Linda S. Heard writes: It will also leave the Lebanese and the Palestinians, who have few bargaining chips, more vulnerable to Tel Aviv
Syria may believe it can get away with using helicopter gunships and tanks to disperse demonstrations, torturing and killing teenage boys and making mass arrests because after all there is a precedent. In February 1982, the late president Hafez Al Assad sent 12,000 troops to quell a Sunni revolt in the town of Hama killing 38,000 residents.
Nobody can deny that Syria is in crisis. The sad thing is it may have been avoided if President Bashar Al Assad would have had the wisdom and foresight to implement political reform from the get-go like King Mohammad VI of Morocco is doing. Instead, the Syrian leader made empty promises before instituting a barbaric crackdown. He only needed to look at Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen to know that state oppression of peaceful protesters is not only morally unacceptable, it simply doesn't work.
Syria may believe it can get away with using helicopter gunships and tanks to disperse demonstrations, torturing and killing teenage boys and making mass arrests because after all there is a precedent. In February 1982, the late president Hafez Al Assad sent 12,000 troops to quell a Sunni revolt in the town of Hama killing 38,000 residents.
But that was a different era. People in the Middle East have soaked up the heady atmosphere of ‘the Arab Spring' and will no longer accept dictatorship or being treated like wayward children. Ironically, when Bashar Al Assad took power on the death of his father in 2000 he vowed to modernise, liberalise and reform his country but his pledges were thought to have been thwarted by his father's old guard. It appears this intelligent, mild-mannered former eye-doctor has now succumbed to the credo of the dinosaurs.
Right now, Al Assad is on a losing wicket. If he doesn't lance the boil by resigning it will keep erupting. Moreover, the more blood is shed the more likely he will one day have to answer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. At the same time, he is alienating western powers and losing friends. For instance, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who once called himself Al Assad's ‘brother' has described the Syrian regime's use of violence as ‘savagery'. He has also opened Turkey's borders to Syrian refugees and indicated that he may be willing to back United Nations intervention.
No green light
There's a great debate going on as to whether intervention in Syria on the lines of Nato's action in Libya is a viable option. In any event, this is probably a moot point because recent attempts by the US and the UK to secure a UN resolution authorising anti-Syrian sanctions have been blocked by Russia and China which believe Nato has over-stepped its mandate to protect civilians in Libya. A spokesman for Russia's Foreign Office says the ‘Syrians themselves' should resolve the situation ‘without any outside influence'.
Nato will not, therefore, receive a green light from the UN Security Council to proceed with military action in Syria, although it could potentially go it alone as it did in the former Yugoslavia or a Western coalition could be formed on the lines of that which invaded Iraq.
It must be said, though, that those options are unlikely. Syria, which shares a border with Israel, is not Libya. Plus, the Syrian port of Tartus is currently under renovation to host a Russian base in 2013 and Damascus is closely allied with Tehran. In any case, the American public has little appetite for further military adventures in the Middle East while Nato is already pleading for its member countries to step up to the plate in Libya.
That said, the international nuclear watchdog the IAEA has ratcheted up the pressure on Syria by referring Damascus to the UN Security Council alleging that the Syrian facility bombed by Israel in September 2007 was, in fact, a plutonium reactor intended to produce nuclear bombs; the White House has issued a statement to the effect the US will ensure Syria is held accountable; unmistaken echoes of Iraq there.
As much as I hope the Syrian people are successful in achieving their freedom, I'm with Russia on this one. In the first place, any tears shed by Washington are of the crocodile variety when the US and its allies were responsible for over one million deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq and were torturing innocent detainees in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Any censure of Syria from that direction is the pot calling the kettle black.
Secondly, any US-led military intervention in Syria would favour Israel. As a quid pro quo, any new Syrian government would be under Washington's heel and would be leant on to make concessions to cement peace with Israel and would, without doubt, be forced to halt Hezbollah's weapons supplies and cut ties with Iran. That scenario would leave the Lebanese and the Palestinians, who have few bargaining chips as it is, more vulnerable to Israeli aggression than ever.
Writing in Ha'aretz Aluf Benn says Israel "must probe for strategic opportunities — for example, a scenario in which the Al Assad regime is replaced by a pro-western government that will cut itself off from Iran and Hezbollah".
My heart goes out to the Syrian people but like the Egyptian and the Tunisians they should face this challenge alone. If they open a crack in the door to those who destroyed Iraq and allow Israel absolute immunity, ‘freedom' will come with a price tag in terms of loss of independence and dignity they may not want to pay.
Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com
Related:
Soraya wrote:
This is what I said a month ago on my RT interview:
CrossTalk: Iran’s Backyard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w2J07bWaGs
This is what I said a month ago on my RT interview:
CrossTalk: Iran’s Backyard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w2J07bWaGs
Keep in mind that the ‘Clean Break’ (http://tinyurl.com/cleanbreak) agenda (which the Iraq invasion was based on) intended to include Lebanon and Syria as well after Iraq had been dealt with for Israel!
US neo-cons seek war on Syria, Iran
We Should Never Support American Based NATO Intervention
ReplyDeleteShould the Ummah oppose and condemn foreign intervention in Syria or any Arab land? . Is it necessary to assume that all those calling for it in Syria under the current conditions are part of a Western conspiracy?.
Let us imagine a scenario that destroyed millions in Iraq and destroyed an ancient civilization by the brutal policies of the United States
The United States' has a false self-image supporting democracy: if it can engage in promoting democracy, that's all the better. If not, promoting dictatorship to serve its interests This is because the objective was never to create democratic regimes, but compliant ones.
Does the Ummah want to proceed from the best interests of, say, the United States' or Israel's foreign policy establishments and their proponents?
Downfall of authoritarianism is rational and just. ( no second thoughts on this)But we must be necessarily very suspicious when it is the likes of Cheney and Elliot Abrams behind the call for democracy.
But for the United States, Israel, some European countries, Saudi Arabia and its minions in Lebanon and the Gulf, it is the Syria-Hezbollah-Iran axis that constitutes the most formidable challenge.
An Iran-strike would also confront Turkey with a dilemma. Turkey would have to balance conflicting desires in the Middle East.
Supporting the demise of the Syrian regime by any means, including external military intervention, is extremely reckless if the objective is to save Syrian lives or set the stage for a post-regime path of self-determination.
Moreover, the external factor will reignite another local and regional struggle rather than simply end domestic authoritarian rule and pave the way for democratic development.
One can be moved by the urgency of saving Syrian lives today, but if this is the ultimate purpose, and if Syrians' self-determination is the desired outcome, one can easily see the perils of military intervention.
As for the question of no-fly-zones that is considered the ask by many, as opposed to full scale military intervention, it has become safe to say that a no-fly zone is a code of sorts for more active military intervention in practice, as the case of Libya makes clear.