Syria

The lifting of the Syrian weapons embargo

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The cannibalizing of dead Syrian soldiers bodies, the proudly publicized executions of other soldiers, beheadings of pro-regime civilians (including Sunni clerics), the bombings of mosques and universities, kidnapping of UN personel in the Golan heights, the open allegiance to Al-Qaeda, the shooting at civilian airlines, the targeted killings of reporters and journalists…all this was apparently not enough to turn away the EU, led by warmongers UK and France, from promoting the removal of the ban on arming the rebels.

That the rebels are already armed through shipments coming from Libya and through hundreds of tons of airlifted weaponry coming partly from the croatian army, paid and delivered by Qatar and Saudi Arabia via Turkey and Jordan is well known and documented. It is as well a blatant fact that the US and EU states encouraged and facilitated the arming of the rebels all the time.

The EUs decision comes at a time when after a series of (minor to medium) gains by the Syrian army one could hope that the SNC would be more open for realistic negotiations with the syrian government and would abandon its fruitless policy of demanding unserious preconditions like Assads giving up of power prior to any talks. Instead the rebel side will feel more emboldened and even less inclined towards finding any peaceful agreement.

What is most appalling is that any of the above mentioned rebel crimes would suffice to call them terrorists by the western press and politicians and reject any talks with them. Instead the rebel violence is either ignored or justified, or in some cases even attributed to the syrian government upon unsubstantiated allegations by the rebels.

Did the Syrian Army use chemical weapons?

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US, UK and Israel have increasingly been claiming that they have „proof“ that the Syrian Army used Sarin gas in Aleppo. This is however very unlikely, for many reasons:

1. A man is quoted who says his wife and his two children died because of a Sarin grenade that had fallen into his house. He says he felt a „a sharp, bitter odor„, but this does not make sense because Sarin is odorless.
2. Incidentally a team of US experts came very quickly to the house of the victim and took hair samples to analyze in a lab. This does not make sense either because Sarin is a volatile gas. It does not „remain“ to leave a trace.
3. Chemical weapons are weapons of mass destruction as can be seen from the Iraqi attack on Halabja in 1988 when within one day 5000 people died. Neither are chemical weapons suited for small scale attacks nor does it make sense militarily to kill single civilians with them.
4. The US has made clear many times that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian Army would constitute passing a red line which could trigger a US military intervention. Why should the Syrian Army expose itself to such a danger only to have killed few civilians?
5. Syria has made clear that they would not use chemical weapons in an internal conflict and in any case using chemical weapons is a last resort. The military situation is by far not that bad that the regime would need to take such suicidal measures.
6. It is by now well known that the rebels are not a united power but consist of many different groups with varying degrees of radicalism, not to mention that a sizable portion of the rebels are non-Syrians. There is no way to rule out that either the attack- if it happened – was a false flag attack or that the reports about it are made up to draw the US into the war, especially since the rebels have suffered military setbacks in the recent weeks. The rebels would have a clear and undeniable motivation to let the world believe chemical weapons were used, while it is completely to the disadvantage of the Syrian government to use them.

„Assad must first step down“ (?)

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The syrian foreign opposition declares Assads departure as a precondition for any dialogue with the syrian government. This attitude of self-imposed negotiative inflexibility is rooted in the fact that very early on in the current syrian conflict major western governments and almost all arab leaders took the uncompromising position that Assad MUST go. This again gave the disunited and unorganized rebel factions inside Syria the wrong or at least premature impression that the libyan scenario would be repeated with NATOs high tech airforce destroying Syrias military and governmental infrastructure and making it easy for rag-tag militias to „liberate“ cities.
After all, why seek a dialogue with Assad when he was supposed to be dragged out of a hole (like Saddam) or a drainage pipe (like Ghaddafi) and lynched, they thought.

