Is The West Purposely Pushing Syria Towards Civil War?

Did someone actually think the Russians would go along with the condemnation of the Assad Regime? Assad gave them the naval base in the open warm water Russian foreign policy has been predicated upon since the time of Peter the Great. Assad gave them (free of charge-- electricity and water thrown in) one and a half bases-- a port at Tartus and mooring facility in Latakia, and they see no reason to give them up, especially not with Russia’s lease on the port of Sevastopol (Ukraine) expiring in five years.

Syria and Russia have exceptionally strong commercial ties and Syria's military is exclusively supplied by Russia-- from tanks, submarines, helicopters and jets to a missile defense system and all their servicemembers' small arms. All the spare parts and ammunition comes from Russia-- and Syria is in one of the world's most predatory neighborhoods and surrounded by existential-- and well-armed-- enemies. Over 10,000 Syrian officers have been trained in Russia and Russia has at least a couple thousand military advisors in Syria. Yes, the Assad regime is embarrassing everyone by ruthlessly slaughtering his own people but... what elites anywhere care about the 99% anyway, let alone in Russia? Wasn't it just this past fall that Russia and China vetoed a French proposal to impose sanctions Syria in the wake of a U.N. report documenting 3,500 deaths over six months of unrest? What's changed since then that would have made Russia change?

But while arms deals and a strategic naval base are part of the reason for Russia’s stubborn support of Assad, there are deeper reasons. For a decade or so-- ever since a disruptive foray into international peacekeeping in Kosovo in 1999-- Moscow has been fundamentally opposed to the idea of international action and regime change imposed from outside of a country. The reason is based on a deep paranoia that the same medicine could be applied to the countries of the former Soviet Union-- or indeed Russia itself. If Assad can be ousted by an indignant international community, why not Belarusian dictator (and Moscow ally) Alexander Lukashenka?

Using internal strife as an excuse for imperial intervention is as old as empires themselves-- and one often used by Moscow. Notable recent examples include the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 after a destabilizing coup organized by the KGB, or ongoing Russian occupations of the breakaway Moldovan republic of Transdniestr, or the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In 2005 the United Nations adopted a crucial “responsibility to protect” clause-- known to diplomats as ‘R2P’-- which obliges the Security Council to “take collective action” to protect populations against “genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.” But if, like Russia, your worldview is that humanitarian intervention is just a cover for strategic greed, opposing sanctions on Syria proposed by the West follows naturally. “Given the current instability in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now also in Libya, embarking on new interventions would mean pushing individual regions and the entire system of international relations towards chaos,” Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov told students in Moldova this week.

So what does the Obama administration have in mind? Predictably-- inevitably-- Russia and China again vetoed the proposal. And everyone else voted for it. It leaves the anti-Assad forces... frustrated and seething.

William Hague, the foreign secretary, condemned the decision. "More than 2,000 people have died since Russia and China vetoed the last draft resolution in October 2011," he said after the vote. "How many more need to die before Russia and China allow the UN security council to act?

"Those opposing UN security council action will have to account to the Syrian people for their actions, which do nothing to help bring an end to the violence that is ravaging the country. The United Kingdom will continue to support the people of Syria and the Arab League to find an end to the violence and allow a Syrian-led political transition."

The draft resolution, tabled by Morocco, did not impose sanctions or authorise military action and contained nothing that warranted opposition, Hague said. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, reacted angrily to the news at a press conference in Munich on Saturday night: "What more do we need to know to act decisively in the security council? To block this resolution is to bear responsibility for the horrors that are occurring on the ground in Syria."

Responding to the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, who asked "What's the endgame?", Clinton replied: "The endgame in the absence of us acting together as the international community, I fear, is civil war."

The Russians could just as easily respond that pushing the anti-Assad resolution-- and Obama sating publicly that "Assad had lost his legitimacy as a ruler and had 'no right' to cling to power"-- will also lead to civil war. Alain Juppe, the French Foreign Minister, is already claiming the brutality in Homs was "a crime against humanity." Saturday, Tunisia became the first Arab regime to break diplomatic relations and withdraw recognition of Assad's regime. The U.S. followed suit this morning. The Guardian's Middle East editor was already claiming yesterday that the country is hurtling towards civil war, something no one, other than maybe Israel (along with international busybodies Joe Lieberman and John McCain), want to see.

"The SNC's [the main opposition group, the Syrian National Council] whole strategy was for the cavalry to come over the hill-- whether that meant the Arab League, the UN or Nato," said a Damascus-based diplomat. "They don't have an alternative. Their whole raison d'etre has disappeared." In any event, prospects for a negotiated end to the uprising look even bleaker than before.

Perhaps, though, suggested analyst Rime Allaf, there is a silver lining. "Russia's veto showed that Assad's supporters are not really prepared to negotiate," she said. "Everything is clearer now that we know-- even if things will get worse." On the ground, the activists of the local co-ordination committees and the fighters of the Free Syrian Army already sound more defiant. "In the coming days, many Syrians are going to do a lot of soul-searching ultimately leading to a decision to support armed struggle," one activist tweeted. "We have to depend solely on Syrians to liberate ourselves," insisted another. "Where do I donate to buy arms for the Free Syrian Army?" asked a third.

Overnight, demonstrations in the suburbs of Damascus-- in solidarity with Homs and in support of the FSA-- displayed growing readiness to risk everything. But the balance of forces between the regime and even its armed opponents remains terrifyingly unequal. In Homs, BBC correspondent Paul Wood reported from inside the city, it was a battle of "Kalashnikovs versus tanks."

Propaganda is certainly playing a role. Initial claims of hundreds of dead in the shelling of the Khaldiyeh area of Homs were revised downwards by one opposition group on Sunday as a Syrian minister lambasted "fabricated" information in a "hysterical media war conducted by the armed terrorist gangs and their mouthpieces." The bloodshed and destruction though, are real enough.

So what next? The US, Britain and other western countries made no secret of their fury at Russia's veto. Clinton called it a "travesty"; the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said she was "disgusted" at the vote, in a rare break with the usual diplomatic niceties. William Hague's verdict of a "doomed and murdering regime" caught the mood well.

Angry words are one thing, workable policies another. The Arab League will face pressure to come up with something. Nabil al-Arabi, its secretary-general, noted that despite Saturday's double veto "there is clear international support" for the league's stance.

But its hawkish vanguard is losing patience. Qatar, the wealthy dynamo of regional diplomacy, is already rumoured to be arming the FSA with Saudi blessing. Senator Joe Lieberman, the former US democratic presidential candidate, welcomed the idea too. Further militarisation could see Syria becoming a battleground in a proxy war between the Gulf Arabs and Iran, Assad's only regional ally. Many see parallels with Libya-- though Syria's opposition is fragmented and has no stronghold like Benghazi from which to fight the regime.

Another more remote possibility, some warn, is that an Arab "coalition of the willing" might intervene and seek a retroactive mandate from the UN in a replay of the Kosovo war in 1999. But Clinton's call for "friends of democratic Syria to unite" was about helping the opposition politically and financially, not going to war.

Could Russia yet surprise? Sergei Lavrov, its foreign minister, and Mikhail Fradkov, head of foreign intelligence, are due in Damascus on Tuesday. Will they twist Assad's arm to stop the killing and launch reforms or find a compliant Alawite general to take his place?

Moscow's model could be the deal that forced the departure of Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. "It's a long shot," said one Middle East veteran. "The Arab League initiative was the Yemeni solution and the Russians shot it down. How can they broker a deal with the opposition when they've now lost all credibility?"