TORONTO - The Western world responded to escalating violence and a rising death toll in Syria by closing embassies and evacuating ambassadors in the impoverished country fighting for regime change.
On Monday, the Obama administration closed its U.S. Embassy in Damascus and recalled its diplomats while the United Kingdom followed suit in an attempt to pressure Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down.
Syrian forces have bombarded Homs with repeated bombings and attacks against protesting civilians in what has become one of the bloodiest conflicts among the Arab revolts.
Meanwhile, Russia and China vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution on Syria, leaving many wondering how long the country will remain in turmoil.
Global News spoke with experts who weighed in on the significance of the UN’s power to intervene, what the Western world should do and if Assad has lost power over his nation.
Christian Leuprecht is a Queen’s University political science and economics professor, specializing in military and defence. Leuprecht is a fellow at the university’s Centre for International and Defence Policy.
Michael Bell is the Paul Martin Sr. Scholar in International Diplomacy at the University of Windsor. He has also a former Canadian ambassador to Egypt, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Global News:Peaceful protests against President Bashar Assad in Homs resulted in government backlash and a fierce counterattack on dissidents. Is this a continuation of the deadly Arab Spring the world witnessed last year in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Libya? If not, is this a different social movement in a call for political upheaval?
MB: It’s a similar phenomenon, unique to Syria in a sense that there are so many minorities. But it’s the same in the sense that you have people who feel oppressed and deprived and humiliated rising up against an authoritative regime so I see it as paralleling what happened in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.
The thing that’s different is the number of minorities that are involved. There are Alawites, Christians, Druze, Kurds and others. This leads to a question as to whether the country would stay as one if Assad were thrown out. In other words, there is a danger that it would split into at least two parts with the Alawites hanging onto their bit of territory. That question is much more problematic than it was in the case of Egypt and Tunisia, which were much more homogeneous. That’s what makes Syria distinct and more worrisome. But the motivation is as pure as the Egyptian activist or the Tunisian activist.
CL: Homs and Hama have been bastions of resistance against Assad’s regime since the 1970s. The resistance came to a head with the Hama massacre of February 1982, where anywhere from 10,000 to 40,000 people lost their lives. The resistance in Homs, as well as the emboldened government crackdown, has to be understood in this larger context of long-standing opposition against the Assad regime - similar to the way Benghazi had long been a thorn in Gadhafi’s side. Assad is probably taking a cue from Gadhafi’s demise: Gadhafi failed to re-assert control over Benghazi which allowed the opposition to organize and orchestrate in ways in which it might have otherwise been much more difficult to do. Assad does not want to suffer Gadhafi’s fate.
Global News: Reports suggest that even army defectors have taken up arms to fight back. Could this escalate into a civil war? What will this do to the country?
CL: What used to be a low-level insurgency seems to be morphing into a civil war rather quickly, likely because some outside forces are helping to arm and organize the insurgents. After the failure of the UNSC resolution, both the scale and the intensity of the insurgency are likely to intensify.
MB: The armed forces are key. If there are serious defections, particularly at senior levels from the regime, then I think we are into a different phenomenon, in that, it’s only the armed forces that can bring about a change in regime. If they go over to the side of the reformers, then I think that’s it for President Assad and his clan. What we’d have to know is the mood in the senior levels of the military and the security forces. If there’s starting to be questions of senior officers having doubts as to the sustainability of the Assad regime then that’d be very serious.
Global News: On Saturday, Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution aimed at ending the bloodshed that has gone on for nearly a year now. How significant was this vote and how valuable would UN sanctions against Syria be?
CL: Neither Russia nor China want to set a precedent in international norms against countries using force against their own people on their sovereign territory. Russia is worried about the Caucasus, China about the autonomous regions Xinjiang and, to a lesser extent, Tibet. A UNSC resolution, they fear, might set a precedent that could come back to haunt them. Moreover, Russia does not want to lose Syria as a strategic ally: Tartus is Russia’s only naval base in the Mediterranean and Syria has $1.5 billion in arms contracts with Russia, about 10 per cent of Russia’s total international arms sales.
Sanctions, then, would have the effect of reigning in Assad but also of imposing possible constraints on Russia and China in how they deal with their own restless regions. Sanctions would likely not bring down Assad (they have not brought down the regimes in Iran or North Korea); but an arms embargo would certain curtail his ability to sustain the onslaught on his own people.
