6 Notes
Four Thousand
In the ongoing history of the Arab Spring, the world’s attention seems to have briefly drifted away from Syria in light of the drama surrounding Gaddafi’s death and the Egyptian and Tunisian elections. Yes, more sanctions have been handed down from the international community, yet still the Assad regime continues to mercilessly kill its own people who are standing up and demanding political reform and democratic transition. In the last 24 hours, 23 more people have been murdered by state military forces, which brings the total number of deaths to a tragic milestone.
Beriut: Syria has entered a state of civil war with more than 4,000 people dead and an increasing number of soldiers defecting from the army to fight President Bashar Assad’s regime, the UN’s top human rights official said on Thursday.
Civil war has been the worst-case scenario in Syria since the revolt against Assad began eight months ago. Damascus has a web of allegiances that extends to Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement and Iran’s Shiite theocracy, raising fears of a regional conflagration.
The assessment that the bloodshed in Syria has crossed into civil war came from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay.
The conflict has shown little sign of letting up. Activists reported up to 22 people killed Thursday, adding to what has become a daily grind of violence.
So what’s the world to do? Military intervention is out of the question, largely because the US, Britain, and France aren’t ready for another war and Russia and China won’t allow it at the Security Council. However, that’s not the way to go anyway. Syria would be a far more difficult war to win than Libya and the consequences could be even more devastating for civilians.
While the sanctions appear to be hurting the Syrian merchant class upon whom the Assad regime depends for support, more political pressure is needed, particularly from Obama on the Arab League. The League needs to be fully turned against Assad as it was against Gaddafi so that Syria is further isolated. As much political space as possible needs to be created for protesters to follow in Egyptian footsteps and peacefully overthrow their despotic government.
