Dam-Ass-Cuss

Remember those scintillating words from elementary school when you heard foreign sounding names with smirk-inducing double meanings? Bangkok and Damascus, for example? Thailand has simmered down a bit, but the raging murders by government troops in Syria that defied the Arab League’s intervention is raising the civilian death toll into towards the 5,000 fatality level with no sign of stopping. Damascus isn’t so funny anymore. On November 28, I wrote my 3,500 People Later blog, decrying the killings in Syria and described the ascent of the Assad family in Syrian politics. It’s worth rereading that blog for background, but let’s take that story into February of 2012.

First and foremost, it is my belief that the struggle between government forces and rebellious civilians is not, as most people assume, a simply attempt to drive Bashar Assad or even the Assad family itself from the country’s leadership. This is all about a relatively obscure Muslim sect, with very close ties to the Shiite interpretation of Islam (and hence a very strong affiliation with Iran), running a nation of mostly Sunnis, who have never been comfortable with the Shiites and their mystical interpretation of the Qur’an and their leaders.

The al-Assad family is associated with a very small branch of Islam, an even more-mystical sect known as the Alawis with an affiliation to the Shiite view of Islam. Many old-world Alawis have migrated into mainstream Shiite beliefs, but there is still an ethnic allegiance among the scions of this sect. What’s more important is their disproportional power in this Middle Eastern nation. “Although the Alawis comprise the entirety of the top military and intelligence offices, government employees from lower bureaucratic ranks are largely from the majority Sunni Muslim faith, who represent about 74% of Syria's population. Today the Alawis exist as a minority, but are the most politically powerful sect in Syria and the only one with direct government control.” Wikipedia.

With the entire top echelon of Syria’s military bound by the Alawis connection, if the President goes down, so it may seem does the entire power structure in the country. This suggests strongly that the only viable regime change must, of necessity scrape the entire Alawis group from power… and that sounds a whole lot more like a full-on civil war.

As the United Nations Security Council considers an Arab League recommendation that the UN step in and effect a change in Syrian leadership, the most recalcitrant permanent member of that Council, Russia, is likely to veto any effort to replace even just Bashar at the top. The Russians have dug in their heels and are unlikely to budge for the following reasons: they have a long-standing, multigenerational relationship with the Assad family (that dates back into the communist era), they are a major arms-seller to the Syrians and have investments all over the country, they embrace a strong belief that what goes on within a country is not for outsiders to disrupt (a suggest of the Putin regime’s only feeling of vulnerability) and they believe that such UN involvement will only spur more unrest and accelerate the potential of a civil war.

Despite entreaties from Western powers and pleas even from the Arab League, it is unlikely that the United Nations can overcome the Russian veto, so actions to remove Assad are going to come from some other multinational force, a civil war or perhaps both. The Russians were most uncomfortable with the overthrow of the Libyan government, and see Syria as one more example of a country that needs to deal with its own problems. Indeed, several Western powers, noting how a Muslim fundamentalist majority now controls the Egyptian parliament after a regime change, also have their fears that while Assad is bad, what might replace him could be even worse.

I’m Peter Dekom, racing to keep up with the rising tides of dissent and violence around the world.