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Alawites, From Separatists to Masters

Posted on March 6, 2013 | Comments Off on Alawites, From Separatists to Masters

By Amin Elias
URL: http://www.oasiscenter.eu/node/8348

Merely by surveying the events of the last hundred years, we can see just how much is happening today in Syria. What is going on there in fact is not simply a battle between the Baath Party and its opponents, nor a merely regional conflict, but a settling of accounts that could change the whole international equilibrium.

Territory divided up between numerous vilayet during the Ottoman epoch (1516-1918), and then a region made up of four states during the French mandate (1920-1946), Syria took on its present form only with the Franco-Syrian Treaty that was signed in Paris on 9 September 1936 when the ‘independent State of Damascus’ and the ‘government of Aleppo’, which had already been unified in 1923, the ‘autonomous territory of the Alawites’ and the ‘Jebel-Druze’, were fused into a single entity – the Syrian Republic.

One section of the Alawites was not favourable to this fusion. The archives contain documents that demonstrate their hesitation as regards this new Syrian entity. In two letters addressed in 1936 by Alawite notables to the Lebanese President of the time, Emile Eddé, and to the Maronite patriarch, Antoine ‘Arîda, the authors proposed to annex the Alawite region to the ‘state of Greater Lebanon’ proclaimed by General Gouraud on 1 September 1920 and seen by the Maronites as the ‘end of their struggle’ and the ‘achievement of their historic dream’. In a memorial (n. 3547) addressed by these notables to the French Prime Minister, Léon Blum, on 15 June 1936, they rejected the fusion of their region with a Syrian state dominated by the Sunnis. According to this document, the ‘Alawite people’ was different from the ‘Sunni people’ both because of its ‘religious beliefs and because of its traditions and its history’. The ‘Alawite people refuses to be annexed by Muslim Syria’ because the Muslim religion, the ‘official religion of the state’, sees the Alawites as ‘infidels’ (kuffâr). This refusal was translated at the beginning of 1939 into a separatist revolt in the Alawite region against the central Syrian power of Damascus. But this insurrection failed.

In parallel with this separatist current, there also existed amongst the Alawites a current made up of intellectuals and activists which shared Arab nationalist aspirations with other personalities of the various confessions that then existed in Syria and Lebanon. One of the primary figures of this current was Zakî al-Arsûzî. After finishing his studies in philosophy in France, al-Arsûzî returned to Syria and in 1932 he became a teacher at a school in the Sanjak of Alexandretta. A strong defender of the arabness, in 1934 al-Arsûzî founded the Arab Resurrection Party (al-ba‘th al-‘arabî). In 1938 he reached Damascus after being expelled from Alexandretta by the authorities of the French mandate. He announced the rebirth of the Arab nation and brought together many young men around his ideas. After being persecuted and forbidden to teach in all schools by the French, he abandoned active politics to dedicate himself to the study of the roots of Arabic words in a philosophical work which glorified the contribution of the arabness to history: ‘The Genius of the Arabic Language’ (Al-abqariyya al-‘arabiyya fî lisâniha).

For the Sake of Arab Resurrection

In parallel with the political activity of al-Arsûzî, two young Syrian intellectuals became involved in Damascus in political life and exalted the Arab rebirth. The first, Michel ‘Aflaq, a Greek Orthodox who had graduated in history at the Sorbonne, and the second, Salâh Bîtâr, a Sunni who had taken a degree in mathematics, managed to unite around them a large number of teachers and students. In 1942 they called their group the ‘Baath movement’ (harakat al-ba‘th). This provoked a reaction from al-Arsûzî who argued that they had misappropriated the name of his movement. Despite a large number of attempts at reconciliation between ‘Aflaq and al-Arsûzî, the two men continued to hold irreconcilable positions. But this fact did not impede a fair number of the ‘Arsûzîsts’, including Wahîb Ghânim and Hafez Assad, from joining the Baath movement founded by ‘Aflaq and Bîtâr, above all after the withdrawal of al-Arsûzî from political life. The movement was baptised at the beginning of 1945 with a new name: the ‘Baath Party’ (Hizb al-ba‘th). This party brought together the followers of al-Arsûzî, amongst whom were a fair number of young Alawites, and the ‘‘Aflaqists’.

Immediately after the withdrawal of French and English troops from Syria at the end of December 1946, and a few days before the declaration of the independence of the ¬Syrian Republic, 247 young men from all the regions of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Trans¬jordan took part on 4 April 1947 in the first conference of the Baath Party. The participants in this conference, who elected Michel ‘Aflaq president of the party as well as an executive committee, adopted a constitution. This date is seen as the official date of the creation of the ‘Arab Baath Party’ (Hizb al-ba‘th al-‘arabî).

During the first years of independence, Syria experienced a notable democratic vitality and a political plurality which was translated into the birth of a large number of parties. In addition to the Baath Party, another six parties occupied the political scene. The National Party, which was formed in 1947, was the child of the National Bloc which was founded in 1927 to call for Arab unity and the independence of Syria. It brought together numerous famous figures such as Shukrî al-Quwatlî, Fâris al-Khûrî and Jamîl Mardam, as well as other representatives of families in whose hands the wealth of the country was concentrated, above all in Damascus. The second, the People’s Party, was created from a scission within the National Party. It brought together personalities who represented the economic interests of Aleppo and the northern region of the country. The third was the Syrian People’s Party which had been founded by Antûn Sa‘âdih in 1932 and whose project was a ‘Greater Syria’ that would include Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Transjordan, Iraq and Cyprus. The Muslim Brothers, a movement founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Bannâ, had supporters in Syria, above all in Hama, Homs and Damascus. Communism was also represented on the political scene by the Syrian Communist -Party, which was led by the inevitable figure of Khâlid Bikdâsh. Lastly, the Arab Socialist ¬Party was founded by Akram Hûrânî in 1950. It was with this party, on the occasion of the ¬second congress of June 1954, that the Arab Baath Party decided to merge in order to create the Socialist Arab Baath Party (Hizb al-ba‘th al-‘arabî al-ishtirâkî).

A Midland

Situated between Egypt and Asia Minor, on the one hand, and between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean, on the other, and being the northern door of the Arab peninsula, ¬Syria was seen as the key to the East. For this reason, during the second part of the 1940s and for the whole of the 1950s, the country was the subject of a conflict between the two principal poles of the Arab political scene: Iraq and Egypt. For both of these countries leadership of the Arab States as a whole was possible only through the conquest of ¬Syria. This last was, in addition, that axis around which revolved the principal diplomatic moves of the international powers. Many decisive battles took place in the field of internal politics at the time of the adoption of the Pact of Baghdad and the Eisenhower doctrine (which Syria rejected).

These rivalries between the regional and international forces were a part of the shift from simple democratic competition to the brutal coups d’état carried out by the generals of the Syrian army. The seven coups led by these officers between March 1949 and March 1963, and the union with Egypt between February 1958 and September 1961, clearly demonstrated the increasing role of the army. As regards the relationship of the Baath Party with Nasserism, at the beginning of the 1960s a Baathist Military Committee (BMC) was formed which was made up of five members, three of whom were Alawites: Mohammad ‘Umrân, Salâh Jdîd, and Hafez Assad. These figures opposed the policy of ‘Aflaq and ¬accused him of accepting the ‘Egyptianisation’ of Syria. After the failure of the United Arab Republic (UAR) in September 1961, in secret they prepared a double coup d’état against the Syrian government and the political office of the Baath Party chaired by ‘Aflaq.

Alawites Step Forward

The 1960s witnessed the appearance of the Alawites, and above all their generals, on the Baathist and Syrian scene. In his book Al-Nusayriyyûn al-‘alawiyyûn (‘The Alawite Nusayris’), Abû Mûsâ al-Harîrî observes that certain Alawite notables and Baathist generals, amongst whom ‘Umrân, Jdîd and Assad, met on a number of occasions between 1960 and 1968 with the aim of finding a way of taking over the Baath Party and the Syrian army in order to control central power in Damascus. Al-Harîrî also refers to another plan which sought to encourage the emigration of the Alawites from their mountains (Jibâl al-nusayriyya) towards the major cities of Tartus, Latakia and Homs with a view to founding an Alawite state with its capital in Homs. This information is not based upon certain evidence but on 8 March 1963 the coup d’état of the BMC was successful. After eliminating the Nasserites and the Communists, the BMC, dominated by Salâh Jdîd and Hafez Assad, was faced by the historic leader of the Baath Party, Michel ‘Aflaq. Three years later, the BMC carried out a second coup d’état on 21-25 February 1966 against ‘Aflaq. The Constitution was suspended. A new regime was created in which any separation of the Baath Party and power was impossible: ‘power is the Baath Party’. The ‘Aflaqists were eliminated and he himself had to flee to Lebanon before later finding refuge amongst the Baathists of Iraq.

