Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies Igor Semivolos spoke to tyzhden.ua on prospectives of the military operation against Asad regime, nature of Syrian conflict and its consequences for the Middle East.
How much sense the U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision on military intervention to Syria (even a short-term one) it makes, on your opinion? Will that terminate the conflict?
I’m very convinced that Barack Obama doesn’t want a new military campaign, as he’s not a martial President at all, and he has come to the White House aiming to terminate military operations in the Middle East. Besides, the region keeps losing its strategic values for the US it had 10 years ago, as the US dependence from Middle Eastern energy products decreased.
last I checked there are, however, obligations owed to allies. Those are not only Turkey and Israel, but also the countries of the Gulf (Qatar, Saudi Arabia) actively involved in Syrian internal conflict supporting the rebels.
The conflict as such now looks more like Shia-Sunni opposition, i.e. has some elements of war of religion. It’s extremely difficult to terminate this conflict, so as to overcome its consequences. This may also influence the cause of the conflict greatly.
As for the US short-term military operation, such a strike improves the rebels’ position itself, though this doesn’t bring them to victory, and, of course, it doesn’t solve the problem. Nobody expects that, however, which means we’ll have to get ready to negotiate in Geneva, one way or another.
When the negotiations are expected to be renewed?
In my opinion, this happens only when both parties lose the last hope for destroying each other — in that case they might go for negotiations. Obviously, this will happen after the active phase of military operation in Syria.
The rebels resist any negotiations as long as Bashar Assad remains the President of the country. At the same time, the authorities have to be ready to compromise, such as, for instance, forming transition government and holding democratic elections. If that happens, the representatives of Sunni majority are very probable to come to power, and they have no considerable experience in governing a country. This means, they’ll have to make some rules and develop coordination procedures in order to harmonize conflicting parties, which, in turn, is a critical issue for making the dialogue possible.
Is there any chance of solving the existing situation under the current President Assad’s rule?
Unlikely, as, I repeat, the opposition resists any negotiations with Bashar Assad. A formula that allows conflicting parties to start negotiations without losing face needs to be configured. This can be, for instance, a transition government or something like that. Even after negotiations are launched, they are expected to linger on because of the matter of procedure. A demand for peace-support mission may arise.
Syria is to remain a unitary country granted that the strategic decisions are made. Otherwise it is very likely that we have at least two new countries on the today’s Syrian territory. However, I don’t pelieve this will happen.
France is mentioned as the US ally in their military operation. Whom else the States can rely on in this situation?
Even the Great Britain delegates left themselves a creephole when voting against military operation, to be able to revise the issue in case the situation changes. So, we can’t put this country aside.
And don’t forget the allies the US have in their Middle Eastern policy I mentioned earlier. If the Syrian authorities demand to direct an attack to Israel, this country gets formally involved in the war. However, the 1991 situation is more than likely to repeat if Israel is under attack. The Israeli government didn’t strike back then, but today they have a much better air defence system which brings Syria’s chances for a successive attack to minimum.
Even having those countries is enough to form a powerful anti-Assad coalition. Generally speaking, more than 30 countries can join that coalition.
How Russia influences or can influence the negotiation process?
There are several reasons why Syria is important for Russia. First of all the situation itself gives Russia the feeling of being an important player of world’s top politics and a blocking shareholder in the UN Security Council. This feeling links to the discussion on the sovereignty limits amid the on-going globalization. I mean so-called sovereignty wash, i.e. the possibility of limiting the sovereignty because of the humanitarian problems in some or other country (such as Kosovo Crisis). For Russia, however, keeping the ultimate sovereignty where nobody can interfere into internal affairs still remains the matter of honour. By the way, Russian experts do all their best to avoid unpleasant conversation on war with Georgia (which Russia started without the UN SC resolution) when grieving about the collapse of the International Law.
Second, this is a clear “We won’t give you up”-signal for their clients. This, by the way, shows their lack of self-esteem and trust in their partners. This idea is very common among the users of Russian social networks: today we let Syria go, and tomorrow Belarus becomes a member of NATO.
Third, for Putin, Syria is a special force standing against American imperialism and guileful West as a whole. This message is meant to strengthen social support of the regime on the background of anti-American consensus inside Russia. Terrifying people is the best way this can be done, no coincidence the panic on the coming World War III is widespread in Russia. This, by the way, is felt in Ukraine, too, which means Russian informational influence is present here.
The informational war, however, led by Russia and later joined by China, Iran and Syria itself, is a maximum Russia can do in current situation. Russian Federation can’t influence the military campaign and this ain’t news for anybody.
Is it possible to predict how long the war lasts?
Unfortunately, civil wars can last for decades. The average age of population is considered one of the factors facilitating combat attempts of solving the civil conflict. The younger average citizen is, the higher is the risk for violent conflict. This is the reason why there’s a minimum chance for civil war in Ukraine, though the tension is high - the average age is about 40, and people don’t want to get involved in war when they’re in their 40ies. It’s contrary in Syria, where there’s a lot of youth; there’s been a populations outbreak during the last 20 years. Imagine how “explosive” the material is and how long it can last.
Source: tyzhden.ua
