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This week’s press roundup focuses on the continuing deterioration of the situation in Syria and the year-long uprising that has been taking place there. While the Assad regime’s brutality has exceeded even that of Muammar Qaddafi, intervention is nowhere in sight for the Syrians rising up against the Assad government.

The Associated Press reported that despite the widespread bloodshed that has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 Syrians so far, Western powers have not been united on which course of actions is appropriate regarding Syria, despite their repeated condemnation.

Germany’s defense minister has sharply rejected the idea of military intervention in Syria, referring to those who ask for it as waffling “coffee house intellectuals.”

Thomas de Maiziere told Monday’s edition of German daily Taz: “the continued waffling by people who bear none of the responsibility creates expectations in regions like Syria, thereby causing terrible disappointment.”

De Maiziere added that he finds it “barely bearable that some coffee house intellectuals call for the deployment of soldiers in the world without being accountable for it.” His comments were confirmed by his ministry.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Sunday he couldn’t rule out a military intervention in Syria any longer, following similar statements from France.

Germany, however, remains staunchly opposed to a military intervention, saying it could too easily lead to all-out war.

Following two massacres within days of each other at Qudayr and Houla, the U.S. fears that the Syrian regime is preparing for another massacre, reported Reuters‘ Dominic Evans.

United Nations monitors said Syrian helicopters fired on rebel strongholds north of Homs on Monday and said many women and children were reported trapped in the city, calling for “immediate and unfettered access” to the conflict zones.

International mediator Kofi Annan also expressed grave concern about violence in Homs and in Haffeh, a mainly Sunni Muslim town near the Mediterranean coast, where the U.S. State Department said it feared a “potential massacre.”

Annan expressed particular concern at recent shelling in Homs, where activists said on Sunday government forces killed 35 people in one of the biggest bombardments since his ceasefire deal was supposed to come into effect on April 12.

“(Annan) is particularly worried about the recent shelling in Homs as well as reports of the use of mortars, helicopters and tanks in the town of Haffeh,” his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said in a statement.

“There are indications that a large number of civilians are trapped in these towns,” Fawzi said, adding that Annan “demands that the parties take all steps to ensure that civilians are not harmed, and further demands that entry of the UN military observers be allowed to the town of Haffeh immediately.”

Last week activists said government forces surrounded Haffeh, close to the heartland of Assad’s Alawite minority, after rebel fighters seized control of a police station and destroyed five tanks and armoured vehicles.

The U.S. State Department warned that Syrian attacks would have consequences. Activists say Syria’s army and pro-Assad militia have committed two massacres in the last two weeks, in the Houla region and a farming hamlet called Mazraat al-Qubeir. Syrian authorities blamed the killings on “terrorists.”

Also proving unhelpful to the situation is Russia’s continued diplomatic support of the Assad regime, even in the face of an ominous silence from China regarding the Syrian uprising. Adding more conditions to supporting any sort of intervention in Syria, be it political or diplomatic but certainly not military, Russia has now called on Iranian mediation in the crisis, reported the Times of India. This latest request has predictably not gone over well with Western nations.

Russia called on Monday for Iranian involvement in efforts to end the conflict in Syria, putting it at odds with the United States, and said foreign minister Sergei Lavrov would travel to Tehran on Wednesday.

Lavrov’s discussions will focus on the situation in the Middle East and North Africa, with attention to Syria, and on a June 18-19 meeting in Moscow between global powers and Iran on Tehran’s nuclear programme, Russia’s foreign ministry said.

Russia is resisting Western and Gulf Arab pressure to take a tougher stance toward Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, rejecting calls for sanctions and advocating a conference bringing together global and regional powers including Iran.

Lavrov intends to discuss the initiative with Iran. “Without Iranian participation, the opportunity for constructive international influence on the Syrian issue will not be utilised in full measure,” the foreign ministry said.

Russia says the proposed conference would lend support to Kofi Annan’s UN-backed peace plan, whose prospects for success are in doubt after frequent ceasefire violations and two massacres in recent weeks.

The United States says it does not believe Iran, Assad’s strongest regional ally, is ready to play a constructive role in Syria, where the United Nations says government forces have killed more than 10,000 people since March 2011.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last week it was “hard to imagine inviting a country that is stage-managing the Assad regime’s assault on its people”.

Russia is calling on all nations to use their influence on the Syrian government and on rebels to seek an end to the violence and start of political dialogue, but opposes foreign military or political interference.

“Spreading the ‘Libyan model’ on other countries of the Middle East and North Africa that are seized by revolutionary events is impermissible,” the Foreign Ministry statement on Lavrov’s Iran visit said.

With two massacres having taken place in Mazraat el-Qubayr and Houla, and a potential third one in Haffa, armed violence has only escalated in the past week in Syria. Both the Syrian government and the Free Syrian Army have engaged in numerous battles across the country. In light of the escalation, the UN head of peacekeeping operations to declare Syria in a state of civil war on Tuesday, reported Al Jazeera English.

