Tag: Assad
Stevenson’s army, October 12
– Hill staffers becoming tech lobbyists.
-DOD scientists sees more areas to research.
– Writer sees Belarus flashpoint.
And here’s how Punchbowl News explains the clever way the House is passing the debt limit change.
The House leadership doesn’t anticipate having any trouble passing a debt-limit increase. Members return this afternoon for a quick session to take up the debt-limit boost and do some other business, and then the chamber isn’t back for another vote until Oct. 19.
Here’s the kicker: The House won’t even vote directly on lifting the debt limit. The debt limit will be “deemed” lifted as part of a rule that governs debate for the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act, the Protect Older Job Applicants Act and the Family Violence Prevention and Services Improvement Act.
In other words, one vote will sketch out the debate on three minor bills — and it will also lift the debt limit by $480 billion. It’s an attempt at being a bit cute by House Democrats, but it’s still a debt-limit vote.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Idlib in crisis
The United Nations reported over 900,000 newly displaced Syrians in northwestern Syria since December 2019. This number is currently increasing due to the violence in Idlib. This tragic reality served as the foundation of the Middle East Institute’s event on February 21, 2020, titled The Crisis In Syria’s Idlib. The discussion was moderated by Alexander Marquardt, Senior National Correspondent at CNN, with participation from Charles Lister, Senior Fellow and Director of the Countering Terrorism and Extremist Program at the Middle East Institute, Elizabeth Tsurkov, Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and Doctoral student at Princeton University, and Zaher Sahloul, President and Founder at MedGlobal.
“Unprecedented” Situation: Idlib
The panelists accentuated the “unprecedented” nature of the current situation in Idlib. Unlike Syrians in other “de-escalation” zones, the residents of Idlib have nowhere to go. The Turkish border is closed. The 2.8 million people in Idlib are trapped, fearing for their lives. Tsurkov underlined that there is a genuine fear among the population in Idlib that they are all going to die. Lister believes there are close to 2 million people on the border, IDP camps have been entirely full for months, and people are forced to sleep outside in freezing fields.
Sahloul provided a more historical overview of the conflict in Syria, reemphasizing that the humanitarian crisis has been ongoing for over nine years. Assad’s tactics focus on attacking civilian infrastructure; this is an attack against humanity, as schools, markets, and hospitals are constantly being bombed and destroyed. The majority of people are not being killed by bombs, but by chronic disease and lack of available doctors and treatment facilities.
Tsurkov added that the people in Idlib do not want to stay and wait for the regime to capture them as they fear being placed in regime prisons, which essentially serve as “extermination sites.” She notes that even people who are employed by the Syrian government are afraid of remaining under regime control because they have seen what happens too often: execution.
The International community’s failure to respond
Lister in dismay noted that the UN is unable to act. A French proposed statement to declare Idlib a crisis could not pass in the Security Council due to a Russian veto. Assad has recaptured around 35-40% of northwestern Syria in under a year. The key regime objective has been achieved: to control the north/south M5 highway. The next objective, control of the east/west M4 highway has not yet been accomplished.
The panelists emphasized that Erdogan is feeling huge political pressure not to allow any refugees over the border. Turkey has lost 18 observation posts in Idlib, but Turkish-controlled forces did fire at Russian jets. Turkey has established an end of February deadline for the regime to withdraw from Idlib. The panelists doubted this aspiration will be achieved.
Sahloul emphasized that the UNHCR office warned nongovernmental organizations in Syria last year of an additional million displaced people predicted in the next year. Therefore, Sahloul argues, the UN should not be surprised. He cited the lack of UN observers in Idlib and the failure of the UN Secretary General to visit Idlib as evidence of UN disinterest.
What could/should happen?
Tsurkov believes that if the Russian and regime warplanes that conduct horrific bombing and displacement of civilians were threatened and risked being shot down, the bombing would stop. Therefore the US and international community should raise the stakes for Russia and Assad by not only intervening when chemical weapons are used, but also when civilians are bombed.
All the panelists suggested that Turkey should not stand alone in this crisis. While Turkey has made many deplorable policy decisions in Syria, Ankara is also currently the only force trying to stop the regime. Lister said that Turkey has no choice but to gradually escalate its force presence and strength in the region. Turkey has to find a way to force a stalemate or ceasefire.
