President Bashar al-Assad, a British-trained doctor who inherited Syria’s harsh dictatorship from his father, Hafez al-Assad, at first wavered between force and hints of reform. But in April 2011, just days after lifting the country’s decades-old state of emergency, he set off the first of what became a series of withering crackdowns, sending tanks into restive cities as security forces opened fire on demonstrators.
Neither the violence nor Mr. Assad’s offers of political reform — rejected as shams by protest leaders — brought an end to the unrest. Similarly, the protesters have not been able to withstand direct assault by the military’s armed forces.
As the crackdown dragged on, thousands of soldiers defected and began launching attacks against the government, bringing the country to what the United Nations in December called the verge of civil war. An opposition government in exile was formed, the Syrian National Council, but the council’s internal divisions have kept Western and Arab governments from recognizing it as such. The opposition remains a fractious collection of political groups, longtime exiles, grass-roots organizers and armed militants, divided along ideological, ethnic or sectarian lines.
The conflict is complicated by Syria’s ethnic divisions. The Assads and much of the nation’s elite, especially the military, belong to the Alawite sect, a minority in a mostly Sunni country. While the Assad government has the advantage of crushing firepower and units of loyal, elite troops, the insurgents should not be underestimated. They are highly motivated and, over time, demographics should tip in their favor. Alawites constitute about 12 percent of the 23 million Syrians. Sunni Muslims, the opposition’s backbone, make up about 75 percent of the population.
Diplomacy Falters, Sectarian Civil War Looms
The United States and countries around the world have condemned President Assad, who many had hoped would soften his father’s iron-handed regime. Criticism has come from unlikely quarters, like Syria’s neighbors, Jordan and Turkey, and the Arab League. Syria was expelled from the Arab League after it agreed to a peace plan only to step up attacks on protesters. In late 2011 and early 2012, Syria agreed to allow league observers into the country. But their presence did nothing to slow the violence.
In February, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to approve a resolution condemning President Assad’s unbridled crackdown on the uprising, but China and Russia, Syria’s traditional patron, have blocked all efforts for strong Security Council action.
Emboldened by
faltering diplomacy and Russia’s pledge to keep supplying weapons, the
Assad government seemed to be gaining more confidence. In March, Syria’s
armed forces launched bloody assaults on insurgent strongholds, driving
rebels from the cities of Homs and Idlib, and sweeping through the
southern city of Dara’a — where the uprising started. According to
estimates from the United Nations, the conflict has left more than 9,000
dead and thousands more displaced.
Now, a year after the uprising began, the country appears to be unraveling in what looks like a sectarian civil war. Sunni Muslims who have fled the country described a government crackdown that is more pervasive and more sectarian than previously understood, with civilians affiliated with Mr. Assad’s Alawite sect shooting at their onetime neighbors as the military presses what many Sunnis see as a campaign to force them to flee their homes and villages. The refugees’ firsthand accounts painted a picture of a section of western Syria that is more thoroughly under siege — and perhaps more widely in revolt — than has previously been depicted.
At the same time, Kofi Annan, the United Nations special envoy, reported that the Assad government had agreed to a six-point peace plan, which lays out a framework for a cease-fire that does not involve the president leaving power.
Locked in an Ominous Stalemate
With overwhelming firepower and a willingness to kill, President Assad could hold on to power for months or even years, keeping the opposition from controlling any territory and denying it breathing space to develop a coherent, effective leadership, according to analysts, diplomats and Syrians involved in the uprising. Insulated from all but his inner circle, Mr. Assad appears to believe that his strategy is succeeding.
But analysts say sheer force alone is unlikely to eradicate what has become a diffuse and unpredictable insurgency, one able to strike out even after the government has used crushing force against centers of resistance like Homs, Idlib and Dara’a. Broad areas of the country are hostile territory for government troops, and attackers have managed to hit centers of power, even in the capital, Damascus.
The conflict has become a war of attrition that grows more dangerous as it goes along. Tensions have spilled over borders into Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan and raised fears that radical Islamic militants will find a new cause for recruitment.
Protest Timeline
April 2 Syria’s government promised that its armed forces would withdraw from population centers by April 10 and stop shooting within 48 hours after that date if rebels also stop, Kofi Annan, the special emissary, told the United Nations Security Council. Mr. Annan also told the Security Council that his team had held constructive talks with anti-government forces. While the latest diplomatic scrambling provided a specific date for when the violence could abate, it was unclear whether that represented a meaningful breakthrough to halt the conflict.
