Ribal Al-Assad’s op-ed on Syria and the Arab Spring was published in the summer 2012 edition of the prestigious IIC (Indian International Centre) Quarterly.
The IIC Quarterly is a multi-disciplinary publication with essays from leading statesmen, writers, thinkers and activists from India and abroad, many of them being policy- makers in the government, academia, members of the intelligentsia and activists.
The India International Centre (IIC) is one of the country’s premier cultural institutions. It is a non-government institution widely regarded as a place where statesmen, diplomats, policy makers, intellectuals, scientists, jurists, writers, artists and members of civil society meet to initiate the exchange of new ideas and knowledge in the spirit of international cooperation. Its purpose, stated in its charter, was ‘to promote understanding and amity between the different communities of the world’. In short, the Centre stands for a vision that looks at India as a place where it is possible to initiate dialogues in an atmosphere of amity and understanding.
The following article written by Ribal Al-Assad was published in the IIC Quarterly, Summer 2012:
Syria and the Arab Spring: The Middle East on the verge of war.
The first schism in Islam developed immediately after the death of Prophet Mohammed in 632. Eight hundred years later, many minorities in the region were massacred by the Ottomans.
In December 2010, a 26-year-old Tunisian graduate named Mohammed Bouazizi, frustrated by his non-existent career prospects, reached breaking point when the authorities confiscated his fruit and vegetable stall. He set himself on fire, and sparked the first fuse of what was soon coined the ‘Arab Spring’.
In January 2012, Moscow sent its only aircraft carrier to the Syrian coast. In the first week of April, the Smetlivy, a Russian guided-missile destroyer, arrived at the Syrian port of Tartus to carry out unspecified tasks. Nearby, military vessels from the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany continue to patrol the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean.
These four events may appear unrelated. However, an objective analysis of the increasingly tangled web of Middle Eastern politics requires an understanding of how they have all combined to leave the region on the brink of an apocalyptic war, with the vested interests of global and regional superpowers honing in on Syria.
Events across the region move faster than publishing deadlines. Each day presents new ultimatums, possibilities and tragedies. But my themes are not new. Nor is my conclusion.
I am no apologist for the incumbent regime and for that reason I remain in exile from my native Syria. This has not changed since the start of the ‘Spring’. Nor has my fundamental belief that the only route to a peaceful future for my country is democracy. This was why I founded the ‘Organisation for Democracy and Freedom in Syria’, and why I have spent so much time over the past three years explaining that a combination of parochial interests, the lack of a united opposition, and a true understanding of the sinister forces at work could destroy my country.
Sadly, events have proved my fears to be well-founded. War is an inevitability. Guns from both sides have already broken the UN ceasefire. This is an outcome that should not surprise anyone who has followed the public promises of the incumbent Syrian regime, each of which buys a little time, but no real change. Free elections were promised, as were the right to demonstrate peacefully, freedom of the press and the cessation of torture.
The route from dictatorship to democracy is never easy. History proves that the transition is always painful, and that the journey requires much patience. But it is possible, as we can see across parts of Africa, Eastern Europe and India.
Despite sectarian issues, innumerable political crises and extremist terror, India is now the biggest democracy in the world, and continues to be an example to demonstrate that change is possible.
Back in the Middle East, the ‘Arab Spring’ is now into its second year. Initial expectations of sweeping regime change of the Eastern European type have proved far-fetched. As has the word ‘Spring’, a name that suggests a youthful, liberal and upbeat revolution, rather than a catalyst for sectarian hatred across the region.
Egypt’s ‘Spring’ appeared to be a triumph for the moderate majority. In practice, it has brought the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi party to the fore at the ballot box, and has left much of the Coptic Christian minority in greater fear than under the old regime.
Libya’s ‘Spring’ took place with the help of foreign intervention, but here too, the outcome has been chaotic and frightening, with the National Transitional Council (NTC) providing leadership in name only as militia groups rule the streets. In March 2012, local leaders in Benghazi proclaimed the eastern part of Libya to be the semi-autonomous ‘State of Cyrenaica’. In mid-April, the Prime Minister was attacked in his own office.
As Henry Kissinger observed in the Washington Post on 31 March 2012, the ‘Spring’ has demonstrated that, in the Middle East, the more sweeping the destruction of the existing order, the less likelihood of a newly accepted domestic authority, the greater the risk of fragmentation of society, and the higher the risk of the disaffected seeking refuge in the arms of extremists.
This may not be the case if countries within the region were able to act independently of vested interests from abroad.