The head of the United Nations’ peacekeeping operations has said that the situation in Syria now amounts to a full-scale civil war as witnesses on the ground described fresh shelling on Homs and heavy fighting in other cities.

“Yes, I think we can say that,” Herve Ladsous, the head of the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations, said in New York on Tuesday, when asked whether he believed Syria was now in a state of civil war.

“Clearly what is happening is that the government of Syria lost some large chunks of territory, several cities to the opposition, and wants to retake control.”

Kieran Dwyer, a spokesman for the UN peacekeeping department, told Al Jazeera that Landous’ description was “related to what is going on in the last five days.”

“What we’ve seen in the last five days is a huge upscaling of the military confrontation,” he said. “[It’s by] both sides, at a huge cost to the civilian population.”

Syria’s foreign ministry responded to the remarks on Wednesday, saying that they represented an unrealistic description of the conflict.

“Talk of civil war in Syria is not consistent with reality… What is happening in Syria is a war against armed groups that choose terrorism,” state news agency SANA quoted a ministry statement as saying.

German weekly Der Spiegel reported the desperation of the Syrian regime with a reporter embedded in the ranks of the Free Syrian Army. Soldiers have been defecting in higher numbers than ever before, and the tactics of the Syrian regime, using bombardment as opposed to close quarters combat, reveals the diminishing power of the Syrian military.

Of 400 soldiers originally stationed in the provincial capital of Idlib, just a couple dozen remained last week defending their base near the center of the city, which has seen significant fighting. In the small city of Maraa, near Aleppo, 15 soldiers defected within the space of a week — as many as in the entire previous year.

This is just one small insight into the situation in northern Syria, but deserters from other parts of the country who have managed to make their way back to their native villages near Aleppo tell of similar conditions in their own units. Reports of the types of attacks carried out by Assad’s troops also suggest the situation in the south, in the area around Damascus, in Deir al-Zor in the east and in Homs in the west is much the same as it is in the north: In many cases, the army no longer deploys its troops, but instead shoots from great distances using tanks and heavy artillery, or from helicopters, strategies which decrease the risk to the army.

With each bit of the country that slips from the regime’s control, the soldiers’ fear diminishes. That in turn increases the number of defectors, more and more of whom join the FSA. One officer, who defected to the FSA and has a precise mind for figures, estimates the group has around 40,000 former army soldiers in its ranks, although the proportion of soldiers and civilians varies among regions.

Outwardly, power dynamics in Syria have changed little in the past 15 months. The rebellion has gripped the cities, but unlike in Libya, here there is no still no large, contiguous region for the rebels to defend. But the appearance of stability is deceptive. While it’s true that soldiers are no longer allowed to travel by intercity bus without a permit, and that many of those who escape still risk being shot by the omnipresent intelligence service, the fact remains that the regime is no longer able to stay the gradual erosion of its army.

Reuters journalist Matthew Tostevin, last week, looked at Kofi Annan’s career in the UN and the consequences it could have on his latest assignment as the U.N.-Arab League mediator in Syria.

Scarred by his failure to stop Rwanda’s genocide nearly two decades ago, Kofi Annan faces another bloody debacle on his watch as his mediation efforts founder in Syria.

Steeped in a culture of seeking consensus even when it looks unlikely, the soft-spoken former U.N. secretary-general is again at the point where his diplomatic efforts are being overtaken by mass killings rather than being seen as a step to peace.

Although as mediator for the United Nations and the Arab League he has sounded the alarm in Syria with as much moral force as anyone could muster, Annan has failed to get divided world powers or President Bashar al-Assad to stop the bloodshed.

His qualifications as a star statesman who could make mediation work in Syria – if anyone could – were strengthened by his success in halting a spiralling conflict in Kenya four years ago. But Syria is proving a far tougher task.

But earlier in his career, Annan’s record was less successful. He was head of U.N. peacekeeping in 1994, when he acknowledges he should have done more to help prevent the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Critics say he chose the route of procedure and diplomacy instead.

“He becomes quite wedded to the processes, but ultimately you don’t serve the processes by following the processes to the point of absurdity,” said David Bosco of American University in Washington.

Rwanda was far from the only stain. Annan was at the top of peacekeeping at the time of the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia, where insufficient U.N. forces again failed to stop the killing, and during a fiasco in Somalia that preceded Rwanda.

Annan’s defenders say he tried to get enough troops and the big power support to make a difference in Bosnia and Rwanda. Critics argue that he was held back by respect for the limits he had learned in decades as a U.N. functionary.

Writing for the Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star last Saturday, renowned Arab journalist and intellectual Rami Khouri said the world now knows the true face of Bashar al-Assad. According to Khouri, the Syrian president “is not the modern, liberal reformer that many had painted him as being during the past decade,” and has responded disproportionately to the demands of the Syrian people. 

