Sovereignty, Legitimacy and the Responsibility to Protect:
Who is responsible and who is legitimate in Syria?
by Ahmed E. Souaiaia*
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Syria and the New Middle East |
Western leaders’
conflicting statements underscore the unease about change in the Arab world. Unless
one believes that diplomats speak unscripted, an earlier statement
by U.S. secretary of State, John Kerry becomes extremely significant. He contended
that the ultimate goal is to “see Assad and the Syrian opposition sitting at
the same table to establish a transitional government as laid out in the Geneva
Accords.” Perhaps, partly because of such conflicted statements that leaders from
UAE, Qatar, Jordan, and Turkey have scheduled one-on-one meetings with President
Obama. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin is talking about Syria to key world leaders,
including the presidents of France, Egypt, Iran, and BRICS countries. Most
observers are predicting that the expected Obama-Putin meetings over summer
will culminate in a unified stance on Syria. If that is the expectation, it
might be too late for world leaders to predetermine the outcome of the Syrian
crisis by September. The dynamics on the ground and the entrenched disparate interests
of regional and global powers will make it extremely difficult to press the reset
button. A simple review of the events of the last 60 days will show the
complexity and centrality of the Syrian crisis. Simply put, the management of
the war in Syria is no longer in the hands of the Syrians. It is now a global
affair.
1. In early March,
the Syrian regime accused the opposition forces of attacking its troops and
civilians with chemical weapons near Aleppo. The regime, supported by Russia,
requested a UN investigation of this incident. After first agreeing to
investigate, the UN’s efforts fell apart when some members of the UNSC wanted
to broaden the scope of the investigation to include other suspected instances
of use of chemical weapons. France and Britain accused the regime of using
chemical weapons against opposition fighters in Homs. Russia accused the UN of
politicizing the investigation. Until the writing of this article, no agreement
on the constitution of an investigating committee has been reached.
2. With the rotating
presidency of the Arab League transferred to Qatar, the host country of this
year’s Arab League summit, the rulers of this tiny emirate did not waste time
taking the lead. The Qatari Emir, in an unprecedented move, forced the rest of
the Arab rulers (except those of Iraq and Algeria) to agree to give the seat of
Syria to one of the opposition factions—the National Coalition for Syrian
Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (aka the Coalition), which angered at least
two other major opposition groupings not represented in the Coalition. This
development came just days after the Qatari rulers succeeded in getting the
Coalition to establish a temporary government headed by a Syrian-American
businessman. His appointment was immediately rejected by the Free Syrian Army
and resisted by the then president of the Coalition, Moez al-Khatib.
Consequently, an attempted assassination of the leader of the FSA, Riad
al-As`ad, was carried out when he was touring northern Syria (he survived but
lost his leg). Al-Khatib announced that he will resign.
3. In early April,
al-Qaeda satellite organizations in Iraq and Syria announced a merger and the
leader of Jabhat al-Nusra publicly declared his allegiance to Ayman
al-Zawahiri, the head of al-Qaeda. These developments confirmed the presence of
al-Qaeda in Syria and put Western countries and its Arab allies in an awkward
position. The U.S. cannot be seen using taxpayers’ money to pay groups
affiliated with the organization that attacked it on September 11, 2001. The
new priority, then, became more than distancing other opposition forces from al-Nusra.
Western leaders wanted the “moderate” opposition forces to fight al-Qaeda and
its affiliates. Meeting with the Coalition leaders in Turkey, the new
directives were made clear: Unless al-Qaeda groups are dealt with, the U.S. and
some EU countries would not indiscriminately supply the opposition with the
sophisticated weapons they had sought. That brought about the resignation of
the president of the Coalition, Moez al-Khatib, again. The Coalition appointed
an interim president, George Sabra.
4. Since
returning to the presidency, Vladimir Putin has been building his legacy as the
leader who would reinstate parity to Russia-U.S. relations. On April 12, the Obama's
administration issued a list of 18 people subject to visa bans and asset
freezes in the United States under the Magnitsky Act, a legislation that was passed
by Congress late last year. Without delay, the Russian Foreign Ministry listed 18
Americans subject to visa bans and asset freezes under a retaliatory law
that Putin signed in December. The law targeted Americans accused of violating
the human rights of Russians abroad. More significantly, the list included some
of the top Bush-era officials whom Russia accused of the "legalization and
application of torture." The list included David Addington (a former chief
of staff of Vice President Dick Cheney), John Yoo (a former Justice Department
lawyer), and two former commanders of the U.S. military detention centers at
the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base. Evidently, Syria is another area where
Putin is determined to make a firm stand. Putin is deliberately building a
block of countries that will counter any action taken by the U.S. administration
and its Arab and European allies. With China firmly with him on the Syrian
issue, he is now building a broader coalition that may include former U.S.
allies like Egypt.
