Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Bashar al-Assad

  • Trump Seems to Realize Assad Is No Ally Against Islamic State

    It appears to have dawned on Donald Trump that a pact with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad against the Islamists in his country makes no sense.

    “It’s very, very possible, and, I will tell you, it’s already happened, that my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much,” the American president told reporters in Washington after it emerged that Assad’s troops had again deployed chemical weapons.

    As recently as last week, Trump’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, appeared to soften America’s position, saying Assad’s future “will be decided by the Syrian people”.

    Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, famously declared Assad “must go”.

    During last year’s presidential campaign, Trump told The New York Times he saw the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as a bigger threat than Assad.

    He also repeatedly counseled against American military intervention in Syria. (Which didn’t stop him from blaming the absence of military intervention under Obama for the most recent chemical weapons attack.) (more…)

  • Political Dynasties and Their Discontents

    Political dynasties have always been a big part of human civilization and today is no exception.

    In the United States, of course, the rise of Donald Trump (and Bernie Sanders) was at least partially a reaction to the dynastic, Clinton-versus-Bush election that only last year most Americans were expecting to get.

    Among other things, Jeb Bush’s candidacy split the non-evangelical portion of the Republican establishment in two, preventing it from coalescing around Marco Rubio early on and thus leaving an opening for Trump to force his way into. Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, meanwhile, may even leave the door open for Trump to become president, however unlikely and unappealing that may be. (more…)

  • Condemnations of Syrian War Crimes Have Little Impact

    While much of the world is focused on the dismantling of Syria’s chemical weapons program, the United Nations Human Rights Council is devoting serious resources to another major issue in the Syrian Civil War: the lack of accountability for those who are engaged in atrocities.

    In a speech to reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, the international body’s top human rights official, Navi Pillay, disclosed that her colleagues had uncovered numerous incidents in the fighting that amounted to war crimes or crimes against humanity.

    Observers of the Syrian Civil War, which is now in its third years, might not be surprised. Reports of what can well be considered crimes against humanity have regularly surfaced. Syrian military forces deliberately bomb densely populated areas, regardless of how many civilians are in the vicinity. Entire neighborhoods have been destroyed by the regime’s use of fighter aircraft, heavy artillery and helicopter gunships. Cluster munitions and barrel bombs that explode on impact, covering wider areas than regular munitions, have been used throughout the year. Bakeries, schools and power stations have all been targeted — if not to destroy rebel supplies and command centers, than to frighten civilians into thinking twice about supporting the opposition.

    But in a twist that could potentially add renewed urgency to the humanitarian crisis in the country, Pillay singled out President Bashar Assad for either ordering or condoning these abuses. (more…)

  • Syria’s Assad Soldiers On, Blames Foreigners for Civil War

    In his first public address to the Syrian people in six months, President Bashar al-Assad ended any and all speculation as to whether he would consider stepping down from his post to end the bloody civil war that has engulfed his country for almost two years.

    A vast segment of northern Syria may now be in rebel hands and the capital city of Damascus a critical frontline in the battle; Assad was calm, composed and defiant in front of his supporters, pledging to fight for the safety of Syria against what he calls a campaign of terrorism armed and financed by foreign states.

    The president’s speech, just under an hour long, took place in a packed opera house in the center of Damascus, the government’s power base and an area that the Syrian army has locked down with dozens of checkpoints. The regime had clearly been careful and methodical in its preparation. Hundreds of supporters stood up and applauded Assad as he walked to the podium. Dozens of loyalists rushed the stage to shake hands with him once the speech was over. The whole affair had a cult like atmosphere, with rhythmic chants of “God, Syria, Bashar is enough” erupting during the speech. (more…)

  • Assad Has the Advantage Before Battle of Aleppo

    Month after month, the ancient city of Aleppo in Syria’s northwest was a haven in its own world, isolated from the violence, massacres and bomb attacks that were pulverizing dozens of other cities across the country.

    Aleppo, known as Syria’s commercial and economic center of power, operated as if everything was normal: stores were open, gasoline was available for purchase and families were free to walk from place to place without the threat of being arrested, beaten or killed. Yet with the regime of Bashar al-Assad slowly but surely starting to lose control over what was once considered a government stronghold, it is as if the calm that was once so reassuring in this city was just a long and pleasant dream.

    Indeed, the same metropolis that was labeled by activists and outsiders alike as too calm to join the revolt is now thrust right in the middle of it. Battalions of men from the rebel Free Syrian Army have taken at least a third of the city’s neighborhoods, setting up checkpoints and trying to keep the loyalist army out of others. (more…)

  • Ambassador’s Resignation Won’t Crumble Assad Regime

    Are the walls surrounding Syrian president Bashar al-Assad starting to crumble from within? To officials in the exile based Syrian National Council, the answer is an overwhelming yes.

