Every actor in the crisis bears a share of responsibility. Syria is the
victim of the fears and appetites of its enemies but also of its own
leaders' mistakes, stresses Patrick Seale .
First Published: 2012-07-25
Once one of the most solid states in the Middle East and a key pivot of the
regional power structure, Syria is now facing wholesale destruction. The
consequences of the unfolding drama are likely to be disastrous for Syria's
territorial integrity, for the well-being of its population, for regional
peace, and for the interests of external powers deeply involved in the
crisis.
The most immediate danger is that the fighting in Syria, together with the
current severe pressure being put on Syria's Iranian ally, will provide the
spark for a wider conflagration from which no one will be immune.
How did it come to this? Every actor in the crisis bears a share of
responsibility. Syria is the victim of the fears and appetites of its
enemies but also of its own leaders' mistakes.
With hindsight, it can be seen that President Bashar al-Asad missed the
chance to reform the tight security state he inherited in 2000 from his
father. Instead of recognising -- and urgently addressing -- the thirst for
political freedoms, personal dignity and economic opportunity which were the
message of the 'Damascus Spring' of his first year in power, he screwed the
lid down ever more tightly.
Suffocating controls over every aspect of Syrian society were reinforced,
and made harder to bear by the blatant corruption and privileges of the few
and the hardships suffered by the many. Physical repression became routine.
Instead of cleaning up his security apparatus, curbing police brutality and
improving prison conditions, he allowed them to remain as gruesome and
deplorable as ever.
Above all, over the past decade Bashar al-Asad and his close advisers failed
to grasp the revolutionary potential of two key developments -- Syria's
population explosion and the long-term drought which the country suffered
from 2006 to 2010, the worst in several hundred years. The first produced an
army of semi-educated young people unable to find jobs; the second resulted
in the forced exodus of hundreds of thousands of farmers from their parched
fields to slums around the major cities. Herders in the north-east lost 85%
of their livestock. It is estimated that by 2011, some two to three million
Syrians had been driven into extreme poverty. No doubt climate change was
responsible, but government neglect and incompetence contributed to the
disaster.
These two factors -- youth unemployment and rural disaffection -- were the
prime motors of the uprising which spread like wildfire, once it was
triggered by a brutal incident at Dar'a in March 2011. The foot-soldiers of
the uprising are unemployed urban youth and impoverished peasants.
Could the regime have done something about it? Yes, it could. As early as
2006-7, it could have alerted the world to the situation, devoted all
available resources to urgent job creation, launched a massive relief
programme for its stricken population and mobilised its citizens for these
tasks. No doubt major international aid agencies and rich Gulf countries
would have helped had the plans been in place.
Instead, the regime's gaze was distracted by external threats: by the
Lebanese crisis of 2005 following the assassination of Rafic Hariri; by
Israel's bid to destroy Hizballah by its invasion of Lebanon in 2006; by its
attack on Syria's nuclear facility in 2007; and by its bid to destroy Hamas
in its murderous assault on Gaza in 2008-9.
From the start of Bashar al-Asad's presidency, Syria has faced relentless
efforts by Israel and its complicit American ally to bring down the
so-called 'resistance axis' of Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah, which dared
challenge the regional dominance of Israel and the United States.
Syria had a narrow escape in 2003-4. Led by the Pentagon's Paul Wolfowitz,
the pro-Israeli neo-cons embedded in President George W. Bush's
administration were determined to reshape the region in Israel's and
America's interest. Their first target was Saddam Hussein's Iraq, seen as a
potential threat to Israel. Had the United States been successful in Iraq,
Syria would have been next. Neither Iraq nor the United States has yet
recovered from the catastrophic Iraqi war, of which Wolfowitz was the chief
'architect'.
Syria and its Iranian ally are once again under imminent threat. The United
States and Israel make no secret of their goal to bring down both the
Damascus and Tehran regimes. No doubt some Israeli strategists believe that
it would be greatly to their country's advantage if Syria were dismembered
and permanently weakened by the creation of a small Alawi state around the
port-city of Latakia in the north-west, in much the same way as Iraq was
dismembered and permanently weakened by the creation of the Kurdish Regional
Government in the north of the country, with its capital at Irbil. It is not
easy to be the neighbour of an expansionist and aggressive Jewish state,
which believes that its security is best assured, not by making peace with
its neighbours, but by subverting, destabilising and destroying them with
the aid of American power.
The United States and Israel are not Syria's only enemies. The Syrian Muslim
Brothers have been dreaming of revenge ever since their attempt 30 years ago
to topple Syria's secular Ba'thist regime by a campaign of terror was
crushed by Hafiz al-Asad, Syria's President at the time. Today, the Muslim
Brothers are repeating the mistake they made then by resorting to terror
with the aid of foreign Salafists, including some Al-Qaida fighters flowing
into Syria from Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and other countries further
afield. The liberal members of the Syrian opposition in exile, including
several worthy academics and veteran opponents, are providing political
cover for these more violent elements.
Some Arab Gulf States persist in viewing the region through a sectarian
prism. They are worried by Iran's alleged hegemonic ambitions. They are
unhappy that Iraq -- once a Sunni power able to hold Iran in check -- is now
under Shia leadership. Talk of an emerging 'Shia Crescent' appears to
threaten Sunni dominance. For these reasons they are funding and arming the
Syrian rebels in the hope that bringing down the Syrian regime will sever
Iran's ties with the Arab world. But this policy will simply prolong Syria's
agony, claim the lives of some of its finest men and cause massive material
damage.
America, the dominant external power, has made many grievous policy
blunders. Over the past several decades it failed to persuade its stubborn
Israeli ally to make peace with the Palestinians, leading to peace with the
whole Arab world. It embarked on catastrophic wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It failed to reach a 'grand bargain' with Iran which would have dispelled
the spectre of war in the Gulf and stabilised the volatile region. And it is
now quarrelling with Moscow and reviving the Cold War by sabotaging Kofi
Annan's peace plan for Syria.
There can be no military solution to the Syrian crisis. The only way out of
the current nightmare is a ceasefire imposed on both sides, followed by a
negotiation and the formation of a national government to oversee a
transition. Only thus can Syria avoid wholesale destruction, which could
take a generation or two to repair.
Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest
book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of
the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press).
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Received on Wed Jul 25 2012 - 18:27:34 EDT
