Syrian War Victims Want No One With Blood on Their Hands
Rime Allaf, December 21, 2013
After nearly three years of empty international condemnations, and generalities about the alleged complexity of the Syrian situation, the Assad regime continues to savagely repress both peaceful and armed opponents, hoping to terrorize them all back into submission. In this, Assad has been helped not only by the generosity and assistance of his allies, but also by the incompetence and cowardice of his presumed critics.
Even with foreign extremists playing an increasing role in the conflict, the fact remains that most Syrians are fleeing into neighboring countries in increasing numbers mainly because of the regime’s massive military and air campaign. Yet, ridiculous claims that things will get worse if Assad goes continue to circulate, while planted leaks now test the grotesque idea of his remaining in power even after Geneva.
To Syria’s great misfortune, Responsibility to Protect was never on the international agenda. But to contain the Syrian situation, the Geneva charade can’t resume without decisions to make a serious change.
We don’t need a referendum to know that most Syrians want the carnage to stop immediately. Most realize, however, that violence won’t end if the Assad clan is allowed to stay as a de facto winner, continuing to impose collective punishments on those guilty of nothing more than civil disobedience or intellectual opposition. This would push armed opposition even more to a “death or liberty” mode, straight into the arms of better-organized extremists.
The false dichotomy of Assad or the current opposition (or worse, of Assad or the extremists) has forced many Syrians into making a choice. But the vibrant civil society which has flourished in spite of – or perhaps because of – the war presents a third option of transition to reconciliation and justice on an equal platform of citizenship, led by independent Syrians with no blood on their hands, empowered by real international support.
Today, the two safest buildings in Syria are the presidential palace in Damascus and the headquarters of the militant ISIS in Raqqa. If the United State and Russia don’t cut their wings, there will be no containment of the catastrophe until both sets of warlords have left those buildings.
