Bad Choices in Syria

As Syria announces the release of 500 political prisoners from recent protests, it clear that the Assad regime is reeling from its egregious misstep in Houla (near Homs) where more than 100 men, women and way too many children (almost half the victims) were slaughtered by government forces in late May. The government tried to pin the assault on rebels, but this misdirection fooled no one. The U.N. Security Council strongly condemned the killings (without laying blame), but the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council (which lacks the ability to impose sanctions) went one step farther on June 1^st and voted to investigate the slaughter and identify those responsible, laying the groundwork for possible future war crimes prosecution. Claiming a bias in the Human Rights Council’s investigation of the perpetrators as backers of the incumbent regime, Russia, China and Cuba voted against the resolution.

“The massacre in Houla was different in scale, but not in nature, from what has been happening in this part of Syria throughout this year. The pattern: the army shells a rebel-held area; then the paramilitary shabiha, ‘the ghosts,’ go in, cutting throats… Often, when a Sunni area is attacked, the shabiha come from the neighbouring Shia and Alawite villages. Pro-democracy activists accuse the regime of deliberately recruiting death squads like this to fuel sectarian hatred. That way, it is claimed, the minorities who now support President Bashar al-Assad will fear what will happen to them if they abandon him.” BBC.co.uk, May 31^st. With a litany of nations, including the United States, many Western powers, Japan, and Turkey expelling the Syrian ambassadors to those nations, effectively severing diplomatic ties, the big question remains: is the Assad regime finally on the ropes?

The answer is exceptionally complex. Genocide and cruelty, indiscriminate shelling and mass executions are pushing the known death toll of innocent civilians towards the 10,000 mark, and the United Nations observers have indicated a complete failure of the purported ceasefire. Clearly, this is a complete justification for global intervention. But so many questions abound in figuring a solution, many hinging on (i) Russian resistance to external interference, blocking U.N. Security Council action and protecting a nation in which Russia has invested heavily and sold massive amounts of military hardware and (ii) strong support for Assad by the nearby Shiite theocracy, Iran (with an Iran/Shiite-friendly Iraq in between).

The Assad regime and most of the top military commanders (as well as many in the well-heeled moneyed classes) are Alawites, a small minority religious sect affiliated with Shiites in a country where the majority of citizens, particularly at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, are Sunnis with deep and long-standing disaffection for Shiites and their ilk. If military aid were poured into Syria, where would it be directed? Is there a sufficiently organized and large enough group within Syria effectively to use that aid to topple the regime without generating the kind of lawless, internecine, factionalism that would only accelerate the slaughter? For detailed analysis of the competing factions within Syrian, please go back and read my March 15 blog, Exactly Who is the Opposition in Syria? Who would replace the Assad family at the top of the country, even if only in a transitional period?

Assuming a regime change, what happens to the rights and safety of the minority Alawites and Shiites in an otherwise angry Sunni nation, even those religious minorities who have had nothing to do with the government’s turning on its own people? How about the 10% Christian minority? “Less well known is the position taken by the Russian Orthodox Church, which fears that Christian minorities, many of them Orthodox, will be swept away by a wave of Islamic fundamentalism unleashed by the Arab Spring.” New York Times, May 31^st. And trust me, the church is pushing Vladimir Putin to stand strong in support of the Assad regime, a clear roadblock to such a severe Islamist government. Can Putin defy the church without assurances that the Christian minority would remain safe? But if an orderly transition is not facilitated with Russian involvement, aren’t those same Christians even more at risk given the likely sectarian violence that could befall Syria if the Assads were pulled down from within?

Further, by regional standards, Syrian women have been granted more rights and greater freedom than in more conservative Arab nations. If the regime change results in the imposition of theocratic rule or the application of exceptionally conservative and harsh Sharia law, would these gains in women’s rights be crushed? What about sending peace-keeping forces into Syria to stop the genocide? Syrian military forces are equipped with very significant levels of top-of-the-line Russian planes, missiles, tanks, anti-aircraft weapons and large numbers of well-trained forces. This isn’t Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Assuming the Assad regime maintains control of its military (remembering that the senior officers are abundantly Alawites too), this battle-hardened force would hardly be a pushover.

If Russia (and to a lesser extent China) continues to block a U.N.-led military intervention, exactly who would take the lead in moving external military forces into Syria? How do you think another U.S.-led invasion of an Arab country would go over in the region? Would that force us into a direct shooting war with Iran as well? As budget pressures force Congress and the President to rethink military expenditures, the possibility of a long “boots on the ground” commitment of significant U.S. forces to another distant military venture seems almost untenable. Clearly, such an American military intervention only works if the U.S. is a part of, but not majority or leader of, a multinational force with strong local backing.

Syria hangs on because of Russia. Aside from blocking U.N. sanctions through its threatened veto of any necessary Security Council resolutions to send in U.N. troops, Russian President Putin’s (pictured above) close ties to the Assads and, despite a denial that current supplies provide munitions to Syria, Russia’s willingness to keep supply lines open sustain an ogre who has long-since lost any semblance of legitimacy in the eyes of the rest of the world. But Bashar al-Assad and his cronies remain profoundly vulnerable from being removed by internal Syrian forces. Army factions may already be considering escalating the levels of defections we have seen from troops no longer willing to murder their fellow Syrians. Could Russia lose its ally and any hope of a relationship with Syria’s next government anyway? So Russia is faced with its own international and internal truths.

Russian credibility is definitely suffering in the eyes of most of the international community. Her own southern regions are heavily populated with Muslims angry at Putin’s rather complete support of a Sunni-murdering despot. Dissent within Russia is at an all-time high (a double-edged sword in Putin’s eyes; perhaps he identifies with al-Assad). With Russian support to the Assad regime withdrawn, the probability of Assad’s removal (or abdication) improves immeasurably. International pressure, on the surface and behind the scenes, should continue until President Vladimir Putin makes the decision to pull the plug on support for Syria as it now stands… perhaps stepping back from vetoing a U.N. military response. And for Mr. Putin, that single decision could move him from a perception of a greedy and unfeeling goat… to the hero who solved the Syrian crisis. But without Russian support… or at least a willingness to let the rest of the world act… the United States currently has nothing but bad choices in Syria.

I’m Peter Dekom, and a call to immediate action in Syria requires painful preplanning to avoid our rather abysmal recent experiences with the law of unintended consequences.