    It is not difficult to see why so many on the council and in the opposition more broadly feel this way. In addition to the concerted amount of international pressure that is being put on the regime by neighboring Arab states and the West, Assad’s armed opponents in the rebel Free Syrian Army are getting stronger by the day, in terms of manpower and military effectiveness. (more…)

  • Sunni General, Friend Abandons Syria’s Assad

    Amid new reports of Syrian government shelling on the northwestern city of Khan Sheikhoun, which has been controlled by the Free Syrian Army for months, Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle suffered a humiliating defection from one of its closest supporters.

    Brigadier General Manaf Tlas, one of the highest-ranking Sunni military officers in the Syrian army, ditched his uniform and fled to Turkey last week, where Free Syrian army spokesmen have said he is now safe.

    Tlas’ flight to Turkey comes after hundreds of conscript soldiers and dozens of Syrian army officers over the past two weeks have deserted the Syrian military in response to the government’s escalating crackdown on its own people. In one of the largest batches yet to befall the regime, 85 soldiers quit the military earlier last week. (more…)

  • Bashar al-Assad’s Sectarian Strategy for the War

    Another day in Syria, another brutal massacre reported. The carnage inside of the Middle Eastern country is quickly evolving into a predicable cycle of abuse and counterabuse by all sides in the conflict, with an even greater number of civilians being killed in a systematically gruesome way.

    The government of President Bashar al-Assad has ignored the United Nations-sponsored peace deal orchestrated by former secretary general Kofi Annan, degrading the arrangement into nothing more than a piece of paper that is fast bordering on the irrelevant.

    A horrific spate of killings conducted by what are presumed to be pro-government militiamen in a small farming hamlet in the central part of Syria has further exposed the Annan plan for what it is — a cover for a United Nations Security Council unable to agree on anything other than the gravity of the violence inside of Syria. (more…)

  • Arming of Syrian Opposition Likelier After Massacre

    If there was ever an instance that could graphically illustrate the ineffectiveness of Kofi Annan’s ceasefire agreement in Syria, it was a deadly attack on the villages of Houla this weekend that ended with casualties of virtually every age.

    United Nations officials on the ground in the Arab country are still trying to figure out what exactly happened but preliminary reports backed up by international monitors suggest that the Syrian regime attacked the grouping of small towns with artillery fire and door to door raids by its Shabiha militia allies, killing over one hundred people.

    The most shocking and saddening aspect of this attack was how many children died before the offensive was over — 49, most under the age of ten, are among the dead.

    Artillery attacks by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime have been deadly for months. Since the Syrian uprising began more than a year ago, some 11,000 civilians are estimated to have been killed in government initiated violence. But when small children are killed by their very own government, some with their jaws blown off from high explosive munitions, the violence takes on a whole new dimension.

    The attack on Houla epitomizes just how barbaric Syria’s conflict has become after fifteen months. Indeed, the killing that occurred over the weekend is just the type of case that can convince governments the world over that a change in their approach is needed to contain and, if possible, end the strife.

    The question is whether the United Nations Security Council can actually arrive at this point.

    To date, the council has been nothing but a hamstrung body, unable to make difficult decisions and too fragmented to pass important resolutions.

    Courtesy of Chinese and Russian objections, the council has yet to push through any economic sanctions against the Assad regime for its military crackdown. The stalemate has convinced what once were peaceful demonstrators to take up arms and fight back themselves. The best the United Nations have been able to do is issue press statements about the extraordinary brutality, like the massacre in Houla last Friday and Saturday.

    It is not just the Security Council that has been unwilling or unable to act however. Critics have charged the United States, which would like to see the Assad family dynasty collapse for good, with dragging its heels. Officials of the previous administration and some outspoken and powerful members of the Senate have blasted President Barack Obama’s national-security team with indecisiveness and a stubborn resistance to get the United States involved militarily against the Ba’athist regime.

    This criticism is coming at a time when Obama Administration officials are weighting their military options — or at least trying to determine how they can assist countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which may be transporting heavy weapons to the Free Syrian Army.

    Tired of stalled diplomatic measures and a ceasefire that has been broken by both sides since the pact was first signed, american intelligence officials are reportedly expanding their contacts with the armed opposition in an attempt to figure out which factions are worthy of receiving arms. Washington will still stay away from supplying Assad’s enemies but the administration could come around to the idea of supporting a Saudi, Qatari and Libyan campaign to send weapons to the Syrian president’s opponents.

