She was surprised to see the level of cooperation between citizens and the rebel groups and saw this as a hopeful sign that after the war is over, Syria will stabilize. However, she saw a disturbing trend in which the rebel groups were taking control of community services, pushing civilian groups to the sidelines.
Activists had given up, she said, in asserting their civilian leadership. They were instead boosting their influence “by grabbing onto the coattails of rebel commanders.”
She also saw units flying the black al-Qaeda flag. “I think this is a real threat and I think these types of groups could pose the greatest challenge to stabilization in a future Syria.” Their influence now “is limited, but growing.”
Malinowski said that the rebels could probably win just by a war of attrition with enough time.
If the West refrains from military intervention, the conflict could be drawn out longer, with troubling consequences. We will likely see many more civilian deaths, opposition powers less receptive to Western influence, and a greater likelihood of sectarian violence, Malinowski said.
Malinowski said that Human Rights Watch’s field people, when speaking to rebel commanders in the north, tell them about the Geneva conventions, avoidance of torture, and protection of prisoners. Some of these commanders have answered, “Why should we listen to your Western ideals when you are not doing anything to help us?”
Malinowski said that one limited military option would be to take out Syria’s air power sufficiently so that areas in the north could be turned into safe zones, similar to Benghazi during the Libyan civil war.
Limited military intervention would afford more civilian protection, allow the civilian opposition to begin to govern, and the opposition would look more favorably toward the West because of the aid rendered. But the risk is that the region does not stabilize, and a sectarian struggle ensues for an indefinite period like what happened in Lebanon—and we would be in the middle of it all.
Malinowski said, “We have not seen the nightmare scenario of large-scale [sectarian] revenge killing attacks—Alawites, in particular, and Christians—by the Sunni dominated opposition—something everyone fears.” Many experts agree that a politically stable post-Assad Syria needs to accommodate the predominate minorities in Syria (Alawites, Christians, and Kurds).
Hope for Unity
The disunity of the opposition may have been resolved after the establishment of the “National Coalition Forces of the Syrian Revolution” announced Nov. 11.
Although the United States wanted to avoid the appearance of setting the agenda, the meeting was convened at the urging of Secretary of State Clinton. Clinton said that the National Syrian Council had failed as the representation of the Syrian opposition. Many of its members had not been in Syria for decades, she said. A body was needed with “representation of those who are on the front lines fighting and dying today.”
If a unified Syrian opposition becomes a reality and can be responsible for the delivery of outside supplies and aid, then this development “would be a game changer for Western policymakers,” write Marwan Muasher and Katherine Wilkens in a blog for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Nov. 29.
Britain, France, Turkey, and the Gulf Cooperation Council have already recognized the opposition organization as the legitimate representative of the aspirations of the Syrian people, according to several news sources. The United States has so far held back.
“It would revive the option of providing direct military assistance and reinvigorate international diplomatic efforts to increase pressure on Assad to leave the country,” Muasher and Wilkens write, but caution that it is still too early to tell.
Carnegie’s Marina Ottaway and Omar Hossino were skeptical that the new broader coalition will “overcome the fragmentation reflected in the conflicting positions.” They note that the Free Syrian Army or its brigades failed to even respond officially and no mention is made on their Web pages.
The Epoch Times publishes in 35 countries and in 19 languages. Subscribe to our e-newsletter.
