Proxy war in Syria

Two years after innocuous street protests turned into a full-blown civil war in Syria, the divide between the ruler and his people is growing by the day. Nobody is counting the number of civilian and army casualties in daily bombings by both sides and it looks nobody cares except the big powers, which are directly or indirectly involved in the conflict, and regional Arab countries whose interests are limited to the point of seeing President Bashar Al Assad go.

But that is a tall order as the US and its allies in the Middle East have realized it by now. Bashar is a tough, guy unlike other autocratic rulers in that region who had stepped down or quietly gone into exile after massive street protests during Arab Spring revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

In these countries the popular revolts had lasted for a few weeks to months before the change of guard at presidential palaces. But such a thing has not happened in Syria since Bashar has chosen to use force to suppress the uprising rather than enter into a dialogue with dissidents and address their genuine grievances. His argument was, and still is, that those who rallied around some teenage boys who painted revolutionary slogans on a school wall in Deraa were no more than lumpen groups. The boys' arrest and torture in March 2011 led to a vicious cycle of protests and police firings. The more the Bashar government has tried to put down the street rallies and anti-government protests with force, the more they have spread, dragging the country into a cesspool of violence.

Even after suffering thousands of deaths, an economically ruined country with not many links with the outside world, including neighbouring countries, the Bashar government is still trying to put up a brave face by claiming that the revolt is the handiwork of enemies of Syria, meaning the US and its strong regional allies Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey that shares a long border with Syria and has been a traditional foe since the time of Bashar's father, the late President Assad. The allegations are, of course, true. But Bashar has to blame himself for escalation in the conflict. In his eagerness to crush dissent and to halt its spread, he started using heavy artillery against rebel strongholds inviting the wrath of people and world-wide condemnation as well as United Nations sanctions. The rebel advances towards Damascus have worsened the situation and the government, in desperation, is alleged to have been using chemical weapons to halt the insurgents' progress.

The cost of war, besides massive economic losses, is turning out to be a burden on neighbours like Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey in term of refugees flooding these countries. Within the country itself the number of war-displaced has crossed four million people and the number has been increasing every day.

Efforts by Arabs, Europeans and the US to curb arms flow to Syria by imposing an embargo in a bid to restrict use of firepower against civilians have failed and the Syrian government has begun circumventing the ban with the help of its 'friends' and intensified its crackdown on the opposition. The West, on the other hand, piqued by Bashar's obduracy, has started supplying small arms to the rebel forces. The Gulf Arab States have chipped in with moral and money support. Despite all-round help to the movement to dislodge the Syrian strongman, rebels have not made any strong dent in Bashar's bastion, thanks to superior fire power in the government's arsenal, frequently replenished by Russia and Iran. This is also an area where interests of Syria's friends and foes coalesce and clash, making the country a fertile ground for proxy war, the new entrant being Israel.

Bashar's tenacity to cling to power emanates from the fact that he is propped up by Syria's traditional ally Russia and ideologically closer Iran. Tehran's unstinted support to militant group Hezbollah, mainly based in Lebanon but also operating from Syria, is a thorn in the side of Israel. The militant outfit is a sworn enemy of Israel and keeps the Jewish State perpetually on tenterhooks by firing rockets across the border into Tel Aviv and other Israeli towns. Tel Aviv keeps a hawk's eye on arms and ammunition supplies to Hezbollah and on the slightest suspicion Israelis will go and bomb the armaments sites. The recent Israeli air strikes in Syria, including its capital Damascus, provoking an angry reaction from the government and a pledge to respond at an appropriate time are Syrian government's face-saving attempts to aggressive Israeli postures.

Damascus can do little in the prevailing situation. But, the Israeli message is clear: Stop encouraging Iranians to ship highly accurate missiles to Hezbollah, or else we will continue to strike the Syrian targets. A Israeli involvement in Syria for whatever reason gives the conflict a new dimension. So far, Tel Aviv has been out of the theatre of war, leaving the conflict to the West and its Mideast friends to resolve. By bombing the suspected Hezbollah missile sites, Israel may be sucking itself into a situation where different forces are at play for their own interests. For example, Russia, that doesn't want a Western solution to the Syrian civil war; Iran, that doesn't want the US and Arabs to make Syria fall in line; the Obama administration which is in a piquant situation whether to intervene directly to end the bloody conflict; Arab leaders who don't see eye to eye with Bashar Al Assad; the Syrian opposition groups who are fighting without a unified command; the UN whose peace efforts have miserably failed ; the Syrians who are clamouring for peace; and their leadership that thinks power is more important than the people and the world at large which is preoccupied with its own problems. A Unless the scattered pieces are cobbled together and made into a complete picture, there is no end to the Syrian people's woes. The country remains a jigsaw puzzle.