Syria
From the Editors (Fall 2013)
A major victory for the hawks in the post-Vietnam era was to define “intervention” as military action and its opposite as inaction.
Thus, in the recurrent debate over what to do about the civil war in Syria, the options are reduced to some sort of US strike, on the one hand, and nothing, on the other. Or so the media presents the matter. When reports surfaced in August of a chemical attack on civilians in the Damascene hinterland of Ghouta, most outlets took President Barack Obama at his word that he had to enforce his “red line” by cruise missile or abandon the Syrian people to the regime’s bloody whim.
Breaking Point
One of the many plot lines lost in the summertime discussions of a US strike on Syria is the pace of refugee movement out of the country. As it stands, the refugee crisis is overwhelming and likely to stay that way. Another external military intervention would further accelerate the mass flight and exacerbate what is already a humanitarian emergency.
On the Signs of Intervention in Syria
Today Secretary of State John Kerry presented documents in support of his case that the Syrian regime ordered a chemical weapons attack that killed 1,429 Syrians, including 426 children. Days earlier Kerry had promised “consequences” if the US judged that the “red line” of chemical weapons use had been crossed. The nature of those “consequences” is not certain, but all signs point to a US missile or other aerial strike, “a bloody nose operation,” as MERIP editor Bassam Haddad puts it. The Obama administration promises a “limited, narrow act,” not an “open-ended commitment.” We asked a few veteran observers to comment on this turn of events.
The Syrian Crisis in Jordan
An hour and a quarter north of Amman the rural highway rolls through the remote desert hamlet of Zaatari without slowing. The town’s lone intersection is too sleepy to need a stop sign.
How to Help Syria Now
The appalling civil war in Syria is well into its third year. With upwards of 70,000 dead, countless numbers maimed and injured, and millions of refugees, there are recurrent calls for the United States to “do something” to end the mayhem. That “something” is usually defined as military intervention — imposing a no-fly zone, arming the rebels, even sending the Marines.
The Obama administration should have the wisdom to resist these calls. There are other “somethings” that have a better chance of doing good.
Syria’s Disabled Future
Jamal is not yet a teenager. His school closed in 2011, soon after the Syrian revolution turned into an armed conflict, and his father found him a factory job. One day in 2012 as he returned from work there was a battle going on in the main street near his home. Jamal immediately started carrying wounded children smaller than he is to shelter in a mosque. Then Syrian army reinforcements arrived, clearing the streets with gunfire and hitting Jamal in the spine. The youngsters who took him to the hospital advised him to say that “terrorists” had caused his injury. But Jamal did not want to lie — he told the doctors that a soldier had fired the bullet. The doctors told him to shut up and say it was the terrorists. But they treated him anyway.
The Syrian Heartbreak
There was a distinctive sense of national pride in Syria. It flowed from the confidence of a civilization dating back to the times of the earliest alphabets and visible in the country’s wealth of archaeological sites, including some of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It came from the depth of local culture. It stemmed from the music of Syrian Arabic, the elegance of Syrian manners, the finesse of Syrian cuisine and the sincerity of Syrian hospitality. It proceeded from modern geopolitics, too, as Damascus carved out for itself a role bigger and bolder than its scarce resources should have allowed.
The Syrian Cataclysm
For obvious reasons, coverage of the uprising and internal war in Syria has been dominated by the terrible human toll. An estimated 60,000 Syrians (or more) have been killed, with tens of thousands more scarred bodily and emotionally by the violence. As of the end of February, over 3 million Syrians are either internally displaced or refugees in neighboring countries.
CAFMENA Letter re: Syria
The Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America has published an open letter regarding armed attacks on university campuses in Syria. We reproduce the letter below:
Open Letter to the Office of the Syrian President and the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces
February 19, 2013
To Whom It May Concern,
The Many Roles of Turkey in the Syrian Crisis
On October 4, 2012, the Turkish Grand National Assembly approved a motion, by a vote of 320 to 129, authorizing deployment of the armed forces in “foreign countries,” essentially where and when the government saw fit. It was an expansive, vague-sounding mandate, but in fact there was only one target: Syria.