However, the struggle for power between the two new leaders, Jdîd and Assad, was not late in beginning. Their rivalry emerged after the defeat of the Syrian army during the Israeli-Arab war of June 1967, a defeat which led to the loss of the Golan Heights. To this defeat were added ideological debates between the group led by Jdîd, who aspired to a radical Marxist doctrine, and the group led by Assad, whose principal concern was to restore the Syrian army without increasing ties of dependence with the USSR. This group wanted economic and military cooperation with the other Arab countries without adopting a Marxist or progressive approach toward them.

The annihilation of the ‘Palestinian resistance’ by King Hussein of Jordan in September 1970, and the attempt by Jdîd to involve the Syrian army in this battle on the side of the Palestinians, something to which Assad was opposed, made the relations between the two leaders of Syria irretrievable. This situation, made worse by the death of Nasser, led Assad to act. He first proceeded to arrest members loyal to Jdîd and to take control of the most important sections of the army. On 19 October 1970 he ordered his soldiers to surround the offices of the civil organisation of the Baath Party and the next day they arrested its most important leaders, including Jdîd. From that moment onwards Assad concentrated all the powers of the Baath Party and the Syrian government in his hands and appointed one of his followers, Ahmad al-Khatîb, as Head of State in Syria. Knowing that the promotion of an Alawite to the office of president would have wounded the sensitivity of Syrian Sunnis (the Alawites are seen as non-Muslims), Assad asked the Lebanese Shi’ite imam, Mûsâ al-Sadr, a friend of his, to promulgate a fatwa which proclaimed that the Alawites were Shi’ite Muslims. Nominated by 173 members of the Assembly of the People as candidate for the presidency of the Republic, Assad became president on 12 March 1971 following a referendum. This action of Assad was baptised ‘the rectification movement’ (al-haraka ¬al-tashîhiyya). In 1973 he proceeded to modify the Syrian Constitution and to eliminate the clause which laid down that Islam had to be the religion of the President. He then had to address fierce opposition on the part of the Syrian Sunni ‘ulamâ’ who threatened to mobilise Muslim crowds against him. As regards military policy, Assad governed everything connected with the army with an iron fist. Because of this policy, top army positions could be held only by Alawite officers or by Sunni or Christian Baathists who had demonstrated strong loyalty to Assad. The opponents of the Baath Party, and in particular the Muslim Brothers, were not authorised to attend military academies. These same rules were applied in the recruitment of members of the secret services. The system was handed down from father to son. Aware of the importance of the army, the current President, Bashar al-Assad, has managed to maintain control over it. No soldier can be mobilised without his approval, as is demonstrated by the challenge that this army has had to address since the outbreak of events in Syria in March 2011.

It was with Assad that Syria, up to that time the subject of conflict between the regional and international powers, was transformed into an active regional force which exercised its influence on the Middle Eastern scene. After establishing a strong central power in Damascus and imposing its authority with all means, including violence, in all the neighbouring regions, the Assads were able to make Syria the central core of a political, military and geo-strategic alliance running from Iran to the Hezbollah in Lebanon, passing by way of Iraq. The Sunni leaders of the region such as the King of Jordan, ‘Abdallah; the former President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak; and the King of Saudi Arabia, ‘Abdallah, identified this alliance with Shi’ite Islam and called it the ‘Shi’ite crescent’ (al-hilâl al-shî‘î). This was condemned by the United States of America which was able to place it in the ‘axis of evil’. It is in this context of geopolitical rivalry between the United States of America and its allies, on the one hand, and Iran and its allies, on the other, aggravated by Jewish and Sunni and Shi’ite Islam confessional effervescence, that one may understand more effectively what is presently happening in Syria. The positions of Russia and of China in relation to the events in Syria make the landscape more complicated. For many observers, the crisis in Syria is no longer an internal question between the Syrian opposition, on the one hand, and the Baathist regime, on the other, nor a regional confrontation between the Sunni axis, on the one hand, and the Shi’ite axis, on the other. It has become a question that may shift the international balance that was established after the fall of the USSR.

Bibliography 

Georges Corm, Le Proche-Orient éclaté, 1956-2010, Gallimard, Paris, 2010.

Henry Laurens, L’Orient arabe. Arabisme et islamisme de 1798 à 1945, Armand Colin, Paris, 1993.

Pierre-Jean Luizard, Laïcités autoritaires en terres d’Islam, Fayard, Paris, 2008.

Patrick Seale, Asad. The Struggle for the Middle East, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1990.

Al-Dustûr (the Constitution of the Baath Party), Baath Party Information Office, Damascus, 1976.

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Posted in Religion, Syria, Syrian Opposition, Turkey, United Nations, US Middle East Politics

Russia stands firm on diplomacy to solve Syria’s crisis

Posted on December 13, 2012 | Comments Off on Russia stands firm on diplomacy to solve Syria’s crisis

By Andrew Andreev, the Russian Federation’s ambassador to the UAE
Dec 14, 2012

The wars of today are not waged only on the battlefields. In the case of Syria, the battles are being fought in the programmes of the well-known Arab satellite channels and in the pages of regional newspapers. Audiences are being persuaded that the regime of President Bashar Al Assad is responsible for everything – as is Russia, which is said to be providing him with all kinds of assistance. The fundamentals of nonpartisanship and impartiality are being sacrificed for the sake of labelling and achieving particular political goals.

It may sound like a revelation for The National, which ran a recent editorial under the headline Russia cannot wash its hands of Syrian blood, but it is Russia which first raised the Syrian issue in the UN Security Council. Upon our initiative, the basic principles were developed to be incorporated later on into two UNSC resolutions and the Geneva Communiqué of the Action Group for Syria.

The editorial talks about Russia “doing nothing meaningful”, but forgets that it is Russia that constantly contacts both the Syrian authorities and all the opposition groupings. We motivate Syrians to seek a settlement of internal problems by peaceful means, through broad national dialogue, without imposing solutions from abroad. Any other patterns are fated to be nondurable and ineffective.

Those who present the issue as if Russia were responsible for the deterioration of the current conflict in Syria ignore the fact that not all foreign actors are interested in its peaceful resolution. These sides in particular did their best to withdraw Arab League observers from Syria, and create unbearable conditions for the personnel of the UN monitoring mission. Each time there was a slight chance to obtain unbiased information about the developments in Syria, or get at least a bit closer to a political settlement, these parties reduced that chance to zero.

If the primary goal is really to achieve international consent regarding the ways to settle the Syrian crisis, an urgent focus on the implementation of the existing consensus – ie, the Geneva Communiqué – is needed. All international parties should influence both conflicting sides in order to make them finally stop the bloodshed. None of our partners, who have direct influence on the so-called Syrian opposition, have even tried to implement it yet. While they formally confirm their commitment to the Geneva Communiqué, they ignore our efforts to approve the understanding in the UN Security Council.

Instead, the suggestion is that the Security Council should adopt a different document – which would allow the international community to offer de facto support to one of the conflicting parties. We have had such an experience before, and we know how some of our partners can interpret UNSC resolutions to justify actions that are not sanctioned. The examples of such actions are well known, and their grave consequences are perceptible in the region today.

The UN Security Council is authorised to deal with the resolution of conflicts, not conduct revolutions or regime change. We will never allow parties to take advantage of the Security Council to promote adventurous ventures having nothing to do with international law and the aim of upholding international peace and security.

It is clear that it is not the welfare of the Syrian people that drives the actions of some countries, which divide terrorists into “bad” or “good”, openly siding with the opposition and providing it with military support. They ignore the murder of ordinary Syrians who live in the territories that are under control of the central authorities. As Russia calls for all the opposition groupings to unite for the sake of holding serious negotiations with the regime, some western and Middle Eastern parties encourage opponents of Mr Al Assad to wage war to “the victorious end”. Not only do they refuse to deal with the president of Syria, but they try to suffocate him through the economic sanctions.

It would be naive to think that those who fight against the Syrian army are ordinary citizens who were forced to take up arms by the “violations” of the authorities. They are not only former army officers who decided to side with the opposition.

