The following paragraphs are translated excerpts from "Syrie, la revolution
orpheline” (Syria, the Orphaned revolution) published in Arabic in December
2013 and in French in March 2014.
In
August 2012, Obama responded to the violence of the Assad regime by drawing a
single “red line”: that of chemical weapons use. This line clearly indicated that
America wanted to avoid intervening directly in the conflict; it also suggested—albeit
implicitly—that while the use of “strategic” weaponry would not be tolerated by
Washington, the continuation of massacres with traditional weapons would be.
Feeling
unthreatened by a possible American intervention, the regime deployed its
arsenal in the repression—i.e., ballistic missiles, tanks, and other heavy
weapons. It even probed US determination regarding chemical weapons by using Sarin
gas on a few occasions, as many medical reports have demonstrated [1].
On
21 August 2013, the Syrian Army launched missile attacks on Zamalka, Ibrine, and
the shores of the Moadamiyah in the two Ghoutas of Damascus from its bases
north of Mount Qasioun. As many as 1,400 people died of asphyxiation, a
massacre that could only be explained by the use of a poison gas like Sarin.
After
negotiations at the UN, a decision was made to send a commission to the scene
to investigate the use of a chemical weapon. This agreement, however, had been
reached under the conditions imposed by the Russians and the Chinese: The
mission of the commission was limited to verifying whether such weapons had
been used, and did not involve determining the identity of the user if chemical
traces were to be found on the bombed sites. Three weeks later, the Commission
of Inquiry published its report [2], confirming the
massive use of Sarin gas. The report described how the attack had unfolded, the kind of munitions
used, and the orientation of the impact craters, which is indicative of the
position from where the rockets were fired. This
position turned out to be near the bases of the Republican Guard, the Fourth
Division, and the 155
Brigade Tiger Forces
north of the capital [3]. Human Rights Watch
and Doctors Without Borders also published reports confirming the use of Sarin
gas, as did other French, German, and American organizations. All of them
insisted on the regime’s full responsibility for the massacre.
Between
22 August and 8 September 2013, the great powers engaged in consultations on the
response that ought to be given to this “serious crossing of the red line by
Assad,” and on the possibility of launching a “punitive” military strike
against him. Yet the Security Council was paralyzed, because the Russian (and
Chinese) position remained hostile to any intervention under the auspices of
the United Nations. Exchanges between Washington, Paris, and London therefore focused
on the idea of an intervention directed at military targets (airports, rocket
launching bases, and headquarters) which could draw support from some Arab and
European countries.
In
fact, neither the US administration nor the British government were keen to launch
a military strike, despite their declarations and shows of determination. The
two powers were seeking a solution that would let them save face after so much
posturing. Several reports on the contents of the meetings at the White House
and at the office of the Secretary of State revealed the lack of enthusiasm of
President Obama, who was obsessed with his image among voters and who did not
want to be associated in any way with George W. Bush and his Iraq war [4]. The British
government, for its part, tried to extricate itself from the situation by
submitting to parliament a motion authorizing military action in Syria, which was
defeated by 285 votes to 272 on 29 August. This gave Obama an additional reason
to retract. Obama called for a congressional vote, even though the Constitution
did not require him to do so since there was no question of deploying troops on
the ground or of launching an operation lasting more than 60 days. Preliminary
estimates had in fact shown that the majority in Congress was opposed to intervention.
This, of course, greatly embarrassed the French authorities, who were the most
favorable to the idea of a “punitive strike.”
On
9 September, Moscow informed Washington that Damascus was willing to dispose of
its chemical weapons permanently (which in itself constituted an acknowledgment
that they had actually been used!). This strengthened the position of the US
administration, which felt that the threat of using its power had suffice to
obtain this concession. The Russians and the Americans (the latter had not
informed their French “allies” of their contacts with Moscow) then agreed to
have the regime turn over its chemical weapons and sign the international
convention on chemical weapons in return for avoiding Western strikes.
Thus, the international situation returned to what it had been prior to 21 August: very strong Russian and Iranian support for the Assad regime, alarming incoherence on the part of the “Friends of Syria,” with the French and others feeling that they had been cheated by the United States, and frustration among the Syrian population, which was convinced that the international community’s refusal to assume its responsibilities towards their country was unprecedented.
