Indian Defence Review

A war on Syria with disastrous consequences for the rest of the world has presumably been avoided. The Obama Administration was all set for launching the war, ostensibly as a punishment for the use of the chemical weapons by the Assad regime in Syria on August 21. The French President Francois Hollande was solidly behind President Obama for such an attack. British Prime Minister David Cameroon was also in the “company”, but unfortunately for him the British Parliament did not allow him to participate in this proposed war. In fact, the overwhelming majority public opinion in all these three countries, as well as in most parts of the world, has been against this war.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll conducted in June found that only 15 percent of re­spondents supported U.S. military action in Syria, with only 11 percent favouring providing arms to the rebels. Similarly, a poll by the Pew Research Center taken during the first two weeks of March 2013 indicated that, “there is no public support in the United States, Western Europe or in Turkey for sending arms and military supplies to the anti-government troops in Syria.” An overwhelm­ing majority—64 percent—of Americans disap­proved of equipping the rebels with arms.

In any case, the war has been averted because Syria has agreed with the proposal of Russian President Vladimir Putin to give up chemical weapons and win a reprieve from U.S. military strikes.  Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem has said: “We want to join the convention on the prohibition of chemical weapons. We are ready to observe our obligations in accordance with that convention, including providing all information about these weapons,” adding, “We are ready to declare the location of the chemical weapons, stop production of the chemical weapons, and show these (production) facilities to representatives of Russia and other United Nations member states.” This has made President Obama to pause over a bit in carrying out his action-plan, but he has not ruled out the attack on Syria completely.

In fact, the issue of the chemical weapons was a ruse for Obama to attack. The American claim that Assad used chemical weapons was not convincing at all, particularly when it was the Assad regime which had invited a United Nations team to investigate the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian rebels against the innocent civilians. The co-called use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime that the American establishment was talking of took place when this UN team was in Syria. It is difficult to fathom that a regime will use the chemical weapons when a UN team at its request is in the country to investigate the use of such weapons. On the contrary,   now there is growing evidence that the rebels in Syria did indeed frame Assad for the chemical attack so as to ensure the American intervention.

In any case, what exactly are the chemical weapons that are commonly used or misused? That is the nerve – gas (chlorine gas, mustard gas, sarin and arsenic agents – that affect the nerves).  And these are very easy and cheap to manufacture. Therefore, chemical weapons are called the poor man’s weapons and far less effective than other conventional weapons. These can be manufactured at individual level.  For instance, a Japanese nut cult, Aum Shinrikyo, managed it by themselves it back in 1995, killing 13 people in the Tokyo subway. Viewed thus, can the Obama Administration be sure that these weapons were not manufactured by the Syrian rebels? This is the question many Americans are asking these days.  After all, if the example of the American intervention in Iraq is anything to go by, then American allegations and the realities in the ground often do not match.  The world is yet to find out the secret weapons of late Saddam Hussein, discovering and destroying which was one of the principal justifications for the American intervention in Iraq.

Be that as it may, the fact remains that if America intervenes in Syria, that will be the continuation of a policy that it has pursuing over the last two and half years. In a sense, it is already at war with Syria. This war is a proxy war, whereby the USA has been providing resources, arms, training, and other forms of support to the Syrian rebels. Besides, it was preparing for an open war side by side; and this was much before the so-called use of the chemical weapons by the Assad regime. The United States, in the name of a joint military exercise with Jordan, has already transferred Pa­triot missiles, 4,000 troops, and F-16 aircraft to the country, which remained there after the conclusion of the exercise.

In other words, the US, or for that matter its allies such as France, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have been  effectively  “State-sponsors” of the Syrian rebels since a long time now. Of course, this phenomenon is nothing new international politics. As Erica D. Borghard of the Columbia University has pointed out, data on non-state actors in civil wars indicate that, since 1945, 134 of 285 rebel groups enjoyed explicit support from a state sponsor, while an additional 30 groups are alleged to have received external state sup­port.  “War by proxy is an attractive policy op­tion for states when they are hesitant to use force directly. The clandestine and informal nature of many of these arrangements allows states to challenge adversaries while providing plausible deniability for actions committed by non-state allies”, Borghard says.

However, there are often serious problems in these proxy wars, denying ultimately the state-sponsors the realisation of their goals. And that is because, there is often great differences between their ability and the ability of those they are helping – the proxies, be it the use of the weapons or intelligence-gathering or the fighting skills.   In many a case, and it is certainly true in Syria, the proxies or the rebels are not a united a lot. All this finally compel the “State-Sponsors” to cross the line, to be visible and fight openly if they have to realise their foreign policy goals. And, in the case of Syria, the foreign policy goal of America and its allies is the removal of Assad regime by hook or crook, though it is coated with many layers of sugar. Thus we hear “the Arab Spring” in Syria, removal of a dictator, protecting the rights of all Syrians, and countering terrorist activity etc.

There are two ways of looking at Arab Spring. If it is supposed to usher in democracy in the Arab world, then it has not exactly been a success story. Similarly, democracy is not exactly a number game where the majority has got every power to the extent of being sectarian and the minority none – true democracy means rights of equality and justice. In this too, Arab Spring has been a story of huge disappointment. Its promoters like the US and France have shown double standards. While justifying changes in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and now Syria under the pretext of furthering democracy, the Western countries have closed their eyes towards Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Sheikhdoms, which are certainly not citadels of democracy and have directly or indirectly furthered the cause of Wahabism or Islamic fundamentalism all over the world.

The concrete effect of the Arab Spring has been that extremist elements within the Sunni community – and their great promoters in the regimes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and now to a considerable extent in Turkey – have become powerful and the forces of multi-ethnicity and secularism are getting weaker. Syria seems to be a victim of this process. There is no denying the fact that Syria is not a democratic country.  A country which has been ruled over the last 40 years by one family is not going to be an ideal democratic country all of a sudden in the absence of democratic institutions such as independent judiciary and media. Syria, like all other Arab countries, does not have a democratic culture as such. But one great asset that Syria has is its secularism and multi-ethnicity. As I have visited Syria, I can vouchsafe that it is arguably the most secular country in the Arab region. Here, and this is most important, you find the women as liberated as they are in any Western country.

The continuing survival of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria is not only due to the support of the minority Alawite sect, making up about 12 percent of the country’s population, of which the Syrian strong man is a member. It is also due to the backing of the Christian community, which makes up about 10% of the population. They have a deep and understandable fear of the sort of instability and sectarian recriminations that followed Saddam Hussein’s fall in Iraq. The majority of Iraqi Christians there were eventually forced to flee the country after suffering high levels of violence and intimidation.