The real picture, which can be proved by western sources, is that quite a number of religious extremists and mercenaries of every stripe, including Al Qaeda members, are united today under the banners of the opponents of Mr Al Assad. And their ambitions differ greatly from the aspirations of the Syrian people.

If the situation continues along this scenario, the country is going to slide into the chaos of sectarian war with the risk that it will spill into the neighbouring states and even echo in more distant parts of the Arab world. It is not a secret that some confessional and ethnic minorities are among the allies of Mr Al Assad inside Syria, and they are concerned about their own security in case of the victory of the “revolution”.

We would like to stress, once again, that Russia does not defend the regime in Syria but stands for the principles of respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-intervention in a nation’s internal affairs, and other fundamentals of international law. These fundamentals have a universal nature and cannot be observed selectively, depending on geopolitical or other subjective concerns. If the change of Mr Al Assad’s regime is the most important issue for some parties, the price for such an approach will be new victims and destruction. As for Russia – we try our best to avoid these casualties.

Andrew Andreev is

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/russia-stands-firm-on-diplomacy-to-solve-syrias-crisis#ixzz2Ex7sSGQF

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Posted in Middle East Geopolitics, Russia, Syria, Syrian Opposition, United Nations

On Syria and way beyond, an interview with Guenter Meyer

Posted on September 28, 2012 | Comments Off on On Syria and way beyond, an interview with Guenter Meyer

On Syria and way beyond
By Lars Schall

One of Europe’s most outstanding experts on the Middle East, Professor Guenter Meyer, addresses in this exclusive in-depth interview for Asia Times Online the Syrian civil war and its international dimensions.

Professor Dr Guenter Meyer has for almost 40 years carried out empirical research on the social, economic and political development in Arab countries and has published more than 150 books and articles, especially on Syria, Egypt, Yemen and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. He directs the Center for Research on the Arab World at the Johannes Gutenberg

University in Mainz, Germany, which is one of the world’s leading information centers for the dissemination of news and research on the Middle East. Professor Meyer is chairman of the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO), president of the European Association for Middle Eastern Studies (EURAMES), and chairman of the International Advisory Council of the World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES).

Lars Schall: Professor Meyer, since our perceptions are framed by the media, how do you feel about the coverage of the conflict in Syria in the Western media?

Guenter Meyer: My perceptions are not only framed by the media, but also by my own experience in Syria and by contact with Syrians, other Arab experts and political activists of the Arab spring. The information I receive from these sources and also from Arab news media covers a much wider range of views and assessments than the rather one-sided reporting in the majority of the Western media.

LS: What kind of things do you have to criticize in particular?

GM: Until recently mainstream reporting in most Western media was clearly biased. It focused mainly on the distinction between the “bad” Syrian regime, which has to be toppled, and the “good” opposition, which has to be supported because it is fighting against a corrupt, authoritarian and brutal government. This perception has changed gradually during the past few months. More and more media are reporting about the conflicting interests of the highly fragmented oppositional groups as well as about the atrocities of the rebel groups and their crimes committed against the civilian population, especially against Alawites but also against Christians.

The influx of Salafis, jihadis and followers of al-Qaeda and the expectation that radical Sunni Islamists will control Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad are disturbing themes that are now also reported in Western media. After a long delay, the news coverage of the development in Syria does no longer focus only on spreading the political view of the “Friends of Syria”, but has started to provide a more comprehensive picture about the highly complex situation in Syria.

Nevertheless, there is still a bias when it comes to the reporting of massacres. The majority of Western media – and also Western governments – tend to take the information offered by oppositional sources for granted that government forces, in particular the Shabiha militia, are responsible for the cruel killings of civilians, many of them women and children. At the same time, evidences of a systematic “massacre marketing strategy” [1] by the rebels are rejected as propaganda of the Assad regime. It is obvious that in many cases, especially in the massacres with the highest number of victims at Houla [2] and Daraya [3] oppositional forces committed brutal crimes against civilians in order just to blame the government for these massacres. Through this strategy they try to manipulate public opinion and influence political decision making against the Syrian regime.

LS: Would you say that those who want to explore the interests that collide in the conflict in Syria would do well to examine the geopolitical importance of Syria for the Eurasian energy chessboard? I mean, ultimately Syria is a main transport hub for future oil and gas pipelines, right?

GM: Whenever you try to analyze political conflicts in the Middle East and get to the bottom you are likely to find oil or gas. The present conflict has been linked to Syria’s role as transit country for Iranian gas export. Last year, a contract was signed between Iran, Iraq and Syria to build a natural gas pipeline by 2016 from Iran’s giant South Pars field to the Syrian Mediterranean coast in order to supply Lebanon and Europa with gas. As a result Turkey would loose her highly profitable and political important position as the dominant transit country for gas from Russia and the Caspian Basin. [4]

Could this expected competition have been a reason for the Turkish government to give up its good relations with the Syrian regime and support the opposition? This is rather unlikely. During the last few years, Iran has signed numerous Memoranda of Understanding and contracts with foreign governments and companies to exploit Iranian gas and oil fields and to build pipelines. None of these schemes has been executed, as a result of the US embargo against Iran. Therefore, it has to be supposed that the contract to build a pipeline to Syria was signed mainly for domestic political reasons of the Iranian government. One has also to question the economic viability of this project. Why should gas from Southern Iran be exported to Europe when the highest demand for Iranian gas comes from neighboring Pakistan and India?

There is another project that would make much more sense. In 2009, Qatar had proposed to build a pipeline from the emirate’s giant gas fields via Syria to Turkey to be connected with other pipelines to Europe. [5] Based on this scheme, Assad loyalists had claimed that the unrest in Syria is not an uprising but a Qatari-instigated aggression designed to dominate the country and ensure Qatari access to the Mediterranean Sea for its gas export. However, this argument can be regarded as a conspiracy theory. [6]

LS: Are the discovered energy resources in the Eastern Mediterranean and Levantine Basin also of interest here?

GM: The untapped natural gas finds are extremely important for Israel, which will no longer have to rely on the insecure supply of gas from Egypt. The discovered gas reserves are so huge that Israel can not only achieve energy independence but will also benefit from lucrative export deals. Further gas and even oil reserves are expected to be discovered in the offshore areas of Syria and Lebanon. [7] Nevertheless, the newly discovered resources have no direct impact on the present crisis in Syria.

LS: When it comes to the Western powers, are they especially intended to weaken the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis?

GM: There are numerous statements from the US government which stress the geostrategic importance of the ousting of the Syrian regime so that both Iran and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon will loose their most important ally. The Iranian and Syrian supply of military equipment to Hezbollah will no longer be possible. The weakening of the military force of this Shiite organization means that its impact on the power structure of Lebanon and especially its ability to attack Israel will dramatically decline. [8] The fall of Bashar Al-Assad will also weaken the influence of Russia and China in the Middle East and strengthen the role of the US and Saudi Arabia in this region.

LS: Are we currently experiencing a “Balkanisation of Syria” or a “Balkanisation of the Middle East” in general?

GM: During the last decades Syria has been a secular state with a strong focus on pan-Arabism. Now the ethnic and religious frictions have become a dominant factor and threaten the unity of the Syrian state. The worst case scenario would indeed be a “Balkanization” for Syria, which means that the country is split into a northeastern Kurdish state providing a safe haven for the PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] and a nightmare for Turkey, an Alawite state in the western mountains and the coastal area, a tiny Druze enclave in the south, and a Sunni state in central Syria. Only the last one would probably have sufficient economic potential to exist on the long run.

Other experts suggest a “Lebanonization” scenario that pins down the Syrian army and weakens the central government in Damascus. [9] The model of an “Iraqization” of Syria might also have chances to become reality, with several autonomous or semi-autonomous regions. Similar demands are also raised in the oil-rich east of Libya, where large parts of the population no longer want to be dominated by the center of the political power in Tripolitania, the western region of Libya.

LS: Do we see in Syria a similar situation as earlier in Libya or is it very different?

GM: The situation in Libya was completely different. Gaddafi’s military forces were far too weak to resist the combined military power of NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] which was authorized by the UN Security Council to intervene in Libya. Large parts of the population and almost the entire east of Libya opposed the authoritarian regime so that foreign advisers were able to move freely in this part of the country, support the oppositional fighter groups with heavy weapons and train them how to use the sophisticated military equipment.