April 1 The United States and dozens of other countries moved closer to direct intervention in the fighting in Syria, with Arab nations pledging $100 million to pay opposition fighters and the Obama administration agreeing to send communications equipment to help rebels organize and evade Syria’s military, according to participants at a “Friends of Syria” conference in Istanbul. There remains no agreement on arming the rebels, as countries like Saudi Arabia and some members of the United States Congress have called for, largely because of the uncertainty regarding who exactly would receive the arms.
March 31 Syrian forces will not pull out of towns and cities that have been centers of the uprising until “normal life” resumes there, a Syrian government spokesman told state news media. As Syria’s government crackdown continued unabated, the comments prompted signs of frustration from the United States and the six Arab countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, who were meeting in Saudi Arabia. The seven countries — the United States, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman — urged Kofi Annan, the joint envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League, “to determine a timeline for next steps if the killing continues.”
Also, a citizen journalist in Syria who has been instrumental in assisting those covering the conflict in Homs, Ali Mahmoud Othman, has been seized and perhaps tortured by the Syrian government, an activist told CNN. Mr. Othman was thought to be at a secure military unit in Aleppo, added the activist, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
March 29 The Syrian government and opposition groups said that at least two senior military officers had been assassinated in two cities during the previous several days. The killings seemed to dim even the glimmer of hope that the government might reconcile with the opposition. Instead, they validated the claims of activists and fighters who have said in interviews that rebel fighters were increasingly embracing insurgency tactics, including plans to assassinate government and security officials.
March 28 The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, “strongly” urged President Assad to immediately put into effect a six-point peace plan he is said to have accepted that would rein in security forces in advance of negotiations to end a year of bloody revolt, but activist groups reported more assaults throughout the country.
March 27 Kofi Annan, the United Nations special envoy for Syria, reported that President Assad’s government had agreed to a six-point peace plan, even as heavy fighting broke out in this border region between Syrian government troops and rebels who have taken refuge in the area. Mr. Annan’s The announcement was greeted with some skepticism since Mr. Assad assented to various reforms and peace plans, notably a “road map” negotiated with the Arab League in November, but failed to implement them.
March 23 The European Union expanded sanctions on Syria and placed a travel ban on President Assad’s family, including his wife, as the United Nations envoy Kofi Annan headed to Moscow and Beijing to press proposals for an immediate halt to the violent conflict. The ban is aimed at tightening the economic squeeze on the government and forcing an end to its brutal crackdown.
March 21 Overcoming months of bitter division, the United Nations Security Council delivered a diplomatic setback to President Assad, unanimously embracing efforts by Kofi Annan, the former secretary general, to negotiate a cease-fire, funnel aid to victims and begin a political transition. The Security Council endorsed a plan that Mr. Annan presented to Mr. Assad as the special representative of both the United Nations and the Arab League. Russia and China agreed to the statement. The Syrian military’s struggle against insurgents erupted in violence as forces carried out a daylong bombardment in the city of Homs, where more than two-dozen people were killed, according to activists.
March 20 In an open letter to the Free Syrian Army, the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch accused opposition forces of abuse, including kidnapping, detention and torture. The group says that some armed attacks by insurgents were motivated by religious and sectarian sentiments arising from the association of some communities with government policies.
March 19 Armed Syrian defectors took their uprising into the heart of a wealthy district of Damascus, clashing with security forces in what activists and residents called the most intense fighting in such a strategic area since the protests began. An opposition group based in London said at least 18 members of the security forces were killed, but the official SANA news agency put the toll much lower. The clashes coincided with the arrival of a monitoring team sent by Kofi Annan, the special representative on Syria for the United Nations and the Arab League.
March 18 More than 150 protesters in Damascus took part in a peace march shouting “God, Syria and freedom only.” But when some started to chant “The people want the fall of the regime” — a slogan echoed in the Arab revolts — authorities beat them with sticks and began making arrests. On the same day, a car bomb exploded in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, fueling fears that the conflict was becoming increasingly violent, with attacks on relatively quiet cities.
March 17 Two large explosions, believed to be car bombs, struck Damascus, hitting intelligence and security buildings in busy sections of the city, killing at least 27 people and wounding at least 97, according to Syrian news media. The back-to-back bombings in President Assad’s seat of power shocked residents here who have enjoyed relative calm during the yearlong uprising.
March 15 On the first anniversary of the conflict, thousands of Syrians gathered in Damascus, waving Syrian flags and pictures of President Assad in what the government billed as a “Global March for Syria” and against the uprising that it portrays as led by terrorists and foreigners. The state had ordered people to show up for work on a national holiday, threatening punishments for truants in what anti-Assad activists called a move to make it easier to bus in state employees and students to attend the rally.
