republican Guard general and member of Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle – who defected in July. France is hoping the FSA will coalesce around Tlass, providing some coherence to the disparate array of militias.

However, a Syrian financier linked to the opposition warned that the FSA would remain divided as long as it relied on multiple, uncoordinated sources of funding. “The local brigade commanders on the ground swear allegiance to whoever supports them and the expat community sending them money is completely divided,” the financier said. “These are [Syrian] expats in the States and the Gulf using their own trusted channels for getting money through, so the money is pouring in from many different pockets. The number of fighters each commander can summon wax and wane with his ability to arm and pay them and their families, so there is no particular leader with enough clout to bring the brigades together.”

The exceptions to this rule, he said, were Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but that money went disproportionately to Salafist and jihadist groups. “The most organised systems are run by extreme Islamist groups and they have the highest income. The more extreme brutality tends to come from that direction, but they have the most ammunition and guns, and they get their money from a unified source. All the other money comes from multiple sources and multiple channels. You can only unify these units with a unified source of money.”

Julien Barnes-Dacey, a Middle Eastern expert at the European Council for Foreign Relations, said that western states realised that “if they don’t get on board now, they will lose every opportunity of leverage. If the Saudis and Qataris run loose with the groups they are backing, there will be great chance of blowback.”

“Blowback” is a term widely used to describe the backing of jihadist rebels against the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the 1980s, which provided a recruiting ground for al-Qaida and global jihadism.

According to western diplomats, a Kuwaiti sheikh is also playing a key role in channelling money collected in the Gulf to militant groups judged to have sufficient Salafist credentials.

Western influence with the FSA is limited by a continued refusal to supply arms because of the uncertainty of where the weapons would end up. Barack Obama is reported to have issued a “presidential finding” (a secret executive order) earlier this year, stepping up CIA activity in and around Syria, but that too stopped short of arms supplies.

According to reports from Washington and the Turkish-Syrian border, the main US intelligence role as been to act with the Turks in stopping arms reaching groups they view as undesirable.

On her visit to Istanbul, Clinton did hint at more direct action in the future. She said the US and Turkey had agreed on “very intensive operational planning” by military and intelligence officials. “We have been closely co-ordinating over the course of this conflict, but now we need to get into the real details.”

Clinton did not exclude the possibility of setting up a no-fly zone, long advocated by Turkey but rejected up to now by Washington because it would require a large-scale military operation.

On Saturday she said the joint US-Turkish planning team would perform an “intense analysis” of all options as a possible precursor to more direct assistance.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/13/syria-opposition-groups-national-council

 

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Posted in EU-Syria, Middle East Geopolitics, Syria, Syrian Opposition, Turkey, Turkey-Syria, US Middle East Politics, US-Syria

The Syrian Spillover.

Posted on August 11, 2012 | Comments Off on The Syrian Spillover.

Is anyone prepared for the unintended consequences of the war for Syria? |
BY DANIEL L. BYMAN, KENNETH M. POLLACK | AUGUST 10, 2012|

The Syrian civil war has gone from bad to worse, with casualties mounting and horrors multiplying. Civil wars like Syria’s are obviously tragedies for the countries they consume, but they can also be catastrophes for their neighbors. Long-lasting and bloody civil wars often overflow their borders, spreading war and misery.

In 2006, as Iraq spiraled downward into the depths of intercommunal carnage, we conducted a study of spillover from recent civil wars in the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere in order to identify patterns in how conflicts spread across borders. Since then, Iraq itself, along with Afghanistan, Libya, and Yemen, have furnished additional examples of how dangerous spillover can be. For instance, weapons from Libya have empowered fighters in Mali who have seized large swathes of that country, while al Qaeda-linked terrorists exploiting the chaos in Yemen launched nearly successful terrorist attacks on the United States.

Spillover is once again in the news as the conflict in Syria evinces the same dangerous patterns. Thousands of refugees are streaming across the border into Turkey as Ankara looks warily at Kurdish groups using Northern Syria for safe haven. Growing refugee communities are causing strain in Jordan and Lebanon. Meanwhile, the capture of 48 Iranians, who may be paramilitary specialists, could pull Tehran further into the conflict. Israel eyes developments in Syria warily, remembering repeated wars and concern over the country’s massive chemical weapons arsenal. For the United States, these developments are particularly important because spillover from the civil war could threaten America’s vital interests far more than a war contained within Syria’s borders.

