Nir Rosen on Syria's future
Issandr El AmraniI really recommend this article, the last part of a Q&A series with Nir Rosen, who has been in Syria in recent weeks. It covers the many reasons why intervention is unlikely to either happen, or if it does, to work in a satisfactory manner, how the conflict is likely to perdure short of a large-scale massacre, how Syrian society is likely to disintegrate as shortages become more common and tensions increase among communities, and no one seems to be able to really do something about it that doesn't risk making things worse. He concludes:
If this civil war comes to pass, it will lead to a humanitarian crisis. Already, there is a diesel shortage in much of Syria. And in much of the country, electricity is shut down at least some of the time - even if this is often done for punitive or offensive security reasons. In opposition strongholds, normal government services have ceased. Garbage is piled high; children do not go to school. Eventually, if this continues, infrastructure will start to collapse. Electricity will cease to be available. People will turn to generators if they have access to them. Fuel for cooking and heating will be even harder to come by. Already medicines for children and chronic conditions is hard to obtain in opposition strongholds. Neighbourhoods will be besieged, and tens thousands of families will flee for safety to other parts of the country.
Syria is crumbling before our eyes, and a thoroughly modern nation is likely to be set back many decades.
As seen in Iraq — indeed perhaps Nir is heavily influenced by his experience there, although at least Syria did not endure what Iraq did under the UN sanctions regime in the 1990s.
I often wonder whether Turkey could intervene in Syria (logistically supported by NATO). Nir thinks Turkey is unable to do it, and it is certainly reluctant. There would be a certain acceptability to Turkish intervention, in the manner that Vietnam intertevened in Cambodia in the 1970s. I think that they would have to do so in a brutal way that would empower their local allies (whatever they find) and crushes the Kurds. It could resemble, perhaps, the Syrian intervention in Lebanon in the 1970s, which was welcomed by the international community at the time. Ironically we may be seeing the Lebanonization of Syria, after all these years of Syrian power over Lebanon.
Reader Comments (3)
I think I've pretty much come around to favoring military intervention on this one.
Right now, the people seem to be saying the likeliest scenerio is a long, slow civil war that de-modernizes the country and after Assad's eventual overthrow gives way to sectarian bloodletting.
The sectarian bloodletting may be unavoidable. But we just may be able to turn that long, slow civil war that de-modernizes the country into a quick, sharp civil war that leaves some parts of modernity and civil society intact. We've proven time and time again that air power plus some local ally on the ground can depose regimes (Kosovo, initial invasion of Afghanistan, Libya). It's the occupation part that's hard, but there isn't going to be an occupation from America on this one.
I think the real reason we aren't intervening is that it means we "own" the resulting sectarian bloodletting, and Christians are going to be on the receiving end of that bloodletting. (The current course still will result in sectarian bloodletting; we just won't own it). I don't know that that is good enough of a reason, especially if the ownership (and blowback) of this whole thing can be spread around Turks, Qataris, Saudis, and so on.
From afar, and without a lot of knowledge, it seems nevertheless, what with the Saudi influence especially, that it is already a civil war. I DO know something about the Christian Protestand vs. Catholic wars of old, and it seems to me that this Shia vs. Sunni is the same, only worse. And I mean WORSE. I hope with my belief in Love / Humanity that this will not be so, but it seems to me that Syria is not warring with itself. It is the sectarian Intercine warfare from without. Which will get even bloodier. I have named my chief blame, and it is not Mr. Assad. It is Saudi plus the USA in the shape of "NATO", that is trying with all it's might to help it's friend, = so that it is easier to get at Iran - whose name, is Israel. This is extremely unlovely.
The previous poster suggests that military intervention is necessary. He is one of the bloodletters himself. In spades. That's what we white interfering assholes are like, when it doesn't concern our own children. And sometimes, when it does. When the choice is to kill and they recommend it, they are killers. Don't believe any of their crap.