March 14 The Syrian government launched its biggest raid in months on the southern city of Dara’a, opposition activists said. Dara’a is where the uprising against President Assad began a year ago. Activists said the Syrian army’s tanks and artillery units also shelled some areas in and around the cities of Idlib and Homs. The latest military moves came as Amnesty International claimed in a new report that Syrians detained in the crackdown had been “thrust into a nightmarish world of systemic torture,” the scale of which had not been witnessed for decades.
March 13 Bolstered by faltering diplomacy and a Russian pledge to keep supplying weapons, Syria’s armed forces assaulted insurgent enclaves in the north, invading the city of Idlib, a center of anti-Assad resistance and haven for the Free Syrian Army. Opposition activists reported heavy shelling by army tanks and artillery both in areas around Idlib and Homs.
Background to Protests
The country’s last serious stirrings of public discontent had come in 1982, when increasingly violent skirmishes with the Muslim Brotherhood prompted Hafez al-Assad to move against them, sending troops to kill at least 10,000 people and smashing the old city of Hama. Hundreds of fundamentalist leaders were jailed, many never seen alive again.
Syria has a liability not found in the successful uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt — it is a majority Sunni nation that is ruled by a religious minority, the Alawite sect of Shiite Islam. Hafez Assad forged his power base through fear, cooption and sect loyalty. He built an alliance with an elite Sunni business community, and created multiple security services staffed primarily by Alawites. Those security forces have a great deal to lose if the government falls, experts said, because they are part of a widely despised minority, and so have the incentive of self-preservation.
In July, the Obama administration, in a shift that was weeks in the making, turned against Mr. Assad but stopped short of demanding that he step down. By early August, the American ambassador was talking of a “post-Assad” Syria.
In October, Syrian dissidents formally established the Syrian National Council in what seemed to be the most serious attempt to bring together a fragmented opposition. The group’s stated goal was to overthrow President Assad’s government. Members said the council included representatives from the Damascus Declaration group, a pro-democracy network; the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamic political party; various Kurdish factions; the Local Coordination Committees, a group that helps organize and document protests; and other independent and tribal figures.
In the U.S.: Different Views on Intervention
The Obama administration has made a point of working through the Arab League and the United Nations rather than giving the appearance that the United States is trying to intervene in Syria. This is partly to avoid giving Iran any excuse to get involved on behalf of its regional ally, analysts say.
However, some politicians favor more direct intervention. On Feb. 19, two senior American senators spoke out strongly in favor of arming the Syrian opposition forces.
The senators, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, both Republicans, laid out a series of diplomatic, humanitarian and military aid proposals that would put the United States squarely behind the effort to topple President Assad. Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham, both of whom are on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that rebel fighters deserved to be armed and that helping them take on the Syrian government would aid Washington’s effort to weaken Iran.
The next day, two Iranian warships docked in the Syrian port of Tartous as a senior Iranian lawmaker denounced the possibility that the Americans might arm the Syrian opposition. Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency called the ships “a serious warning” to the United States.
“The presence of Iran and Russia’s flotillas along the Syrian coast has a clear message against the United States’ possible adventurism,” said Hossein Ebrahimi, a vice chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, Fars reported.
Syria relies on Iran for financial and military support, and the governments in Damascus and Tehran have sectarian ties as well: Iran has strongly backed the Syrian Shiite minority and the offshoot Alawite sect that makes up Syria’s ruling class.
Arms Anchor the Relationship With Russia
As the violence has worsened throughout Syria, amateur video has shown government troops rolling through the besieged city of Homs in vintage Soviet battle tanks. Seemingly undeterred by an international outcry, Moscow has worked frantically to preserve its relationship with the increasingly isolated government of Mr. Assad, even as the Syrian leader turns his guns on his own citizens, and the death toll mounts.
Russia has praised Mr. Assad’s call for a constitutional referendum, a step that the United States and other governments have dismissed as meaningless. On Feb. 16, Russia was one of just a dozen countries, among them China, Iran and North Korea, to vote against a General Assembly resolution urging Mr. Assad to step down. And many analysts say that without Russia’s backing, including a steady supply of weapons, food, medical supplies and other aid, the Assad government will crumble within a matter of months if not sooner.
While Moscow has a number of reasons to guard its relations with Damascus, the most concrete, many analysts say, is the longstanding arms sales to Syria. Arms exports have long anchored the relationship between Moscow and Damascus, including sales over the years of MIG fighter jets, attack helicopters and high-tech air defense systems.
While the ouster and death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya and the imposition of sanctions on Iran have sharply curtailed other formerly lucrative arms markets for Russia, Syria has increased its weapons purchases.