The fact that after two years Assad is still alive and in power is evidence that a major part of the syrian society is behind him or at least prefers him to the rebels. Attemps to explain Assads survival by referring to Russian and Iranian help are not convincing. If a) Syrias majority is against Assad and b) the rebels control vast swathes of syrian territory, and c) given that the rebels are supplied with both foreign fighters and weapons from four borders (Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon), there is no way the syrian arab army (SAA) could have not collapsed only because of getting weapons supplies from Iran and Russia. As a matter of fact it is hard to believe that either of these Assad supporters could have managed to supply real heavy weapons (helicopters, fighter jets or even significant number of tanks). If (a) and (b) were true as the syrian opposition and its international backers (and financiers) regularly claim, then at least a million syrian Sunnis must be armed and highly motivated to fight the regime. After all, how often does it happen that both, the rich arab monarchies and the US and the EU support someone?What is really happening, despite the syrian oppositions supporters denying it, is that the SAA is not disintegrating and collapsing. There are no mass defections. Explaining the lack of high profile and mass defections with the often repeated claim that the regime is closely observing (Sunni) officers is ridiculous. On the one hand some experts claim that Assad has only 100.000 soldiers (of which only 50.000 are considered loyal and reliable) and on the other hand these same 50.000 are spending their strained ressources and man power to stop  the other demoralized or otherwise „shaky“ 50.000 from deserting? And yet, the 50.000 are fighting on several fronts across the country against hundreds of FSA „battalions“ that are allegedly embedded in local (Sunni) populations who love them and hate the regime? This is highly unlikely nonsense.

But let´s return to the american, european and gulf-arab calls for Assad to go or to be removed forcefully. Why should Assad do this? What, if really a substantial portion of syrian people either actively want him to stay or as mentioned above consider him the lesser plague than the rebels? One can argue whether Assad has „lost legitimacy“ as european and american politicians repeatedly assert, but in how far have the various previously unknown and foreign based syrian opposition „leaders“ and „interim presidents“ ANY legitimacy at all?
On which basis are Moaz al Khatib or Ghassan Hitto more representative of the syrian people than Assad? Assad may have not won a single democratic election, but have the mentioned gentlemen taken part in any regular elections and received peoples majority vote?

If the western nations are serious regarding a future democratic Syria then noone – including Assad – should be excluded in advance. If they and the arab leaders who themselves were never elected are so sure that the vast majority of Syrians hate and despise Assad and prefer Salafists or the Muslim Brotherhood or any other faction then they should not insist on Assad stepping down prior to any talks.
They could stop arming and uncritically supporting the rebels and pressure them to enter into a truce with the government. Russia, China and even Iran would put pressure on Assads government to observe the truce as well. Then elections should be held under the supervision of international observers within 3-6 months.

Three-level proxy war in Syria

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the NATO+GCC (mainly Saudi Arabia and Qatar) support structure for the syrian rebels has three depth levels based upon different, underlying agendas:
1. Destroy the Assad regime to weaken Iran and break the „shia-axis“ (Iran-Iraq-Syria-South Lebanon). The Main driver of this agenda is Saudi Arabia that even during Israel and Hezbollahs 33days war in 2006 criticized the lebanese resistance movement and together with Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan has been warning of a Shia crescent for years.
2. Destroy the Assad regime to neutralize Syria as the sole remaining nieghbour of Israel that has not officially made peace with Israel and has been a major supporter of palestinian and lebanese resistance. The destruction of Syria as regional power begun already in 2005 when Lebanons Hariri was murdered and western politicians and media immediately blamed the Syrians which finally led to the Syrian Armys departure from Lebanon. One year later Israel attacked Lebanon and with the exception of Hezbollah the regular lebanese armed forces did not defend the country. It is crystal clear that Hariris murder very well suited Israels plans and not at all brought any advantages for the Syrian. This aim of Syrias regime change is on the agenda of Israel and the US and also serves Saudi Arabia who welcomes any weakening of Hezbollah in inner-lebanese politics.
3. Destroy the Assad regime to remove one of the latest pro Russian/Chinese countries in the middle East and North Africa region. The future Syria should be transformed into a market for western economies and a source/transit country for petroleum and gas controlled by the West instead of Russia. Plus, it becomes impossible for Iran to transport gas through Syria on good terms. This agenda is promoted primarily by Qatar, but is also helpful to Saudi Arabia and the US.