Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya… Is it time to intervene in Syria?
YES
MICHAEL WEISS
THE question is not whether or not the West ought to intervene in Syria but when it will. For 11 months, President Assad’s regime has rejected all offers for substantive reform, while massacring upwards of 7,000 civilians, displacing tens of thousands more and running a network of arbitrary detention facilities rivalling Saddamist Iraq.
Reports of rapes and torture from human rights groups are horrifying, and contrary to popular belief, the regime has been using its air force to fire on protesters since last June – as recounted in the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ September report on Syria. In short, an abattoir state has emerged with the enthusiastic help of foreign powers and proxies that are already intervening in Syria.
According to Mahmoud Haj Hamad, the former head financial auditor at the Syrian defense ministry and one of the highest-level political defectors from the Assad regime, a special US-dollar slush fund replenished by Iran was opened to pay thousands of “military consultants” from Iran’s elite revolutionary guard corps and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah to assist in the repression. Fresh weapons, one Syrian rebel spokesman told me last week, arrive regularly from Iran, smuggled into the cargo holds of civilian aircraft.
Meanwhile, Russia has enjoyed since 2006 a $4bn defense contract with its only remaining ally in the Middle East, the equivalent of 10 per cent of Russia’s total arms sales. In late January, well after the UN had credibly accused Assad of crimes against humanity, Moscow inked a $550m deal to sell 36 Yak-130 aircraft to Damascus.
Vladimir Putin helped destroy a much watered-down UN Security Council resolution that called for Assad to step down from power and allow a peaceful transition of government to take place. It is determined to stand by Assad, as he pursues a scorched-earth policy of wiping out any armed or civilian resistance to his dictatorship, a policy that can only lead to a humanitarian catastrophe along the lines of the Balkans, or even Rwanda. One member of the Syrian National Council, the Istanbul-based umbrella opposition body, has just told me that US policymakers say that Assad’s butcher’s bill will determine the prospects for Western intervention. I would gladly risk a charge of pessimism to say that that bill will only increase in the days to come.
Stated US policy now is to organise a contact group for Syria – similar, but not identical to the one formed for Libya – in advance of the imposition of a no-fly zone. State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland has recently floated the idea of providing “humanitarian aid” to the Syrian people, although she explicitly ruled out intervention. How does she expect to get truckloads of food, medicine and aid into a war zone without some form of military accompaniment?
Republicans in Congress, namely senator John McCain, have begun to advocate arming the Syrian rebels. This is purposive. With a presidential election looming in America, the Republicans will want to confront the Obama administration on its lethargic and thus-far ineffective strategy toward Syria.
Barack Obama may prefer to farm out his Middle East policy to Turkey and the Arab League, but he’ll also have to consider the likelihood that Mitt Romney’s best attack ad against him will be CNN’s live broadcasts from the Levant.
Michael Weiss works for the Henry Jackson Society.
NO
JOHN BARON MP
ANOTHER day, yet more terrible news from Syria. And yet the United Nations has been neutered by China and Russia’s regrettable vetoes. The people of Syria are in dire need of a peaceful solution, but are being let down by an international community which cannot agree on a course of action. The only hope, perhaps, is for combined pressure to get President Assad to adopt constitutional reform – and to get the message out quickly in order to reduce tensions.
The city of Homs is now seeing its sixth day of shelling by loyal members of the Syrian Army. Civilian casualties are high. Estimates of the numbers vary, but many agree that several thousand have been killed in total since the uprising against Assad’s regime began 10 months ago. Promises by the leadership to halt the violence have come to nothing.
There are many obstacles to a peaceful solution. Commentators have been quick to invoke parallels with the situation in Libya last year: once again, people are rising up against a dictator. However, Syria is a very different country. Whereas Libya is relatively homogenous, Syria is a complex mix of religions and communities. Assad himself, along with many of his top officials and army commanders, comes from the minority Alawite community. Any successor will probably be Sunni, given 70 per cent of the population is such. How would a Sunni-led regime treat the Alawite and Christian minorities? The portents from both Lebanon and Iraq are not good, and are strong arguments for non-intervention.
The chances of getting the international community to speak as one are slim after the UN vote. There was nothing inside the resolution text which warranted a veto – it did not call for further sanctions and military action was not mentioned. There is little doubt that the veto was, at least in part, because Russia and China believed Western powers exceeded their mandate under UN Resolution 1973 when pursuing regime change in Libya – as Russia and China said at the time. However, this can be no excuse for inaction.
The vetoing of the UN resolution, while sending entirely the wrong message to the Syrian leadership, thankfully precludes the already unlikely prospect of Western military intervention. Our recent track record, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, has not been good. This ensures that the West does not become ensnarled in what could become an ugly civil war.
So what next? The international community has already passed multiple rounds of sanctions against Syria. The government will continue to bring the utmost diplomatic pressure to bear upon the leadership, and will find arenas other than the UN to do so. However, perhaps the best chance to help the people of Syria lies with pressing the Russians in particular to get Assad to see sense. The offer of genuine and speedy constitutional change, combined with an amnesty, may just about be enough for both sides to stop the violence and sit around the table. But the role of Russia is crucial in this respect. She has much to lose from Syria’s instability and from the loss of credibility internationally if she is seen to acquiesce in this bloodshed. Pressure through the Arab League, with the innate political and cultural proximity to the issue, and in tandem with Turkey, could also prove to be most effective. But such actions must always have uppermost in mind the plight of the Syrian people.
John Baron is a Conservative MP. He served in the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and was a fund manager for Henderson and Rothschild.