Regional political events have also played a part. The Arab Spring and the American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dissipated Russia’s once-powerful influence in the region, transforming the relationship into one of critical importance to Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, who is running for president and wants to expand Russia’s role as a global powerbroker.
Conflict in Syria Poses Risk of a Wider Strife
For decades, Syria was the linchpin of the old security order in the Middle East. It allowed the Russians and Iranians to extend their influence even as successive Assad governments provided predictability for Washington and a stable border for Israel, despite support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories.
But the burgeoning civil war in Syria has upset that paradigm, placing the Russians and Americans and their respective allies on opposite sides. It is a conflict that has sharply escalated sectarian tensions between Shiites and Sunnis and between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf nations. And it has left Israel hopeful that an enemy will fall, but deeply concerned about who might take control of his arsenal.
Washington is keenly aware of the larger forces at play and of the dangers of another military intervention in an Arab country. For Russia, the fall of Mr. Assad, an ally and arms customer, would further diminish its influence in the region. If Mr. Assad goes, any new government will note Russia’s support for him, including a steady supply of weapons. Arabs across the region, who are demanding their rights and freedoms, may resent it, too. For the United States, the conflict is a bundle of risks and contradictions that has made Washington’s stance — frustrating those who favor a more robust intervention — far more cautious than it was in Libya.
For Washington, Europe and the Sunnis of Saudi Arabia and the gulf, the impact on Iran is as important as the fate of Mr. Assad. Syria is one of Iran’s closest allies. It was nearly alone in supporting Iran, not Iraq, in their war in the 1980s. Syria has been Iran’s main conduit to supply aid and weapons to Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The United States and Europe — with tenuous Russian and Chinese support — have isolated Iran economically and diplomatically to try to forestall Tehran from being able to build a nuclear weapon. The conflict in Syria complicates that delicate diplomacy, but a new Syrian government could be a greater blow to Iranian influence than any sanction the West has mustered so far. It could also revive democratic protests in Iran.
But the administration is ruling out direct military intervention in this conflict. After a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a limited intervention in Libya that was harshly criticized by Republicans, President Obama wants no new military adventure in an election year. Nor does the Pentagon, especially given Syria’s integrated air defense system, supplied by Russia.
Not least, American officials point out the murky nature and incoherence of the armed opposition to Mr. Assad and note that the Free Syrian Army, formed by exiled Syrian Army officers, defectors and militias, does not control significant territory in Syria where arms could be supplied.
Aggravating Regional Sectarian Tensions
The insurrection in Syria, led by the country’s Sunni majority in opposition to a government dominated by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiism, is increasingly unpredictable and dangerous because it is aggravating sectarian tensions beyond its borders in a region already shaken by religious and ethnic divisions.
For many in the region, the fight in Syria is less about liberating a people under dictatorship than it is about power and self-interest. Syria is drawing in sectarian forces from its neighbors, and threatening to spill its conflict into a wider conflagration. There have already been sparks in neighboring Lebanon, where Sunnis and Alawites have skirmished.
And in Iraq, where Shiites are a majority, the events across the border have put the nation on edge while hardening a sectarian schism. Iraq’s Shiites are now lined up on the side of a Baathist dictatorship in Syria, less than a decade after the American invasion of Iraq toppled the rule of Saddam Hussein and his own Baath Party, which for decades had repressed and brutalized the Shiites.
The paradox, of Shiites supporting a Baathist dictator next door, has laid bare a tenet of the old power structure that for so long helped preserve the Middle East’s strongmen. Minorities often remained loyal and pliant and in exchange were given room to carve out communities, even if they were more broadly discriminated against.
As dictators have fallen in neighboring countries, religious and ethnic identities and alliances have only hardened, while notions of citizenship remain slow to take hold. Syria’s minorities have the example of Iraq in considering their own future, should the Assad government fall: Assyrian Christians, Yazidis and others were brutally persecuted by insurgents. In Egypt, where a similar paradigm was toppled with the long-serving dictator Hosni Mubarak, Christians have experienced more sectarian violence, increasing political marginalization and a growing link between Islamic identity and citizenship.
New Constitution Approved As Troops Pursue Rebels
On Feb. 27, the Syrian government announced that nearly 90 percent of voters in a referendum had approved a new Constitution. But Western leaders labeled the referendum a farce. In a bulletin across the bottom of the screen on state television, the ministry said 89 percent of the voters, or nearly 7.5 million of the 8.4 million people who cast ballots, had voted in favor of the Constitution — an offer of reform that critics dismissed as too little, too late.
