At the outset of the Arab Spring, when the Tunisians successfully and speedily overthrew the government of Zine El-Abidine in a huge popular uprising, commentators from all over the Middle East were taken by surprise at the ease with which a well-entrenched Tunisian state had been overcome by a massive tide of popular discontent. Members of the Syrian opposition, especially those residing in Europe, pointed to the “psychological barriers of fear” in the minds of Middle Easterners which, they claimed, had until then exaggerated the power and strength of the existing political regimes in the area.
With the subsequent fall of another well-established political regime in Egypt, that of Hosni Mubarak, Syrian dissidents became increasingly confident that the overthrow of their own government, led by Bashar al-Assad, would follow without too much trouble. In fact, they were so confident of their own side’s strength and so dismissive of that of Assad’s that, unlike the Libyan opponents of the Qaddafi regime, they vehemently opposed any external military assistance in their confrontation with their own government.
However, as weeks dragged into months without much success in sight, Syrian opponents of the Assad regime began to have a change of heart; they now sought outside help to make possible the removal of Assad. But by then, much of the world had somewhat been sobered up by the new developments emerging from the Arab Spring. As the dust of battles began to settle, and as the picture started to become increasingly clear, it became gradually obvious to many that the democracy, liberalism, and pluralism that the world had hoped for did not actually materialize in the region; instead, Tunisia became dominated by an Islamist party; Egypt was caught in a tug-of-war between the Islamists and the military; and Libya found itself with an Islamist-dominated government that has not been capable of effectively running the country or reining in the lawless militias.
To make matters worse for the Syrian opposition, Russia and China, which had previously been persuaded by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States to help authorize a UN-mandated military intervention in Libya, were now strongly opposed to the use of outside force in Syria. Israel, which had earlier felt optimistic towards the potential outcome of the Arab Spring, was now very worried that an Islamist takeover in Syria would seriously threaten its own security. On the other hand, Assad felt uplifted and reassured by the vigorous interest shown by Iran and Hizbollah in providing his regime with all the help it needed to survive the conflict.
Apart from the reluctance of the international community to take action in their favour, and in addition to the adverse geopolitical considerations specific to their Middle Eastern context, Syrian opponents of Assad found themselves, moreover, facing a political regime that was prepared to fight to the bitter end, no matter what it took. The unswerving determination of the Assad regime to go for broke was mainly motivated by the real prospect of genocide being perpetrated against the Alawite minority, to which Assad belongs, should the Syrian regime disintegrate. Some other Syrian ethnic minorities too felt just as threatened by such an eventuality, most notably the Christians. In addition, Assad’s stand has also been consolidated by a virtual lack of defection inside Syria of senior political and military figures. All of the aforementioned aspects of the Syrian conflict led to a prolonged war of attrition between the Assad regime and its Syrian opponents. The world just shook its head and waited for things to play out.
Suddenly, however, and seemingly because of an alleged poison-gas attack by the Assad regime on his opponents, some countries in the world, most notably the United States, started to threaten the use of military action in Syria. The US president was apparently so outraged by the Syrian government’s attack on its people that his administration immediately set about trying to persuade Congress, the American public, and the rest of the world of the need to intervene militarily in Syria. Even though the US administration said its military offensive would be surgical and limited in scope, many other countries were not convinced of the wisdom of such action: European Union foreign ministers wanted to see independent reports by UN investigators proving the use of chemical weapons, while China and Russia were firmly sceptical about and opposed to such a military option. What, many people are now wondering, should be done about Syria?
The present situation reveals that there is a brutal Syrian regime in power, while its opponents are made up of an agglomeration of various groupings with different ideological leanings: The supporters of the liberal-democratic system among them appear to constitute only a limited proportion of the total; the majority seems to be made up of Islamists. However, even the Islamists themselves are not united: There is the Muslim Brotherhood, jihadists, and members of Al-Qaeda. Given the disorganized nature of the opposition, and its remarkable lack of ideological coherence, the probability of a peaceful transition to a civilized, democratic government in Syria seems remote. Instead, should the Assad regime collapse, which is far from certain, there would in all likelihood be major clashes between the disparate, dissonant elements of the opposition, something which could in turn bring about a dangerous state of anarchy in the country. But even if the opposition managed, against all odds, to come to power as one single entity, the new government would almost certainly be run by the Islamists, comprising not just the Muslim Brotherhood, but also jihadists and Al-Qaeda members. That would be the nightmare scenario for many countries, especially Israel and the United States.
Given such a probable scenario, the wisest course of action would be for the United States to refrain from any direct involvement in the Syrian conflict. That is partly because of the hypersensitivity many Middle Easterners feel towards a US military involvement in the area, particularly in the wake of the Iraq War, and partly also because a direct US involvement in Syria would be a cause for the emergence of a new rallying cry for the Islamists all over the Middle East. Instead, the United States ought to give the green light to other countries to intervene politically in mediating a peaceful resolution of the Syrian civil war: Russia can exert much leverage over the Syrian government; France is influential with the liberal-democratic opponents of the Assad regime; and Turkey could be a credible advisor to the Muslim Brotherhood. Such a proposal is all the more important in view of the fact that- unlike when France, the United Kingdom, and the United States intervened militarily in Libya- the Islamists, including Al-Qaeda, are already visibly active among the opponents of the Syrian government. The mediation by Russia, France, and Turkey would hopefully isolate the Al-Qaeda elements within the Syrian opposition, especially since no known country appears to have any leverage over them in any case.
In international politics, it happens very rarely that one is faced with a choice between a good option and a bad one; very often, the choice is between a bad option and a worse one. A wise statesman would always opt for the lesser of the two evils: That is exactly what Roosevelt and Churchill did in World War II, when they put their hands into the hands of Stalin and those of the Communists in order to defeat Hitler and the Nazis; that is also what Reagan did when he supported Saddam Hussein’s Iraq against Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran in the 1980s.
Assad’s regime is vile, but who can convince us that the Islamists, including Al-Qaeda, are less vile?