Unfortunately, this is far from the case. And the key players in the region are not only anti-democratic, they are also hoping to benefit from an increase in sectarian divisions and extremism.
Much of this sentiment stems from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two of the richest countries and most prominent players in the Arab League. They are absolute monarchies whose greatest fear is the arrival of a democratic tide across the region. As a result, they pay lip service to democracy abroad, but act to undermine it. Their influence in the region is increasingly aggressive, and the ‘Spring’ has been littered with examples of state-sponsored violence. Saudi-owned WISAL and SAFA satellite TV stations, for instance, have screened footage of extremist clerics exhorting fundamentalists to ‘mince the minorities who are not with us and feed them to the dogs’. Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaidan, the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Council, was broadcast on NBC News calling for jihad against the Christian Americans in Iraq. At the start of the Syrian uprising he then repeated his call, this time against the infidels, even if two-thirds of the Syrian population died in the process. Meanwhile, Sheik Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, the Grand Mufti (the highest authority in Islam) of Saudi Arabia has exhorted radical Islamists to destroy churches across the region.
Their support for extremism is not just rhetorical. There is now irrefutable evidence that Saudis and Qataris are investing petro dollars to accelerate the cross-border arms flow into the unstable nations emerging from the ‘Spring’.
The context for this active encouragement of sectarian violence can be better understood in conjunction with the ever-growing enmity between Turkey and Iran. Turkey is growing fast, is economically powerful, and is looking to develop its own power-base across the Middle East. Iran, whose own ‘Green Revolution’ was put down mercilessly, sits in an ever-growing state of isolation, with tentacles reaching into Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Bahrain, desperate to retain its strategic power bases and regional leadership.
This leaves a Tehran-led Shia axis forming through Baghdad, Beirut, and, as I will discuss shortly, into Damascus. But with dust settling on the states affected by the ‘Spring’, the Turkish-led Sunni axis is on the rise throughout the region.
Concern at the shifting balance of power in the region is not confined to the sectarian alliances. It has also been projected onto the ever growing tensions between Russia and China against the US and NATO. Moscow has adopted an increasingly aggressive foreign policy of late, with President Medvedev warning that time is running out for the West to secure Russia’s agreement to a missile defense shield in Europe. Beijing, meanwhile, has reacted to what it perceives to be a US policy of encirclement, and has been fighting an economic war through a policy of currency protectionism (although the Yuan has recently begun to float with a little more freedom on the international exchange).
With the US delegating so much of its Middle East policy to Ankara, Iran has relied on Russia and China for support. Like India, they have internal reasons to fear Islamism. The Kremlin has had its own experience with Islamist extremists in Chechnya and Dagestan and obviously does not want them bolstered by extremists from the Arab World. Beijing does not want foreign extremists supporting its own fundamentalists at whose hands it has suffered previously. India’s ongoing struggle against fundamentalism returned to the international conscience during the Mumbai bombings.
Which brings us to Syria, where the superpowers have publicly flexed their muscles in recent months. The Russo-Chinese veto of the draft Security Council resolution calling on President Assad to step down helped highlight the taking of sides across the international spectrum. And there are unsubstantiated reports that since the break-out of the uprising, Moscow has supplied its Syrian ally with surface-to-air missiles. It is certainly no secret that it has sent three million gas masks, 72 shore- to-sea missiles and boosted its naval presence in Tartus.
As a result of complex and inter-woven vested interests, we have witnessed a hardening of attitudes towards the regime inside Syria. Iran, Russia and China need to support the status quo. The US and Turkish-led axis backs change, despite its potential consequences. Recent history proves that manipulating change is not difficult. And if change at all costs is the strategy, then that strategy will usually succeed. But it does not take an expert in Libya, Egypt or Iraq to understand that change is only worth pursuing if it can lead to a preferable outcome. Joy in Tahir Square and Maydan Al Shuhadaa has not proved to be an end in itself. And the war in Iraq proved once and for all that overthrow must be the means to an end, not an end in itself.
The real key to the Syria at this stage is what comes next. As democrats, we must not look at those potential next steps from the perspective of international relations, but from that of the people of Syria. Forty-five per cent of those people are represented by ‘minority’ groups, including Kurds, Turkmen, Circassians, Armenians, Alawites, Ismailis, Shias, Druzes, Christians and Jews, who yearn for representation in a democratic state.
But, as Kissinger pointed out on 31 March 2012, the Arab League consensus is shaped by countries that are entirely undemocratic. He explained that it ‘largely reflects the millennium-old conflict between Shiite and Sunni and an attempt to reclaim Sunni dominance from a Shiite minority’.