Of course, much will depend on how exactly this spillover plays out — and certainly no one yet knows what will happen in the wildly unpredictable war for control of Syria. But if past informs present, the intensity of the war effect typically correlates strongly to the intensity of the spillover, often with devastating consequences. At their worst, civil wars in one country can cause civil wars in neighboring states or can metastasize into regional war. And it’s the severity of the spillover that should dictate the appropriate response.

There are five archetypal patterns of spillover from civil wars.

Refugees: Spillover often starts with refugees. Whenever there is conflict, civilians flee to safety. The sad truth about civil wars is that often civilians are targets: Without clear front lines and when “enemy combatants” can be any young male who can pick up a gun, the danger is clear. So the goal of the warring armies is often to kill as many of the other side’s civilians as possible or at least drive them from their homes. To avoid the rapine and economic devastation that accompany these kinds of conflicts, whole communities often flee to a foreign country or become displaced within their borders, as more than a million Syrians have.

In addition to their own misery, refugees can create serious — even devastating — problems for the nations hosting them. The plight of Palestinian refugees and their impact on Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria since 1948 is a case in point, contributing to instability in their host countries, international terrorism, and wars between Israel and its neighbors.

Beyond this, refugees can often become carriers of conflict. Angry and demoralized refugee populations represent ideal recruitment pools for the warring armies; the Taliban have drawn from angry young Afghan refugees raised in Pakistan, offering them a chance for vengeance and power. Indeed, refugee camps frequently become bases to rest, plan, and stage combat operations back into the country from which the refugees fled. For instance, the camps set up in the Democratic Republic of Congo after Rwanda’s genocide quickly became a base of operations for fleeing Hutu rebels to regroup.

Terrorism: Many civil wars have become breeding grounds for particularly noxious terrorist groups, while others have created hospitable sanctuaries for existing groups to train, recruit, and mount operations — at times against foes entirely unconnected to the war itself. The Palestine Liberation Organization, Hezbollah, the Tamil Tigers, and al Qaeda, to name only a few, all trace their origins to intercommunal wars.

Today, after years of punishing U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, al Qaeda’a core is weak, but its offshoots remain strong in countries wracked by internal conflict such as Yemen and Somalia. The most recent flare-up is in Mali, where fighters fleeing Muammar al-Qaddafi’s Libya fled with arms looted from his arsenals, and have seized parts of Mali, in some areas even imposing a draconian form of Islamic law. While there had been intermittent rebellions in Northern Mali for years, the civil war in Libya vastly increased the capability of the rebels and created a worse terrorism problem for the region, andpotentially for the world.

These terrorist groups rarely remain confined by the country’s borders. Some will nest among refugee populations, launching attacks back into the country in civil war, and inviting attack against the refugee populations hosting them. In other cases, terrorists may decide that neighboring regimes or a segment of a neighboring society are aiding their adversaries and attack them to try to scare them into stopping their assistance.

Terrorists often start by flowing toward civil wars, but later begin flowing away from them. Jihadists first went to Afghanistan to fight in that civil war in the 1980s but by the 1990s began using it as a base to launch attacks against other countries — including, of course, the United States on 9/11.

Secessionism: As the Balkan countries demonstrated in the 1990s, seemingly triumphant secessionist bids can set off a domino effect. Slovenia’s declaration of independence inspired Croatia, which prompted Bosnia to do the same, which encouraged Macedonia, and then Kosovo. Strife and conflict followed all of these declarations.

Sometimes it is the desire of one subgroup within a state to break away that triggers the civil war in the first place. In other cases, different groups vie for control of the state, but as the fighting drags on, one or more groups may decide that their only recourse is to secede. At times, a minority comfortable under the old regime may fear discrimination from a new government. The South Ossetians, for example, accepted Russian rule but rebelled when Georgia broke off from the Soviet Union, as they feared they would face discrimination in the new Georgian state. After Russia helped South Ossetia defeat the Georgian forces that tried to re-conquer the area in 1991-1992, the next domino fell when ethnic Abkhaz also rebelled and created their own independent area in 1991-1992. The frozen conflict that resulted from this civil war finally burst into an international shooting war between Georgia and Russia in August 2008.