5. After meeting
with President Putin on April 20, Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi stated that
Egypt “was committed to finding a peaceful and legal solution to the crisis in
Syria.” On April 21, the official Egyptian State Information Service announced
that Egypt had turned down a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Before
leaving Russia, Morsi asked for Russian investment in Egypt and restated
Egypt’s desire (which he first mentioned when he had visited India earlier this
year) to join BRICS. The meeting in Russia was followed by a visit to Iran (on
April 28) by an Egyptian presidential delegation. Ostensibly related to all
these developments, Qatar announced that the bonds it had offered to buy from Egypt
(about $3 billion) would carry a 5%
interest and must be paid within 18 months. Putin, it is thought, might
have reminded Morsi that joining BRICS comes with the expectation of embracing
the Durban
declaration about Syria—which is contrary to the wishes of Qatar. A shift
in Egypt’s position on Syria would weaken the Qatari-Turkish one. Moreover, if
Russia decides to invest in Egypt, as Morsi requested, that, too, would weaken
Qatar’s influence over Egypt.
6. The bad news
for the Qatari ruling family did not stop there. Last week (April 23), after
meeting with the Emir, President Obama said: "We're going to be continuing
to work in the coming months to try to further support the Syrian opposition,
and we'll be closely coordinating our strategies to bring about a more
peaceful resolution to the Syrian crisis." The “more peaceful resolution”
comment appears to be a diplomatic reprimand to the Qatari ambitious ruler.
After all, Qatar did not contribute to any semblance of a peaceful resolution
to the Syrian crisis. Instead, it contributed weapons and a blow to the efforts
of Lakhdar Brahimi when the Emir created a government for Syria out of a single
unrepresentative opposition group and gave it the seat of the Syrian state in
the Arab League. The rash move further complicated things for the Russian and
American diplomats. In fact, it might have pushed Russia to take a more
aggressive stance on Syria, as evidenced by the increased activities by Russian
diplomats.
7. After meeting Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister
Mikhail Bogdanov over the weekend (April 27), a confident Sayyed Hasan
Nasrallah (leader of Hezbollah) made an unusually detailed speech on April 30. Nasrallah
stressed one key point: “The true friends of Syria will not allow Damascus to
fall in the hands of America, Israel, or the takfiri groups.” For those familiar with his rhetoric, this
statement is extraordinarily specific and it could not be borne out of simple
predictions. It must be a declaration of a political decision the Syrian state’s
supporters, like Russia and Iran, have taken. After all, Russia has sent many
signals, explicitly and implicitly, about its unwavering support to the Syrian state.
The Qatari move may have pushed the Russian leaders even further in their
support for Assad’s regime.
Evidently, Russia
was not pleased with the Arab Leagues’ decision to bypass the
Geneva Statement on Syria. The U.S. apparently was not thrilled either--hence
Obama’s statement that he and Qatari ruler will “be closely coordinating
our strategies to bring about a more peaceful resolution to the Syrian
crisis." This statement confirms that the U.S. is not happy with
unilateral, aggressive moves that Qatar has made thus far. The President
appears to stress the new direction towards a “more peaceful resolution.”
The U.S.
administration cannot overlook or downplay the presence of al-Qaeda in Syria
and its return to Iraq. It took the United States’ military, the most
sophisticated fighting institution in the world, more than ten years to bring
down the level of violence in Iraq--just down enough--to extricate itself from
the mess the Bush administration had created. The invasion of Iraq is still
fresh in the memory of Americans, most of whom now oppose any U.S.
military intervention in Syria. The Syrian military and security agencies
will need at least just as much time to bring the level of violence under control
even with a political settlement that the regime might reach with most
of the political and armed oppositions. Without doubt, al-Qaeda affiliates will
not stop fighting in Syria because their fight is not against Assad. It is
about re-establishing the caliphate as they understand it and imposing Salafi
dominion over all other religious and sectarian communities.
If the Syrian
regime were to fall, the entire region will be destabilized. The first sign of
this inevitable outcome is the increasingly violent confrontations in Iraq and
Lebanon. Should the Muslim Brotherhood (and its Salafi allies) rise to power in
Syria, Jordan, too, will be further destabilized. Syria, today, represents political
and security challenges that will take generations to bring under control.
Notwithstanding the repositioning of allies and foes, the outcome of the Syrian
crisis, no matter what that might be, will certainly delimit the new Middle
East in a way that will affect the entire world—not just Syria and the region.
______________________
* Prof. SOUAIAIA teaches at the University
of Iowa. Opinions are the author’s, speaking on matters of public interest; not
speaking for the university or any other or ganization with which he is
affiliated.
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