Bashar al-Assad's complete disregard for UN special envoy
Kofi Annan's April 10 deadline for withdrawal of regime forces from population
centers is only the latest sign that Damascus has no intention of implementing
the envoy's six-point plan to deal with the Syria crisis. The fact that the
regime's armed forces will remain in and around population centers when a
proposed ceasefire takes effect at dawn on April 12 means that peaceful
self-expression and assembly -- core tenets of U.S. policy in Syria for the
past year -- will be effectively impossible. Combined with the regime's other
demands beyond the scope of the Annan deal, it now seems that while the UN
initiative may at best temporarily reduce some humanitarian suffering, it is
unlikely to be able to provide a political solution that would end the crisis.
Therefore, the United States would be well advised to expand its support for
the opposition "within Syria" through a coalition of the core members
of the Group of Friends of the Syrian People that met in Istanbul last week.
NONCOMPLIANCE WITH THE ANNAN PLAN
Despite Syrian foreign minister Walid Mouallem's assurances
in Moscow that the Assad regime is implementing Annan's six-point plan,
developments on the ground suggest the opposite. The Assad regime pledged in
point two of the plan to "immediately cease troop movements towards, and
end the use of heavy weapons in, population centers, and begin a pullback of
military concentrations in and around population centers." In the past
week alone, the regime has intensified its shelling of villages and
neighborhoods throughout Syria, killing more than 1000 people according to
opposition sources. On April 6, the U.S. Department of State released satellite
imagery showing that military forces have not been withdrawn from population
centers, as outlined under the Annan plan, but rather only repositioned near
population centers. On April 11, Local Coordination Committees in Syria
reported shelling, troop movements into towns, and more than 100 casualties.
Damascus has exploited the UN plan to again attempt to impose its
"security solution" over the country, squeeze out space for peaceful
protest, and dictate terms from above. Given that protests and armed resistance
actions continue, Damascus has failed yet again.
The signs of Damascus's noncompliance with the plan have
been readily apparent. On April 5, Syria's representative to the UN, Bashar
Jaafari, said that the agreement to withdraw military formations did not
include "police forces" -- a vague reference to the regime's security
forces, which have been major participants in the crackdown. Then on April 8,
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jamal Makdessi announced that it was a
"wrong interpretation" to expect that Damascus would abide by its
pledge to Annan to withdraw its military forces by April 10. He went on to make
further demands outside the UN agreement, including that Annan obtain
"written guarantees" from the opposition to halt violence, as well as
from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey to stop "funding and arming terrorist
groups" -- the Assad regime's parlance for the Syrian opposition as a
whole.
More important, the Assad regime is failing to implement
point two of the Annan plan – withdrawal of forces from population centers --
because it knows it cannot implement point six of the plan: "respect
freedom of association and the right to demonstrate peacefully as legally
guaranteed." Assad knows well that peaceful protestors, who have continued
their activities unabated as the international community has focused its
attention on the armed opposition, will fill Syria's main squares and demand
Assad's departure or worse. To preclude this scenario, Assad has labeled
peaceful protestors as "terrorists" and used live fire to put them
down. The only aspect of the Annan plan that may be immediately workable would
be temporary cessation of hostilities to provide humanitarian aid, along with
admission of journalists and UN monitors.
WORKING THE PROBLEM FROM THE GROUND UP
Diplomacy will continue to play an important role as the
Syria crisis unfolds. In the end, Russia and China may be important as part of
any effort to get Assad to step aside and usher in a Syrian government more
responsible to the demands of Syria's youthful population. But Assad's dodging
of the Annan plan's deadline, as well as his attempt via Russia to blur the
main tenets of the agreement by introducing monitors before a ceasefire, amply
demonstrates the limits of diplomacy at this time.
Fortunately, the United States has options. The United
States is a member of the Group of Friends of the Syrian People, a collection
of eighty-three countries that met for the second time on April 1 in Istanbul
to support the Syrian people and prepare for a post-Assad Syria. Washington
would be well placed to work with the group's other core members, which include
Britain, France, Germany, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, to forge and lead a
coalition of countries to more directly support the Syrian opposition within
Syria and prepare for all contingencies concerning the Syria crisis. Different
countries would play different roles within this coalition. Gulf countries, for
example, have already indicated a willingness to help arm the opposition within
Syria. Turkey, which had to deal with deadly fire from Syrian forces in the
Oncupinar Syrian refugee camp near Kilis this week, is now considering methods
to funnel support to the opposition and has reportedly developed a contingency
plan to develop border safe havens for refugees within Syrian territory. Thus
far, the United States has officially committed to giving nonlethal assistance
to the opposition within Syria, which could include communications equipment.
To pressure Assad to end violence against the population and
ultimately make an exit will require more U.S. assistance for the opposition
within Syria. In the short term, the United States should share limited intelligence
with the opposition concerning the deployment and movement of Assad regime
forces -- security, military, and paramilitary Shabiha -- within Syria,
especially as they approach population centers for an assault. This will help
alleviate the effects of Assad's "whack-a-mole" approach to the
opposition, in which regime forces attempt to clear areas -- a tactic that
drives up death tolls and refugee flows -- but cannot hold them.
Second, the United States should intensify its examination
of the opposition within Syria, both those entities practicing violent and
nonviolent resistance against the regime. Such study should include ways to
support popular self-defense alongside civil resistance, as two sides of the
opposition coin. A key first step would be to intensify the process of
identifying groups with which Washington could work that not only share
Washington's short-term goal of ousting Assad but its long-term goals as well,
including a secular post-Assad Syria whose government respects minority rights.
Third, Washington should immediately expand contingency
planning about possible direct U.S. military support as part of actions to head
off massacres or a humanitarian disaster in the country. This includes
supporting the creation, with allies such as Turkey, of safe havens inside
Syria.
CONCLUSION
The Annan plan's failure demonstrates that the UN process
going forward may be able to treat the symptoms of the disease -- the
humanitarian fallout from the crisis -- but is unlikely to cure the disease
itself -- the minority Assad regime's brutal rule over a majority Sunni
population that is the youngest in the Middle East outside the Palestinian
territories. Washington should continue to press for UN Security Council
resolutions or statements condemning Assad, but to base its approach on the
likelihood of international consensus on the Syria crisis would be unwise.
The best means of whittling away at the Assad regime's
support base continues to be exposing the regime's brutal response to dilemmas posed
by the civil and armed opposition inside Syria. What is going on in Syria is
not a civil war but an armed and unarmed insurrection against a regime that
responded with extreme brutality to peaceful protest. The Syrian opposition in
exile organized under the Syrian National Council may be rife with divisions.
But as the conflict in Syria has morphed into a civil and armed insurgency
against the regime, coordination among atomized opposition groups inside Syria
has intensified for reasons of sheer survival. The United States needs to find
ways to promote, assist, and influence that trend.
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