Ayoon Wa Azan (Everyone has failed Syria)

I tried for days to write about the ongoing and worsening Syrian tragedy. I consulted those I know in the national opposition, my Syrian friends, and others. But I ended up aborting each attempt to write, having failed to come up with anything new or useful. I thought in the end to republish an article I wrote on Syria a month or six months ago, to test whether the reader can notice any new information. But I changed my mind, because the situation in Syria is too painful for me to play ‘Ramadan riddles’ with the reader. What I want to say is that there is nothing new under the Syrian moon (I did not say sun because the sun stopped shining on Syria two years ago). The regime is killing and destroying, and has trodden a path that has no egress but the continuation of violence; the opposition, meanwhile, remains divided, politically and militarily. When I wrote about this in the past, some rushed to accuse me of defending the regime. But we have now reached a situation portending civil wars within the civil war. While there indeed is an honest opposition seeking the good of the country and its citizens, there are terrorists who have pledged allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri and are killing others in the opposition. These terrorists must be uprooted, as they are the best fodder for the regime propaganda, which likes to engage in scaremongering about the alternatives to it. Even Russia has been alerted to the terrorist menace, calling on both the regime and the national opposition to stand together against terror. Then recently, confrontations erupted between Kurds and radical Islamists. The division has affected everyone, including the Arab nations who disagreed in their support for the opposition. I support the position of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and I expect a change in Qatar’s position. As regards the Europeans, Britain and France led a campaign to arm the opposition. These two countries decided from day one that the regime had used chemical weapons, because the claim suited them, without evidence (personally, I would only believe what United Nations experts would say on the matter, and two such experts arrived in Damascus yesterday). Now, the European Union wants to assist the opposition, but has yet to decide which opposition to support. Recently, the position of Britain and France changed and they decided not to arm the rebels. Russia’s pro-regime stance was obvious from day one as well (Iran and Hezbollah’s attitudes are a foregone conclusion). But the Russian position was essentially to spite Western powers, after what happened in Libya, more than it was meant to express affection for Bashar al-Assad. The United States, meanwhile, has taken multiple positions, not just one. The Obama administration resisted any intervention until it could do so no longer, and decided to send light arms to the rebels, after ascertaining that these would remain in the hands of the national opposition and not the terrorists. In other words, the United States decided not to help the opposition. Now, a debate has been launched following comments by Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. armed forces, in a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Dempsey wrote about several scenarios for military intervention, including training rebel forces, arming them, and imposing a no-fly zone with airstrikes on regime forces. What struck me personally in the words of the general is how he stated in tedious detail that the intervention would cost billions of dollars and require the deployment of hundreds of aircraft, ships, submarines and other support forces in the region. I understood the U.S. message to mean that the United States is against intervention and not in favor of it, especially when mentioning the costs of such an intervention without guaranteeing the outcome. Personally, I categorically reject any U.S. intervention in any Arab country, because such an intervention would be motivated by Israeli, if not oil-related, reasons. When the advocates of a U.S. intervention are people like Sen. John McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham, this means that it is impossible that the intervention would be for the good of Syria and the Syrian people. I accept an Arab intervention, but I know that it would not be sufficient to do the job and do not expect it to happen. I therefore see that Syria will continue to be destroyed day after day, and its people killed or committing suicide. All we can offer Damascus are overwhelming tears. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.