International Media Regurgitating Syrian Rebel
Propaganda
Syria is many conflicts rolled into one. It is also at the centre of two regional struggles
World View: A military stalemate between the government and rebels will make a negotiated settlement inevitable – but not for a long time
By Patrick Cockburn
December 30, 2012 "The Independent" --"Shame on you! Shame on The Independent!" boomed the voice of a Syrian intellectual in my phone half an hour after I had returned from Damascus to Beirut. He was so incoherent in his rage that it was difficult to know his precise objections, but my sin seemed to be that I had been in Damascus, talked to members of the Syrian government and concluded that it was not going to collapse any time soon.
Syria is many conflicts rolled into one. It is also at the centre of two regional struggles
World View: A military stalemate between the government and rebels will make a negotiated settlement inevitable – but not for a long time
By Patrick Cockburn
December 30, 2012 "The Independent" --"Shame on you! Shame on The Independent!" boomed the voice of a Syrian intellectual in my phone half an hour after I had returned from Damascus to Beirut. He was so incoherent in his rage that it was difficult to know his precise objections, but my sin seemed to be that I had been in Damascus, talked to members of the Syrian government and concluded that it was not going to collapse any time soon.
Our
conversation was not of a high intellectual
calibre. After an acerbic exchange, I asked
why, if he felt so strongly, did he "not
stop being rude to people like me, go
to Aleppo and fight beside the rebels
instead of spending all your time in the
cafés of Beirut". Shortly afterwards, there
was a mutual clicking-off of mobiles.
Driving the short distance between Damascus
and Beirut is like shifting from one planet
to another. What seems obvious and
commonsensical in the Syrian capital becomes
controversial and a minority viewpoint over
the border in Lebanon. Outside Syria there
have been repeated media and diplomatic
forecasts of imminent victory for the rebels
and defeat for Bashar al-Assad. Ignored in
this speculation is the important point that
Assad's forces still hold, wholly or in
large part, all the main cities and towns of
Syria.
The
difference in perceptions inside and outside
Damascus is explained partly by the way the
international and regional media describes
the war. There are few foreign journalists
in the Syrian capital because it is
difficult to get visas. By way of contrast,
the rebels have a highly sophisticated media
operation – often also foreign-based –
proffering immediate details of every
incident, often backed up by compelling, if
selective, YouTube footage.
Understandably, the rebel version of events
is heavily biased towards their own side and
demonises the Syrian government. More
surprising is the willingness of the
international media, based often in Beirut
but also in London and New York, to
regurgitate with so little scepticism what
is essentially good-quality propaganda. It
is as if, prior to the US presidential
election in November, foreign journalists
had been unable to obtain visas to enter the
US and had instead decided to rely on
Republican Party militants for their
information on the campaign – moreover,
Republican activists based in Mexico and
Canada.
It is
true that there is the rumble of artillery
in Damascus, but the city is not besieged.
The roads north to Homs and south to Deraa
are open, as is the road to Beirut. When the
rebels do capture a district, government
artillery pounds it, killing some and
forcing others to flee. For those living in
undamaged areas of the capital, there is an
ever-growing fear of what the future holds,
combined with increasing difficulties in
day-to-day living because of cuts in
electricity and a shortage of bread and
cooking gas.
The
rebels are making some progress on the
ground but, overall, Syrians face a
political and military stalemate. The
rebels' assaults on Aleppo and Damascus have
faltered, but the government forces do not
have the strength to push them out of
enclaves they have taken over. In the north,
in particular, the rebels are making ground
in the countryside around Hama, Idlib and
Aleppo, but their advance is still slow.
The
revolution has turned into a civil war. The
uprising of Syrians against a cruel police
state that started in March 2011
increasingly looks to Alawites, Christians,
Druze and other minorities like a sectarian
campaign aimed at their elimination. They
watch YouTube pictures of Alawite officers
being ritually decapitated and wonder what
fate awaits them if Assad is defeated.
On top
of this, there is a simple fear of anarchy
on the part of middle-class urban Syrians
who have seen Aleppo devastated and believe
the same will happen to Damascus. When I
arrived in the capital at the start of the
month I asked a friend about the mood and he
said: "Fifteen per cent for the government,
15 per cent against and 70 per cent want
this war over before it ruins us all."
Can
the present stalemate be broken? It does not
really look like it unless the rebels
receive a massive transfusion of money,
training and guns, and this would not
immediately have a decisive impact.
Alternatively, Washington and London have
long been hoping for a split in the Syrian
leadership, but this has not happened. Even
a string of well-publicised defections in
recent weeks has not come from the core of
the regime.
The
furies of civil war grow ever fiercer. The
war has long ago reached the stage of what
in Northern Ireland we used to call "the
politics of the last atrocity", in which too
much blood is being spilled to allow for
negotiation and compromise.
The
policy of the US and its allies is
increasingly bizarre: on the one hand, they
recognise the opposition National Coalition
as the legitimate government of Syria but,
on the other, they label its most effective
fighting force, the al-Nusra Front, as "a
terrorist organisation" linked to al-Qa'ida.
Just as in Iraq after 2003, Syria has become
a magnet for jihadi fighters across the
Muslim world. Washington is showing
ever-decreasing enthusiasm for an outright
rebel military victory that would strengthen
jihadi militants and dissolve the governing
machinery of the Syrian state.
A
problem for Syria in this crisis is that so
many conflicts are wrapped into one. Secular
supporters of the uprising emphasise that it
is about "the people against the regime".
They downplay its sectarian nature, saying
this is being exaggerated and manipulated by
the government. But sectarianism and
democracy are intertwined in Syria, just as
they were in Iraq. In Iraq, a fair election
meant rule by the Shia majority replacing
the Sunni. In Syria, it means rule by the 70
per cent of the population who are Sunni
replacing the Alawites and their allies. In
both countries, democratic change has had,
or will have, explosive sectarian
consequences, because majority rule means a
change in which community holds power.
The
Syrian crisis is further complicated and
exacerbated by being at the centre of two
long-running regional struggles. These are
the growing confrontation between Sunni and
Shia across the Muslim world and, secondly,
the conflict that pits the US, Israel, Saudi
Arabia and their allies against Iran and its
few friends.
It is
difficult to see how the present stalemate
is going to be broken. Damascus, Aleppo and
Homs feel increasingly like Beirut during
the 15-year civil war. Parts of these cities
cling to normal life while, a few blocks
away, snipers have their hideouts in
buildings shattered by artillery fire.
Neither side has the strength to checkmate
the other. Warlords, small and big, become
the real rulers of the country. In Aleppo,
the commercial heart of Syria, the rebels'
main preoccupation is looting the city. The
militarisation of the uprising is degrading
its original democratic purpose. Barring
full-scale foreign intervention, a
negotiated settlement is becoming inevitable
though it may be a long time coming.
No comments:
Post a Comment