The only alternative to regime or Turkish control of Idlib is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), whose ancestry includes Al Qaeda. In response to this alternative, Tsurkov professes that local support for HTS is limited and dwindling, due to its recent military losses, but Gaza-fication of Idlib (control by an extremist group) would be better than millions fleeing and mass slaughter.
She believes the only plausible alternative is Turkish-controlled Idlib. Sahloul emphasized that HTS would not be able to govern; it was tolerated only because of the stability it brought. Lister noted that HTS has been officially reaching out to conduct interviews with the international community so that its image can be more aligned with stability and governance than with terrorism. Or at least can be viewed as better than the alternative.
The panelists conclude that the the international community should be providing funds and urging the parties to achieve a ceasefire as a way of stabilizing the situation. Lister urges the US, at a minimum, to utilize diplomacy and put pressure on Russia.
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Accountability now
During Syria’s conflict, the Assad regime has continued committing many war crimes. Although de-escalation zones were established to mitigate conflict violence, the number of displaced Syrians increased. On February 5, Arab Center Washington DC hosted a panel discussion and a book review on the topic of Accountability in Syria: Achieving Transitional Justice in a Postconflict Society. The discussion involved three speakers: Radwan Ziadeh, a senior fellow for the Arab Center Washington DC, Mai El-Sadany, the legal and judicial director at the Tahrir Institute, and Mohammad Alaa Ghanem, a Syrian academic and pro-democracy campaigner.
War crimes
Ziadeh noted that because justice and accountability are left out in the Geneva and Astana talks, he wrote the book Accountability in Syria to call for attention to war atrocities and raise the issue of accountability. He listed five crimes that the Assad regime has committed in the last eight years.
- Use of air force: Opposition areas have been exposed to heavy, systematic, widespread, and indiscriminate bombing. While only 1% of victims killed by barrel bombs are opposition but 99% of victims are civilians. Other governments have failed to prevent the Syrian government from utilizing barrel bombs.
- Use of prohibited weapons: The Assad regime has utilized prohibited chemical weapons 37 times.
- Siege: Half a million of Syrians live besieged by Assad’s “surrender or starve” strategy.
- Torture and sectarian crimes: The regime carried out systematic torture at its secret prisons.
- Forced displacement: Displacement aims to remove people who have been disloyal. Forced displacement induces both the demographic change and the flight of Syrian refugees.
Forced displacement
Ghanem says that ceasefires, such as the Idlib and Daraa de-escalation zones, are a prelude to liquidation. Political analysts in Washington misunderstood ceasefires, which they thought would constitute a win-win solution that could empower local communities. Instead, ceasefires emboldened and benefited Assad’s regime, which used them to induce demographic change. He presented three purposes of ceasefires:
- Ceasefires have helped the Assad regime to conquer more territories by setting up a 1-2 year de-escalation period to relinquish oppositions’ heavy weapons and evacuate fighters.
- Ceasefires serve to relieve shortage of Assad’s manpower by freeing up regime resources to focus on other priority areas.
- Ceasefires provide an illusion of political process by designating areas for reconstruction while permitting the regime to commit systematic sectarian cleansing.
Remedies
El-Sadany argues that it’s time for justice now. Three tools are available for accountability:
- Documentation: Civil society, journalists, and lawyers should act together to preserve history and contribute to truth. For example, the New York Times utilizes open source investigation.
- UN Mechanisms: The United Nations has disappointed Syrians because of UN Security Council vetoes and the failure to make a referral to International Criminal Court (ICC). However, the UN Human Rights Council’s commissions of inquiry serves accountability by fact-finding and investigating crimes and perpetrators. In addition, the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) was created to prepare files and assist the investigation and prosecution of crimes.
- Prosecution outside Syria: Syria is not a party to the Rome Statute and the UNSC has failed to refer its crimes to the ICC. But prosecution in other states is still possible.
El-Sadany proposes that the international community needs to amend, strengthen, and improve accountability mechanisms. Advocates should lobby their governments for more funding for accountability efforts and improved human rights laws. Lawyers should translate materials, especially on universal jurisdiction, into Arabic to reach Syrian victims and civil society.
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