With the Arab and Muslim states joining the chorus against Syria's war on its own people, Bashar Al Assad’s isolation is complete
When is enough really enough? How many innocent men, women, and children have to die before neighbors end their silence and intervene? The Arabs stood and stared for five long months before they chose to end their silence this week over Syria. In the meantime, 2,000 civilians were gunned down by the forces that were supposed to protect them.
Nevertheless, the belated Arab voices against the endless state carnage against peaceful protesters are welcome and could seriously turn the tide against the hated and totally discredited regime in Damascus. Both the Arab League and Gulf Cooperation Council have shed their inhibitions and cautious, ‘wait-and-watch’ position to condemn the Baathist regime, demanding a swift end to the murderous campaign against its own population. The strongest words of condemnation, however, have come from Saudi Arabia.
While Riyadh takes pride in its discreet and non-interventionist foreign policy despite its clout, the deafening silence and restraint over Syria all this while had also something to do with the good, if complex, relations the two giants of the Arab world have enjoyed for some time. Riyadh and Damascus have huge stakes in Lebanon and have worked together to stabilize the country. The two found themselves on the same side on the question of supportingthe Palestinians.
This is perhaps why, taking a cue from the government, leading Saudi newspapers have largely avoided excessive criticism of Syria’s murderous crackdown to kill the voices for change.
All this could change with the clarion call given by King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz. In an unusually strong statement, the Saudi monarch has slammed his erstwhile friend Bashar Al Assad, saying that the continuing carnage on Syria’s streets is “unacceptable for Saudi Arabia” and cannot be condoned by Islam.
And the usually circumspect King, widely respected across the Muslim world as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, did not stop there. “Syria should think wisely before it’s too late and enact reforms that are not merely promises but actual reforms,” he declared. “Either it chooses wisdom on its own or it will be pulled down into the depths of turmoil and loss. The future of Syria lies between two options: either to choose a course dictated by wisdom, or drift into the depths of chaos and loss.”
Stark warning there, and words that could prove the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back for Assad. King Abdullah followed his warning by recalling the Saudi ambassador to Damascus. Within hours, Kuwait and Bahrain followed suit. Qatar has already called back its envoy to Damascus. And more are sure to follow in the next few days.
Turkey, Syria’s big neighbor up north, the first to confront the Syrian regime and open its doors to thousands of Syrian refugees, has already toughened its stand, delivering a final ultimatum to Damascus. There’s even the threat of approaching the International Court of Justice hanging in the air. Despite its considerable commercial and financial interests in Syria, Turkey hasn’t shied away from holding a mirror to the brutality and madness in Damascus.
The only ally and friend on Syria’s side is Iran, whose interests converge in their support for the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah that drove Israel out of Lebanon. But even the Islamic republic is said to be actively considering the post-Assad scenarios.
The isolation of Bashar al Assad is complete, which is clear to everyone but the corrupt and ruthless regime that has ruled and ravaged the ancient and largest country of the Levant for more than four decades. An unelected, miniscule minority has kept a whole country in chains and under its boots for far too long.
And unlike security forces in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere that largely exercised relative restraint in the face of recent democratic protests, the Syrian forces have gone after unarmed, peaceful protesters, pounding towns and cities as though they were enemy territory. Why? There’s a simple explanation. The Syrian government, security forces and the entire power structure is dominated and controlled by Assad’s clan, the powerful Allawite sect.
But if Syria’s rulers think they can get away with murder using such terror tactics and rule forever at gunpoint, they are grievously mistaken. Didn’t they see what happened to their fellow travelers in the region? Didn’t they see the disgrace and ignominy that have come the way of the Mubaraks, Salehs, and Ben Alis of this world? How could they forget the sword of the ICC warrant hanging over the head of Muammar Qaddafi? For every bullet fired on innocents is another nail in the coffin of this vicious regime. Assad is blocking his own exit routes.
This is 2011, not 1982, when the Syrian forces under the late father of the president could massacre more than 20,000 people in Hama, the scene of much of the current carnage, and get away with it. The world has changed, and so have the Arabs. The Syrians, or any other people for that matter, will not be cowed down by these terror tactics anymore. The thin veneer of fear and terror carefully woven all these years by the corrupt was ripped the day a humble Tunisian fruit vendor brought down the most powerful in the land.
So the more protesters the Syrian troops kill, not sparing even those attending funerals, the more vehement and determined the demonstrations rocking the country get. And the noose around the regime’s neck tightens. It’s only a matter of time before the regime collapses under the weight of its own crimes.
