The feeling is growing stronger by the day that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is approaching a tipping point. Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, the UN and Arab League special envoy to Syria, has abandoned as hopeless his efforts to implement an internationally agreed six-point plan to end the violence. Now the international community must think seriously about how to minimize the dangers inherent in Syria’s domestic turmoil.
Lack of agreement within the UN Security Council has prolonged the conflict and contributed to changing its nature. What began as a popular uprising inspired by the demands of the Arab Spring has taken on increasingly sectarian and radical tones. This reflects loss of hope in international support, while making it more difficult to achieve a negotiated solution.
In particular, there is a growing danger of Sunni retaliation against the Alawite minority, which comprises 12 percent of the population, but controls the government, the economy and the army. The Alawites, who overcame second-class citizenship only when al-Assad’s Baath party came to power in 1963, now believe that their very survival is linked to that of the regime.
If the Syrian opposition does not take the Alawites’ concerns seriously, the country could be wracked by years of civil war, worse than the conflict that devastated Lebanon from 1975 to 1990.
The regional consequences are already being felt. Fighting between the rebels and government forces is spreading and the resulting refugee flows into neighboring Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon threaten to bring these countries directly into the conflict.
Turkey is also worried about the conflict’s possible repercussions for its Kurdish population, among whom aspirations for independence are resurfacing, and for its relations with the Kurdish populations of Iraq and Syria, which are woven into a complex balance. Jordan considers the growing numbers of Syrian rebels entering its territory a threat to national security, while the arrival of thousands of refugees in Lebanon has revived old sectarian disputes in Tripoli between Shiite Alawites, most of whom support al-Assad, and Sunnis, who overwhelmingly sympathize with the opposition.
Chaos and confrontation could easily reach Iraq, too, where the possible fall of the Syrian regime seems to be revitalizing Sunni resistance to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s predominantly Shiite government.
The outcome of the Syrian conflict will also have a direct impact on the Middle East’s alignment of power. A Sunni takeover after al-Assad’s fall would mean a change of strategy with respect to Iran and its Lebanese Shiite ally, Hezbollah, whose viability might be in danger, as a Sunni government in Syria would most likely cut off the conduit for arms flowing from Iran to Lebanon.
The disturbances in Syria have already weakened some of Iran’s traditional alliances in the region. For example, Hamas has taken a position in favor of the Syrian opposition by emphasizing its ties with the Muslim Brothers, and gave its support last year to Egypt’s transitional government after it permanently opened the frontier with Gaza.
Although the complex situation in Egypt suggests that its leaders will be preoccupied with domestic politics for some time, the new government will also try to redefine its relations with neighboring countries. Significantly, recently elected Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, the leader of the Muslim Brothers’ political party, chose Saudi Arabia for his first official foreign visit, a decision laden with religious as well as political symbolism.
For Saudi Arabia — which, along with Qatar, is arming the Syrian opposition — the post-al-Assad period is a strategic opportunity to break the alliance between Syria and Iran and, at the same time, deliver a severe blow to Hezbollah.
The weakening of the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis would directly benefit Israel, which has stepped up its threats to launch a unilateral military strike against Iran’s nuclear installations. Likewise, Israel accuses Hezbollah — together with Iran — of recent efforts to attack Israeli objectives.
This new scenario will doubtless affect Iran’s position in the international talks on its nuclear program, which are fundamental to achieving a diplomatic solution. However, as long as the Syrian conflict continues, it will be difficult to make any progress with an Iran fearful of the impact that a new government in Syria might have on its regional influence. In the same way, achieving an agreement — or not — with Russia (and thus with China) to contain the Syrian crisis will also determine how much room for maneuver the US and the EU will have with these two countries to address Iran’s nuclear program.
The UN Security Council’s members agree on how to address Iran’s nuclear program, but not on steps to resolve the Syria conflict.
To reach an agreement, it is essential that Turkey, the Gulf States and the Arab League forge a common position. Only in this way could they win the backing of the various sectors of Syrian opposition — suspicious of the intentions behind unilateral support — and bring their positions closer to those of Syria’s minorities, which cannot be left out of this process. This would create more pressure for backing by the Security Council and set in motion a process leading to a transition policy in Syria. Reaching an agreement on a post-al-Assad scenario will not be easy, but no alternative is more promising for Syria and the region.
Javier Solana, former secretary-general of NATO and EU high representative for the common foreign and security policy, is distinguished senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution and president of the ESADE Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Ursula K. le Guin in The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas proposed a thought experiment of a utopian city whose existence depended on one child held captive in a dungeon. When taken to extremes, Le Guin suggests, utilitarian logic violates some of our deepest moral intuitions. Even the greatest social goods — peace, harmony and prosperity — are not worth the sacrifice of an innocent person. Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), since leaving office, has lived an odyssey that has brought him to lows like Le Guin’s dungeon. From late 2008 to 2015 he was imprisoned, much of this