What To Do About Syria

[thx1138]

This is interesting:
http://www.activistpost.com/2013/09/...tims-were.html

[Ben]

[Dino Velvet]

http://news.yahoo.com/syria-39-assad...194045940.html

Syria's Assad sends message to pope

51 minutes ago



Vatican City (AFP) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sent a message to Pope Francis Saturday, that state media said expressed his determination to defend Syrians of all religions against hardline Islamists among the rebels.
The message was passed on through a Syrian government delegation that held talks at the Vatican with the pontiff's Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and foreign affairs official Dominique Mamberti."The delegation brought a message from President Assad for the Holy Father and explained the position of the Syrian government," a statement said.
The official Syrian Arab News Agency said Assad expressed his government's "determination to exercise its right to defend all its citizens, whatever their religion, against the crimes committed by the takfiri (Sunni Muslim extremist) bands who attack them in their homes, in their places of worship and in their neighbourhoods."
Assad's regime prides itself on its secularism. While the rebels fighting for its overthrow are mainly Sunni, the government draws much of its support from Assad's own Alawite minority, as well as from Christians and other minorities.
Assad said the conflict could be resolved only by a "national dialogue between Syrians without foreign interference, because the Syrian people is the sole master of its own destiny and it alone should its leadership."
He condemned the "military, logistic and material support being provided to the terrorists by neighbouring countries," an allusion to the aid being provided to the rebels through Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.
The pope, who was elected in March, used his first "Urbi et Orbi" speech on Christmas Day to plead for humanitarian aid access in Syria and an end to the violence.
"Too many lives have been shattered in recent times by the conflict in Syria, fuelling hatred and vengeance," the 77-year-old pope said on Wednesday.
"Let us continue to ask the Lord to spare the beloved Syrian people further suffering, and to enable the parties in conflict to put an end to all violence and guarantee access to humanitarian aid."
The conflict is estimated to have killed more than 126,000 people and displaced millions since it first started out as peaceful anti-regime protests in 2011.
Earlier this month, the pontiff called for prayers for 12 nuns seized from their convent in Syria.
In September he organised a global day of prayer for peace in Syria, speaking out against the prospect of Western military intervention.

[Stavros]

The ‘Geneva II’ talks are scheduled to take place next week -in Montreux. Geneva II is supposed to take to the next stage the measures that were announced in Geneva I in June 2012. Most of the parties to the conflict have said they will attend the talks which are aimed at bringing a halt to the fighting and the start of meaningful talks on political change in Syria and ancillary issues, such as refugees. However, at this stage the Syrian govt has already stated it will not hand over power, which makes the attempt to plan a transition seem pointless if there is not going to be one. The Syrian govt can claim to have made concessions to the Syrian National Coalition which previously said it would not attend the talks if the govt did not release prisoners, especially women, whereas now that the Govt has said it will do that the SNC has said it will go. The SNC says it will be bringing with it representatives of the Kurdish communities and other rebel groups, but the Jihadi have condemned the talks and claimed anyone who goes is a traitor. Iran did not sign the Geneva I communique and has not been invited although the US thinks the Iranians should be there.

The prognosis for the talks achieving their primary objectives is poor. The Syrian Govt is in a powerful position, entering the third year of the conflict without any sign of weakness. The armed forces and the political machine have both survived defections, and the Syrians may feel that the decisions made by the UK and the USA not to become engaged militarily has strengthened their position. Although this might be true militarily, politically the government is trying to hold on to a status quo ante, as if a ‘military victory’ were not only possible but would return Syria to the situation it was in before the conflict began in March 2011. If anything, the lack of political initiatives coming out of Damascus will maintain the fighting in the absence of a credible alternative, unless the Syrians are going to show us something different.

The Syrian opposition continues to be the weak link in the overall picture. The initial assumptions that the conflict in Syria would lead to a rapid change of government have turned out to be false, and the badly divided opposition has enabled the survival of the regime largely through its own incompetence which, in turn, has lead to a crushing lack of confidence in it in the west. Notwithstanding the allegations about who was responsible for the chemicals weapons attacks which were supposed to be a ‘game changer’, the refusal of the British Parliament to support military engagement, and President Obama’s referral of the matter to Congress reflected the lack of confidence in both the outcome of a military engagement and in the ability of the existing opposition to take advantage of it.

I think the best outcome which has a realistic chance of being approved by all may concern the fate of the refugees, of which over a million now rot in camps in Jordan and Turkey. This displacement of refugees relative to the population of Jordan, for example, is equivalent to the entire population of Poland arriving in the USA seeking help. One slim feeler which has also emerged in the last three months or so is the realisation among some opposition groups that the Jihadi groups operating mostly in the north-east and in areas around Aleppo are undermining their long term political ambitions. As with the ‘Arab Awakening’ in Iraq that was coincident with the ‘surge’, the mostly foreign Jihadis with their extremist ideology have alienated local people, and while it is still too soon to see the Syrian opposition dealing with the Syrian govt in order to eliminate this component of the problem, it is not beyond the realms of possibility. It is not only the Govt that seems to lack initiative, the Syrian opposition has to ask itself where it is going, because it is not clear to outsiders.