Meanwhile this is time for the rest of the world, especially Muslim countries, to add their voices to the Syrian people’s desperate calls for change. For what is going on in Syria is perhaps even worse than in Libya. At least in Libya’s case, international outrage and condemnation of the regime has been followed by intervention, albeit disastrously ineffective. On Syria though there’s been little movement across the region thanks to several factors, including the country’s strategic geopolitical position.
This must change and change now. For the longer the world remains silent the more innocent people will die on Syria’s streets and their blood will be on our hands. If there’s a case for foreign intervention, it is in Syria. The Baathist regime is on the wrong side of history and it’s about time it is made to realize it. With the mindless bloodletting of the past five months, Assad has stripped himself of his fig leaf of legitimacy, if he ever had one.
When this season of hope had dawned, Assad had declared: ‘The Arab spring stops in Syria.’ Well, he couldn’t be more wrong. The Arab spring will outlast him and his kind and the world will see it.
Wow, what a completley biased and 1 sided article. These protestors are not completley peaceful as the author states. There are numerous reports of these “protestors” carrying out attacks on Syrian forces, and that they are tied to Western NGO’s and intelligence.
Marc, where are those reports of attacks by protestors coming from? are there real good accounts of how the protestors are damaging the tanks and artillery pieces and warships that the friendly and concerned Syrian government goons are wielding in self-defense?
as Muslims isn’t the time to hang our heads in shame that christian countries are in the forefront protesting and acting against syrian regime,it took five months for saudi regime to just come out with a docile statement,we need action not words,the regime which carries killing disregarding ramadan should go,no need to wait for nato,what the armies of muslim countries doing they should be proactive,all these islamic countries are equally guilty for silently watching the genocide.The present happenings reflects to what abyssmal depth the imaan of muslims have gone down.Look at the shameless president of iraq,supporting the tyrrant assad,forgetting his own past, had saddam been there he would have been languishing in prison.
7 Levels
1. Creator made man.
2. Man made religion.
3. Religion made power.
4. Power made war.
5. War justifies power.
6. Power justifies religion.
7. Religion justifies man.
We need to go back to level 1, but unfortunately we currently reside in levels 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
Removing religion would only result in religion being back filled and replaced by power and war. This would cause power and war to exist without being driven by religion thus able to more often engage in level 5!
This back filling substitution method will eventually result in level 2 becoming man made war without being justified.
This quagmire of substituted level values could easily be ended by having the health officials administer a simple DNA test to determine if their Haplogroup is J,J1, or J2. These Haplogroups are considered by science to be the biological descendents of Abraham/Ibrahim himself. The fact is most of you don’t even know or understand any of this. Regardless a couple will and when you read it you will see the solution clear as day.
They deserve their freedom they have earned that right via martyrdom. The armed factions will put down their arms and join the political process forming parties in line with the major Sunni parties and Kurds etc. In the new Syria one will not have to take up arms to have a voice. Members of the minority will only be dealt with via the law for crimes against the people, the Allawite also have a place in Syrian democracy. But criminals will face the full brunt of Islamic Law.
dear zaka
asak true and good analyse.muslims particular indian muslims,justify the asad’s aggression .due to the support of protesters by the america.this article shold open their eyes.they may realise bashar ul asad’s brutality. killing of innocents. i hope you will also the real causes of this uprising and the forces behind it.
hasan farrukh
Parhaps the NATO countries whose CV includes destroying Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakinstan and now Libya should be invited to once again provide their expertise and show off their high-tech death machines in Syria. We know how much they enjoy showing us the videos.
Yes, Edward, perhaps they should because Serbia, Afghanistan and Libya merited having their governments overturned.
Pakistan hasn’t yet been destroyed but is well on its way to destruction through its own policies and practices of allowing itself to be used as a host and training ground for violent and terroristic extremist groups.
The Syrian government seems to be the ones employing death machines against Syrians, Edward and those machines are supplied by Iran and Russia and other countries. Not NATO.
fuster: I believe that there is an absolute human right to the truth, life and ownership of property and these rights have been the basis of moral law for thousands of years.
I also have been given to understand that these basic right have been denied to all the countries I mentioned above by endemic lying (euphemistically called propaganda) and systematic destruction of lives and property by NATO countries whose history suit them more for colonial exploitation and all that goes with it than honest broker.
Edward, those are excellent things in which to believe, but they and the other tenets of moral law are little evident in the history of the world.
As well, their application were absent from practice in the actions of the Serbian, Afghani and Libyan authorities that were deposed….and it’s the rankest propaganda to suggest that NATO attacked regimes there that were not entirely illegitimate in those countries….even by your standards.
“Illegitimate regimes”????
