Deadly dilemma in Syria

Also published in Daily Trust

It is obvious that, the major regional and international political actors in the lingering civil war in Syria face a self-inflicted hence unjustifiable dilemma for their reluctance to live up to their moral, legal and political obligations in order to stop the bloodshed.

While the United States and its western allies, for instance, oppose Bashar Al-Assad’s regime, their dilemmatic concern revolves around the issue of which group replaces it, for it is clear that, they will never allow those bearded and Allahu Akbar-chanting fighters, who constitute the vast majority of the Syrian rebels to replace the regime. Whereas, the largely nonreligious rebels in Libya, for instance, had got a tremendous military assistance from the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO before they overthrew the regime and killed Mu’amar Gadhafi in 2011.

Anyway, moreover, their favourite secular-minded and suit wearing Syrian opposition leaders, who appear on international T.V. satellite channels from the comfort of their bases in Paris, Ankara or London etc, hardly enjoy any considerable popularity inside Syria to enable them take over power either.

This dilemma explains why President Obama maintains that, the possible American-led attack on Syria would be short and limited in such a way that it doesn’t overthrow the regime or even change the current military equation between Al-Assad’s troops and the rebels on the ground. In the meantime, the US and its western allies continue to search for “acceptable” alternatives among the secular-minded opposition leaders, who could take over power after Al-Assad.

Meanwhile, Russia and China will equally never allow such rebels to emerge as leaders in post-Assad Syria, as they will also continue to oppose the idea of overthrowing Al-Assad’s regime or replacing it, because they can’t afford to lose an important strategic ally like Syria in the region, which by the way hosts the only Russian military base outside the boundaries of the former Soviet Union.

However, though in the worst-case scenario Russian may sacrifice Al-Assad as a person, it will always oppose any move to remove the Shi’a minority ruling elite from power, even if it comes through transparent democratic elections where the ruling Shi’a minority will definitely lose power to the Sunni-Muslim majority in the country.

By the way, both the United States and Russia capitalize on the vulnerability of the undemocratic hence unpopular regimes in the Middle East to blackmail, manipulate and exploit them, because in the absence of popular mandates to rule, such regimes need their (i.e. Americans or Russians) protection to survive.

This is the reason why both countries and indeed other major world powers don’t’ want real democracy to flourish in the region at all. The recent military coup in Egypt against the first genuinely elected government in the country’s history reconfirmed this fact.

Furthermore, regardless of Russian and Chinese vetoes in the Security Council, the reality is that, the only reason why the US and its western allies have not toppled the Al-Assad’s regime is lack of “acceptable alternatives” to replace him, as I pointed out earlier. After all, it’s well known that, whenever the US in particular decides to attack a country, it arrogantly ignores any Security Council resolution restraining it from doing so.

For instance, when it wanted to get rid of its once an important ally; Saddam Hussein of Iraq in 2003, it ignored international disapproval and indeed the Security Council resolutions, and even coordinated with its supposed enemy, Iran to invade Iraq and hand it over to the Iranian-controlled Iraqi military and political elites, who have ever since then been ruling the country according to the wish of their Persian masters in Tehran.

Interestingly, Iran also will, of course, equally continue to frustrate any move to remove Al-Assad from power, because it is through Syria that it has for long been pursuing and indeed achieving its Persian agenda in the region and the world at large, under the pretext of spreading Shi’a religious ideology.

Also, though Syria is technically an enemy of Israel, the Zionist entity is similarly against the idea of removing Al-Assad from power anyway, because Syrian regime does not pose any real threat to it, even though its (i.e. Syrian) strategic Golan Heights have been under the Zionist occupation since 1967. Whereas it is obvious that, the situation will never remain the same under a popular government that represents the aspirations of the average Syrians.

In any case, just as the Al-Assad troops are heavily assisted by units of Shi’a dominated Iraqi army, elements of Iranian armed forces, thousands of Lebanese Hezbollah Shi’a militia and of course Russian and Iranian intelligence officers, the rebels are armed and funded by the West, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as they are equally assisted by volunteer fighters from virtually all Arab countries and perhaps beyond.

These highlight the complexity of the situation, which requires taking urgent, immediate and decisive measures by the international community to impose an unconditional ceasefire, and even take over the country to lead it through a transparent political process, which will culminate in the emergence of a popular democratically elected government in the country.

Such measures are quite imperative in view of the fact that, the sheer mutual resentment and apparently unbridgeable gap between the rebels and government may not allow for bringing them together to negotiating table at the moment.