With the death of Moammar Gadhafi behind us the world is now eyeing the teetering regimes of other autocratic rulers in the Arab world and wondering who might be the next to fall. Syria, whose uprising began in earnest in March, makes for an interesting candidate but there are several key differences between it and previously toppled Governments which could result in a softer landing for the regime and its president, Bashar al-Assad.
First and foremost Syria is a diverse place. President Assad described it as the “hub” of the Middle East in a recent interview. The country contains significant Christian, Kurdish and Alawite Muslim minorities. The Sunni Muslim majority, which forms the bulk of the protest movement, campaigns for social justice and an end to Alawite domination of the security services. President Assad, himself an Alawite, plays on the minority's fears of mob rule by the Sunni majority and also of the possible Islamification of Syria should his secular Ba'ath party be deposed.
Syrian geography also distinguishes it from somewhere like Libya where miles of open desert between towns gave intervening NATO forces an advantage when targeting regime loyalists. The relative proximity of Syria's population centres would be a liability to any foreign forces seeking to minimise civilian casualties, something bitter experience in Iraq and elsewhere has taught the West to value above all else.
No side is yet calling for direct military intervention. For his part, President Assad has said that interference in Syria would destabilise the entire region. The protest movement at first opposed any kind of outside influence but elements are now calling for a Libyan style no-fly-zone to be imposed which would negate one of the regimes key advantages in the conflict. At a recent meeting of the World Economic Forum in Jordan, US Senator John McCain gave a similar line saying that “The Assad regime should not consider that it can get away with mass murder.” and called for a renewed focus on “partial military operations” which “might be considered to protect civilian lives in Syria.”
The Syrian uprising has been striking for the sheer bloodiness of the regime's response to the protests. The UN estimates that over 3000 have been killed so far and the Government has put military vehicles on the streets of several towns it sees as particularly troublesome including Daraa, Jisr ash-Shughur, Hama and Homs. Violence shows no signs of abating with the death toll reaching 40 in a single day recently for the first time since May.
Responses to the crack down from international institutions have varied. A draft resolution put before the UN security council in October, which would have condemned the crackdown, was vetoed by China and Russia, ever the forces of non-interference. Four other council members abstained from voting even though sanctions and an arms-embargo were dropped from the resolution in order to give it wider appeal. A letter penned by the Arab League calling for an end to violence against the protesters, removal of military vehicles from the streets and the release of political prisoners delivered to the Syrian foreign minister on Sunday has gone unanswered at the time of this writing. Speaking in Tripoli, where he was announcing an end to the campaign there, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen ruled out military intervention in Syria but personally condemned the crack down.
It is the lack of political will to interfere that, more so than any other factor, will give Bashar al-Assad the time he needs to draw a bloody line under the protests. The people of Syria need the support of the international community if they are to follow in the tentatively hopeful footsteps of Libya and Egypt. If they don't receive it they will be dragged down the bleak path trodden by Yemen and Bahrain.
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