In
parallel with these diplomatic developments, Washington, London, and Paris, along
with Berlin, Brussels, Rome, and other Western capitals, became the scene of
popular campaigns led by left-wing and right-wing forces and parties which put
forward pacifist and sometimes even pro-regime slogans. These campaigns called
on Washington and Paris to reverse their decision: They compared the Syrian
situation to that of Iraq in 2003, and obscured, either deliberately or out of
ignorance or naivety, the fact that a chemical weapon had been used in Syria—an
established fact that was not based on suppositions or fabricated evidence. Campaigners
also pretended to forget that the current American administration had no desire
to intervene, and that what was being discussed was air strikes, not invasion
or ground intervention. The various arguments advanced in favor of “non-intervention”—e.g.,
not wanting “to play the role of the world’s policeman,” “to add fuel to the
fire,” “to arm opponents we do not know” [5], or “to act without UN
authorization”—failed to consider that in the specific case of Syria, only a
strike against the military machine that had killed thousands of human beings could
limit destruction and loss of life and reduce the duration of the war. To opt
for “non-intervention,” to let the Russian and Chinese vetoes indefinitely paralyze
the Security Council, was to accept more massacres and executions and to
guarantee the immunity of the killer.
In
fact, this opposition to military intervention in Syria expressed by most
sectors of public opinion reflects two major tendencies in the political
culture of Western countries today.
The
first is the isolationist temptation of a large part of the population, whose
interest in affairs beyond its borders has declined significantly. The world has
become for them a source of fear and concern, and this for both economic and
cultural reasons. This turn inwards has translated into the abandonment of
universal principles, at a time when no country is safe from the consequences
of crises that occur in other countries.
The
second tendency in this new culture is the loss of confidence in leaders experienced
by different categories of the population. Relations with politicians are now tainted
with suspicion as to their real intentions. Many Americans and Europeans did
not believe their governments when they announced that they would “punish” the
Syrian regime for its crimes against humanity, and suspected the existence of other
(shameful) reasons behind this decision. This tendency further accredits
ready-made “conspiracy” theories that explain all that goes on in the world.
That
said, and regardless of real US intentions, the crucial days between 21 August
and 9 September 2013 did show that a fairly firm international threat, combined
with the possibility of military intervention (even a limited one), was sufficient
to terrorize the Syrian regime, and to prompt Moscow and Tehran to help it find
a political escape along with an offer that would have been unthinkable in
other circumstances.
In
the end, Assad saved his regime by renouncing the weapons that he had been parading
as a deterrent force against Israel. The inhabitants of the Ghouta suffered both
from the inaction of those in power and from the indifference of world public
opinion towards the use of weapons of mass destruction in 2013—one century after
such weapons were used on a massive scale in WWI, and 85 years after an international
convention banning them was signed [6].
From
9 September until today, thousands of Syrians have been executed, killed, or injured,
not counting those who have made into refugees or prisoners. Consequently, the
families of the victims can only feel that what they call “the whole world” is responsible,
just like Assad, for their tragedy.
Ziad Majed
[1] It is considered that the regime used chemical weapons for the first
time on 23 December 2012 in Homs, and then in a limited manner in other areas,
mostly as part of military operations against impregnable insurgent positions.
[2] The report was published on 16 September. It appears in full at: http://fr.scribd.com/doc/168606795/U-NReport-on-Chemical-Attack-in-Syria.
[2] The report was published on 16 September. It appears in full at: http://fr.scribd.com/doc/168606795/U-NReport-on-Chemical-Attack-in-Syria.
[4] See, for instance, the article “Inside the White house, a head-spinning reversal on chemical weapons” published on 15 September 2013 in the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323527004579077401049154032.
[5] The argument that the opposition should not be armed, or that “weapons should not be sent for fear that they may fall into the wrong hands,” weakened the revolution militarily and allowed the regime to remain in place. Moreover, the argument was false, because the Western actors involved did know their military interlocutors (of the Syrian opposition), and because several studies clarified the situation on the ground—for instance, that of Bassma Kodmani (political scientist, director of the “Arab Reform Initiative” and former spokesperson for the Syrian National Council) and Felix Legrand entitled “Empowering the Democratic Resistance in Syria”: http://www.arab-reform.net/en/node/593.
[6] Before Assad, only Saddam Hussein had broken this convention by using “mustard gas” against Iranian soldiers in the mid-1980s, and then against Kurdish civilians in Halabja in 1988.