Syrian Kurds on the Verge of Crisis
With the civil war in Syria past the point of no return, the country’s economy is undergoing unprecedented shrinkage. Inflation is running rampant. Purchasing power is plummeting as the value of the Syrian pound falls against the US dollar.
Damascus and Aleppo, the main economic hubs, are badly affected, but the country’s eastern and northeastern regions are also in dire straits.
Condi-ist Manifesto
In one of the most nonsensical sentences published in the Washington Post since the US invasion of Iraq, and perhaps ever, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice writes in a November 23 op-ed: “Today’s Karl Marx is Iran.”
Fissures in Hizballah’s Edifice of Control
On August 15, Beirut awoke to the news that more than 20 alleged members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) had been captured by a group calling itself “the military wing of the al-Miqdad family.” The group had sent footage to the al-Mayadin television network, which was quickly picked up by other local and international channels. In the clip, men dressed in camouflage and black ski masks, and gripping Kalashnikovs, surrounded two prisoners seated in a dark room. A man with his back to the camera posed questions to the prisoners, who replied that they worked for the FSA, on orders from Khalid al-Dahir, a Lebanese parliamentarian affiliated with the Future Movement, the Sunni-majority political party led by Saad al-Hariri.
After the Bomb in Beirut
As a recent arrival in Beirut, I quickly learned the Lebanese map, geographic and political, when the bomb hit Ashrafiyya on October 19, killing eight and injuring more than 100. A friend in the US e-mailed to ask if the bomb was close, but since I didn’t hear it explode or smell the smoke, gauging distance and direction by senses, it couldn’t have been. Even before it became known that Wisam al-Hasan, a Lebanese intelligence chief, was the apparent target, a friend here parsed the “political grammar”: neighborhood, bomb location in relation to the headquarters of various political parties with various stances toward Syria.
Displaced Syrians
As in Iraq, the internal war in Syria has forced hundreds of thousands of people to leave their homes. Some 155,000 Syrians have registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq or Turkey and another 14,000 are estimated to be in those countries awaiting formal refugee status. An additional 1.5 million people are displaced inside Syria.
To Save Syria, Work with Russia and Iran
As the violence intensifies in Syria, external powers, including the United States, are embracing increasingly belligerent positions. Indeed, in recent days the United States and Turkey have announced plans to study a no-fly zone after calls by many American commentators for a more direct military role.
Although there is no doubt the government of President Bashar al-Asad carries the overwhelming responsibility for the unfolding tragedy in Syria, the attempt to militarily defeat the regime is the wrong strategy if the goals are reducing violence and protecting innocent civilians.
My 50 Minutes with Manaf
During one of my regular visits to Syria, I was with a group of friends at one of the bustling new restaurant-bars that dotted Damascus’ old city, around Bab Touma. Some places were more popular than others, frequented by internationals and a particular stratum of Damascene society that included some people who were pro-regime and others who were opposed. By the mid-2000s, one’s opinion of the regime did not matter much, in and of itself. What brought these Damascenes together was their common benefit from President Bashar al-Asad’s “economic reform” policies and the social stratification they had produced. In these circles, criticism of the regime was no longer taboo — so long as it was presented in a pleasant and “reasonable” manner.
Syria’s Radical Dabka
A clip circulating on YouTube begins with two sets of feet stepping on a portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad, defaced with a blood-red X and tossed on the ground. It soon becomes apparent that “dirty Asad” lies inside a ring of protesters, who circle the head shot stomping rhythmically — on the downbeat, in repeated or alternating steps that rock backward and forward, left and right — to a rollicking tune in the background. The video is captioned, “The Sweetest and Finest of Syrian Dabka.” [1]
To Stop the Killing, Deal with Asad
In the wake of the recent Friends of Syria conference, the United States and Middle Eastern powers that include Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are stepping up aid to armed resistance groups in Syria. Under American leadership, the conference pledged $100 million to provide salary payments to rebel fighters.
Whatever the humanitarian intentions, this strategy, along with discussions of “safe zones” and “non-lethal aid,” is misguided at best, and counterproductive at worst. For all the talk about safeguarding civilians, the proposals are far more likely to escalate violence than to reduce civilian casualties.