Bashar Al-Assad, on the other hand, can rely on the excellently trained and best-equipped Republican Guards and the 4th Armored Division – elite troops who are almost entirely Alawites. The Syrian air force and in particular the air defense force are equipped with the latest Russian military technology. A recent analysis by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology came to the conclusion that the Syrian air defense is five times more sophisticated than [former Libyan leader Muammar] Gaddafi’s. [10]

A military offensive by foreign troops to oust Bashar al-Assad would be an extremely risky and expensive operation. In addition, there is no chance that Russia and China will accept a UN resolution for a military intervention in Syria. Under these circumstances, the US, France and the UK have so far only resorted to training opposition fighters on Turkish territory close to the northwestern border of Syria and to supplying them with communication means and other non-lethal equipment. At the same time, Iran is using civilian aircraft to fly military personnel and large quantities of weapons across Iraqi airspace to help Syria crush the uprising, according to a Western intelligence report seen by Reuters. The Iraqi government, however, denies that such flights are taking place.

LS:We know that forces of al-Qaeda are fighting on Syrian soil. Ed Husain, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote about this:

By and large, Free Syrian Army (FSA) battalions are tired, divided, chaotic, and ineffective. Feeling abandoned by the West, rebel forces are increasingly demoralized … Al-Qaeda fighters, however, may help improve morale. The influx of jihadis brings discipline, religious fervor, battle experience from Iraq, funding from Sunni sympathizers in the Gulf, and most importantly, deadly results. In short, the FSA needs al-Qaeda now. [11]

That’s quite a statement after more than 10 years of the so called “War on Terror”, isn’t it?

GM: Indeed! There are many similar reports – among others from the Eastern Euphrates valley near the Iraqi border – where opposition fighters had for several months tried in vain to take over garrisons from the Syrian army. At last, they asked an al-Qaeda group for support. As a result of their attacks the army withdrew from this base within a few days.

The al-Qaeda fighters and jihadis are not only from Arab countries, especially from Iraq, Libya, the Arabian Peninsula, but also from Pakistan and include even radical Islamists from European countries. Their number is rapidly growing. This is the major reason why the US government has been so reluctant to supply the opposition fighters with surface-to-air missiles, which might end up in the hands of al-Qaeda or Hezbollah. It has only recently been reported that the Free Syrian Army acquired 14 Stinger missiles. So far, however, it has not been confirmed that these weapons were used to attack Syrian fighter planes and helicopter gunships [12].

LS: What kind of importance has it that al-Qaeda is a Sunni terrorist organization?

GM: About 70% of the Syrian population are Sunnis. Many of them regard the ruling Alawites not as real Muslims. The same applies to al-Qaeda, which demands that all Muslims should unite in order to eradicate the Alawite “infidels”. However, this does not mean that al-Qaeda and other foreign jihadis are supported by all Syrian Sunnis. Quite the contrary. The vast majority is rejecting both the extremist views and the intervention of radical foreign Islamists.

LS: It is said that Syria’s ruler, Bashar al-Assad, could use chemical weapons. What is your view on that?

GM: The regime has assured that it will never use chemical or biological weapons. This statement can be regarded as reliable because the use of weapons of mass destruction or even the movement of such weapons would mean “crossing the red line”, as President Obama threatened. A massive military intervention against the Syrian government would be the consequence [13]

However, there are detailed reports that NATO powers in coordination with Saudi Arabia are preparing a fake attack with chemical weapons in southern Syria for which the Assad regime will be blamed in order to justify a massive international invasion. [14]

LS: Do we observe in the Syrian conflict certain developments like under a microscope: the US can no longer afford financially some certain types of adventures and has reached the limits of its influence, while the Russians and the Chinese don’t want to be told what to do in the Middle East?

GM: The financial aspect is very important from the perspective of the US government, but there is also President Obama’s promise “to bring our boys back home”. A new American involvement in another war is extremely unpopular, especially during the present presidential election campaign. Concerning Russia and China, they have important geostrategic interests in Syria. There is no compelling reason why they should give up this comfortable and influential position.

LS: With regard to the external influences, it was written recently that European and Arab states pay high government officials, if they turn away from Assad. [15] Your thoughts on this?

GM: This applies not only to leading representatives of the Syrian regime, but especially to members of the Syrian army. Qatar and Saudi Arabia have publicly announced that they will spend at least US$300 million to pay the salaries of the oppositional fighters and also financial incentives to motivate soldiers from all ranks to defect from the military forces and to join the oppositional troops. Under these circumstances, it is really astounding that only so few officers, generals and leading members of the regime have defected until now. This underlines how stable the power of the government, the military and the security services still is.

LS: How would a European attitude look like be considered worthy of support?

GM: Let me start by explaining why the present European attitude is not worthy of support. The leading governments of the EU have discarded a political solution of the Syrian conflict and opted instead for the – at least indirect – support for a military ousting of the Assad regime. They are co-operating in particular with the Syrian National Council (SNC), which is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and which consists mainly of Syrians who have lived for a long time in Western countries, especially in the US. These people want to rule post-Assad Syria, but they are by no means accepted by the majority of the population living in Syria.

In Berlin, for example, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik) in cooperation with the US Institute of Peace arranged the facilities for members of the Syrian opposition and international experts to meet in order to plan for “The Day After”. [16] The result is an agenda to create a new political system in Syria according to Western democratic standards and values after the fall of the present regime.

This plan was designed without any knowledge about the future distribution of power among the various forces that might be involved in the toppling of the government, and with only a little participation of the numerous oppositional groups inside Syria. It is not surprising that such a plan was rejected by members of the inner Syrian opposition as an “academic exercise” with no relevance at a time when the outcome of the Syrian crisis is still completely open. The same applies to various government-sponsored committees planning the Syrian future in Paris, Rome, Istanbul and Cairo.

The frequent demands that the extremely heterogeneous opposition should unite have turned out to be futile. This applies also to the latest attempt of the French President Francois Hollande, who also offered to recognize a new Syrian government-in-exile. The proposal was immediately rejected by the US government as untimely due to the lack of unity among the opposition groups.

Much more relevant for the present development of the crisis is the proposal to establish a safe haven for Syrian refugees. This was first demanded by the Turkish government and was recently supported by the French president. At present, more than 80,000 Syrians have arrived in refugee camps in Turkey; 100,000 have been declared by the Erdogan government as the maximum number of refugees to be accepted on Turkish territory. Additional refugees have to be accommodated in a safe buffer zone on the Syrian side of the border with Turkey. The same has been proposed along the Jordanian border.

At first sight such a demand might appear to be rather harmless and unproblematic, involving only a limited military intervention. However, the establishment of a safe buffer zone in Syria can only be achieved by a full-scale war of NATO and allied troops from Arab countries against the strong Syrian armed forces. To protect the refugees in the safe haven, a no-fly zone has to be established, which can only be controlled after NATO has gained air superiority over the total Syrian territory.

This would involve the destruction of the Syrian air force with about 400 fighter planes and the huge arsenal of highly sophisticated anti-air craft missiles. The size, expenditure and duration of such an intervention would be tremendous as the MIT analysis showed. [10].

One has also to keep in mind that in legal terms such an attack could be carried out under the rather controversial international norm of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). But its application has to be approved by a resolution of the UN Security Council, where a veto from Russia and China can be taken for granted.

Coming back to the question about the position which should be supported: the most sensible position and the only one that would allow a peaceful solution is still the [Kofi] Annan plan [proposed by the former United Nations secretary general] involving not only the opposition and their supporters, but also the governments in Damascus and Teheran in the negotiation about the future development of Syria. However, there is no chance that this proposal will be accepted by the opposition in exile and its supporters in the US, the Arab League, Turkey and the EU.

LS: What do you think about the helping hand that the Bundesnachrichtendienst [BND – Germany’s foreign intelligence agency] is giving to the rebels?

GM: The German newspaper Bild had revealed that members of the BND stationed on ships near the Syrian and Lebanese coast and at the NATO base near Adana collect intelligence on the movement of Syrian government troops and share this information with the forces of the Free Syrian Army. [17] The same applies to agents of the British intelligence service based in Cyprus and also to the activities of US intelligence agents and spy satellites.

more …

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Posted in EU-Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Middle East Geopolitics, Syria, Syrian Opposition, Turkey, United Nations, US-Syria

Is UN “Responsibility to Protect” on the way out?

