America should not play Asad’s game
David Rohde asks “Is Syria America’s Responsibility?” But he never really answers that question, which is a good one. Instead he answers another one:
We must embrace Syrian moderates and openly declare them our allies. Whether or not we should provide them with military aid is a separate debate. But if we are going to provide non-lethal aid we should do so wholeheartedly. We cannot say America is behind you — secretly.
Of course we can and have often said America is behind you secretly. The fundamental problem is not secrecy, it is whom to assist and how. There is a military opposition and a civilian one. I’d rather we pumped non-lethal support into the civilians, Islamist or not. They are organizing upwards of 100 peaceful demonstrations (often more than 150) each day in Syria. The military effort is scaring Allawites, Christians and others into supporting the regime. The day they go out into the streets to demonstrate–which they will not do so long as the Free Syria Army is attacking–is the day Bashar will be forced from power.
But let’s be clear: Syria is not America’s responsibility. What is happening there is Bashar al Asad’s responsibility. The “responsibility to protect” is in the first instance Syria’s. Russia and Iran, as Syria’s prime military allies, are also responsible for what is becoming an effort to frighten Syrians into submission through random, but sectarian, killing. This technique was used in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to establish the “republic of fear.”
I doubt it will work in Syria, because too many people have already lost their fear. But let’s be clear: there is a lot to be afraid of, as events in the past couple of days at Daraya, a community near Damascus, testify. Upwards of 200 people appear to have been murdered by regime forces. Don’t click on this video if you are even remotely squeamish:
It is of course difficult to suggest that people subjected to this treatment should not respond by defending themselves. They certainly have every right to do so. But it is not clear that revolutionary violence will win the day over a regime that is armed to the teeth and ready to kill. It is for Syrians to decide what the best strategy is. But those of us concerned to see the revolution come out on top and Syria eventually evolve into a democracy are rightly concerned when we see priority given to military assistance.
Revolution and war are political struggles. Empowering those who will take Syria in a democratic direction is what America should worry about. Those are the civilian activists, who risk being pushed aside because Bashar al Asad prefers a military fight he thinks he can win. We should not be trapped into playing his game.
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It is the armed opposition, not the government that doesn’t want to talk. They come up with all kinds of lame excuses but the fact is that they never wanted to talk. So when you write that “Bashar al Asad prefers a military fight because he thinks he can win” that is the opposite of the truth.
You are also wrong when you claim that “The military effort is scaring Allawites, Christians and others into supporting the regime”. It is the opposition that from the beginning has tried to describe its conflict with the government as a sectarian one with an oppressive Alawite minority. It was their only chance to reach beyond their core of fundamentalist Sunni supporters. The fact that Assad was quite popular before the trouble started shows that they were wrong.
Further you should make a distinction between two parts of the peaceful opposition. Parts of them are just shells for the armed opposition. They enable people who don’t want to fight to participate. It is not very different from the legal fronts of guerrilla organizations elsewhere in the world. There is also a really peaceful opposition. It does want to talk with Assad and to achieve a peaceful solution. But they have consistently been sidelined by the FSA and their paymasters in Washington and Riyadh.