Civil war

The UN observer mission to Syria is just about ready to concede that this forsaken country is in a state of civil war.

From peaceful protests brutally crushed by Assad’s troops, the confrontation decisively shifted to armed urban warfare. The loosely organized Free Syrian Army, composed mainly of defectors from the highly-trained regular military organization, now attracts volunteer fighters principally from the Kurdish and Sunni communities. Badly armed at the onset, the rebels now appear to have acquired more sophisticated weapons.

A few months ago, skirmishes between Assad’s army and the rebels were confined to dissident cities like Homs. The past weeks, the skirmishes appear to have spread to the business center of Allepo and the capital Damascus.

The ethnic and sectarian fissures appear to define the pattern of violence emerging. In the past couple of weeks, horrendous massacres of civilians were documented fully by UN observers. Increasingly, it appears, Alawite thugs are being armed to mount attacks on Sunni villages.

The Alawite sect is most fiercely supportive of the Assad regime. Being in the minority, they are afraid a change of regime empowering the Sunni majority will result in persecution. They might have no love for Assad, but they are most comfortable with the status quo.

The international community imposed sanctions on Syria months ago to force Damascus to respect human rights. Those sanctions have taken a severe toll on Syria’s domestic economy. To counter the crippling effects of the international sanctions, Iran is believed to be extending financial and military support to the Assad regime.

Apart from the obvious geopolitical considerations, Tehran is obviously wary of having a Sunni-dominated Syria on its border. Ironically, its continuing support for the murderous Assad regime makes it ever more likely any new regime that displaces the current one will be hostile to Iran.

There are even more ironies across the border in Lebanon. The militant Hezbollah movement in this neighboring country is an obvious source of weapons for the predominantly Sunni rebel army. The Free Syrian Army is reported to have developed weapons depots across the border in Lebanon. Hezbollah, however, is believed to be armed and financed by Tehran as well — mainly to sustain its role as a frontline force against Israel. The Hezbollah was also Syria’s proxy during the bloody Lebanese civil war.

There are ironies as well on the border with Turkey, across which thousands of Syrian refugees crossed to escape Damascus’ brutality. Ankara’s hostility towards the Assad regime is fairly clear. What is unclear is if Ankara might be willing to deliver arms to Kurdish Syrian rebels across her border. Turkey has its own problems with an armed Kurdish nationalist movement within its territory. The secessionist Turkish Kurds maintain bases across the border in northern Iraq — and presumably in northern Syria as well.

 This week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced Russia for donating attack helicopters to the Assad regime. The lethal power of these attack helicopters in urban warfare is obvious.

Moscow denied any plans to send attack helicopters to Damascus. At any rate, Russia remains Assad’s strongest ally. Moscow vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that might have opened the door to more effective international action to intervene in preventing violence against civilians. China continues to stand by Moscow on the matter of Syria.

Moscow’s decision to continue supporting Assad despite international condemnation of his regime’s atrocities may be likened to continued US support for the Marcos regime despite international condemnation of its repressiveness. Russia’s only military base in the Mediterranean Sea is in Syria. That is the equivalent of the US bases in the Philippines when the Cold War was still the governing logic of international politics.

Moscow’s position on the Syrian question puts it at odds with the Arab League. The Arab League is strongly influenced by Saudi Arabia, which is very concerned about the treatment of Sunnis in Syria.

In a word, Syria is a complex puzzle for everyone.

Neighboring Jordan, predominantly Sunni and a thousand times more democratic than Syria, has little love lost for the Assad regime. The two countries, along with Egypt, were once staunch allies in the wars with Israel. Both Egypt and Jordan, over the past two decades, have adopted a more conciliatory relationship with the Jewish state in the framework of the Camp David Accords.

Jordan, however, maintains a stolid silence about the civil war now happening across its northern border. That can only be a recognition of the complex factors at play in this domestic conflict. Diplomatic silence is the way of prudence. Jordan, much later, may have to play the lead role in an international effort to repair Syrian society in the aftermath of civil war.

Like Jordan, Israel too maintains a studied diplomatic silence on the events across its northern border. Tel Aviv, obviously, should be pleased if the pro-Iranian Assad regime is scuttled. But it can play no role in a communal Arab problem.

Manila, too, is caught up in the dilemmas of this civil war.

We have enough migrant workers in Syria to worry about. Although Philippine authorities tried evacuating Filipinos from Syria for months now, many of them chose to remain. Some have even smuggled their way in to find work in the war-torn country, as they did in Lebanon when civil war gripped that country.

As the civil war escalates, our diplomats in Damascus will be harder pressed evacuating Filipinos from that dangerous place. We will need the support of Syrian officials to do that. Fortunately, we are not part of the UN Security Council at the moment and will not have to cast a vote on the matter.