Radicalization: One of the most ineffable but also one of the most potent manifestations of spillover is the tendency for a civil war in one country to galvanize and radicalize neighboring populations. They regularly radicalize neighboring populations when a group in a neighboring state identifies with a related group caught up in the civil war across the border. These tribal, ethnic, and sectarian feelings always predate the conflict, but the outbreak of war among the same groups just across the border makes them tangible and immediate — giving them a reason to hate neighbors and resent their own government.

They may demand that their government or community leaders act to support one side or another. Alternatively, they may agitate for harsh actions in their own countries against groups they see as sympathizing with the enemy side over the border. Thus, the Iraqi civil war of 2005-2007 galvanized Sunnis in Egypt, Jordan, the Maghreb, and the Persian Gulf states both to demand that their own governments do more to support the Iraqi Sunni groups and (at least in the Gulf) to demand harsher treatment of their own Shiite populations.

At its most dangerous, this aspect of spillover can contribute to civil wars next door. The Lebanese civil war that began in 1975 prompted the Syrian Sunnis to launch their own civil war against Bashar al-Assad’s father in 1976, a conflict that only ended with the horrific massacre of 20,000-40,000 people at Hama in 1982.

Intervention: But perhaps the most dangerous form of spillover is when neighboring states intervene in a civil war, transforming a local conflict into a regional one. Perversely, the goal is often to diminish the risks of spillover such as terrorism and radicalization. But it can take many forms: intervening in a limited fashion either to shut down the civil war, to help one side win, or just to eliminate the source of the spillover. Occasionally, a neighboring state will see a civil war as an opportunity to grab some long coveted resource or territory.

Typically, even limited intervention by a regional power only makes the problem worse. Countries get tied to “clients” within the civil war and end up doubling down on their support for them. They assume that “just a little more” will turn the tide in their favor. Worse still, they can see neighborhood rivals intervening in the civil war and feel compelled to do the same to prevent their enemy from making gains. So when Rwanda and Uganda intervened in Congo in the mid-1990s to drive the genocidaires out of the refugee camps and topple the hostile regime in Kinshasa that supported them, so too did Angola, which sought to block them. As the conflict wore on, several powers tried to carve out buffer zones where their preferred proxies would rule — and where they could grab some of Congo’s abundant natural resources. Seven of Congo’s neighbors ended up intervening, turning the Congolese civil war into what became known as “Africa’s World War.”

At its worst, this pattern can produce direct conflict between the intervening states over the carcass of the country in civil war. Syria first intervened in Lebanon in 1975 to end the radicalization of its own Sunni population. But the Syrians soon found that diplomacy, covert action, and support to various proxy groups were inadequate and reluctantly launched a full-scale invasion the following year. For its part, Israel suffered from terrorism emanating from the Lebanese civil war and covertly supported its own proxies, launched targeted counterterrorism operations, and even limited military incursions, before deciding in 1982 to invade to try to impose a single (friendly) government in Beirut. The result was a conventional war between Israel and Syria fought in Lebanon. But even winning did little for Israel. Thirty years later — 18 in painful occupation of southern Lebanon — Israel still faces a terrorism problem from Lebanon, and the Jewish state’s nemesis, Hezbollah, born of the Israeli invasion, dominates Lebanese politics.

Bad Signs in Syria

Our 2006 study also examined the factors that lead to the worst forms of spillover. They include ethnic, religious, and other “identity” groups that are in both the country caught in civil war and its neighbors; neighboring states that share the same ethno-religious divides being fought over by the country in civil war; fragile regimes in the neighboring states; porous borders; and a history of violence between the neighbors.

Unfortunately, Syria and its neighbors exhibit precisely these traits, explaining why we are already seeing the typical patterns of spillover from the Syrian civil war, and why spillover from the conflict could get much worse.