Posted on September 23, 2012 | Comments Off on Is UN “Responsibility to Protect” on the way out?

DOUG SAUNDERS |The Globe and Mail|Published

A year and a half after the killings began, a question hangs in the air: Why haven’t we sent our soldiers to save the people of Syria from mass murder by their government?

Twenty-five years ago, that question would have been almost nonsensical. Until the end of the Cold War, the idea of sending the world’s soldiers to stop a country’s internal atrocity would almost never have been considered. Armies were used strictly for purposes of strategic interest.

And then, as a new world order emerged, we experienced a series of just such interventions, most very controversial, some successful, many facing serious opposition from some countries, and most involving Canada.

When Serbian militias were slaughtering Muslims in Bosnia, we sent troops in an attempt to prevent a larger massacre. When Slobodan Milosevic was threatening mass killings in Kosovo, we launched an attack against his forces and his capital to prevent it. When Sierra Leone was descending into butchery, we flew our soldiers in to bring stability. And when Moammar Gadhafi was poised to shoot his country’s people, we sent military planes to hold him back. Over that 16-year period, it seemed we were making progress.

The 1999 Kosovo intervention had been fiercely opposed by Russia, and was technically “illegal,” but, by 2011, there were no votes in the United Nations Security Council against the Libya action.

The seemingly absolute values of human rights and national sovereignty, whose contradicting agendas allowed atrocities to go unstopped in such places as Cambodia and Rwanda, no longer seemed so incompatible. A consensus seemed to emerge: Maybe national sovereignty is not so much a right as a responsibility, one that carried obligations.

Starting in 2001, a Canadian-led team began formulating a way around that problem. In 2005, their new set of principles, known as the “responsibility to protect” doctrine, became part of UN policy. R2P meant that, if a country’s government started killing its people, then the world’s armies were required to consider doing something about it, and the Security Council was allowed to authorize force to stop the killing.

After the debacle of the Iraq war, R2P seemed highly unlikely to succeed. It was a policy championed by Paul Martin, and co-authored by Michael Ignatieff, so it was with some surprise that its first major use came last year, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s strong backing, when Canada and other NATO nations went to war in Libya. Suddenly, it seemed this idealistic policy just might work.

And then it all fell apart. The Syrian slaughter, which is more deadly and more complicated than the Libyan uprising, has gone unstopped (except by NATO member Turkey, which is playing an active role in backing the rebels). It took more than a year just to get the Security Council members to condemn the violence.

It’s easy to say that this is because Russia is an ally of Syria or that Iran’s backing of Bashar al-Assad makes the conflict potentially explosive. But the fact is, the problem goes much deeper, and it’s not the same old Cold War problem.

At its root is our use of the word “we.” The countries proposing intervention, usually on noble human-rights grounds, are mostly former colonizers. The world’s new economic and military powers, increasingly able to call the shots, are mostly former colonies such as India, South Africa and Brazil.

Many of these countries were angered by the Libya campaign – not because it stopped mass murder (they backed it for that reason) but because it didn’t stop until it had overthrown the regime.

In recent months, these former colonial countries have been pushing for a new policy that will make intervention more difficult, on the basis of “sovereign equality” – that is, making national borders sacred again.

“Sovereign equality, for former colonial states, is hugely important, and it became a leading principle for them after the Libyan war,” says Jennifer Welsh, the Canadian Oxford University professor who has played a leading role in creating human-rights intervention policy in Canada and elsewhere. “And while the relative influence of the United States is on the decline, these statements from countries like India and China and Brazil are only going to get stronger.”

This may be the end of the era when “we” can easily invade a country to protect its people. We can only hope that someone else will start taking up the challenge.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/stopping-syrias-slaughter-what-do-you-mean-we/article4559859/

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Posted in Syria, United Nations

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

UN Mission Chief in Syria Offers Cautious Hope

Posted on May 5, 2012 | Comments Off on UN Mission Chief in Syria Offers Cautious Hope
 May 5th, 2012 –

The following is a transcript of an interview with the Head of the U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria, Norwegian General Robert Mood, done in Damascus on May 5, 2012 by VOA Middle East Correspondent Elizabeth Arrott.

Elizabeth Arrott: U.N. officials have said they’ve seen signs that there’s been a reduction in violence under the plan, but we’re still seeing these amateur videos of really quite horrific attacks. What can you quantify in terms of a reduction in violence since you have been here?

General Robert Mood: I arrived six days ago, on Sunday, so the mission has been on the ground for six days. What is very important to note is that where we go, currently, with forty unarmed observers, but we are spreading out into different cities – so we are on the ground in Homs, in Hama, in Idlib and Daraa and Rif Damascus – we see that we have a calming effect on the situation, so we have seen in these places a significant reduction in shelling. We have seen a significant reduction in shooting. We cannot be in all places obviously with that amount of observers, but I can indeed can verify that in six days we have seen a calming effect and a reduction in violence where we have people deployed on the ground.

Arrott: Specifically, do you see things like the Syrian army not firing unless it is being fired upon. Have you have seen the withdrawal of tanks, of troops back to their barracks and if so that they’ve stayed there and it’s continued after your team has left. Is there a way to monitor that?

Mood: What I can verify in a couple of instances, in several instances that my observers already on the ground have engaged with both elements from the Syrian army and with elements from the opposition and they have taken the advice of the observers to move to a different location because this would be seen as something that would be challenging the agreement and the commitment that has been made by the parties. So, we are seeing very specific, concrete steps on the ground that the arrival of the observers have an effect and their advice on the ground is being respected.

Arrott: And again, how can you ensure that is held after you leave the area?

Mood: Our challenge indeed that we are currently have forty observers and we will become 300 observers I hope by the end of the month if not earlier. We cannot obviously be in every hot spot all the time, and whether you have 300 or several more hundred observers that is going to continue to be the case. So, what we are working on is a specific plan where you can go back to the specific site where you had an engagement, where you gave an advice and to verify that the advice when it was taken is respected also twelve hours or twenty four hours or two days later.

Arrott: The point of the mission is to get to a point where it’s calm enough that serious political talks can take place, presumably that would be Mr. Anan’s call when that is being reached, but from a military stand point, what are you looking for?

Mood: We are specifically looking, in UNSMIS (UN Supervision Mission in Syria), at the violence, at the cessation of violence, at the calming effect and of course we are combining that with the talks we have with all parties, with leaders from many factions. I have myself left what we could name government controlled areas and had engagement locally, on the ground, with the opposition, with the armed opposition and received commitments from them. And a common message, a very strong common message from the government and from the opposition is that they would like to see Kofi Annan succeed with his Six Point Plan. I get the sense that there is a willingness. We should not overestimate it. It is too early to judge how big this opportunity is. But I get a sense that all the players are eager to see this move forward on the basis of political solutions because they see that the alternative – more violence, more kids being killed, more trouble for families in these hot spots – is a very bad alternative.

Arrott: So you’re hearing from the Free Syrian Army people here that they want to abide by the plan, but we’re also hearing from the opposition, especially outside, that they want to have the military wing of the opposition armed.

Mood: There is an element of fragmentation in all this that obviously is a challenge. But what I can tell you from my engagement is that whomever I meet, they tell me that they want to move on the basis of Kofi Annan’s Six Point Plan, and that includes the Free Syrian Army locally, and that includes Local Coordination Committees. I am fully aware that there are others with different agenda, that have other ideas, but I have yet to see a credible alternative to Kofi Annan’s Six Point Plan. So one way to put it is that it’s for now the only game in town. That means everyone involved, whether we are talking about the observers on the ground, whether we are talking about Kofi Annan, whether we are talking about the Syrian government, the opposition, everyone, they need to work together and to try, each of them, to widen these opportunities and then we have a choice. We can move in a direction of a political solution, slowly, step by step. Not in six days, not in twelve days, but step by step in a direction where we will have the political dimension being dominating instead of the violence being dominating.

Arrott: There seems to be an additional wild card thrown into this: the emergence of some jihadist groups like Jabhat al Nusra. How serious do you think the threat is that they could scuttle the plan by making it impossible for the Syrian government to stand down?

Mood: I’ve heard, I’ve been given these messages by several people. I cannot verify that there are other groups on the ground but I’m receiving the same messages. Now the message from me, from the mission, from the U.N. and I believe in this context I could also add from the other players involved is we are not going to serve the aspirations of the Syrian people by more weapons, by more bombs, by more violence. We are going to serve the aspirations of the Syrian people and the families and the children of Syria by choosing the other route. So whomever, whomever sees more guns, more bombs, more violence as a solution in Syria should refrain from putting that into the situation and give the Syrian people the opportunity to move forward without violence.

