My column in The Kerryman. 11 September, 2013
It’s hard to know what to do about Syria. The more one reads on the subject, the more complex it seems. Syria is a country of over 22 million people and has many different religious and ethnic groups. It’s ruled by a dictator, Bashar al-Assad, whose family has been in power since 1971. In 2011 the people took to the streets to demand democracy. The army fired on them. There were mass arrests. Torture and executions were rife. The demonstrations turned into an armed rebellion.
This is where it gets complicated. Most Syrians are of the Sunni version of Islam. Al-Assad and the entire upper echelon of the army, are part of a Shia sect called the Alawites. There are few places in the Arab world where Shia’s are not persecuted, and only in Syria are the Alawites in the ascendancy.
The two powers in this region are Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran is a Shia majority country and is backing their fellow Shias, the al-Assads. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni nation and is funneling arms and money to the rebels. Hezbollah, a Shia military organisation, based in neighbouring Lebanon and funded by Iran, is backing al-Assad. Al-Qaeda and its proxies are Sunni, so are backing the rebels.
Thrown into the mix are the Christians, who enjoyed a privileged status under al-Assad and are now being targeted by Sunni extremists. Finally there are the more secular groups among the rebels, who are possibly receiving covert help from the West.
Outside of the region, the Syrian regime is being backed to the hilt by the Russians. They were allies during the Cold War and Syria receives a great deal of military aid from Russia. This support is bolstered by Russian discomfort at calls from the West for a regime change anywhere. This feels threatening for authoritarian establishments in Russia as well as in China.
The US and its allies are backing the rebels, or at least the less religiously fanatical rebels. The US government is as always concerned for the welfare for Israel, which shares a border with Syria, but it is also under pressure to fulfil its role as the only global super-power to end the massacre of civilians. America’s allies are also experiencing moral pressure to intervene on the side of the civilians.
To date, two million Syrians have been forced to flee their country. Another four and a quarter million Syrians have been internally displaced. Millions of children have been left homeless and traumatised and now chemical weapons have been brought into play.
Many of us in the West want the Americans and their allies to get involved sooner rather than later. American military might is such that it could simply swat away the al-Assad regime. Of course we and the wounded prestige of America have learned, that defeating an army is the easy part of nation building. The disaster in Iraq has taught the more sensible, a bit of humility. But what of the surgical strikes on al-Assad military assets? These are already being moved into civilian districts and his money moved to safety.
We in the West have but two choices, an ugly compromise or a war fought in the teeth of Russian, Chinese and Iranian opposition. It’s hard to know which is the least worse option.