The Syrian conflict has produced more than 120,000 officially registered refugees, but the real figure is closer to 300,000. Turkey has 43,000 registered refugees from Syria and probably more than 25,000 that have not registered. The Turks believe that the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), a separatist Kurdish terrorist group, is using this population to infiltrate Turkey to launch a new violent bid for independence. Ankara is convinced that PKK fighters allied with the Alawite regime have taken control of parts of Syria, particularly in ethnically Kurdish areas of the country. In response, Turkey is aggressively enforcing the sanctity of its border even as it assists Syrian refugees who are taking the fight back home. Public opinion in Turkey is strongly anti-Assad, and popular frustration grows as Ankara seems unable to stem the violence.

Iraq is already struggling to avoid sliding back into its own civil war. It doesn’t need any pushing from Syria, but that is just what it is getting. Iraqi Sunnis identify wholeheartedly with their Syrian brethren whom they see as fighting against a Shiite-dominated government backed by Iran — which they see as an exact parallel with their own circumstances. External support to the Syrian opposition from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Sunni Arab governments is reportedly flowing through the Sunni tribes of Western Iraq, many of which span the Syrian border. This support appears to be an important cause of the resurgence of al Qaeda in Iraq and the worsening sectarian violence there. The Iraqi regime (rightly) claims that it is fighting the same terrorists that the Alawite Syrian regime is struggling with on the other side of the border. As the Alawites are a splinter of Shiism, the growing cooperation between Damascus and Shiite-dominated Baghdad is feeding Sunni fears of a grand Shiite alliance led by Iran. All of this conjures a self-fulfilling prophecy about sectarian war.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Kurds are now contemplating a bid for independence in a way that they haven’t for many years. Key Kurdish leaders, including Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani, have concluded that they cannot work with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — whom they routinely brand as a “Shiite Saddam.” And they increasingly believe that Turkey might eventually be persuaded to support such a bid. This makes whatever happens with Syria’s Kurds of particular importance. Indeed, Barzani and the Turks are wrestling against the PKK and the Syrian regime for the loyalty of Syria’s Kurds, who might well attempt to declare independence, putting pressure on Iraq’s Kurds to do the same.

Lebanon may be suffering the worst so far. It is inundated with Syrian refugees — 30,000 have registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, but the latest spike in violence probably added at least another 10,000 — a number the tiny country simply cannot handle. The Syrian conflict is tearing at the seams of Lebanon’s already fragmented politics. Its Sunnis champion the Syrian opposition while Shiite Hezbollah backs the Syrian regime, provoking gunfights in the streets of Beirut and Tripoli. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is reportedly funneling arms to the Syrian opposition through Sunni groups in Lebanon and opposition groups are building bases in Lebanon, triggering reprisal attacks by Syrian regime forces and their Hezbollah allies.

So far, Jordan has escaped relatively unscathed, but that may not last. Amman already faces huge challenges from its Palestinian and Iraqi refugee populations, and now refugees from Syria have begun to flow in (almost 40,000 officially at last count, but other sources put the number closer to 140,000). Syrian army and Jordanian border patrol forces have clashed as the Jordanians have tried to help Syrian refugees. Moreover, many Jordanians, including not only those of Palestinian descent but also the monarchy’s more traditional supporters, have lost patience with King Abdullah II’s endless unfulfilled promises of reform triggering rioting and terrorism there unrelated to Syria’s troubles. More refugees, terrorism, and a further radicalized population could be more than the Hashemite Kingdom can take.

Remarkably, Israel has gotten off scot-free, so far. While we can all hope that will last, it would be foolish to insist blindly that it will.

The longer the civil war in Syria lasts, the more likely it is that the spillover will get worse. And it’s possible this war could drag on for months, even years. The United States and other powerful countries have shown no inclination to intervene to snuff out the conflict. Within Syria, both the regime and the opposition have shown themselves too powerful to be defeated but too weak to triumph. The war has also left the country awash in arms, so any new government will face a daunting task unifying and rebuilding the country. Most ominously, the opposition is badly divided, so victory against Assad might simply mean a shift to new rounds of combat among the various opposition groups, just as Afghanistan’s mujahideen fell to slaughtering one another even before they finished off the Soviet-backed regime there in 1992.

