Ayoon Wa Azan (All the Evidence Points to a Civil War)

The Syrian crisis will not end with a settlement. The regime has gone past the point of no return, and the conflict will no doubt end with a victor and a vanquished side. The regime will lose, or has already lost, even if it remains in power, and I don’t see that happening. Since day one, the regime used only one approach in dealing with the opposition and the popular uprising: A security-based approach. But despite its proven failure, day after day, week after week and month after month, the regime did not consider any other method to deal with the opposition. Instead, the regime stepped up the brutality of its crackdown and killings, with the result being thousands of victims that increase in number every day. This means that the opposition cannot negotiate with the regime – an avenue it doesn’t want to pursue in the first place. In my first article about the Syrian crisis, I called for an end to the killing, and said that the murder of even one protester is an unjustifiable crime. Today, we are facing six thousand crimes, or perhaps eight or ten thousand. The Syrian regime will not collapse tomorrow, but it will be impossible for it to survive in the long run, so all I can predict today is that more killing will take place. The regime initially spoke of armed gangs when these did not exist, and carried on making these claims until they sprang to existence. To be sure, the Free Syrian Army was just an idea, but it now comprises thousands of defectors from the regular army. Despite the horridness of what is going on, I said that the end of the regime is not imminent because foreign military intervention is not currently on the table. Both before and after the Russian-Chinese veto at the Security Council, the U.S. Secretary of State has stated that “Military intervention has been absolutely ruled out and we have made that clear from the very beginning”. Of course, they adduce many arguments against military intervention. But I adduce another reason, which is that Syria does not have oil as Libya does, so the West has therefore left the Syrian people to die. In the absence of military intervention, there are other limited options, such as stepping up the sanctions and the economic embargo, i.e. starving the Syrian people before finishing them off, and putting pressure on Russia and China to dissuade them from using the veto again. However, I think they will probably wield it another time to prevent a repetition of the Libyan scenario, where the UN Security Council resolution was meant to protect the civilians, and ended up facilitating a war for regime change, and the protection of the Western European countries’ stakes in Libya’s oil. I would perhaps add to these proposals recognition of the Syrian National Council in tandem with pressure on governments worldwide to withdraw their recognition of the current regime in Damascus, in addition to arming the opposition. This in fact is already taking place despite official denials, through Turkey and other countries. Undeniably, the FSA is present along the northern borders, and I have read that there are FSA units stationed in Iskenderun (the Usurped Province [as Syria has maintained]). I believe that the above portrait of the prospects for the developments in Syria, and not the whims and wishes of the various parties, is closer to the truth. If this is indeed so, then the killing will continue and increase. From day one, the regime has pursued the approach of ‘kill or be killed’, and in the end, it got what it wished for. Yet the regime announces that a referendum will be held on the Constitution, and I don’t know how this will happen in light of the daily bloody confrontation. Everyone now warns of an impending civil war in Syria, and I cite a headline that is being repeated in many places, in one way or the other, which is, “All the evidence points to sectarian civil war in Syria, but no one wants to admit it”. Some are wishing for a civil war to happen, and others are inciting the United States to supply arms to the opposition. While the motives for this are implicit, the reader may find them by reading between the lines. For instance, an editorial in the Christian Science Monitor, which is affiliated with a Christian group that professes a religious theology that I find odd, has proposed reasons that are different from the obvious moral argument to arm the opposition, citing Hezbollah and Iran. Meanwhile, Jackson Diehl, the Deputy Editorial Page Editor of the Washington Post, called for arming the opposition because toppling the regime of Bashar al-Assad would be a ‘fatal blow’ to Iran. This extremist Likudnik had endorsed the invasion of Iraq and opposed everything to do with Palestinian interests, and now he wants the Syrians to die so that Iran can lose its ally and so that Israel can benefit. It is the Syrian regime that is responsible for reaching this situation, and I find no excuses for it. Instead, I find that the regime has erred and has trodden the path of egregiousness and crime.