    No one knows whether the scheme will work. At the moment, the question may be beside the point. What is important to note is that the United States are increasingly agitated that Assad is able to snub the world over its calls for dialogue and to end the violence, despite his near total isolation. Horrific and unspeakable acts of violence like the Houla massacre will only embolden that perception.

  • Violence Subdues in Syria, But Peace Plan Not in Place

    Four days into the United Nations-mandated ceasefire, the conflict in Syria continues, albeit at a smaller scale.

    The Security Council, with Russian support, hopes to ensure that envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan is being implemented seriously by all of the parties on the ground. On Saturday, it passed a resolution to send a preliminary team of thirty monitors to observe compliance.

    Yet despite the council’s newfound unity, nothing in Syria is guaranteed. The civilian casualty toll over the past few days was low when compared to last week’s violence but the fact remains that no one knows for sure what President Bashar al-Assad and his military advisors are thinking behind closed doors.

    Both the Syrian government and the Free Syrian Army, the main armed group resisting the regime’s efforts to consolidate control, have all said the right things when asked about Annan’s plan. Syrian ambassador Bashar Jaafari has told the council and news media that the Assad regime is fully committed to the plan’s success. Rebel commanders have uttered similar rhetoric, reiterating their policy of not shooting unless the Syrian government renews its offensive.

    Their words need to be taken with a grain of salt. Bashar al-Assad has a terrible track record of misleading Arab League and United Nations diplomats and sidestepping his promises. The restraint of the militant fighters is anything but assured. Without a command and control system, any defector can break the truce agreement in its entirety by disregarding the Free Syrian Army leadership and taking matters into their own hands.

    The observer team deployed inside Syria to monitor the Annan proposal is a departure from the United Nations’ previous reluctance to send its own people into conflict zones. The monitoring mission is not a strong one however. The observers will be unarmed, have a difficult time traveling the entire country, and that is assuming that the regime allows them to.

    The cessation of major hostilities between the government and the opposition is understandably receiving the most attention. But the Security Council must not forget that the Annan plan is a multidimensional one with the ultimate goal of getting both sides to negotiate. There is no evidence to date that Assad has complied with any other point in the Annan agreement. Syrian troops continue to man checkpoints in major cities while heavy artillery remains positioned either inside neighborhoods or on the fringes of towns in preparation for another offensive.

    The tens of thousands of prisoners taken by the authorities have not been released either, nor has there been a noticeable influx of foreign and Syrian journalists into the most damaged areas.

    As was demonstrated by last Friday’s demonstrations across the country, the Syrian army will still not allow civilians to protest against in large groups. Five demonstrators were killed on Saturday, others were beaten on Friday.

    This is an obvious calculation. The larger the group, the more likely the regime will have to confront a change in momentum toward the demonstrators.

    The violence is undeniably lower and the shelling of neighborhoods that was previously the norm has either lessened or stopped entirely. But the ceasefire, which could break with a single incident, is only part of the package. For the Security Council, there is still work to be done.

  • Kofi Annan’s Mission Impossible in Syria

    It is hard enough being an international diplomat, especially when your job was specifically created to pacify one of the most deadly internal conflicts in the world today.

    Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations, was tapped by the Security Council to do exactly that — shuttle between the Syrian government and the fractious armed opposition to implement some sort of a peace before thousands more civilians are killed in the line of fire.

    Sensing the gravity of the situation, Annan wasted no time to hash out his own peace accord which has garnered the absolute support of the Security Council in a rare show of unanimity on the issue.

    Despite Annan’s efforts, the longtime diplomat is beginning to experience just how difficult and hopeless his mission may be. While President Bashar al-Assad and his adversaries have all agreed to the accord’s points, hardly a day goes by when government officials, commentators and United Nations personnel express their extreme reservations about whether the agreement will actually do any good.

    Annan’s plan has been buoyed by the support of all five permanent members of the Security Council, in addition to the largest opposition group, the Syrian National Council. But with Syrian army units continuing to arrest protesters and hitting entire cities with mortar attacks, other nations are just about at the end of their rope in terms of supporting a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

    This impatience is doubly so for the Sunni kingdoms in the Persian Gulf, a group of countries which view the downfall of Assad as a strategic opportunity just as much as a moral obligation. What is bad for Iran, so goes the logic, is good for Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

    Annan is thus confronted with three problems simultaneously. Not only is he trying to broker a tentative ceasefire and a Syrian led political rapprochement process that may be dead upon arrival; he is attempting to do this fast enough for the Saudis and the Qataris to hold off on sending weapons to the rebels, yet slow enough to retain the support of Syria’s main backers on the Security Council, China and Russia.

