Three days after it arrived on the scene, the Arab League’s mission to Syria appears to have sunk into a routine that is unlikely to end the 10-month-old crisis.
Headed by Sudanese Gen. Mustafa al-Dabi (he of Darfur genocide fame), the mission spent its first day in Damascus on ceremonials including a two-hour pep talk by President Bashar al-Assad. Unable to leave his palace, the despot was visibly jubilant at finding a polite, if not deferential, audience.
The mission spent its second day in the capital of the revolution, Homs, which has been under siege for much of 2011.
On the third day, yesterday, the mission split in three groups, visiting Deraa, where the uprising started; Idlib, where defections from the army have been most frequent, and Homs’ sister city, Hama.
The routine works this way: Once the mission has received clearance for a visit, the regime withdraws its tanks from central districts of the city concerned, leaving behind armored vehicles with security forces keeping a low profile. Then, mission members get a quick tour of the city center under armed guard, with televisioncameras from the government turning.
To sweeten things, the regime also releases some prisoners. By this writing, 732 prisoners had been freed. But no one knows how many of those were political prisoners. Estimates put the number of people jailed as a result of the uprising at around 15,000.
The mission is there under a deal of which the current visits form a small part.
The core of the deal consists of three points:
* Releasing all people jailed in connection with the uprising.
* Returning all army units to their barracks.
* Starting talks with the opposition to seek a peaceful transition.
The regime clearly hopes to use the Arab League’s mission as a diversion from demands for United Nations intervention.
Not surprisingly, Iran and Russia, still backing Assad, are making noises about giving the league’s mission “enough time to assess the situation.” It’s not clear how much time is “enough.” But for a regime forced to live on a day-to-day basis, any extension of its lifespan would be welcome.
Last week, some signs suggested that Russia, anxious not to end up on the side of the loser, might be distancing itself from Assad. More important, perhaps, Russia doesn’t want to antagonize the majority of Arab League nations, which clearly want Assad to go.
But Iran has been working hard to persuade Russia to stick with Assad. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hussein Abdullahian was in Moscow yesterday for talks with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Syria. Yesterday, Kayhan, a daily published by Iranian “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei, argued:
“If President Assad falls, his place would be taken by a pro-West regime. And that would be contrary to Russia’s interests. The situation in Egypt was quite different. There, Mubarak’s regime was pro-West, and its fall was good for Russia. Currently, Russia’s situation in the Middle East is not all that good. The loss of Syria would make that situation even worse.”
The Arab League mission might give Russia an excuse to stick to its policy of support for Assad. It also might give Iran an opportunity to build up its military and security presence in Syria in preparation for a fight to the finish to keep Assad in power.
Western democracies must pursue their policy of sending the issue back to the UN Security Council with three aims:
* Endorsing the Arab League’s deal, thus giving it another international dimension.
* Creating UN-run safe havens, possibly in Edlib, on the Turkish border, and Deraa, on the Jordanian border, to allow wounded dissidents to receive medical treatment and to shelter civilians fleeing repression.
* Recognizing the Syrian opposition as a legitimate interlocutor in a framework of negotiations on a peaceful transition through free elections.
Buoyed by support from Tehran and Moscow, the Assad regime is clearly trying to buy time in the hope that the revolution will run out of steam — but there are few signs of that. The result could be a political impasse with many more weeks — if not months — of bloodshed.