Arrott: Have you heard reports about the emergence of these groups, presumably from the government, but also from the opposition side?

Mood: I have heard the argument from several sides that there are, might be someone in the country that come from the outside and to be quite frank, I’ve also received the message from almost the same players across the spectrum that they don’t want to see the future of Syria a very proud, warm, hospitable people being dictated by groups from the outside, having different agendas. They want the Syrian people to decide their direction on the basis of Kofi Annan’s Six Point Plan.

Arrott: On a practical matter, we’ve heard reports that sometimes when people opposed to the government come and speak to the monitors when they’re traveling around, that there have been reprisals against them afterwards. What steps do you take to make sure that while you’re trying to help that you don’t actually make the situation worse for certain individuals?

Mood: There’s obviously a risk when we are in a situation where you have what you could call an abyss of suspicion. Not surprisingly and understandable from whichever direction you look at it, that you the fear of how information might be used and you have different reports on these things going on. So, what we are doing on the ground is to make sure that when we engage with people that we are doing that in a place, in a setting where, to the extent possible, we can hope, we can believe, we can verify that risk is minimized. And we also take very strong care that we are using names, we are using any information in a way that will not put anyone at a greater risk.

Arrott: The mission, obviously, is to work for the cease-fire but there are other elements involved including the release of detained, arbitrarily detained people, the easing of the humanitarian situation. You’re stretched so thin on the monitoring level, how do you prioritize these other areas?

Mood: The mission of the United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria can be described, simplified in two dimensions. We are focussing on monitoring the cessation of armed violence in all its forms. We’re doing that by presence on the ground, by pushing out and by engaging in a dialogue building trust with the parties. The second part of it, which is secondary, is to support the other elements of the Kofi Annan’s plan. On these issues you have the humanitarian issues, you have the detainees issues, you have other issues on these issues, we report, based on listening, seeing, going to places and observing and when we collect that information, we make sure that that assessment, that evaluation, that information is received by the agencies that have a delivery responsibility in Syria. Key players being the Syrian Red Crescent, key players being the other agencies, delivering on this. Our role is to report and then try to give them, or verify the information to them so that they can take care of the delivering aspects of those points of Kofi Annan’s Six Point Plan.

Arrott: In your time previously in Syria, you’ve spoken about the warmth of the Syrian people. Among the people that you built relations with, were any of them opposed to Assad and being able to in what you call the abyss of suspicion in previous times?

 

Mood: I left Syria last time in February 2011. It was a very different situation. I think it’s key for any audience, if I might use that term, outside Syria to understand that the Syria we meet on the ground is very different from the Syria they see through the dramatic headlines in the media and through the reports in the written media. The Syrian people, they are proud, they are warm, they are extremely proud of their history. They are also proud of the secular characteristics of their society. And they are scared about the alternative, many of them, because that alternative for them is seen as a collapse and a direction that would lead to even more violence and more suffering.

So at the surface of it, in Syria today, the amount of normalcy, to put it that way, across the country is rather surprising. And the highways, they’re all very high quality, so you can, if you travel in Syria avoiding, let’s say, the hotspots, you can get a feel for a very, very normal, open, hospitable country almost a normalcy. But then you have almost a black and white change, because when you go into the hotspots, you meet children, families, individuals that have been through a terrible amount of suffering and that are living under conditions that are not conditions any human beings should be living under. So it’s a different situation.

But I think it’s fair to say that the Syrian people, they are now at a very, very important crossroads they Syrian government and the opposition alike. There is a possibility. We have a choice. We can move this country together the observer force, the government, the opposition, the politicians in the direction of less violence and a political solution. The other choice is not something I want to talk about and address, but it’s a choice that I hear all the parties being skeptical to and fearing. That provides some hope for the future of this mission and and the future of the Syrian people and their aspirations.

http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2012/05/05/un-mission-chief-in-syria-offers-cautious-hope/

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Posted in Syria, Syrian Opposition, United Nations

Iran to Annan: We’re With You, but Assad Stays

Posted on April 17, 2012 | Comments Off on Iran to Annan: We’re With You, but Assad Stays

By: Elie Chalhoub – Published Tuesday, April 17, 2012-

The Iranians warned the UN-Arab League envoy that Syria’s Arab and Western adversaries were out to foil him and that the consequences of failure would be devastating for Syria and the region.

Iran views Kofi Annan’s plan for Syria as a last chance to resolve the crisis there peacefully and is backing it to the hilt – as long as it provides President Bashar Assad with enough of a chance to enact the political reforms he has promised.

This, according to well-placed Iranian sources, was the message conveyed by Iranian officials to the joint UN-Arab League envoy when he visited Iran last week.

The sources explain that Iran was a “partner” in the formulation of Annan’s plan, and discussed it extensively with both him and the Syrians before Damascus formally signed up to it.

Accordingly, Tehran is committed to the plan’s success, “though we know for certain that there are regional and international parties, which we do not want to name although they are known to all, who want to abort it,” the sources say.

Iran sees the Annan plan as a success both for Iranian diplomacy and “Syrian steadfastness,” in that it seeks to “transfer the crisis from the ground to the negotiating table, and from military resolution to a political solution.” Tehran endorsed it willingly, “whereas others accepted it because they were forced to, and agreed to it reluctantly, because they found themselves bankrupt on the ground and had no more cards to play,” they remark.But Iran’s support for the plan is not unconditional. When Annan was in Tehran, Iranian officials presented him with what the sources describe as a “road map” which they urged him to follow. They stressed to him that this was the “only way” he could produce a successful initiative. Moreover, they offered to assist him in any way he requested provided that he can abide by those terms. They also warned him, according to the sources, that Syria’s adversaries “want you to fail, and are trying hard to turn you into a second Dabi” – a reference to the former head of the short-lived Arab League observer mission to Syria, the Sudanese general Mustafa al-Dabi.

The Iranian “road map” consists of six main points that were impressed on Annan.

1. Assad is a “red line” as far as Iran is concerned, and “the Islamic Republic of Iran will not permit anyone to overthrow the legitimate president of the Syrian Arab Republic.”

2. Any political change in Syria must be initiated, addressed, and carried out within the framework of the reform process begun by Assad, and which it would only be possible to continue under his auspices.

3. Any proposed solution that does not take the above into account, or pursues a “reckless, irrational, and unprincipled” approach to the Syrian crisis, will have destructive implications and consequences through the region.4. Nobody is entitled to disregard the legitimate rights of the Syrian people, but these can only be achieved by giving Assad a sufficient chance to implement the reforms he has promised.

5. There must be an immediate end to interference in the domestic affairs of Syria – including incitement to violence, funding, and fueling of armed conflict, and demanding Assad’s overthrow or resignation – by regional states that have made no secret of their meddling.

6. The only solution to the Syrian question lies in all parties adhering to democratic principles.

In Iran, Annan was received in turn by Deputy Foreign Minister Amir Abdallahian, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, National Security Council chief Saeed Jalili, and finally President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The sources say all of the former UN secretary-general’s interlocutors “made sure to confirm from him that he understood the six points well.” Annan also asked for a meeting with Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, but was told, in effect, that the talks he had held would be sufficient if he were serious about achieving a successful outcome.

Ahmadinejad’s meeting with Annan was held at the airport of the Gulf island of Qeshm, off the port of Bandar Abbas, where the president was visiting at the time. Observers believe this was deliberate, arguing that the Iranian president could have returned to the capital, or Annan’s stay could have been extended by one day. The venue, close to the Strait of Hormuz, may have been chosen to signal to Annan the high regional stakes involved in the Syrian crisis, and that he must not seek to achieve through diplomacy what Syria’s adversaries have failed to by means of their interventions on the ground.

Annan was reportedly pleased with the way his talks with Iranian officials went. He also shared their view of Syria’s geopolitical importance. He even went to the extent of declaring publicly, at the joint press conference he held with Salehi in Tehran, that demands for Assad’s overthrow or resignation are a breach of UN rules, and run counter to the purpose of his mission.

“Tehran considers this to be a final opportunity for all who may want to absolve themselves of responsibility for intensified blood-letting, strife and internal fighting in Syria,” the Iranian sources warn. Having reached this point after many hardships and sacrifices, it provides a chance for a new-look Syria to emerge that “meets the aspirations of the Syrian people and at the same time preserves the state and its resistance and steadfastness.”