We have learned many things about Syria during the past year, while some other aspects of the situation there remain unclear.

The most important thing that we have learned is that President Bashar Assad is not the modern, liberal reformer that many had painted him as being during the past decade.

The truth is that nobody really knew the reality of Assad’s personality or political instincts. In the past year, since many of his own people have openly risen up against him and demanded his ouster, he has responded with consistent force and the employment of frequently inhuman tactics, lies, and broken promises.

This has culminated to date in the two recent massacres of helpless villagers in Houla and Qubayr. We now know, without any ambiguity whatsoever, what Assad represents, and what he will do, and it is very ugly indeed.

The Syrian president has pursued a policy that requires the continued use of massive and cruel violence against his own people. Assad’s expectation is that he will terrorize and traumatize the Syrian population into submission. That policy has not worked in the past year. In fact, repression usually does not work for long in any other such authoritarian police state that relies on fear rather than legitimacy as its basis for authority and incumbency.

We now know the answer, which is that Assad was incapable of embarking on any peaceful reform process that would bring about a democratic Syria or, for that matter, end the rule of his family.

In the last year, however, Assad has pursued such an incalculably stupid set of policies that most of the world now feels that the dangers of allowing him and his regime to remain in place are greater than the dangers of toppling him.

We know much more now about Assad than we did last year, but we also know more about the people of Syria, who have demonstrated mind-boggling courage and determination to live as free and dignified citizens in a democratic and modern Arab state. Their day is nearing.

Also adding more confusion to the different factions at play inside Syria is the opposition camp. Reporting for another Lebanese daily, Al Akhbar, Radwan Mortada wrote that the Syrian opposition is not like the monolithic organization National Transitional Council that arose in Libya to represent the Libyan rebels’ interests. There is even an aversion towards the heads of the internationally backed Syrian National Council by the opposition groups that are on the ground in Syria.

Since the start of the Syrian uprising, influential groups have emerged on the ground which have been eclipsed in the media by the high-profile exile politicians who enjoy international backing.
Al-Radeef al-Thawri (“The Revolutionary Reserve”) shares with other armed Syrian opposition groups the goal of toppling the ruling regime. But it insists that Syria must not be destroyed in the process.

It also differs from other factions in believing that the overthrow of the regime by armed revolt alone is unachievable, that the fractious state of the opposition means that time is not on the revolution’s side, and that alternative solutions therefore need to be explored, including dialogue under UN auspices.

Al-Radeef was so named because it was formed as a support network for the uprising in Syria, undertaking the provision of food and medical supplies to areas in revolt. But it soon started assuming an additional role. It formed a fighting wing to provide armed support to the demonstrators, even though it had been strongly opposed to weaponizing the uprising, and its leaders were involved at an early stage in peaceful protests demanding the downfall of the regime.

Their opposition to taking up arms was primarily due to the huge imbalance of military power with the regime’s armed forces, says al-Radeef’s secretary-general, who is known as Abu Abd al-Rahman. “Kalashnikovs cannot topple a regime, nor can RPGs,” he remarks.

“The movement saw the peaceful nature of the revolution as the key to its success,” he explains. But it felt compelled to take up arms “when the regime stopped distinguishing between defenseless demonstrators and gunmen.”

Al-Radeef is one of several opposition movements that have emerged and acquired powerful influence on the ground in Syria while barely attracting any media attention – in stark contrast to the high-profile opposition figures and spokespeople who wield little actual influence.
Its founders included professionals and business people, including physicians, lawyers, small merchants and owners of large enterprises. Many were jailed after joining the ranks of the revolution. Those still free remain active in supporting the fighters with money, arms, food, medical supplies and whatever other aid they can secure.

The group is strongly critical of foreign-backed exile politicians, who they say present themselves as alternatives to the regime despite having lived outside the country for decades. They view their foreign sponsors as constraining their freedom to make policy, unlike the opposition activists inside the country who “live the revolution and smell the blood that is shed.”

Given the fractious nature of the Syrian opposition, combined with the lack of international appetite for another intervention in an Arab revolution, the status quo in Syria could last for some period of time. A peaceful solution to end the violence in Syria will not be struck between the opposition and the government.  Whether or not it we will see an even greater escalation of violence and indiscriminate targeting of civilians remains unknown.

Unfortunately, time has already run out for Kofi Annan’s plan after the UN peacekeeping head declared Syria had entered a civil war. It remains to be seen how much worse the conflict will get.

 

Saif Alnuweiri is a third-year journalism student studying at Northwestern University’s Qatar branch campus. He follows media and politics in the region, monitoring the course of the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings as well as global politics more broadly. He has written articles and also served as the news editor of the branch campus’ student publication, The Daily Q.

Saif Alnuweiri

Saif Alnuweiri

Saif Alnuweiri is a third year journalism student studying at Northwestern University’s Qatar branch campus. He follows closely the course of the Arab Spring uprising, as well as global politics....