Syria: Despair, Tragedy and Hope

A child in the cold playing with his balloon, his nose and eyes are cold. This picture was taken at a refugee camp near Turkey. © Unknown | syriauntold.com/en

Now that the Obama administration has concluded that the red line has been crossed, that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons against its own people, there will be more military aid for the rebels from the U.S. and its allies. Although this will certainly affect the course of the war (though the rebels and their strong supporters, such as John McCain, will demand more), equally certain is that this aid will not on its own positively affect the prospects for a just peace, with an improved situation for the Syrian people in their diversity.

The dark situation that Hakan Topal described in his last post on Syria (and Turkey and its neo-Ottoman foreign policy) stands: profoundly undemocratic and illiberal, brutal and barbarian actions are on both sides of the Syrian military conflict. The victory of one side or the other is likely to yield very unpleasant outcomes, as each side reveals itself with more and more horrific means of fighting, and more and more sectarian commitments.

The story of the Syrian opposition is tragic. A very hopeful peaceful protest was heartlessly repressed. The bravery of peaceful protestors in the face of military force, including bombings, was remarkable. I watched the persistence of the protests in the face of brutal force with wonder and deep admiration. Violent resistance was an understandable last resort.

But as resistance fighters have replaced peaceful protesters, and as the war has escalated, with the fortunes of each side rising and falling, the nature of the war seems to have fundamentally undermined the ideals of the protest. Islamist true belief seems to have overwhelmed democratic and pluralistic commitment. Sectarian interest, defense and retribution seem to animate the resistance’s actions, no less than the actions of the government forces and the forces of Hezbollah.

I want to believe that out of this mess something less than horrific may result. But by reading the headlines and the debates here in the U.S., . . .

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Turkey and Syria: On the Bankruptcy of Neo-Ottomanist Foreign Policy

Wounded civilians arrive at a hospital in Aleppo during the Syrian civil war, October 5, 2012, (screen shot). © Scott Bobb (Voice of America News) | YouTube

Hakan Topal wrote this piece before the recent protests and repression in Turkey. It provides a perspective for understanding those events, as it highlights the tragedy of Syria and how Turkish policy is implicated. -Jeff

At the end of May, the Syrian civil war consumed more than 94,000 civilians and destroyed the country’s civic and cultural heritage. In addition, the civil war crystallized regional fault lines along the sectarian lines; on the one side Sunni Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, on the other side Shiite Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah (Lebanon) represent ever-increasing nationalistic conflicts.

While Assad’s army commits war crimes, kills thousands of civilians, and unleashes its terror on its population, factions within the Free Syrian Army utilize comparable tactics to bring Assad’s supporters to submission. This is a war with plenty of religious morality but without ethics. In a recent video circulated on YouTube, a Free Syrian Army guerilla cuts the chest of a dead Syrian soldier and eats it in front of the camera. How can we make sense of this absolute brutality?

Islamists who have no interest in democratic transformation hijacked the Syrian revolution. Any salient voices for the possibility of a diplomatic solution are silenced, effectively forcing the country into a never-ending sectarian war. Can the total destruction of the social and cultural infrastructure be for the sake any political agenda or social imagination? What will happen when the regime falls? Is there a future for Syrians?

And tragically, the civil war cannot be simply contained within Syria. It is quickly expanding beyond its borders, scratching local religious, sectarian and political sensitivities, especially in Turkey and Lebanon. A recent bombing in Reyhanli—a small town at the Turkish-Syrian border with largely Arab Alevi minority population—killed 54 people and subsequently, the Turkish government quickly covered up the incident and accused a left wing fraction having close ties with Assad regime of mounting the attacks. It was a premature and doubtful conclusion. Leftist guerillas have no history of attacking . . .

Read more: Turkey and Syria: On the Bankruptcy of Neo-Ottomanist Foreign Policy