To the Iranians’ mind, Syria’s adversaries “from Qatar to Saudi Arabia and France, to the US and Israel, and others, want to plunge this region into the unknown. They want to build their plans on this unknown. But their plans do not meet the aspirations of the Syrian people. On the contrary, they promise them destruction, steal the initiative from them, place them outside the game, and trade in them for other reasons.”However, the same sources say, these players have now fallen “hostage” to the Annan plan, which has become the only one on the table. “If Annan’s mission succeeds, they will have failed. And if he fails, they will also have failed, because they will have been exposed. Annan’s failure can only result from him being debilitated or by the presence of parties that wish him ill,” the sources explain. While the failure of the Arab League initiative on Syria was a failure for its Saudi and Qatari authors, Annan’s plan is the international community’s plan. It remains to be seen, the sources add, whether the world would allow the foiling of his bid to resolve the Syrian crisis and be willing to put up with the consequences.

As for Turkey, the Iranians deny that their diplomatic efforts to lure it out of the anti-Assad camp have failed, as evidenced by renewed talk by Turkish officials of the possibility of establishing an exclusion zone along the border.

“We were not naive enough to hope that Turkey would revert to its honeymoon with Syrians,” the Iranian sources say. “We never expected Turkey to return to its senses fully. We are well aware that it is an inseparable part of NATO, and that it has made a strategic decision and is pursuing it in a manner we disagree with.”

What Iran sought was to prevent Turkey from embarking on an interventionist “adventure” in Syria, the sources explain. “We used advice, persuasion, inducements, threats, warnings, and every possible means to achieve this aim,” the sources say. “It worked, at least so far. We put a halt to its direct interventions in the game. We hope things will continue that way.”

This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.

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Posted in Iran, Middle East Geopolitics, Russia, Syria, Turkey, United Nations

Syria: As His Adversaries Scramble for a Strategy, Assad Sets His Terms

Posted on April 3, 2012 | Comments Off on Syria: As His Adversaries Scramble for a Strategy, Assad Sets His Terms

By Tony Karon | @tonykaron | April 3, 2012 | 4

That which has not been achieved on the battlefield can rarely be achieved at the negotiation table, and the harsh reality facing Syria’s opposition is that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has not been defeated, nor is it in danger of imminent collapse. Assad has promised, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan announced Monday, to begin a partial implementation of Annan’s peace plan by withdrawing troops and heavy weaponry from opposition-stronghold cities on April 10. In response, Western powers were left warning of unspecified “consequences” for failure to do so, and citing the history of Assad breaking promises. Skepticism from opposition activists on the ground was hardly surprising, but had little effect — they haven’t exactly been party to shaping Annan’s plan, which in itself is a reflection of their relative weakness in the power equation right now. Formulating a strategy in response to Assad appears to be the role of the Western and Arab powers who’ve backed  the exile-based Syrian National Council, and after last weekend’s inconclusive Friends of Syria meeting in Istanbul, they don’t appear yet to have achieved a strategic consensus.

The Assad regime may, in fact, be feeling pretty smug: Its foreign adversaries were unable to prevent its brutal pummeling of cities controlled by opposition fighters, which scattered those fighters and forced the rebels to abandon an insurrectionist strategy of seizing control of whole towns in the hope of prompting mass defections that would bring down the regime. It has proved impossible, thus far, for the rebels to hold ground against counter-offensives by regime forces whose advantage in weaponry is overwhelming. Instead, the insurgency is on its back foot, struggling to find the arms and ammunition to sustain the confrontation, and reduced to waging a more diffuse campaign of guerrilla attacks and terror strikes. The regime, meanwhile, has remained largely intact with its core security forces remaining focused and motivated by the sectarian dimension of the war. Nor does the regime appear likely to collapse internally in the near term, even if the repression it has unleashed precludes it restoring long-term stability.

(PHOTOS: Escape from Syria: Photographs by William Daniels)

The Annan peace plan reflects the reality that the opposition and its international backers have been unable to impose terms on Assad on the ground. Western and Arab powers have been forced to walk back from the demand that Assad stand down as a pre-condition for resolving the crisis; Annan’s plan involves a cease-fire, demilitarizing the conflict and creating space for peaceful political opposition, but its key dimension is the recognition that the political negotiations over Syria’s future will be conducted with the regime, rather than after it has been dispatched.

Negotiating with Assad remains unpalatable to the opposition after a year of sacrifice and bitter struggle in which some 9,000 people have been killed, but the opposition hasn’t had a major say in developing the plan — not least because it hasn’t manifested itself in the form of a single, organized body with sufficient strength on the ground to have forced its way into a more dominant position in Annan’s reckoning.

Compromise solutions to violent political conflicts are more likely to be successful when the combatants find themselves locked in a stalemate where each side recognizes that while it can survive the attacks of its opponent, its own attacks are unable to eliminate that opponent. But there’s no such symmetry currently at work on the Syrian battlefield — the rebels remain able to harass the regime, but their attempts to hold territory have largely failed. While it can be militarily pegged back, however, the rebellion’s greater strength lies in its political support — and its best hope may lie in an outcome that allows it to bring that factor more directly into play, which it could certainly do if Annan’s peace plan, which requires the regime to permit peaceful protest, were fully implemented.

(PHOTOS: Syria Under Siege: Photographs by Alessio Romenzi)

But it’s a safe bet that Assad will seek to implement the deal on his own terms, relying on the political and strategic disarray among his opponents — both domestic and foreign — to shape the outcome. Last weekend’s “Friends of Syria” meeting in Istanbul appeared to confirm that disarray, with a hasty effort by Turkey and Qatar to cobble the fractious exile-based Syrian National Council (SNC) into the single legitimate voice of the Syrian rebellion failing to camouflage the doubts among Western powers over whether the group represents a credible alternative with sufficient influence on the ground to warrant  throwing its weight behind the group. Western governments also remain reluctant to support the Gulf Arab powers’ calls to arm the rebels and accept an escalation of what would likely be a protracted civil war, although non-lethal aid has been stepped up and the opposition claimed that the largesse of the oil sheikhs would provide salaries for rebel fighters.

Western powers display a palpable lack of enthusiasm for any strategy of ratcheting up the military challenge to Assad because of the grim prospects and potentially dire consequences across the region. So when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warns of “consequences” for failure to implement the Annan plan, the regime can’t but notice that its Western, Arab and domestic foes doesn’t have a coherent plan to bring such consequences to bear.

Assad will likely seek to take advantage of that disarray to implement a version of Annan’s plan on his own terms. Thus the comment by a regime spokesman last Friday that the security forces would not withdraw from cities in which they have operated against rebels until “normal life” had been restored, although others have claimed that the military campaign is largely over and that the regime is simply “mopping up.” Either way, the April 10 date allows for at least another week of that — and, of course, there’s no guarantee that rebel units on the ground will comply, which regime forces would take as a pretext to continue their operations.

(MORE: The Need to Bear Witness in Syria)

Even if the “Friends of Syria” had agreed on a strategy to reverse the imbalance between the regime and its opponents, such a strategy would take many months to have much effect. It’s not going to happen before the Annan plan goes into effect. And the balance of forces on the ground, and internationally, is such that Annan’s best leverage in persuading Assad to do his bidding is the support of China and Russia for his mission. The Russians, however, have made clear they are sympathetic to Assad’s insistence that a restoration of peace puts an onus on rebels to halt their armed actions. The regime’s game will be to stay onside with Moscow, and Annan may have to devote much of his energy to persuading the Russians to back his vision on implementing the plan.

One way to ensure compliance would be to insert peacekeeping forces, but the regime is unlikely to accept foreign troops on its territory, and it has not been sufficiently weakened to be compelled by international pressure to do so. Much will depend on how it conducts itself in the coming weeks, as it seeks to implement the peace plan on its own terms to ensure that it stays on top. But it remains vulnerable to political opposition. Indeed, the most dangerous aspect of the Annan plan for the regime may be the requirement that it allow space for a resumption of political protest, under international monitoring. Right now, Assad may have more to fear from massive crowds protesting in his cities than he does from insurgent fighters. After all, his forces had opened fire on those protesters long before the opposition turned to arms.

 http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/04/03/syria-as-his-adversaries-scramble-for-a-strategy-assad-sets-his-terms/#ixzz1r0RPFzC4

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

Why Syria’s Splintered Opposition Is Assad’s Real Ace In The Hole

Posted on March 27, 2012 | Comments Off on Why Syria’s Splintered Opposition Is Assad’s Real Ace In The Hole

Analysis: Bashar al-Assad has benefited from Russian and Chinese support to stay in power. But from neighboring Turkey, where many top Syrian exiles are based, one observer says the splintering of the opposition may be the real force to ensure Assad’s survival.

