Rime Allaf, April 26, 2012

When Tahrir Square resonated with the roar of Egyptians chanting for the fall of the regime, certain in their anticipation that Hosni Mubarak like Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali before him would be ousted imminently, many Syrians watched with admiration and solidarity, but with little illusion that such exhilarating scenes could magically resurface in Damascus.

There seemed to be little appetite yet--at least in the open--for protests after decades of silent acquiescence to the regime's petty and ruthless authority. There also was no doubt in anyone's mind that should the people rise up, the regime would not hesitate to silence dissent in any way it could.

Fifteen school children's jailing and torturing later, these hesitations were swept aside as the Syrian uprising's spark spread like wildfire through the country. As expected, it was met with the Assad regime's full brutality, a repression that will go down in history as one of the most horrific against a population braving live fire with bare chests and daring slogans.

As the revolution gained traction, Syrians seemed convinced that everyone was on their side; not only were they just as worthy of dignity and freedom as their fellow Arabs, but most of the world's powers could not stand the Syrian regime, having spent years threatening and isolating it. If ever there was a popular revolution the free world was sure to embrace and applaud, it would be this one.

Not Israel, though, which for years had enjoyed secure borders through a de facto understanding with the Assad regime. Highlighting this fact, President Bashar Assad sent a clear message through the New York Times: Rami Makhlouf, the Assads' financial portfolio manager, guaranteed Israel's safety as long as Assad was in power, but warned there would be massive chaos should he fall.

For the rest of the world, predictably, Syrian media concocted a tale of Zionist, imperialist, Gulf, Ottoman, neocon conspiracy with a narrative of self-defense against armed terrorist gangs. To the regime's delight, many Syrian loyalists were only too happy to believe this and to openly support the regime's violent repression on a massive scale.

Caught by surprise (like everyone else) by the speed and magnitude of these events, the United States not only refrained from criticizing the regime but even maintained silence for a few weeks before declaring, to the dismay of most Syrians, that Bashar Assad, lo and behold, was a "reformer". It took months for the assessment to escalate slightly in tone, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton deeming that Assad was "not indispensable" and had "lost legitimacy." By then, the Syrian revolutionaries had lost their innocence, and the Syrian regime had lost its reticence. Full scale military repression was unleashed, and the ghosts of Hama were awakened.

For months on end, powers that could have made a difference simply uttered vague declarations and issued ineffective sanctions on the regime. Turkey warned, repeatedly but emptily, of dire consequences should Assad not stop the killing. Unheeding, the Syrian regime continued to pound the population, convinced that only brute force and a real war of terror would subdue the revolt and bring the country back under its control.

It gradually became clear to many Syrians that the world's powers also secretly wished for just that, and were using the opposition's disunity as a pretext to do nothing as they waited for the uprising to die down. While a toothless Arab League proposed a solution involving an increasingly organized, albeit not united Syrian opposition, Russia shone in the leading rogue role of regime supporter, conveniently vetoing any reluctant attempt to condemn Assad or to protect the population.

For now, Syria has become to Russia what Israel has been to the US: the protege that can do no wrong as long as it protects the interests of its sponsor, which is bullying the neighbors should they even think of intervening.

As it openly helps the Syrian regime survive, Russia is also allowing the US to pretend outrage as it monitors events, patiently waiting for the uprising and the sanctions to weaken the state, a la Iraq pre-2003. This is the exact opposite of every Syrian revolutionary and opposition group's wishes, which strive to save the state while discarding its violent regime.

Syrians always expected theirs to be the hardest of all liberation struggles, knowing the barbaric treatment that awaited them from the regime's thugs, but they still tried to keep their protests peaceful even as the death toll mounted. It took months for an armed resistance to form, and it took even longer for Syrians to start requesting, reluctantly, foreign intervention. But it took a whole year for them to realize that nobody was likely to come to their aid, that their right to self-defense was to be dismissed in a cavalier manner, and that they would be fighting alone.

As they adjust to this new reality and revise their expectations, Syrians are watching the latest half-hearted attempt to end the violence and engage the regime diplomatically. Indeed, the six-point plan devised by United Nations Special Envoy Kofi Annan begins with a ceasefire that the regime has completely ignored, shelling and killing with impunity while a handful of blue helmets parade around the country. What should have been an urgent action to protect civilians has become an ugly, violent version of the Emperor's New Clothes, with everyone pretending to be concerned about the "fragile ceasefire" that never was in the first place.

Syrians may take symbolic comfort in the exposure of Assad's pretense of being a benign, reluctant dictator who would modernize the country and state system, but they take real strength from the certitude that poet Abou Kassem Al Shabi bequeathed the Arab people: If the people summon the will to live, destiny is bound to answer their call.

-Published 26/4/2012 © bitterlemons-international.org

Rime Allaf is an associate fellow at Chatham House in London.
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