Wrong readings of the Syrian tragedy

Lessons learnt from contributors to Middle East Monitor.

These days it is difficult to find meaningful analysis of the conflict in Syria or proposals for the way ahead. Resort to websites that focus on the Middle East do not seem to offer much comfort. There is no shortage of willing writers who are always ready to pour their wisdom pointing the solution or the difficulty to solve the Syrian crisis. However, with most of them, missing the point is the name of the game. Soumaya Ghannouchi’s article What Syria Needs is a Real Political Solution of 17 December is just an example. She rightly says that the crisis started as a noble struggle for freedom and human rights, but then she gives us a very naïve understanding of what is happening there. She speaks of Alawis fighting Sunnis, Kurds fighting Arabs, Christians fighting Muslims. She forgets that right from the early days of the ‘noble struggle for freedom’ Assad and his government tried hard to change the struggle into a sectarian one, but up to now the Syrian crisis has not degenerated into the sort of sectarian fights Ghannouchi describes. Arabs and Kurds are not engaged in an ethnic fight; nor Christians and Muslims in a religious one. It is Iran and the 60-odd Shia militias it brought into Syria to fight the Syrian people that has added the sectarian colour to an essentially fight for freedom. Iran tries to preserve the Assad regime because its survival stretches its hegemony in the Arab world. This is the only sectarian fight in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. A quick look at Syrian history should have shown Ghannouchi that very little sectarian trouble ever beclouded the Syrian political skies.

She tells us that the way ahead is a real political solution. Agreed, but who are the players who will bring it about. She seems to suggest that the Assad regime and the ‘rebels’ could iron this out themselves. The question is will Assad wish to negotiate such a solution? He has the support of Russia and dozens of foreign sectarian militias. He has a monopoly on aerial power and a near monopoly on heavy weaponry while the opposition have been starved of arms by Western countries in a similar way to how Bosnian Muslims were in the Bosnian conflict. Assad has not shown any hesitation in killing hundreds of thousands of people and turning millions refugees. What incentive does he have to negotiate a political solution? He now appears to have the upper hand and is now advancing on Aleppo and killing dozens of people every day, a fact Ghannoushi conveniently ignores.

Moreover, even if he wants to, Assad cannot sit at any negotiating table without the permission of his masters. Now with the divergence of interests between Russia and Iran, he will not know for some time which master has the upper hand. Iran has no alternative to Assad, but Russia may not be short of alternative candidates. Russia wants to guarantee its political interests in Syria, but Iranian interests are of different kind. Hence, Assad’s two allies may go their separate ways.

Asa Winstanley’s The Let Them Bleed Doctrine in Syria of 17 December is a stark example of attempts to paint the Syrian tragedy in false colours. This writer sees nothing in Syria except ‘extremism’ among so-called ‘rebel’ groups. He does not even credit the Syrian people with having a desire for freedom and justice. Rather, he is upset by the millions that are paid to support such extremism. He does not see any tragedy in Syria except the reported killing of ‘a child’ by one of these groups. There is much twisting in this story even though there is much to condemn about it. The case is not that of a child, but a 19-year old fighting with a Palestinian group that supports the Assad tyranny. He was taken prisoner and then executed. The group accused of killing him condemned the act by some of its fighters and undertook an investigation. This does not make his killing in less tragic and deserving condemnation.

However, Winstanley should not moralise over a case like this when he chooses not to see or hear of the countless children and women killed by the Assad regime and the militias supporting him. Circulated reports speak of children being burnt alive in Aleppo by the militias supporting Assad and warnings of great atrocities committed there have been made by the UN. Yet Winstanley does not find any extremism on the Assad regime’s side. Nor has he ever heard of the tens of thousands of barrel bombs Assad’s air force dropped on civilians everywhere in Syria. The millions of pictures of destruction wreaked by the Assad regime on Syria’s docile civilians have not moved him to write a line of criticism of the perpetrators. Why should he, when these are progressive fighting the ‘reactionary extremists’?

Clever indeed is Winstanley. By throwing a couple of sentences criticising Israel, he ensures that his articles are published on websites like the Middle East Monitor. His cleverness makes him forget the fact that the Assad regime was the first Arab regime to make a lasting peace with Israel. Hence, Israel continues to support Assad to let the country bleed.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.