    A resolution of the conflict and a complete cessation of the violence will depend on the Syrians themselves. But for that process to begin (if it ever does), Annan will be forced to reassure a broad coalition of countries that, however different their interests in the conflict may be, Syrians will need time to negotiate an acceptable solution.

  • Syria’s Assad Confident His Plan Is Working

    As the international community remains stymied over how to resolve the conflict in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad must feel confident.

    Warning from European nations and the United States that Assad’s downfall was but a matter of time have been silenced in recent weeks. China’s and Russia’s endorsement of United Nations special envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan provided the world with a common set of goals and aspirations on the crisis. Yet divisions over how to implement Annan’s proposals remain, as well as questions as to whether the Syrian strongman is actually sincere in carrying out the strategy.

    Indeed, the past two months for Assad and his regime have not been all that bad from a military standpoint. (more…)

  • Leaked Assad Emails Offer Glimpse Into Syrian Regime

    With the death toll in Syria possibly approaching 10,000, diplomats and analysts around the world are more enmeshed than ever on President Bashar al-Assad’s state of mind. What is the Syrian strongman thinking behind closed doors, as his security forces continue to pummel demonstrators and Free Syrian Army rebels from city to city? Is he struggling personally with the decision to kill his people or is he willing to let his army continue to bombard cities to deter others from joining the opposition’s movement? And what, if anything, has Assad learned over the past year of bloodshed and turmoil in his country?

    To date, most of these questions could not answered. The American intelligence community has been frank in telling the press that its reach inside Syria is not very good. The human spy networks that are prevalent elsewhere in the Middle East are nowhere to be found in Syria, where the government has been highly cognizant in keeping potential sources on the run, if not locked up in prison.

    But in what appears to be an intelligence bombshell, some of the information that Arab and Western governments have long been trying to get a hold of are now open to the public, courtesy of a Syrian dissident group that managed to tap into and track the personal email files of the Syrian president and his inner circle.

    The thousands of communications were handed over to The Guardian newspaper in London where some have been transcribed and posted for all to see.

    It would be imprudent for other countries to base their foreign policy decisions on a small collection of emails. But this caution does not mask the fact that these communications do, in fact, help the world in evaluating the attitudes and spirits of Bashar al-Assad, his family and his inner circle.

    Those evaluations, in turn, can help policymakers craft a more effective package of sanctions, diplomatic pressure, anti-Assad media blitzes and, if need be, international military intervention.

    Those who have long predicted that the Assad regime is on its last legs will be disappointed to learn that the emails paint a picture of a leader that is far away from the violence and more determined than ever to continue his internal crackdown.

    Moreover, it seems that Assad is getting a considerable amount of assistance from loyal men and women inside and outside of his government.

    Among the noteworthy facts that can be derived from the emails is that a daughter of Qatar’s emir has been trying desperately to convince Assad’s wife to leave the country for the sake of her family and her personal safety. She writes, “looking at the tide of history and the escalation of recent events — we’ve seen two results — leaders stepping down and getting political asylum or leaders being brutually [sic] attacked.”

    In January, the Qatari ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, told CBS News’ 60 Minutes that in order “to stop the killing” in Syria, “some troops should go.” His country supported the NATO intervention in Libya last year.

    A powerful Lebanese businessman urged the Syrian government to tamper down its rhetoric on Al Qaeda. The tycoon, Hosein Mortada, argued that the Assad regime would be far better off blaming the United States and the internal opposition for two suicide attacks that rocked Damascus last year. The terrorist group has come out in support of the Syrian opposition as has the Palestinian militant organization Hamas.

    Syrian media advisors meanwhile appear hard at work trying to help Assad project a sense of patriotism, realism and populism in his speeches.

    In what is by far the longest email in the collection, an advisor to the president’s highlights the importance of showing gratitude for the sacrifices of the Syrian army and police. He warns that if Assad neglects to celebrate their work, he could drive a wedge between the government and the families of those whose loved ones have died for the regime.

    Referring to a BBC interview with a defected Syrian diplomat, another Assad advisor favored a stern response from the government in order to discourage other foreign service officers from abandoning the president.

    The email suggests that when the defector’s identity is discovered, he must be discredited or punished for his act. The Syrian government’s policy in responding quickly and harshly to defectors may explain why there have been so few civilians leaving the regime — they fear for their own lives and the lives of their families.

