Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Syrian
Refugees Are 'Left Out in the Cold' by the Biggest Arab States That Refuse to
Welcome Them
By Vijay Prashad [1] / AlterNet [2]
March 29, 2017
The
Arab League summit opened Wednesday in Jordan. Heads of government and state of
22 countries in West Asia and North Africa have assembled in the Dead Sea, a
fitting name for a body that has struggled to be relevant in the conflicts that
bedevil the region. Egypt’s Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, the Secretary General of the
League, said at the threshold of the summit that Arab governments should ‘work
in every possible way to play a more active role in major crises.’
Aboul-Gheit,
who mentioned Libya and Yemen as two examples, was more circumspect on Syria.
What role the Arab states might play as a bloc here is unclear. Aboul-Gheit’s
own Egypt is now fully behind the government of Bashar al-Assad, while Saudi
Arabia and the other Gulf Arab states remain settled on the view that Assad has
to resign. It is this divide not only on Syria, but also on Libya and Yemen
that has made it impossible for the Arab League to drive an agenda. It is
revealing that the ministers have indicated that ‘Arab solidarity’ is a
priority for them. It would only be a priority if it were so threadbare.
Inside
Syria
Fighting
inside Syria continues with grave implications for its population. Gains by the
Syrian Arab Army, the government’s force, and its proxies had been swift in the
past few months. These forces seized Aleppo and opened a corridor all the way
down to Damascus, as well as taking Palmyra from ISIS and other towns in
southern Syria. An overstretched army, with little chance of revitalization
from new recruits, left Damascus vulnerable. A motley group of rebels from the
extremist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (which includes the al-Qaeda army) and the
Faylaq al-Rahman forces dashed into parts of central Damascus. Heavy arms fire
in central squares and along avenues of the city shocked residents, who had
assumed that these parts of the city were not vulnerable to rebel advances.
Three
explanations for this rapid advance have been put forward. First, that the
Russians and Iranians as well as sections of the Syrian government are eager to
get to Raqqa before the Turks and the United States. The deployment of forces
in that region—and not in Damascus—left the city under threat. Nonetheless, the
Syrian forces in the city rapidly beat back the rebels to their strongholds,
such as in the enclave of Jobar and Eastern Ghouta. Second, that the Russians
are eager for the Syrian government to make some kind of arrangement with the
Syrian opposition’s High Negotiations Committee, which Damascus is loathe to
do. Somehow the Russians opened the door for this small advance to send a
message to Assad that the political process needs to be taken seriously. Third,
that the Gulf Arabs pushed their rebel proxies to strike inside Damascus before
the Geneva V negotiations to show that they remain relevant on the ground.
These are not mutually exclusive explanations, nor is one able to verify them
fully. Intelligence services that spread these stories are less interested in
what is happening than in how they want others to understand the events. It is
a battle over narratives.
The
Americans
It is
reasonable to suggest that the Syrian civil war is effectively over. The
battles will continue, but any real change in the balance of forces is not
foreseeable. The war ended when Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States
turned their backs on their various proxy armies inside Syria. Over-extension
in Yemen, financial problems and failure of its proxy to make gains soured
Saudi Arabia’s attempt to overthrow Assad. Turkey’s internal problems, its
anxiety over Syrian Kurdish advances on its border and Turkish business
interests with Russia pushed it to make a deal with the Iranians and the
Russians. The United States, which had provided the most aggressive diplomatic
push for the rebels, found it impossible to create a ‘moderate’ rebel army. The
Russian entry into Syria in 2015 made a US ‘full spectrum domination’ strike on
Syria impossible. Jordan closed its border, which made a southern rebel front
impossible.
Without
these external backers, the various rebel factions—including the extremist
groups—can no longer hope to seize Damascus. This is why the High Negotiations
Committee’s lead negotiator at the Geneva V talks—Mohammed Sabra—said, ‘There
can be no real and viable political solution without the presence of the
Americans.’ He did not, I believe, suggest that the Americans have to bomb
Damascus. The full weight of reality has now swept through the political arm of
the armed opposition. But what they would like is for the United States to
push—once more—for their agenda: namely, that Assad must resign and that
the members of the Assad government must be tried for crimes against humanity.