MB: At this stage, it’s a question of the international community taking a moral position on the responsibility to protect people who are under attack and whose rights are being abdicated. A vote to help diplomacy is a moral choice that would appeal to the rebels in Syria, to the international community and it might lead the Assad regime to consider that it’s still more isolated but I don’t think it would have tipped the scales one way or another.
I’m not sure what kind of military intervention if any would be helpful. Sanctions would be broken, too. You can have sanctions and it looks good on paper but Iranians are going to break the sanctions, the Iraqis are going to break the sanctions, and the Russians are going to break the sanctions. I don’t think sanctions are going to be effective in this life and death struggle.
Global News: The U.S. has closed its embassy doors and has even evacuated all its diplomats from Syria as authorities intensified a shelling assault in Homs. Is this a good tactic? Should the Western world intervene and if so, what measures should we take to help and does this involve a military presence? What is your advice to Canadian authorities?
CL: I am always reticent of closing down diplomatic missions because it compromises our ability to talk to the regime and, in the end, there will have to be a political settlement to the situation in Syria. But the Americans also do not want to put their personnel at risk and, given what happened in Iran in 1979/1980, the Americans aren’t willing to take any chances. Military intervention in Syria would be difficult because there are some many strategic and international interests at stake in this country. It is also not clear that whatever would come after Assad would necessarily be better than what is there now; but the Americans, the West and the Gulf Cooperation Council are obviously hedging their bets with those who are rising up against Assad. As a result, they also now have a responsibility to ensure that whatever comes after isn’t worse than what came before. If we look at Egypt, for instance, it’s not necessarily clear how that story will unfold: If the Muslim Brotherhood ends up in charge in Egypt (or Syria), many in the West will wish they had been more cautious about they wished for.
MB: Dialogue is important. I’m reluctant to endorse any complete break in communications because that rules out a whole series of things that could take place. [Closing the embassy] plays well to a domestic audience where we’re concerned about human rights, but does it serve a purpose in terms of international diplomacy and human rights for Syrians? I’m reluctant to – perhaps because I’ve been involved with this all my life – advocate shutting off channels of communication.
A number of steps would have to take place before Western military forces entered Syria. The first step would be the Arab League calling for some kind of intervention. Then the United Nations would follow up on the request. I’m not sure how much effect it would have and I’m certain military involvement on the ground as opposed to a no-fly zone would be a disaster because some of these guys are really fighting for their lives and, just as in other countries, you have tenacious resistance.
Global News: How long will unrest stay in the Arab world and at this point, what are the odds that President Assad will be able to maintain control of his country?
CL: We just saw the departure of President Saleh of Yemen and the revolution in Egypt doesn’t appear to be quite over with the military essentially in charge and unwilling to cede power; so, look for the Arab Spring to reverberate throughout the region for some time yet. If there were regime change in Syria, it would affect Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.
I'd venture a guess that Assad has lost the domestic and international legitimacy he needs to lead his country; but so has the Kim family in North Korea. Syria is not Libya: Relative to Libya, Syria is of considerable strategic importance and has a sizable, capable, experienced, well-trained and well-equipped military. This domino is a lot further from falling than many presume. Assad can’t be defeated militarily; but he can run out of money. And that’s, I think, what the international community is banking on. As Gadhafi found out, once your henchmen aren’t getting paid anymore, they start to pack it in. The Syrian currency is down 25 per cent over the past year, the central bank’s reserves are depleted, government revenues are down, security spending is way up – Assad’s assault is economically unsustainable over the long term (unless Russia is willing to float the regime financially).
MB: It may be slipping out of his hands. He doesn’t have the control he would like or he would have put these things down a long time ago. The unrest is occurring in so many centres, he can’t bring the military to bear the same way his father did in the 80s when one city rises up and you crush that rebellion. You’ve got multiple towns and cities that are erupting and obviously we see from the results that the military hasn’t been able to quell these disturbances. But the tendency is for these autocrats to stay in power until it’s too late, like we’ve seen with Mubarak, Ben Ali and Gadhafi.
Note: These interviews have been transcribed and condensed.
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