Damascus: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to back a process leading to a Syrian peace conference that would involve President Assad stepping down placed him at loggerheads with the other seven leaders at the G8 summit.
So far, international deadlock over Syria has resulted in 93,000 dead. Yet there is no reason why Putin should feel troubled. As the US and its allies struggle to achieve international consensus and get the peace process moving, Russia and Assad’s other backers, Iran and Hezbollah, are intervening in Syria with weapons and troops, driving their protege towards complete military victory.
Unlike the US, the Russian and Iranian regimes are not vacillating in their efforts to ensure their side wins. But then, they are unrestrained by the domestic resistance to intervention that hobbles democratically elected governments. British prime minister David Cameron has struggled to reconcile his pursuit of an agreement with Russia with his commitment to arm the mainstream Syrian resistance, the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The latter’s civilian counterpart, the Syrian National Coalition, is formally committed to the establishment of a “democratic and pluralistic civil state” and is recognised by Britain, the US, the EU and the Arab League as legitimately representing the Syrian people. But in the eyes of British anti-interventionists, anyone resisting Assad automatically becomes an Islamic extremist: according to London mayor Boris Johnson, arming the Syrian opposition would mean “putting arms into the hands of Al Qaeda-affiliated thugs”.
Yet it is the west’s failure to support the FSA that strengthens Al Qaeda’s hand. Demoralised by their arms shortage, FSA soldiers have been defecting to the Al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat Al Nusra — reportedly Syria’s best-equipped rebel force. The double-headed monster traditionally oppressing the Arab world — brutal dictatorships in power and opposition channelled into Islamist terrorism — looks set to be resuscitated, as western inaction undermines the only viable alternative.
The Russians promise to bring the Syrian regime to the negotiating table, but not if the precondition is Assad stepping down. Their stance made a meaningful G8 agreement impossible, which was probably their intention. Behind the fig leaf of the pursuit of “negotiations” and “international agreement”, Assad’s allies are rushing to complete his victory before the west gets its act together. Iran is reportedly sending 4,000 Revolutionary Guards to fight for Assad; Russia recently announced it would supply anti-aircraft missiles; Hezbollah’s military intervention was decisive in enabling his recapture of Qusair.
While western anti-interventionists smear the FSA, they are blind to the far-greater Islamist menace facing Syria: the Shia extremism promoted by Iran and embodied in its proxy, Hezbollah. The latter is an organisation whose military wing the UK and others designate as terrorist, and whose founding manifesto calls for holy war.
Hezbollah and Iran continue to stoke their long-running confrontation with Israel. The consequences for regional peace and stability of a victory for them are not something about which Putin appears concerned.
The failure of western leadership over Syria is surprising, coming as it does after the successful 2011 intervention in Libya. In the subsequent Libyan free elections, the liberals defeated the Islamists. Unlike the misguided 2003 adventure in Iraq, an intervention in Syria — arms supplies to the FSA and a no-fly zone — would enjoy broad support, including from Turkey and the Arab League. In these circumstances, the cynicism of the Russians appears all the more understandable; the ostrich-like stance of the anti-interventionists all the more bizarre.
Guardian News
