Syria in the Winds of the American Mood

It would be fair to those who rose up and revolted in the hijacked Arab Spring and in its spirit if the reform of what was corrupted by the era of dictatorial governments be available to domestic perfume sellers, apart from perfume makers and distributors abroad. It will be necessary for the outside world to again play a role in guiding the paths of this spring if it is not delimited, as in the Syrian situation.

If the internal and external criticism of the opposition is correct — that it failed to unite its ranks and its plans — then the denunciation of the failure of the advocating countries to coordinate their military and political support for the revolution and twisting [the coordination’s] channels is also correct.

The primary weak point which plagues the Syrian opposition may return to its being a political mix of heterogeneous visions, even if there were a unified goal. However, if the factions of the Syrian opposition are justified in their political dissimilarities, then there is no excuse for the countries supporting [the opposition] to act like groups with contradictory interests, or rather, competing [interests], in their Syrian strategies.

Maybe it was the greatest imaginable error by the Syrian opposition to increase the ferocity of the regime, suppress the popular uprising and cross the American “red line” by shoving its chemical arsenal in [America’s] face, as a repetition of the Lebanese scenario in Syria — pushing the West to military intervention directly against the regime.

However, this possibility, although it was initially improbable, is recorded by the current reality in the international arena, specifically the political imbalance — [and the] military [imbalances] more than that — in the scales of strategic and diplomatic weights of the primary players in the field: Russia and the United States.

In the era of President Vladimir Putin, Russia moved from a frustrated Marxist country in the Middle East to an aggressive, chauvinist country seeking to compensate for the Soviet past of diplomatic failure to “prove” its well-established presence in the regime. The United States, however, in the era of President Barack Obama, turned from a very expansive country to one coping with the wounds of its Middle Eastern adventures and seeking to “atone” for them by adopting a diplomatic policy of “withdrawal” — avoiding the use of the word defeat — in the region.

The tragedy of the Syrian revolution may shorten the coexistence of its eruption with the changing Middle Eastern roles between two great powers. It is an exchange that steadily reflects the two parties’ levels of direct commitment to the Syrian crisis.

It is clear that American diplomacy presently lives — after the Bush administrations’ adventures in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq — in a state of isolationism. It is easy for the “people” to touch this flow of what there is besides other “intervention” proposals, not only in Congress but also on the American street. This is not restricted to the “isolationist mood” in the American streets alone. On the subject of direct intervention in Syria, [it is] the position of the British parliament — and most of the European capitals — contrary to the tangible sympathy with emerging isolationist feelings in Western opinion as a whole.

However, if avoiding direct military intervention is the watchword of this stage of the West in general, and the United States especially, then the question remains: Why does the Obama administration not utilize “indirect” — or nonmilitary — intervention in Syria to assist the popular uprising if it is still keen on American democratic principles?

Specifically, how does the American administration explain the adoption of diplomatic initiatives which mostly fall into the column of extending the era of the Syrian regime instead of shortening the suffering of its people?

For example, but not limited [to these]: In whose interest did the pro-opposition countries neighboring Syria arrive at the demand of limiting the “nature” of their logistical support for the rebels (under the pretext of convincing the Syrian regime to attend the Geneva I conference)? Who afterward changed the headlines of dealing with the Syrian crisis from an issue of a popular uprising against a despotic government to an issue of reducing the regime’s chemical [weapons] arsenal? It was enough to encourage President Bashar al-Assad to announce his desire to run for a third presidential term.

The diplomacy of shortening the crisis of Syria’s chemical [weapons] arsenal seems like a sign to the rebels: Killing 1,400 Syrian citizens with chemical weapons is an “unforgivable crime”; as for the killing of 120,000 with traditional weapons, it is a “question of perspective.”

In practice, the last of the remaining advantages in Washington’s diplomatic position in the Syrian conflict is the insistence that there is no role for Assad in the Syria of tomorrow. Will this position hold until Geneva II?