With the Annan “peace plan” all but acknowledged to be a failure, a new diplomatic game is shaping up around Syria: “waiting for Russia,” as Western leaders hope Moscow will persuade Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad to accept a peaceful transition.
The trouble is that the Western democracies’ perceived weakness is producing the opposite effect, — encouraging Russia to intensify its efforts to keep Assad in power.
Moscow started building a pro-Assad diplomatic bloc to counter the anti-Assad nations known as “Friends of Syria.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visits Tehran this week to unveil the group, which also includes China.
The core idea of the new bloc, as explained by the Iranian official news agency IRNA, is that the Syrian uprising is part of a Western plot to topple despotic and authoritarian regimes through popular uprisings and military interventions.
Russia has persuaded some members of the so-called Shanghai Group, notably Uzbekistan, to join the new bloc, in which Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela is active. Closer to Syria, the Hezbollah-dominated government in Beirut is pushing Lebanon into the bloc.
The Russian strategy means that the struggle for Syria could take longer than expected. Thus, the Friends of Syria should immediately underscore that they’re in it for the long haul.
Diplomatic efforts to change Russia’s attitude should continue, but the Friends of Syria must also pursue other answers.
In Syria, the choice isn’t limited to either surrender or military invasion.
First, Friends of Syria should recognize the Syrian National Council as a full policy partner. The SNC has just chosen a new leader, Abdelbaset Sayda, and is in the process of electing a national parliament in exile.
A Kurdish human-rights campaigner, Sayda is in a strong position to reassure the country’s ethnic and religious minorities (notably Kurds and Christians) that the future democratic regime will belong to all Syrians.
Next, Friends of Syria should push the sanctions on the Assad regime into higher gear — cutting the regime’s access to international capital markets and banking services.
The bulk of money that Iran pumps into the Assad regime is funneled through European, Lebanese and Turkish banks. Some Syrian big businesses, many regime-tied, also use banks in America, Panama, Venezuela and Ecuador.
As a state sponsor of terrorism, the Assad regime has been under an arms embargo for decades — in theory. NATO could enforce that embargo more vigorously by stopping overland Iranian arms shipments to Assad through Turkey. And the US Sixth Fleet could easily interrupt the arms shipments (often disguised as cargo for Lebanon or Cyprus) that flow via the Mediterranean.
Another target: Fuel for Assad’s forces is smuggled in by Venezuela and Iran. While Venezuelan tankers fly their national flag, Iranian tankers use flags of convenience, including those of Bolivia and Nicaragua.
Preparing himself for a worst-case scenario, Assad is trying to carve a mini-state for his Alawite community in a strip of territory between Syria’s central mountains and the Mediterranean. The area forms the hinterland of the ports of Latakia and Tartus, at which Russian and Iranian navies have mooring facilities.
Assad’s plan would partition Syria in four, including a putative mini-state for Alawites. Anti-Assad armed groups operating as the Syrian National Army already control a second segment, encompassing the central provinces of Homs, Hama and Idlib.
Aleppo, Deir-Ezzour and Haskeh, in the east, form a third segment where ethnic Kurds and Arab Sunni tribes could seize control after the central government falls. A fourth segment in the south would comprise Damascus, Sweida, Deraa and Kuneitarah.
If supplied with command-and-control materiel and weapons that it can’t procure in Syria, the Syrian National Army could rapidly consolidate its position in the center and the east.
Assad is spreading rumors that he’d fight a last-ditch battle in the west with support from Russia and Iran. But, while Moscow and Tehran might well back Assad as long as they think he has an even chance of survival, neither would want to get involved in an endless war so that Assad can carve himself a mini-state on the Mediterranean.