If Only
Matters are not progressing as once Syria's President Bashar al-Assad felt assured they would. Damascus, his capital, is descending into the same kind of chaos as other areas of Syria where the rebels hold sway, despite his troops' determined efforts to expunge them from the cities and decimate their numbers. The rebels appear to be holding their own.And, it might logically appear, they would be capable of performing much better than that, if the disparate militias ever decided to pull together.
But then, they have the example of Libya where historical tribal and sectarian animosities never did manage to secure a true alliance among the rebels there. Nor have they yet; their central government has failed to disarm the tribal militias, it doesn't appear that a broad-based election can be held successfully, and the country continues to dissolve into a morass of competing interests.
Libyan rebels triumphed, despite their lack of cohesiveness because NATO was involved and provided the heavy lifting, bombing regime forces. There is no NATO involvement in Syria. Nor is it all that likely that any will ensue. Paradoxically, Turkey resisted NATO involvement in Libya, despite the accord reached with the United Nations in giving it official sanction.
Now, when Turkey would prefer NATO's involvement, NATO demurs. And with good enough reason.
Turkey has Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan along with other Gulf states behind it in wishing to see regime change. Russia and China steadfastly continue to support the current regime, maintaining that it and the rebel forces are capable of reaching an agreement to put a halt to the violence. Events appear to demonstrate otherwise.
Both the regime and the rebels have been found implicit in human rights abuses.
New accusations that the Alawite regime has institutionalized mass torture to match the mass arrests of those held to be rebels or in sympathy with them, only serve to bring further resolve to the rebel forces to have nothing whatever to do with a move to have both sides agree to Kofi Annan's peace plan.
Syria is finding itself in an increasingly unstable situation that will surely see the regime crumble, but in the interim, the slaughter continues. With a vengeance underlining both sides' resistance to any manner of capitulation to cajoling outsiders.
It has been reported that more high-ranking Syrian military personnel have abandoned the regime in the last few days than ever before. Generals, colonels, majors, lieutenants, air force pilots at the colonel and squadron commander level, all defecting.
And there is Turkey, glowering with outrage at its one-time ally, placing anti-aircraft batteries on its border with Syria, permitting the Free Syrian Army to operate from bases inside the Turkish border, harbouring tens of thousands of Syrian refugees.
And there is President Bashar al-Assad interviewed by the Turkish newspaper Cumhurivet, claiming that the downing of an unarmed Turkish surveillance warplane resulted from error. "I might have been happy if this had been an Israeli plane", he is reported to have said. "We learned that it [the plane] belonged to Turkey after shooting it down.
"I say 100% 'if only we had not shot it down'."
Labels: Misadventure, NATO, Revolution, Societal Failures, Syria, Turkey
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, July 03, 2012
<< Home