A sluggish international
response overlooking Bashar al-Assad butchering thousands of his own countrymen
Syria is a small county
not so rich in resources including oil
Syria is not a question
of national pride as Afghanistan had become for the US.
World political ecology is
dotted with many closed regimes tightly controlled by groups or individuals. Many
of them are members of world bodies like the United Nations or the World Trade
Organization.
Two of the five permanent
UN Security Council (that claims to be the apex decision making body on matters
of international peace and security) members are despotic regimes – China is an
established fact while Russia is pacing fast with Putin cracking down on his
opponents with a vengeance.
The
above five observations sum-up the deadlock that Syria has become, killing
scores of its own people every passing day. Resignation of Kofi Annan from his assignment
as the international peace envoy in Syria is an ominous development out of treacherous
web.
It
tells nothing has moved in Syria in-spite of so-called international efforts
and the violent situation is getting more and more hopeless.
Kofi
Annan was appointed the UN-Arab League peace envoy on Syria February this
year to mediate and work out a peace solution. He worked consistently but we
never came across any development that could tell us the international
community was heading towards a positive solution on Syria.
Instead,
what all happened was the contrary to the expectations. Midst the international
flip-flops, Assad continued with his killing machines. The international community
never looked united, was never able to put significant pressure on Assads. Annan
blamed he never got the support from the responsible international community members that was required to effect a Syrian peace solution.
Annan
has blasted the UN and the international community on it's sluggishness and on increasing local militarization
in Syria as he steps down. And it is well founded. In fact, the United Nations
Supervision Mission In Syria (UNSMIS) had to suspend its operations this June
attributing it to the intensifying violence. The 300-member strong group that was
mandated for three months April this year under the former UN-Arab League Peace
Envoy Kofi Annan mediated plan to monitor the ceasefire League(that was never there), found the
violence too extreme and was not ready to risk the lives of the members of the
UNSMIS.
The
UNSMIS was supposed to work on the peace plan and promote the ceasefire leading
to a political transition in the country. But halting the operation midway called
the international community’s bluff. It's field activities already suspended,
UNSMIS term is expiring on August 20.
Libya
was to pay dividend with oil once it was liberated from Gaddafi, but, even then,
the sluggish international geopolitics delayed the international intervention resulting
in thousands of killings. Syria is not lucrative enough to pay the oil dividend.
Also,
developments in China and Russia have only added to the sluggishness of the international
community. China, in the year of its supreme political body power transition,
is being very cautious. Putin has comfortably reinstated him as the Russian
President once again and in a way has qualified to the high scales of the
dictator-in-making tag. He is busy in crushing the voice of dissent.
These
two countries are never going to be part of any active mandate to dislodge another
despot – Bashar al-Assad. In fact, Russian ships carrying warfare for Syria
have been traced and sent back. Russia and China have vetoed thrice a UN
Security Council resolution aimed at imposing more sanctions on Syria.
And
in absence of any UN mandate, it is foolish to expect that Obama would let the
US or NATO be part of any military initiative against the Assads in the presidential election
year.
True, Assad’s regime has to come to an end sooner or later. Everyone is talking about it in
certain terms now. It is a growing conclusion among the observing analysts.
Even Kofi Annan emphatically opined it while lambasting the international
community. But no one can say when. And therefore what about the human lives lost? While the rebellion has made in-roads to
Damascus, Assad is threatening to use every mean including the chemical weapons
to defeat the rebels.
Who
is to blame if that indeed happens? Some major international powers claimed weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq and launched a massive attack though presence of
the Iraqi WMDs could never be established. And here, Assad is threatening to
use chemical weapons openly and nothing seems to move. Amid all this, the dead-count
is rising every day.