By Fehim Tastekin
RADIKAL/Worldcrunch

ISTANBUL – Hafez al-Assad massacred the city of Hama in 1982. Yet this atrocity did not make Assad a ‘butcher’ in the eyes of many Syrians. In fact, after the massacre, hundreds of thousands poured into the streets of Damascus to cheer the Syrian leader for his tough response to what was perceived as an Islamist challenge to public order.

Bashar al-Assad is now on the same path as his father, but with one important exception: while Bashar has no qualms about stepping into his father’s combat boots, he is still attempting to walk a reformist line.

With the defeat of rebel forces in Homs last week, crowds came out to celebrate Bashar’s victory and show support for the regime. And though these demonstrations may look like a throwback to his father’s era, the iron fist no longer guarantees regime survival.

Still, Bashar has two important dynamics working in his favor: first, even if the opposition refuses to admit it, reforms have shored up the basic pillars of his regime. Second, infighting amongst opposition leaders has cast doubts on their ability to present a unified front against Assad.

Syrian opposition leaders established the Syrian National Council last January in Istanbul. The SNC’s ostensible goal was to implement a strategy similar to the one that eventually toppled Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. But now the SNC is in crisis, faced with internal divisions and inching ever closer to irrelevance. On February 26th, a group of 20 members broke-off from the SNC, citing dissatisfaction with the growing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood. This group has since formed its own opposition movement, the Syrian Patriotic Group. Then on March 13th, three key players – Kamal al-Labwani, Haitham al-Maleh, and Catherine al-Talli – announced their opposition to the SNC, criticizing it for not doing enough to support the Free Syrian Army. Al-Labwani came out with scathing criticisms of the SNC, saying that, “Some are in it for personal gain and the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to monopolize aid and weapons to gain popular influence on the ground. We don’t want to replace the current dictator with a new one.”

By March 17th, five different groups had broken from the SNC and organized under a new umbrella, advocating for a humanitarian corridor for refugees and weapons for the Free Syrian Army. Kurdish parties are similarly wary of the SNC, viewing it as a stooge of the Turkish government. Another important organization, the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, views the SNC as little more than a body of armchair oppositionists.

Falling in a trap

Syrian divisions have landed the Friends of Syria – a group of foreign nations that support regime change in Syria – in a difficult position. This coalition remains committed to upholding the Syrian National Council’s legitimacy, even as the organization deteriorates into a shell of its former self. The insistence on regime change in Syria has effectively paralyzed the international coalition and caused Russian and Chinese overtures to fall on deaf ears. Even UN and Arab League initiatives have foundered in this environment.

Widespread claims equating the Assad regime with the rule of the Alawite minority have further worsened the situation and triggered some ugly ‘Sunni’ reflexes. These interpretations fail to capture the nuances underlying the uprising.

After all, Sunni forces were used in the Hama crackdown and Assad’s notorious Shabiba militia includes Sunni members as well as Alawites. However, there are also many Alawites who do not support the Assad regime, but fear for their security in a post-Assad Syria.

Many of the prevailing views on Syria fail to grasp the political dynamic of violence in the country. It is often forgotten that the jihadist “Al-Nusra Front to Protect the Levant” instigated its armed uprising on January 23, 2011, before peaceful protests had gained momentum. This sudden outbreak of violence pulled many would-be reformists back into the Assad camp.

Unfortunately, stopping the bloodshed does not seem to be the priority for the parties involved in this conflict. Arab League General Secretary Nabil Al-Arabi puts it bluntly: “The Syrian opposition believes that the way out of this crisis is only possible through the ‘Libyan scenario,’ and negotiation attempts with the president Bashar Assad will lead to nothing.”

But because of the Chinese and Russian veto, the Libyan scenario will not work in Syria. With this option off the table, the Friends of Syria are looking to topple Assad by stoking a civil war.

Turkey has landed center-stage in these efforts, with its slogan of “regional solutions to regional problems.” It should come as no surprise that this policy has led to claims that Turkey has taken the role of unofficial NATO enforcer in the region. Turkish officials were also angered when Guardian writer Jonathan Steele compared Turkey’s situation to Honduras, which opened its border to Contras fighting the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

In the end, a quick unraveling of the Assad regime is looking more distant by the day. In February, defecting General Mustafa al-Sheikh claimed that the Syrian army had dwindled to 30-40% of its former capacity and was bound to collapse by March. That isn’t going to happen. Now the big question is whether the Friends of Syria meeting – due to be held on April 2nd in Istanbul – will lead to constructive dialogue, or simply a renewed effort to arm the opposition and escalate the civil war.

http://www.worldcrunch.com/why-syrias-opposition-assads-real-ace-hole/4939

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Turkey cool to UN efforts on Syria

Posted on March 26, 2012 | Comments Off on Turkey cool to UN efforts on Syria

SEMİH İDİZ-

The evolving situation in Syria continues to pose unexpected problems for Turkey. As pointed out in this column before, Ankara never expected Bashar al-Assad to last this long. Without al-Assad absenting himself, in line with Turkish expectations, it appears Ankara may have not only to live with him, but to find ways to cope with him in the future if developments continue as they are.

That will clearly be a hard one to swallow since Turkey more or less severed all political ties with al-Assad on Monday by recalling its ambassador in Damascus and closing its embassy. All lines of overt diplomatic communication between the two countries have thus been severed for an indefinite period.

But while this was happening, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was continuing with his efforts to bring al-Assad and opposition representatives together, in order to try and end the bloodshed in Syria and find a political settlement to the problem.

The statement adopted last week at the UN Security Council, which was also accepted by Russia and China this time, has also bolstered Annan’s mission by supporting it openly and calling for this track to continue. This, however, is not to Ankara’s liking at all.

That was made amply clear by Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan on Saturday in Almati, where his plane did a stopover to refuel before flying off to Seoul for the Nuclear Security Summit. Talking to reporters in the Kazakh city, Erdoğan said they “did not approve of the Security Council statement,” adding, “There is no justice in getting the opposition to sit down with the regime.”

Pointing at the number of civilians killed by the regime, he also expressed displeasure over Kofi Annan’s efforts by pointing out that the former secretary-general has had talks in Damascus without going to the parts of Syria that are suffering under al-Assad’s forces to see for himself what is going on.

Erdoğan also accused Russia, China and Iran indirectly when he said al-Assad was managing to stay in place because of the support he was receiving from these countries. Given that he will be travelling on to Tehran from Seoul later this week, it will be interesting to note the nature of the conversation he will have with Iranian officials, who in turn are not exactly enamored of Turkey’s stand on Syria.

It is clear from Erdoğan’s remarks that Ankara is angry because the Security Council, with pressure from Russia and China, has effectively upgraded al-Assad’s status by accepting him as a potential interlocutor. This is not what Ankara wants. What it wants is al-Assad to go and the regime there to change.

In other words Turkey is in the somewhat contradictory situation of having opposed other countries’ efforts to bring about regime changes in the region in the past, but has now landed itself in the position of wanting regime change in Syria.

Spokesmen for the Syrian opposition continue to insist they will never sit down to talks with al-Assad. But it is not as if the Syrian opposition is an organized and coherent force. If one is to go by press reports there are even serious divisions among Syrians in the refugee camps in Turkey.

This suggests that with Russia pushing from one side and the West from the other, elements of the opposition, if not every one, may in time come around to accepting the notion of negotiating with al-Assad. At any rate what is clear is that developments are not to al-Assad’s disadvantage.

With Russian backing he feels much more secure now. He also is availing of the divisions within the opposition. In addition to this he can use the bombs that have started going off in Damascus to argue that the opposition is nothing but a gang of terrorists. This is no doubt why the opposition is trying to distance itself from those bomb attacks.

All of this is very much out of keeping with how Turkeywants things to go in Syria.

March/27/2012

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-cool-to-un-efforts-on-syria-.aspx?pageID=449&nID=16933&NewsCatID=416

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Posted in Syria, Turkey-Syria, United Nations