Category Archives: Middle East

Britain, Middle East, Russia, Syria, United Nations, United States

Can the West still stand by following new evidence from Syria?

SYRIA

The evidence stemming from the organised mass murder by the Assad regime in Syria have led to international war crime experts using phrases that are loaded with historical weight and meaning. One such term now being used is ‘concentration camp’. Such terms should never be used lightly.

Photographic evidence smuggled out by a Syrian military policeman, who has since defected to opposition forces, adds to the chronicled death of some 11,000 people, many of whom appeared to have been tortured before they died.

The former chief prosecutor of the special court for Sierra Leone, Sir Desmond de Silva, has described many of these photographs as being reminiscent of Nazi death camps such as Auschwitz and Belsen. Such comparisons should not be made without a great deal of sober reflection.

That war crimes experts now feel able to use these terms to describe the slaughter in Syria should give the world pause for thought. Such an assessment and use of rhetoric suggests everyone with a stake in the Syrian conflict – particularly those countries in the Middle East adding proxy support to the Assad regime – need to take a step back and reassess their positions on a conflict that has been going on for almost three years.

Wholesale slaughter in Syria should not come as a surprise. In July last year, the United Nations had already spoken of a death toll exceeding 100,000. However, if 11,000 bodies showing signs of torture turn up in just one area, it suggests that the figure declared by the UN may be a massive underestimation.

Following detailed examination we now have a greater understanding of the nature of many of these deaths. Not all have been casualties of fighting, or those caught up in the collateral damage caused by the indiscriminate shelling of civilian neighbourhoods. Experts are now learning that many were the result of systematic imprisonment and murder on an almost industrial scale.

Assad tested the West’s resolve last year with the use of chemical weapons against a rebel neighbourhood in Aleppo. Possible military repercussions against the Syrian government stalled when MPs in the House of Commons refused to endorse the use of limited force by the British military. Partly as a result, the United States backed away too from its plans in striking at the Syrian regime. The way was then left open for Vladimir Putin of Russia to find a way in brokering a deal that would involve the dismantling of the regime’s inventory and stockpiles of chemical weapons, with Assad remaining in power. But in light of this new evidence, is this diplomatic stalemate still a tenable option?

These revelations were timed to coincide with last week’s peace talks on Syria that were held in Geneva. Some interested parties have said that a ‘peace settlement’ might simply entrench the Assad regime and allow its barbarism to continue unchecked.  Following military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the West is rightly cautious about further military adventures in the Middle East that might involve ‘boots on the ground’. But with a new light now adding a new dimension to the horrors of the Syrian conflict, can the West really stand idly by? Being quiescent witnesses to a new holocaust requires action the West has so far been unprepared for.

 

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Government, Middle East, Politics, Russia, Syria, United Nations, United States

Calming the violence in Syria…

Intro: The Geneva talks may help to calm the bloodshed in Syria, but there are other practical measures that can be taken

The Syrian peace talks which began this week in Switzerland began dramatically. The original invitation for Iran to join the talks was quickly reversed and the first significant and genuine attempt by the US and Russia to bring an end to the civil war that is tearing the country apart was made. If these efforts cannot be sustained, and many suspect they can’t, it will still be important for definitive steps to be taken into de-escalating the conflict. Such terrible losses and suffering on the Syrian people should not be understated.

The fact that the meeting in Geneva did take place really does matter. For the first time since the conflict began, the government and a faction of the opposition were brought together. This can only be an advance on what has happened between the two sides that have been driven by a need to kill each other. What is more, the energy which Washington and Moscow put into staging the talks is the clearest sign yet of a genuine desire to bring the conflict to an end. When the US and Europe saw such a meeting as a precursor to the inevitable demise of Bashar al-Assad some 18 months ago, the same supposition was not necessarily true. The military balance of power on the ground was such that government forces were never likely to suffer total defeat without a full-scale foreign intervention. That option disappeared when the US and Britain abandoned plans for a military strike last September, after a chemical gas attack was used on civilians in Damascus. Since then, a recipe for continuing the war has been the uncompromising demands for Assad’s surrender.

Practical measures could be taken to calm the violence. Local ceasefires do already exist and could be expanded, with UN observers monitoring on the ground ready and able to mediate on the need for a longer-term solution. Without that, hatred and distrust between the two sides will ensure that ceasefires have a short life-span. UN observers are also needed to help coordinate relief convoys to rebel-held enclaves, where people are starving and in dire need of humanitarian assistance and aid. The same applies to prisoner swaps.

Given that the Iranian and Saudi governments are crucial players on opposing sides of the conflict, it is unfortunate that Iran has been absent from this week’s talks. To have one and not the other present has undermined the credibility of the negotiations. The open willingness of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to see an end to the fighting without victory for the rebels – of whom they are the main financial and military supporters – must be tested.

A reduction in violence might also be achieved by pressuring Turkey to clamp down on jihadi fighters crossing its 500-mile-long border with Syria. Turkey denies any acquiescence, but all the evidence suggests that it has backed rebels of every persuasion.

The gravest challenge in setting up the Geneva conference has underlined just how difficult it will be in the future to get a multitude of players with differing interests, inside and outside of Syria, to agree to anything. But a negotiated peace is the only option in bringing to an end the slaughter in a conflict that is now almost into its fourth year. However far away a solution may seem to be all parties concerned have a duty in bringing the bloodshed and suffering in Syria to an end.

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Foreign Affairs, Government, Lebanon, Middle East, Politics, Syria

The assassination of Mohamad Chatah: Lebanon’s moderate voice has been silenced…

QUAGMIRE OF SYRIA

Mohamad Chatah, the former Finance Minister in the Lebanese government of Saad Hariri, was assassinated yesterday in a huge car bomb blast in Beirut. Lebanon has lost a courageous intellectual and a fervent interlocutor for moderation who has regularly spelled out the extreme peril his nation faces as the civil war in Syria continues to polarise the Lebanese people.

Mr Chatah was a prominent blogger and user of social networking sites. Just hours before his death, he used Twitter to express his grave premonition that Lebanon was heading back towards the abyss. He tweeted: ‘Hezbollah is pressing hard to be granted similar powers in security and foreign policy matters that Syria exercised in Lebanon for 15 years.’

As a leading Sunni, Mr Chatah had followed the hard anti-Assad line being pursued by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It should not have been difficult, even if not agreeing with everything he positioned himself on, to recognise that he saw clearly the dire peril his nation was facing. Mr Chatah’s analysis was that the war in Syria, which has already claimed 120,000 lives, has gone on too long for the regime of Bashar al-Assad to be restored to its previous dominant position. Because of this, the preferred outcome for both Iran and Hezbollah, he said, was for the war to continue indefinitely.

Mr Chatah’s vision was of clarity and pragmatism. He also saw for Lebanon the implications of how great a disaster such a stalemate would be for his country, suggesting it could not hope to avoid being dragged in. As a consequence, he believed, along with other patriots, was that Lebanon would suffer another bout of destructive civil war, similar to the one that lasted from 1975 to 1990. His violent assassination is undoubtedly another fatal step in that direction.

Following months of frustration and numerous setbacks, a peace conference on Syria is set to open in the Swiss town of Montreux next month. Hopes for success at the talks may be slim as the intensification of the war continues. Whilst both sides are seeking to maximise their positions in advance of the summit, the outside world must owe it to Mr Chatah and his beleaguered people to do far more in bringing Syria’s civil war to an end.

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