The new Constitution’s most important changes include ending the political monopoly of the Baath Party and introducing presidential term limits. Those changes come with enormous caveats, however. The president would be limited to two terms of seven years each, but the clock would start only when Mr. Assad’s current term expires in 2014. That would allow him to serve two more terms and potentially to remain in office until he is 62, a total of 28 years. His father, Hafez al-Assad, ruled for 30 years until his death in 2000 at age 69.
The document also includes provisions that appear to be intended to prevent the political opposition from entering politics or winning the presidency. It requires candidates to have lived in Syria for 10 successive years and to have a Syrian-born wife, and it prohibits parties that are based on religion or ethnicity, which would bar groups like the Muslim Brotherhood or representatives of the Kurdish minority from participating.
Before the Revolt: Syria’s Foreign Policy
Under the administration of President George W. Bush, Syria was once again vilified as a dangerous pariah. It was linked to the 2005 killing of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri. In 2007, Israeli jets destroyed buildings in Syria that intelligence officials said might have been the first stage in a nuclear weapons program. And the United States and its Arab allies mounted a vigorous campaign to isolate Damascus, which they accused of sowing chaos and violence throughout the middle east through its support for militant groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.
President Obama came into office pledging to engage with Syria, arguing that the Bush administration’s efforts to isolate Syria had done nothing to wean it from Iran or encourage Middle East peace efforts. So far, however, the engagement has been limited. American diplomats have visited Damascus, but have reiterated the same priorities as the Bush administration: protesting Syria’s military support to Hezbollah and Hamas, and its strong ties with Iran.
Secret State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to several news organizations show that arms transactions involving Syria and Hezbollah continue to greatly concern the Obama administration. Hezbollah’s arsenal now includes up to 50,000 rockets and missiles, including some 40 to 50 Fateh-110 missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv and most of Israel, and 10 Scud-D missiles.
“Syria’s determined support of Hizballah’s military build-up, particularly the steady supply of longer-range rockets and the introduction of guided missiles could change the military balance and produce a scenario significantly more destructive than the July-August 2006 war,” said a November 2009 cable from the American chargé d’affaires in Damascus.
According to cables, Syrian leaders appeared to believe that the weapons shipments increased their political leverage with the Israelis. But they made Lebanon even more of a tinderbox and increased the prospect that a future conflict might include Syria.
The Hariri Case
Also looming is potential new trouble in Lebanon, where a United Nations-backed international tribunal is expected to indict members of Hezbollah in the death of Mr. Hariri. Hezbollah and its allies — including high-ranking Syrian officials — have warned that an indictment could set off civil conflict.
The United States withdrew its ambassador in 2005 after Mr. Hariri was killed in a car bombing in Beirut along with 22 others. Syria was widely accused of having orchestrated the killing, though it has vehemently denied involvement. The Bush administration imposed economic sanctions on Syria, as part of a broader effort to isolate the government of Mr. Assad.
The current chill is a significant change from the situation a few years ago, when Mr. Assad showed signs of wanting warmer relations with the West than his father, Hafez al-Assad, had ever pursued. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France led the way with a visit in September 2008. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who was said to be furious at Mr. Assad, welcomed him warmly in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in March 2009. And Prime Minster Ehud Olmert of Israel hinted at a revival of talks on the Golan Heights — a prospect that faded when Mr. Olmert was succeeded by the more conservative Benjamin Netanyahu.
Turkish Opposition to Assad
Once one of Syria’s closest allies, Turkey is hosting an armed opposition group waging an insurgency against the government of President Assad, providing shelter to the commander and dozens of members of the group, the Free Syrian Army, and allowing them to orchestrate attacks across the border from inside a camp guarded by the Turkish military.
Turkish support for the insurgents comes amid a broader campaign to undermine Mr. Assad’s government. Turkey is expected to impose sanctions on Syria, and it has deepened its support for the Syrian National Council. But its harboring of leaders in the Free Syrian Army, a militia composed of defectors from the Syrian armed forces, may be its most striking challenge so far to Damascus.
On Oct. 26, 2011, the Free Syrian Army, living in a heavily guarded refugee camp in Turkey, claimed responsibility for killing nine Syrian soldiers, including one uniformed officer, in an attack in restive central Syria.
The group is too small to pose any real challenge to Mr. Assad’s government but support from Turkey underlines how combustible, and resilient, Syria’s uprising has proven. The country sits at the intersection of influences in the region — with Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Israel — and Turkey’s involvement will be closely watched by Syria’s friends and foes.
Turkish officials say that their government has not provided weapons or military support to the insurgent group, nor has the group directly requested such assistance.
Source: New York Times
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