This begins to explain why a YouGov Siraj poll on Syria commissioned by the Doha debates and funded by the Qatar foundation polled 55 per cent of Syrians as wanting President Bashar to stay with a promise of free elections in the near future. These people want freedom. They do not want Bashar. But they understand that in the current climate, an extremist opposition, funded by sympathetic Arab states, and incited to violence by fundamentalist clerics on Saudi and Qatari backed television channels, may prove an even worse outcome. They need representation. And that representation can only come through a unified, moderate opposition to the regime.
Before the first meeting of ‘Friends of Syria’ in Tunisia, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stressed the need for an inclusive, democratic, peaceful transition in Syria. Sadly, not one word of that description fits the Syrian National Council (SNC) or any aspect of the ‘Friends of Syria’ meetings that have followed.
The evidence illustrates why: Kamal al-Labwani, a physician and prominent opposition leader for many years, resigned from the SNC recently. In an interview published on Reuters on March 28 2012, he described it as ‘an opposition under the cloak of fanatics hiding behind a veneer of stupid liberals’ and a façade for the Muslim Brotherhood. According to Labwani, ‘The Brotherhood are the dominant force in the Council. There is the Hama faction, the Damascus faction and the Aleppo faction of the Brotherhood. The Hama faction is backed and funded by Qatar and Turkey.’ He mourned the direction of the Syrian ‘Spring’ away from ‘democracy and modernity … towards a renewed form of [religious] despotism.’
Meanwhile, Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni, the leader of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, has publicly highlighted the SNC’s Islamist credentials, explaining that Burhan Ghalioun was chosen as its leader only to make it more acceptable to the West.
These are not words spoken in isolation. Jonathan Head, the BBC‘s correspondent in Syria has listed the many groups and minorities in the country who have no representation on the SNC council. And this comes as no surprise when US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper described the opposition as fractured, ‘not a national movement’ and infiltrated by al Qaeda, a view endorsed by Syrian expert Patrick Seale.
Meanwhile, the French paper Libération published an interview with Sheikh Louay al-Zouabi, a Syrian Salafist Imam who claims that the local uprising was sparked by his fatwa against the regime. This is hardly a moderate or inclusive opposition. And to prove the point, its desire to expel the existing two million members of the Baath Party can only create disaffection and civil strife, particularly when party membership is often the only way for a Syrian to find employment under the current regime. Which helps explain the failure of the three ‘Friends of Syria’ conferences in Tunis, Istanbul and Paris, where the hosts have failed to invite many peaceful opposition groups including our own, despite regular and increasingly urgent requests to attend.
In our absence, the Gulf states took to the floor to pool agreement for a formalized pay structure for the Free Syrian Army (FSA) whilst quietly discussing official arms supplies to the armed opposition, which comes as no surprise when certain clerics are given prime-time coverage on Saudi-owned satellite TV channels whilst calling for a jihad against anyone who does not support them. This approach is fundamentally at odds with any semblance of democracy or humanity. It can only lead to the sort of chaos we are currently witnessing in Libya.
This leaves the peaceful Syrian majority unrepresented, and with them goes the last chance to avert war. Turkey watches its border with Syria with guns trained, awaiting a violation of territory that would leave it free to call upon NATO to act without a UN resolution. President Erdogan’s war of words with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki is escalating daily with claims that each is accusing the other of fuelling sectarian tensions. The Syrian President has warned Turkey that its missiles are trained on Ankara and Istanbul. Western Spy satellites have picked out Syrian chemical warheads being moved towards the Turkish border in broad daylight. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has told his Turkish counterpart that Iran will defend Syria against any attack or adversary. Russia’s naval presence remains outside Tartus.
The US, Russia and China look on, happy to see their proxy battles fought away from home soil. In short, there may be local causes to the Syrian conflict, but they cannot be viewed in isolation from the regional and global context. And meanwhile, the armed conflict in Syria continues, irrespective of the UN ceasefire and the arrival of UN observers.
The UN position is to be supported by any peace-loving observer, and Kofi Annan’s mission ‘to bring an end to all violence and human rights violations, secure humanitarian access and facilitate a Syrian-led political transition to a democratic, plural political system’ is laudable (March 2012). He has, quite rightly, warned that it would be ‘disastrous’ if rebels fighting the Syrian regime were to be armed, as proposed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. However, this view requires support and consensus across the Western world. It does not need the US increasing its aid to the Syrian opposition to US$ 25 million, with funds being channeled towards night-vision goggles and satellite communications. Those funds would be better served if they were funneled into humanitarian aid and to help support a process of genuine inclusive democratic opposition.