Sabra,
who is a lawyer, was a member of the opposition’s technical team for the 2014 Geneva
talks. He is one of the leaders of the Syrian Republican Party, formed—it
should be said—in 2014 in Istanbul with the encouragement and assistance of
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party. The Muslim Brotherhood ties
between the Turkish and Syrian parties are clear. That US President Donald
Trump had considered a ban on the Muslim Brotherhood should send a message to
Sabra of the impossibility of his position. He has few real allies in the White
House.
Nonetheless,
Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations—Nikki Haley—made some sharp comments
about Assad that echo Sabra. Assad is a ‘big hindrance in trying to move
forward’, Haley said Wednesday. That sounded a great deal like the ‘Assad must
go’ formula of the Obama administration. But then Haley stumbled—‘I’m not going
back into should Assad be in or out. Been there, done that, right, in terms of
what the US has done.’ This is not what Sabra and his friends would like:
namely vacillation on Assad’s future role in Syria.
The
Iranians
Curiously,
Ambassador Haley said that the United States wants to make sure that ‘Syria can
no longer be a safe haven for terrorists’ and that ‘we’ve got to get Iran and
their proxies out.’ It demonstrates a distinct lack of strategic honestly to
make such a statement, when the United States relies upon Iran to bolster the
Iraqi army in its assault on Mosul. To link ‘Iran’ with ‘terrorism’ is an old
Israeli trick, but one with little credibility when it comes to Iran’s actual
operations on the ground.
Iran
and Qatar have just conducted a deal to break terrible, intractable sieges on a
number of Syrian towns. Iran has also been urging Assad and his government to
stay at the negotiating table and to make real concessions to the opposition.
Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani, who was in Moscow early this week, has urged
the players to return to Astana (Kazakhstan) for another round of discussions
after the Geneva V meetings ended inconclusively. The Syrian opposition
initially came to Astana, but then refused to participate in those talks. But
it was at Astana last year that the Syrian government and opposition agreed to
a major ceasefire—brokered by Iran, Russia and Turkey—that remains the basis
for the present ceasefire regime. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura
recently called on Iran, Russia and Turkey to ‘undertake urgent efforts’ to
strengthen the ceasefire. These three countries have played an important role
in trying to pressure the Syrian government and the opposition to hold their
fire and to widen the safe zones already in existence in Syria. Haley’s
statement is far from the reality of the situation in Syria.
The
Arabs
The
Arab League’s politics on Syria has become almost entirely symbolic. It
refused—once more—to fly the Syrian flag in its row of flags. There will be
clichéd discussions on the conflict, with words thrown about between those who
remain rhetorically committed to Assad’s departure and those who insist that he
is part of the process. Meanwhile, there will be no discussion about the plight
of the actual Syrians.
Syrians
who flee their country either go into refugee camps in Jordan, Turkey and
Lebanon or else seek asylum in the West. Where are the Gulf Arabs and other
rich Arab states? They have not offered to welcome the millions of Syrians who
are bereft. In 2014, Amnesty International produced an important report—Let Out
in the Cold—that pointed to the failure of the Arab states to welcome even one
Syrian refugee. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states are not signatories
of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, so they are not legally obliged to follow
international law for their migrants.
Those
Syrians who do find their way to the GCC states enter the web of the kafala or
sponsorship system, where the rights of the migrants are minimal. GCC countries
prefer to provide funds to the UN and others so that the refugees remain
outside their fortress. ‘Assad must go’ is an easier slogan for them to chant
than ‘Syrian refugees are welcome here.’
Vijay
Prashad is professor of international studies at Trinity College in Hartford,
Connecticut. He is the author of 18 books, including Arab Spring,
Libyan Winter (AK Press, 2012), The Poorer Nations: A Possible
History of the Global South (Verso, 2013) and The Death of a
Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution (University of California
Press, 2016). His columns appear at AlterNet every Wednesday.
[4]
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