In the best case, the current problems will deepen but not explode. Refugee flows will increase and impose an ever greater burden on their host countries, but the stress won’t cause any to collapse. Terrorism will continue and more innocent people will die, but it won’t tear apart any of the neighboring states. And, from the narrow perspective of U.S. interests, the violence would remain focused within Syria rather than becoming regional, let alone global. Various groups — starting with the Iraqi Kurds — will continue to flirt with secession and other tensions will simmer, but none of these factors will boil over. The neighbors will provide some forms of support to various groups within Syria without crossing any Rubicons. Overall, the Middle East will get worse but won’t immolate.

This best case is not very good, and unfortunately it’s also not the most likely. Worse scenarios seem more plausible. The fragility of Lebanon and Iraq in particular leaves them vulnerable to new civil wars of their own. It might be hard, but it is not impossible to envision a regional war growing from the Syrian morass. Turkey seems like the primary candidate to up its involvement in Syria. Fears that Kurdish secessionism may spread, mounting criticism that the regime is ignoring atrocities next door, or a risky belief that Ankara could tip the balance in favor of one faction over another might eventually lead the Turks to intervene militarily — grudgingly and in a limited fashion at first, of course. If the plight of the Assad regime worsens, and if the Turks are heavily engaged, Iran might press Baghdad to increase its direct support of the Alawites and step up its own aid. Baghdad will be reluctant, but it might feel more inclined to do so if the Turks continue to support the Iraqi Kurds in their fight with the central government and if worsening internal divisions in Iraq — doubtless exacerbated by spillover from Syria — leave the Maliki government even more dependent on Iranian support.

An embattled Alawite regime — especially one facing ever greater Turkish intervention — might opt to employ its chemical warfare arsenal or, alternatively, amp up terrorist attacks on Israel to try to turn its civil war into an Arab-Israeli conflict, a development that could turn public and regional opinion in favor of the regime and discredit Assad’s opponents. Under those circumstances, Israel might mount limited military operations into Syria to take out its chemical weapons caches or terrorist bases, which no doubt would have repercussions among Syria’s neighbors and Arab states in general.

So far, the humanitarian nightmares of Syria have evinced little more than pity from the American people and only modest aid from their government. After a decade-plus of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is justifiably deep ambivalence about new military commitments in the Middle East. Stories of the humanitarian nightmares of Syria have evinced little more than pity from the American people. This creates a dilemma for the Obama administration and concerned Americans as they watch Syria burn: They have no interest in getting involved, but standing idly by is risky. If spillover from Syria worsens, squaring this circle could prove a major challenge.

At the very least, Washington should place a premium on keeping the Syrian civil war from dragging on indefinitely. Stepping up our efforts to arm, train, and unify the Syrian opposition factions that matter most — those fighting the regime within Syria rather than those squabbling outside it — would be a good place to start. Progress is likely to be limited, but Washington carries a bigger stick than the regional allies already backing Assad’s opponents and U.S. leadership can help prevent them from working at cross purposes. Supporting the efforts of our regional allies to feed, shelter, and police their refugee communities would be another option. Some neighbors could also use help dealing with their own political and economic problems, which could help them better weather the spillover from Syria. And some medicine might be needed along with the sugar: Pressing our regional friends to begin overdue reforms will help mitigate the discrimination and misery among their own populations that can act as kindling when sparks from Syria come flying their way.

The Syrian civil war is undoubtedly a tragedy for the people of that country. The longer it burns, though, the more likely it will ignite something much worse. However difficult it is to end the fighting today, it will be even harder as the violence snowballs and spillover grows. Less can be more when it is soon.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/10/the_syrian_spillover?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full

Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack are, respectively, the director of research and a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. Daniel Byman is also a professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. They are the co-authors of the 2007 study Things Fall Apart: Containing the Spillover from an Iraqi Civil War.

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Posted in Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey

Is Manaf Tlass the only ‘saviour’ of Syria?

Posted on August 4, 2012 | Comments Off on Is Manaf Tlass the only ‘saviour’ of Syria?