This lack of cohesion has led Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to observe that the Friends of Syria are undermining the peace process, and that ‘It is clear as day that even if the opposition is armed to the teeth, it will not defeat the Syrian army, and there will simply be slaughter and mutual destruction for long, long years’ (Reuters, 4 April 2012). Arming an opposition unlocks the last barrier to war. It condones violence and suggests that there is no peaceful way forward. Human Rights Watch has condemned acts of torture and abuse from Syrian opposition forces, which is not only illegal, but blurs the distinction between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ within the country’s borders.
Brahma Chellaney has observed that ‘A once-peaceful, secular Syria is in danger of becoming another Afghanistan, thanks to ugly big-power geopolitics and cross-border arms flow’ (Hindustan Times, 19 February 2012).
He is right. There are disturbing parallels too with events in 1980s Lebanon when refugees, arms and religiously inspired fighters crossed Middle Eastern borders as they did after the start of the Iraq war in 2003.
But there is another way. During the course of this sectarian-driven passage to war, we have also been observing change of a different sort in Burma. Burma is another country under the control of a military dictatorship. Ethnic persecution has been rife. Uprisings have been crushed. The future has looked bleak for a long-suffering peaceful majority. However, in this case, the international community worked together successfully to impose sanctions and to put the incumbent regime under increasing pressure. The opposition of Aung San Suu Kyi has been peaceful and patient and the military leadership has now realised that its international isolation required change. As a result she has contested and won 44 out of 45 seats in free elections for the lower house.
This is incremental change. Change that is taking place in conjunction with the existing regime despite its moral repugnancy. The regime remains in power, which may not be ideal, but is pragmatic and relatively peaceful. There is no power vacuum, simply a shift in the electoral process that has already sent reverberations about the globe. Which proves that the transition to democracy can happen even in the grimmest of situations.
This has to be the best outcome for the Syrian people. Asli U. Bal, acting Professor of Law at the University of California, has put it simply: ‘If we are really interested in protecting the civilian population — rather than using this as a strategic opportunity to flip regional alliances — the benefits of a negotiated transition are clear. It may not reinforce our (the US’s) geopolitical position, but it will help safeguard ordinary Syrians caught in the cross-fire.’(New York Times, 12 April 2012)
Kofi Annan’s basis for a future Syrian state references the dialogue necessary to make this happen, and it includes the requirement for dialogue on a deal for transition from one-party to multi-party rule. Secretary of State Clinton, Prime Minister Cameron and former President Sarkozy agree. From my perspective, this presents the only route to peace, and it sits at the crux of the UN’s mission. But it is entirely inconsistent with the tactics being used by almost every element of the opposition to the regime. Certain Arab states arming and funding the Free Syrian Army is not aiding a peaceful transition. Nor have been the ‘Friends of Syria’ conferences. Nor Turkey’s squaring up to Damascus and Baghdad, itching for war. Nor the international recognition of the SNC as a representative opposition. In fact, despite its fundamentalist core, it left the first Friends of Syria conference as ‘a’ legitimate opposition, and left the second as ‘the’ legitimate opposition. Diplomacy may not offer Syria a great chance but it is the only chance of a peaceful transition. It ties in with my own five-point plan to maximise the chances of a peaceful future for Syria.
Firstly, the opposition must act in a way that is inclusive and representative of the Syrian people by creating a platform where all parties can come together and speak with a single voice. Secondly, it must work peacefully with the international community with the aim of non-violent regime change. Thirdly, international funding must be channeled solely toward facilitating peace through humanitarian aid and training into the best ways to form civil groups and political parties Fourth, non-aligned states (like India) should be encouraged to help facilitate and encourage the journey towards political pluralism.
Finally, and only once it can display real unity, can this internationally-backed, democratic opposition take on the regime by campaigning for a genuinely pluralistic election. In my view, that is the only way forward. A route where a culturally heterogeneous country, harbouring a colourful mosaic of ethnicities, cultures and faiths, can counter extremism and live in a cosmopolitan and liberal environment. Like India.
The alternative is a military solution, yearned for by jihadists, but a looming disaster for the majority of Syrians whose country will soon be a battleground on which age-old sectarian interests coincide with 21st century global tensions to create a war to overshadow anything we have experienced before. Not just in Syria, but across the Arab world.
