The failure to pass a resolution at the UN Security Council last week because of Russian and Chinese opposition has dealt a severe blow to all attempts to stop the bloodbath in Syria.
Of course, diplomats keep going, trying to come up with a persuasive answer to the growing call “to do something.” For good reasons, Turkey is an active player in these efforts, talking to the EU, the US and the Arab League about new mechanisms to keep up the pressure on the Assad regime. There is talk of a joint Arab League-UN mission to monitor the Syrian government’s deadly crackdown on protests. Plans are being discussed to establish a “Friends of Syria” group that should coordinate support for the Syrian opposition. Let’s hope that, at least in this case, Turkey and France can overcome their mutual aversion and put the interests of the Syrian people first.
While visiting Washington, D.C., Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu spoke passionately about the need for the world to act, faced with the horrors in places like Homs, Syria’s third-biggest city, which was shelled relentlessly last week.
Unfortunately, all these initiatives cannot hide the feeling of deep despair and hopelessness that is spreading among many observers. What could a new monitoring mission do other than repeat the same mistakes a previous failed Arab League commission made? Russia has already announced that it will not participate in any group of countries willing to act because it has very bad experiences with the “Friends of Libya” group, which, according to Moscow, was used to prepare foreign military intervention.
Demonstrating similar feelings of frustration but from an opposite perspective, proponents of outside interference have expressed the hope that the diplomatic impasse will accelerate the discussion of military options that the Syrian opposition has been asking for. According to Shadi Hamid, head of research at the Brookings Doha Center and one of the supporters of some sort of armed intervention, the Security Council veto “was the best recruiting tool that the Free Syrian Army [FSA] could have asked for. … I think a lot of Syrians are saying ‘We tried peaceful protests, it didn’t work, now we have to defend ourselves from the repression of the regime’.”
Most analysts do not want to go as far as Mr. Hamid is willing to go. But everybody is trying to find a mix of measures which, eventually, could lead to the end of the bloody repression. In this week’s edition, The Economist seems to have summarized most of that thinking in its proposal to get rid of President Bashar al-Assad: 1. Help unite the opposition so they can convince more Syrians to stop backing Alawite minority rule; 2. Keep peeling away Mr. Assad’s support internationally, especially with the Russians; and 3. Most controversially, back the creation of a safe haven in northwest Syria by Turkey, with the blessing of NATO and the Arab League. According to the British weekly, Turkey is willing to do this, providing it gets Western support. Although there would be risks, a free patch of Syrian land would allow the FSA to train its fighters and a credible opposition to take shape. It would show symbolically that Mr. Assad’s brutal days are numbered.
The Economist believes such a haven is possible also because Mr. Assad would suffer only if he attacked it. But that is exactly what according to others is going to happen. In a sharp rebuff of the idea of a protected zone inside Syria, the influential and well-informed American blogger Juan Cole has warned of serious legal and military problems: “Any such zones would clearly immediately become war zones. Regional governments that back these zones, whether Turkey or Jordan, would almost certainly themselves be attacked by the Syrian army.” He advises Syrian dissidents to keep up a non-violent struggle that, Mr. Cole has to concede, might go on for a while.
This brings us back to square one. Looking at the suggestions and justifications for military intervention in one way or the other, I tend to be sympathetic because I am horrified by the cruelty and the sadism of Mr. Assad and his army. Listening to the counter arguments and the warnings for even further bloodshed and the risks of regional warfare, hesitations and doubts set in. This is indeed what helplessness feels like.