By my standards an “illegitimate government” is an absurdity. If a country has a government then that is the legitimate government. The reaason for this is the government of the day is reponsible for the welfare of citizens and must be held acccountable for any failure in this regard.
Edward, if you’re going to posit moral law and talk about accountability for the welfare of citizens then, again by your standards, the regimes in Serbia, Libya and Afghanistan are abject failures.
If your prefer not to use “illegitimate” and rather go with failed and irresponsible as the basis for calling them to account, that’s fine with me.
May I add to above that it is also an absurdity to say that a government should be held accountable to an outside authority. If a ruler is deemed to be accountable to an outside authorty then the outside authority has to be regarded as the government of that country.
It follows then that a government is accountable to its citizens alone. Otherwise we have only chaos.
That is why the International Criminal Court is nothing more than an arrogant attempt to remove sovereighnity from certain coutries or maybe an attempt to create a world government.
Edward, in this last case you’re confusing state sovereignty with raw power and are actually denying moral law and advocating an incredibly unsophisticated positivism.
I think you would do well to give this last one a bit of a re-working.
Try to find some ground between “world government” and “government by whomever has the power to control the country”.
Fuster: Your reply crossed my latest comment.
To say that a government is “illegitimante” or “failed” is an absurdity.
For example the American government as the occupier in Iraq was deemed to be the legitimate government of Iraq while the occupation lasted. Yet Iraq was clearly a “failed” State for the duration of the occupation. Are you saying then that the American government is an “illegitimate” government and America should be attacked, its people terrorised and murdered and their property destroyed by let us say China or Russia or Lictenstein.
To sum up! The government of the day in any country is the legitimate government of that country. Its responsibility is solely to to its citizens. It is answerable only to its citizens. That is not to say that each individual should not be held responsible for their actions both inside and outside their country.
Edward, the US government was deemed to be exercising sovereign authority over Iraq. It was not the legitimate government. It was the occupying power.
Just as it was the occupying power in Japan and in part of Germany post-WWII.
The US never advanced any claim to permanent sovereign authority in any of those cases.
It IS the legitimate government of the United States.
fuster, an Occupying Power does not exercise sovereign authority of the occupied country. Sovereign authority always resides with the people of a nation, whether their nation is occupied by foreign military forces or not.
Jeremy, I’m happy that I can sort-of agree with you on something here.
An occupying power does indeed EXERCISE sovereign authority, but I agree that true, moral sovereignty remains with the people of the nation.
Those %^%$ Israelis EXERCISE sovereignty over the West Bank but it sure as hell doesn’t really belong to them and the sooner they’re out of there, the better.
To avoid confusion in what I have said previously may I state again that an occupying power which has overthrown the government of a country has to be deemed the legitimate government of that country. Look at all the colonies ruled by Britain, France and Spain for centuries. The occupying power is therefore responsible for applying the law. There are three basic absolute rights which all people are legally entitled to under natural justice (and reflected in all legal systems I know of). These are the right to the truth, the right to life and the right to ownership of property.
Under this system no one is absolved from taking responsibility for, and answering to the injured party for their own actions.
As someone whose country was ruled by an occupying power for about 800 years I can say I write from experience.
So fuster I gather from above that we agree on this!!!
Edward I think that we have some confusion about the word “legitimate”, which, in my training, belongs mostly to the lexicon of morality.
I believe that early in our exchange you were discussing moral law and again here you raise natural law….
but, in reality , this statement by you ….
“….may I state again that an occupying power which has overthrown the government of a country has to be deemed the legitimate government of that country.”
is true, but not in moral terms or as a statement of justice. It’s a statement of fact and law.
An occupying power DOES assume sovereignty in fact and usually in law, but the question of whether that exercise of sovereignty is ….”legitimate”….
is still open to debate in views of justice and morality.
The German occupation and administration of Poland in WWII,
the Soviet occupation and administration of Afghanistan starting in 79
might well be regarded as not legitimate.
Why don’t we go with saying that ….
“…an occupying power which has overthrown the government of a country has to be deemed the DE FACTO government of that country.”?
fuster: You are correct. When I say “legitimate” I refer to the legal obligations entailed. Both the moral and legal aspects are covered in each individual’s obligation to account for their own actions.
However I would be wary of using “De Facto”. If you consider it all governments are overthrown at regular intervals in elections fair/foul, coups covert/overt, external interference covert/overt etc. So you could say all governments are “De Facto”.
I agree with you that occuption is nearly always unjust and injustice should not be tolerated and usually isn’t.
I can only repeat again that the basis of good government is in each individual person’s absolute right to the truth, life and ownership of property from which all just laws both secular and moral come.