Tag Archives: Bashar al-Assad

Britain, Syria, United States

Decision time over Syria. Avoid making historic mistake…

As world leaders gather for the G8 conference in Northern Ireland, one issue seems certain to dominate all others: the Syrian civil war.

On Friday, President Obama triggered an escalation in this already terrifying crisis by announcing the US will shortly send weapons to moderate elements of the Syrian opposition.

William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary, then rushed out a statement of support, saying ‘we have to be prepared to do more to save lives’ and put pressure on the Russian-backed Assad regime to negotiate.

Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, has been visiting Britain today, and, officially, Downing Street insists no decision has been taken for Britain to deliver arms to the rebels. Worryingly, though, there is every indication that, where the US leads, Britain will wish to follow.

Of course, it’s not difficult to sympathise with politicians wanting to find a solution to a humanitarian disaster which has already claimed more than 90,000 lives. Millions more have been displaced.

But, as Conservative MP John Baron has said: ‘Arming the rebels and escalating the violence could be a mistake of historic proportions.’

In Syria, the ineluctable truth is we simply do not know who the enemy are. There is absolutely no way of preventing the supply of weapons falling into the hands of the extremists who are bolstering the ranks of the opposition forces – including Al-Qaeda.

Nor, even more frighteningly, can Downing Street predict the extent to which ramping up the violence in Syria will further destabilise a wider region which – with tensions simmering in Lebanon, Turkey and Israel – already resembles a fraught tinderbox.

We should not forget how Tony Blair’s egomania (and the subsequent suspension of the democratic process) enabled the former British prime minister to plunge Britain into its worst foreign debacle since Suez.

David Cameron has promised Parliament a say before Britain is dragged any further into Syria. He must honour his word on this. Making a historic mistake with Syria would prove disastrous.

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Britain, Syria, United Nations, United States

The Syrian tinderbox as the West considers sending arms to the rebels…

PRESIDENT Barack Obama is considering arming Syrian rebels in a bid to end a civil war that is now into its third year.

There are growing concerns that President Bashar al-Assad may be gaining the upper hand in the conflict that has claimed at least 80,000 lives and displaced millions more, as government forces recently captured the strategic key town of Qusair.

Mr Assad’s forces are said to be preparing for an assault on the city of Aleppo.

A decision to approve military aid for Syria’s opposition forces could come within the next few days. US Secretary of State, John Kerry, postponed a Middle East trip to attend a Syrian summit in Washington instead.

Opposition leaders in Syria have warned the White House their rebellion could soon face devastating losses without greater support from the United States.

Syria’s precarious position in the heart of the Middle East makes the conflict extremely unpredictable.

The major stumbling block of supplying arms to rebels remains the fear that Al-Qaeda linked and other extremists fighting alongside anti-Assad militias could end up with the weapons.

Washington is still examining evidence that Assad’s forces may have used chemical weapons against the rebels – something Mr Obama has warned Assad would cross a ‘red line’ in provoking swift US military intervention.

Britain and France claim they already have substantive evidence that Assad’s forces have used low levels of the deadly nerve gas sarin in several attacks on rebels, which they have presented to the UN.

OPINION

The threat to world peace and prosperity posed by the bloody civil war in Syria is impossible to exaggerate. The shock-waves from the conflict between rival Islamic factions are spreading far beyond the country itself. The entire region is on the brink of being destabilised.

In Iraq, for example, supposedly rescued from tyranny by Allied forces in the war that ‘ended’ with American troops being withdrawn in December 2011, some 2,000 violent deaths have been recorded in the past two months alone.

In Turkey, Lebanon and Jordon, tensions are rising as hundreds of thousands of displaced refugees pour across the borders in pursuit of safe haven and refuge. Many thousands are in need of food and medical attention. The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) has largely been prevented from attending the sick and dying as Assad has launched wave after wave of attacks on civilians on routes that should have been safeguarded as humanitarian corridors.

On the Golan Heights between Syria and Israel, after a 40-year ceasefire monitored by the United Nations, Austrian peacekeepers are pulling out as the area braces itself in becoming a war zone again.

In Syria, President Assad, far from being defeated, is being supported with Russian arms along with Hezbollah, the fanatically anti-Israeli terrorist group based in Lebanon.

Yet, this is the powder-keg into which President Obama is said to be on the verge of igniting a bigger flame. A decision is imminent on whether to send American arms to the beleaguered opposition forces.

Leaving aside the danger that Iran will retaliate by targeting Israel or US/UK interests in the region, the fact remains that the Syrian rebels (just like their counterparts in Libya two years ago), are riddled with factions hostile to the West – including Al-Qaeda.

Mr Obama, and the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, speak glibly of arming only ‘vetted, moderate rebel units’. The inherent risks of doing so should not be played down with an awareness that these weapons could end up in the hands of the perpetrators of 9/11.

No one can know the way to peace in Syria, the tense geopolitical situation in the region is a cocktail of extremism and hatred. If the United States and Britain have learned anything from the West’s recent past interventions in the Middle East, they must surely realise that ramping up the violence in Syria comes with grave dangers.

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Syria, United Nations

UN Report on Syria: ‘Conflict at new levels of brutality’…

A picture taken on April 26, 2013 shows smoke rising after shelling in Houla in Syria’s Homs province. The opposition National Coalition has accused the regime of using chemical weapons in the northern province of Aleppo, in Homs in central Syria, and in rebel-held areas near Damascus. (Photo credit: AFP/Getty Images)

The Syrian conflict is now two and a half years into a violent and civil bloody war between the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad and various rebel groups. According to a recent report from United Nations investigators, the bloodshed is only intensifying: in a survey of events in Syria between Jan 15 and May 15, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s independent commission on the civil war says it has reached ‘new levels of cruelty and brutality’ – and that there’s no reason to believe the carnage will abate any time soon.

This week, commission chair Paulo Pinheiro told the Human Rights Council that ‘Syria is in free-fall… no one is winning… more weapons will only lead to more dead civilains and wounded.’

Investigators report that there are ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe that chemical agents of an unspecified variety had been deployed in civilian areas. The commission found no conclusive proof determining whether one or both sides in the conflict have deployed chemical weapons, but warn there to be a heightened risk in the future.

On top of the grave risk that nerve gas and other chemical agents could be deployed in civilian areas, ‘non-combatants’ are continually under attack from all sides of the conflict. More than 70,000 civilians have died (with some estimates as high as 100,000) and millions more have been displaced since the civil war broke out over two years ago. The commission concludes that both Assad’s forces and many factions within the rebels are guilty of war crimes against civilains, including torture and rape. Nearly 7 million people, half of them children, are ‘in need of urgent assistance’ due to lack of medical care and food shortages instigated by the conflict.

The U.N. commission ends its report with a strong recommendation for a negotiated settlement:

… A diplomatic surge is the only path to a political settlement. Negotiations must be inclusive, and must represent all facets of Syria’s cultural mosaic.

In the United States, foreign policy hawks such as Sen. John McCain, continue to call on the White House to militarily intervene. Mr McCain believes that America could intervene by launching cruise missiles from the US naval fleet in the region. This, he says, would decapitate Assad’s air defences and would not require boots on the ground or the establishment of a no-fly zone (NFZ).

President Barack Obama has previously said that the use of chemical weapons on civilains would cross a ‘red line’ and therefore may justify intervention. Last month, the White House said it was supportive of Israeli air strikes within the country.

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