On the positive side, there seems to be some acceptance by the US that the Russians are in Syria for the long haul, and are more likely to play a positive than a negative role; the same is also true of Iran which the Americans see as a key player as the backer of both Asad and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The US wants to keep the conflict out of Lebanon (to protect the security of Israel) but also is coming round to the idea that the Rouhani govt is genuine in its desires for reform and that this is the best opportunity in years to bring Iran into the mainstream of Middle Eastern politics, although this is one of the issues that most annoys Saudi Arabia.

On the negative side, Saudi Arabia is still seething with rage over Obama’s referral of military engagement to Congress. Robert Gates, in his book states that Obama has an aversion to military solutions to political problems -an obvious legacy of the Bush Presidency but also something I think most Americans approve of- whereas the Saudis were desperate for the US to get more involved and by not doing so believe they will now have to engage more than they have done so far. This is a problem because the Saudis have not used their troops in a regional conflict since the ‘revolutionary’ war in the Yemen in the 1960s (other than than sporadic air force activity in Desert Storm in 1991), which leaves them with the option they have used ever since, to fund covert autonomous or semi-autonomous guerilla groups. But this has already backfired on them as the al-Qaeda franchise shows in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Syria. Nevertheless, the Saudi position to extend the military engagement on the basis that it is the only way to eliminate the Asad regime and in doing so weaken Iran, remains in place.

In the long term, Saudi Arabia continues to believe it should rule throughout the Middle East, what is most worrying is not just that they are extending the misery for a political objective they can’t guarantee, there is now a belief that the rocket attack from Lebanon last month was launched by an 'al-Qaeda' unit, whatever that means these days. There is no guarantee that the 'autonomous' groups fighting for the Saudis might not improvise their tactics and decide to attack Israel as part of the wider Jihad, in other words, the more the Saudis get involved the worse for all concerned.

In sum, if there are any practical agreements at the talks they will not have been a waste of time, but on the fundamental issue of political change in Syria I am pessimistic about an agreement, and for every day that passes, more people will die.

Mark Katz on Russia and Syria (4 Myths)
http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-e...ria-four-myths

New York Times on the rocket attack from Lebanon last month:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/wo...ref=world&_r=0

[Prospero]

Pessimism is is utterly appropriate. I see no early end to things there.

[Dino Velvet]

Impressive post, Stavros. Thank you.

[Stavros]

Although the last month has seen some important developments in the struggle for power in Syria, as usual it is hard to know how these will affect any long term attempt to bring this catastrophe to an end (Polio is now rife in Syria and in the refugee camps, one of the bleakest components of the conflict).

1. Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia last month is now believed to have been difficult, possibly confrontational, but one from which both sides have tried to find a compromise in order to retain the relationship the USA has maintained with Saudi Arabia since the 1930s.
-Bandar bin Sultan, the intelligence chief and the most prominent pro-American Saudi in the ruling family (he has personally known every American President since Jimmy Carter), has been removed, or resigned, largely because his aggressive stance on Syria has failed to produce regime change. If this was a sign that Saudi Arabia has lost a sense of direction, then its anger with the USA for not stepping into the gap with its military forces may have been assuaged by the news that the Syrian opposition is now using American made weapons, not the first rate 'MANPAD' shoulder-to-air missiles, but the lesser BGM-71 TOW anti-tank rockets though it is not clear who supplied them and it us unlikely they were provided directly by an American source. These weapons are supposed to be used against the Syrian Air Force, but there are fears they could end up in the hands of Salafi groups.
In addition, the US has agreed to increase the number of Syrian rebels it has been training in Jordan where for years the US has monitored the Middle East -they built an enormous new embassy there not long after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Obama, it seems, is more tuned to covert action than its more accountable alternative.
The problem for me is that the Syrian opposition is so weak politically, I don't see what it can do on the military front, even with American weaponry, except delay a conclusion to this conflict for several more years.

2. The other concern about Bandar's removal/resignation is that it signals a moment of change within Saudi Arabia, as King Abdullah is dying and his nearest successor Salman is apparently suffering from dementia, so there is talk of the next King being a 'youthful' 68 year old called Muqrin who is not descended from the Sudairi Seven, the sons born to Ibn Saud's favourite wife who have provided all of Saudi Arabia's kings so far, although Muqrin is one the 45 official sons Ibn Saud did produce...Muqrin might be a moderniser in the context of Saudi Arabia, but his hostility to the Shi'a is well documented, so this is unlikely to lead to a rapprochement with Iran.

3. The success that Putin has achieved in the Crimea, and the pressure he is exerting on the Ukraine to reduce its ties to NATO and the EU, suggests Russia will also not be looking for a diplomatic conclusion to the Syrian conflict just yet. Russia believes its support for the Damascus government is paying off, and that it will strengthen their position as a world power with influence.

Some recent reports (of varying quality)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...s-9265567.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...9e1_story.html

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/04...tup-for-syria/

http://www.meforum.org/3683/bandar-b...3A%3A+Writings

[martin48]

OMG, forgot about Syria. Is it still there? News has moved to Ukraine now!

[trish]

Forgive me, but I'm American (and proud of it). Where's Ukraine now?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-to-intervene/

Sorry for the digression. As you were. Smoke, if you got 'em.

[martin48]

All you need to know, Trish, is that it's those commie bastards again, and you are going to get really tough with them.

Forgive me, but I'm American (and proud of it). Where's Ukraine now?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-to-intervene/

Sorry for the digression. As you were. Smoke, if you got 'em.