Syria: A Battle of Conflictions

Originally published in The UCC Express September 24 2013

The Syrian civil war is deep into its second year, with over 100,000 killed and two million displaced. Allegations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government have been rife over the last several weeks, prompting calls for intervention from Western nations, led by the United States. Last week, the British Parliament voted to not intervene in Syria despite pressure to do so from David Cameron. In the United States, President Barack Obama is pushing for punitive strikes on the Assad regime, to send a strong message about chemical weapons use in Syria, but many in Congress are uneasy about the idea of America intervening in the Middle East again. With such horrible atrocities happening at the hands of the Assad regime, crimes amounting to genocide in the minds of many, why are the West so uneasy about protecting the lives of civilians through military action?

The answer is complicated. In many ways, it is helpful to compare the Libyan situation to the Syrian one. In 2011, after months of demonstrations by Libyan citizens, an American led NATO intervened in Libya to oust its despotic leader Muammar Gaddafi and set Libya on the road to democracy. The successful intervention lasted eight months, and there wasn’t a single allied casualty.

Were such action to be undertaken in Syria, a country which has seen many more deaths and war crimes than Libya, the result wouldn’t be quite so clear-cut. For a start, Libya is a religiously homogenous nation which allowed for little sectarian violence within the rebel groups. They were united in their revolution against Gaddafi. This is not the case in Syria, whose people are religiously divergent. Furthermore, neighbouring countries were unwilling to support the Gaddafi regime in its violent crackdown on civilians, leaving the Libyan situation essentially self-contained, with little risk for unintended consequences across the region after a Western intervention.

Conversely, Syria’s geopolitical positioning in the Middle East is far more complex. A victory from either side in the conflict would have huge, unknown consequences for the Middle East and beyond. Although, to say ‘either side’ is somewhat of a misnomer and over simplifies the situation. The war is often portrayed as the Syrian government versus the rebels, but there are in fact many sides fighting this war. Iranian money has been supporting the Syrian government in the war, so an Assad triumph would extend Iranian power in the Middle East, along with the Iranian allied Hezbollah — a disaster for Western nations. On the contrary, a rebel victory could be equally disastrous. Two years ago, when the conflict began, it seemed plausible that the Syrian government could be overthrown and a moderate government installed, but not now. Now, the rebels are made up of several groups, united under the common goal of defeating Assad. But, once the war is over, these groups, sometimes including terrorist cells such as Al-Qaeda, would likely have conflicting ideas about the future of Syria. A very real possibility in the case of a rebel victory would be that an unstable, post-totalitarian Syria could become a safe haven for terrorists — an equally undesirable outcome for Western nations.

The road to intervention itself is also problematic. Although the UN Security Council have voted several times over the last few years on the subject of military intervention, both China and Russia have vetoed this course of action. Both countries have significant economic ties to the Assad regime. Now, Great Britain is insisting it will not intervene in the conflict, further marginalising Obama’s case for military action. So, while intervention through the UN Security Council is highly unlikely, other legal avenues do exist. The United Nations ‘Uniting for Peace’ resolution, passed in 1950, allows for the United Nations General Assembly to take action if the Security Council cannot agree. In essence, this means that because Russia and China are failing to live up to their responsibility to protect the people of Syria, a vote will go to the General Assembly of 193 nations, who must vote by a two thirds majority in order to intervene in Syria. However, this approach has yet to be considered. Another scenario could be the United States taking unilateral action in Syria, but some foreign leaders, most notably Russian President Vladamir Putin, question the legality of this given the lack of agreement by the United Nations.

So what effect would foreign intervention have on Syria? The answer is: not much. While the latest chemical weapons attacks were war crimes that crossed Obama’s much quoted ‘red-line,’ they weren’t the first war crimes to take place in Syria. The world only sees the need to intervene now, because chemical weapons use is a flagrant violation of international law and cannot be ignored. Given the potential lose-lose situation for the West should the rebels or Assad win, intervention is likely to be minimal and only serve the purpose of punishing the use of chemical weapons, rather than stabilizing the region. An ideal situation for the United States is a prolonged stalemate. With America’s enemies — Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, all squabbling amongst each other, their attention will be distracted. Obama himself has expressed that any potential strikes on Syria wouldn’t serve the purpose of ousting Assad, despite repeated calls for his resignation by the Obama administration in the last number of years.

The future of Syria remains more uncertain now than ever. Much of the talk surrounding foreign intervention at the moment is only a temporary solution to a permanent problem. Although thousands of people die in Syria every day, the world is unable to act accordingly to put an end to the violence, due to uncertainty over how a post-war Syria would look and countries acting in their own self-interest. In many ways, the Western allies are struggling to find a moderate voice among that rebels ranks that it feels it can rely on and support. Until that moderate voice, sympathetic to western ideals, emerges from the fray, it is unlikely that Western governments are going to want to change the pace of this war.