  • Syrian Revolt Reaches Outskirts of Damascus

    Despite the Arab League’s decision to extend, and then suspend, its monitoring mission in Syria in reaction to the uptick in violence, the conflict in this historically rich nation is becoming increasingly more violent.  What was once a near resemblance of other “Arab Spring” protests, with hundreds of thousands marching for human rights and dignity, has churned into an armed confrontation between security forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and defectors from the Syrian army.  It is now common to not only read about the crimes committed by the regime, which are horrific enough, but about retaliatory attacks from anti-Assad rebels as well.

    The main armed opposition, the Free Syrian Army, is evolving into the only force capable of inflicting pain on Assad’s powerful security apparatus. And to the consternation of President Assad and his generals, the militia continues to grow in numbers, with dozens of soldiers at a time ditching their Syrian army uniforms to join the rebels’ ranks. (more…)

  • Arab Monitors Begin Their Mission in Syria

    Last Monday, Syria witnessed the bloodiest day of the Syrian uprising with close to one hundred people killed across the country by Bashar al-Assad’s army and police forces.

    The government-sponsored violence over the next two days either kept that pace or accelerated in some areas, particularly in northwest Syria, where activists and villagers have reported scenes of a “massacre” by tanks and machine gunners. During arguably the worst period of intimidation since the democratic protests began last March, the Syrian National Council, the most prominent anti-government political organization outside the country, has released figures suggesting that two hundred and fifty people were killed last week over a 48 hour span.

    It is now undeniable that the Syrian regime is intent on stopping the protest wave any way it can, even if heavy weapons like anti-aircraft guns and tank warfare need to be used to get the job done.

    The total death toll is now probably far higher than the 5,000 reported by the United Nation’s senior human rights official this month. It will continue to go up as more conscripts chuck their Syrian army uniforms and run into the arms of the opposition — a development that Assad’s Republican Guard forces have quickly responded to with summary executions, indiscriminate arrest operations and tank shelling.

    With the cities of Syria literally running red with blood, it would be inappropriate, if not downright insulting, to suggest that Bashar al-Assad truly wants to usher in democratic reforms for his country. As long as Assad’s Ba’ath Party is considered to be the heart and soul of Syrian political life, the prospects of Syrians voting the way they would like to is just as delusional.

    The crisis has caused even Syria’s allies to think twice before vouching Assad in public. Close to two months ago, China and China vetoed a Security Council resolution demanding that Syria halt violence against its citizens and pull its army from civilian areas. Now Moscow appears to be edging closer to the Western position, disregarding its previous stance of refusing to meddle in the affairs of a sovereign state.

    In a draft resolution circulated to other Security Council members by the Russians, the Syrian government is urged to suspend its “suppression of those exercising their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and association.”

    The Russians also call on the Syrian authorities to initiate a judicial investigation targeting those who have either ordered, were a part of or who were in any way implicated in abuses. The statement is an about-face from last October, when Moscow teamed up with Beijing to block a unified Council response to the violence.

    In what may be another boost to the protesters, Arab League officials have reported that Syria’s foreign minister has accepted the Gulf Arab plan to send mediators into Syria to make sure that the government is actually doing what it says it is doing — pulling its forces back, releasing political prisoners swept up in the violence, reaching out to the Syrian opposition and generally ending the killing and arrests. On this front, Russia also appears to be at the forefront with the Foreign Ministry confirming that the government decided to allow monitors in after poking and prodding by Russian diplomats.

    Moscow is still far away from where France, the United Kingdom and the United States would like it to be and with the Syrian regime having broken so many promises in the past, activists and Western powers are reluctant to celebrate the Arab League mission prematurely.

    Although the Syrian government has promised unfettered access, there is a disbelief that the Arab monitors sent into the country will be allowed to travel to the worst effected areas freely. President Assad will be sure to make the lives of these monitors difficult, because he rightly understands that failing to obstruct the mission would confirm what nearly everyone has been saying about his regime since the unrest broke out — that it is brutal, inhumane and entirely at fault.

    Similarly, withdrawing troops from centers of protest and releasing the tens of thousands of prisoners who have been thrown into jail cells would be an act of capitulation to the opposition.

    Agreement aside, Assad has passed the point of no return. Minus resignation and a publicly humiliating trial, Syrians will not react to any of his reforms positively. The killings will continue with the Arab League now directly involved. Without stronger words and actions from China and Russia, a complete enforcement from Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan of the Arab League sanctions, and a Syrian president that inexplicably changes his stripes, a diplomatic solution to the crisis seems no longer a viable option.