By Bronco – Syriacomment
The increased suspicions by the Western countries that neither the FSA nor the SNC are a reliable entity that could lead the country in the future after the fall of the regime, has changed the direction of the efforts.
There is a clear consensus appearing in the media that reflect the western and Arab government views, that nobody wants the removal of the whole regime anymore, they want the removal of the head as a scapegoat so a new phase of the relation between the opposition and the regime can start.
Nevertheless, unless the Syrian government is certain that the new phase will be a viable one for the Syrians and in particular for the Alawites and the other minorities, they would not sacrifice Bashar Al Assad.
So now we are facing two issues. One is the military, the other one is the the political.
The military is happening on the ground and will probably drag a few more weeks to become meaningful. If the rebels win and there is no political plans, the country will fall into a worst chaos. If they loose, then the regime will be able to hold for few more months until the next assault. In both cases there is a need for a political solution to stop the violence.
On the political side, intense efforts are made by the opposition and their sponsors  to find a suitable opposition leadership to the ‘transitional entity’ that would be acceptable to the regime for future collaboration.
Manaf Tlass, the defected brigadier general, friend of Bashar Al Assad,  seems to be the favorite, although the only one. Whether his defection was simply arranged by Bashar al Assad just for that purpose or whether the guy is genuine is irrelevant. He is a sunni representing the business Syrians as well as the army that are the two pillars of the Syrian state.
He is obviously the only such candidate and therefore the best to enter into a  negotiation with the Syrian government.
No wonder Saudi Arabia, France and Turkey are pampering him.

The SNC who wants that role opposes Manaf and have no other candidate to propose. As an excuse they insist that they are busy preparing the tasks needed in the aftermath of the victory rather than looking for a leader. Leading a post revolution without a leadership figure is an illusion.

Therefore if the sponsors of the opposition do not agree on the only leader figure in town, Manaf Tlass, and are not able to force it on the SNC and the others than only the military failure or success will decide of the future of Syria that may be a continuous state of violence that would gradually affect all the neighbors.
It’s up to the Friends of Syria to find the solution. Will they?

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Posted in Middle East Geopolitics, Syria, Syrian Opposition

Propects of a transitional government in Syria?

Posted on August 1, 2012 | Comments Off on Propects of a transitional government in Syria?

By Bronco on Syriacomment
-01 August 2012-

In view of the disaster of the military approach, and the FSA failure both militarily and psychologically to win the hearts and minds of the Syrians and the West, the new buzz word is now an urgent “transitional government”
Yet the options for any ‘urgent’ action are limited.

– The ‘government in exile” option: The SNC is unanimously recognized as a failure, with no legitimacy and unable to get the status of “a government in exile”. Any attempts by other opposition group to cater for a new leader (Haytham al Maleh) are boycotted by the SNC. Dead end.

– The ‘military transitional’ government seems impossible to create.
The Syrian Army is still cohesive, there are no massive defections which reflects the hesitant mood of the common Syrians. The FSA is daily discrediting itself with its methods and association to Islamist extremists. Result: Syrians and the West don’t trust the FSA’s ability and legitimacy to take over the country. Dead end.

– The “mixed-mode transitional government” including regime figures and opposition figures. In order to reach that, a ceasefire and a dialog are necessary between the two factions. The opposition refuses to talk to the regime, unless it stops the attacks. The regime will not talk to the opposition until it lays down its arms. Even if Bashar al Assad decided to leave to allow that a dialog materializes, the opposition and the regime figures need a long time to be able to deal with each other. Dead end

The only breakthrough could emerge from the outcome of the Aleppo battle.
If the Syrian army is able to control Aleppo, the military arm of the opposition will be weakened to such a point that they will either accept a ceasefire or be totally annihilated. That would trigger the political opposition to rush to an unconditional dialog with the regime. Under Russian and Chinese pressures, the regime will work to share power with the opposition

If the rebels continue to harass the Syrian army without seriously weakening it, the guerilla war will continue and Syria will become like Iraq with different factions killing each others and the country gradually dividing . In these circumstances, the regime will not negotiate with the opposition and will keep the power.

The question of Bashar Al Assad leaving or not is irrelevant as the regime will stay in power until a suitable transition gets implemented.

What is left now is to wait for the battlefield outcome.

http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/?p=15563#comment-321681

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Posted in EU-Syria, Syria, Syrian Opposition, Turkey, Turkey-Syria, US-Syria