March 21, 2012

The Syrian Rebellion One Year On

One year after the crisis in Syria started the UN Security Council today issued a non-binding Presidential Statement(scroll down) on Syria supporting Kofi Annan's mission there. It will have little effect.

The danger of civil war in Syria is for now over. The terrorists who came in via Lebanon and have been killing people in Syria since April last year are unable to hold any ground.

While Human Rights Watch falsely claims that the protests where "overwhelmingly peaceful until September 2011" it now at least acknowledges the brutality of the armed activists:

Armed opposition elements have carried out serious human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said today in a public letter to the Syrian National Council (SNC) and other leading Syrian opposition groups. Abuses include kidnapping, detention, and torture of security force members, government supporters, and people identified as members of pro-government militias, called shabeeha. Human Rights Watch has also received reports of executions by armed opposition groups of security force members and civilians.

The only ability the terrorists have left is to commit random acts of terrorism like exploding bombs or assassinating people. While such terrorism is certainly a danger it alone can not bring down the Syrian state and its government. But it is alienating the people that earlier took part in peaceful protests against the regime.

Meanwhile the so called international community is not willing to support the rebellion and even Turkey is urged to pull back from its anti-Syrian policies:

Turkey seems to be the only country fully focused and devoted to toppling al-Assad’s regime. Talks of establishing a buffer zone or a safe haven to protect fleeing Syrians and leading the international community in imposing more pressure are part of this policy. Such interventionist policies would not only break the image Turkey has built in the region but are also inconsistent with its general foreign policy principles, the main pillar of which is peace. Thus Turkey had better revise its policy toward its southern neighbor ...

Only the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which leads the opposition, is still uncompromising and in this interview its leader Mohammed Riad Al-Shaqfa still calls for more arms. He also admits that the opposition is financed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This Dutch TV interview (in English) with the spokesperson of the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Dr. Jihad Makdissi shows the regime as much more realistic and more open to compromises.

The biggest problem Syria will have in the next months are the 200,000 internally displaced and the economic pressure from sanctions. Like with all sanctions it will be difficult to get these lifted. But with Iraq open to Syrian trade and the Turkish position likely to change the sanctions, as well as the terrorists, will not be able to endanger the regime.

Posted by b on March 21, 2012 at 16:14 UTC | Permalink

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