Any person following the dramatic events in Syria feels a sense of déjà vu: we have already seen it.
The simplified scheme looks thus: an evil tyrant, this time Bashar Assad, and a cruelly suppressed opposition, which longs to breathe the air of democracy. On the other hand, the mean Americans want to remold a new country, destroy its progressive administration and appoint instead of Assad an American puppet. The media reports on Western criticism, which is reaching a peak. Syria, along with Libya, takes its place in the headlines of the Western media. US and European officials state that Assad has lost his legitimacy. The EU launches new economic sanctions. Thousands of people are reported to be killed.
Will Syria be another link in the chain of the Arab revolutions? Will the regime of another Muslim country be overturned? Will the Libyan scenario be repeated in Syria? And how should the international community act in this case – to be neutral, even if demonstrators in Hama and Deyr-az-Zora are shot in the streets? Are mobile videos and refugees’ stories to be taken as evidence?
Many experts think that at the moment a scenario similar to the Libyan one is being played against Bashar Assad. The parallels are obvious, and there are backgrounds for military intervention. However, can we say that the Libyan fate will befall Syria? Vestnik Kavkaza interviewed a German expert on the Middle East region, professor of the Free University of Berlin, Behruz Abdolvandu.
“To understand the reasons for the government suppressing demonstrators, we should look at the internal political structure of the state. The government in Damascus represents the Shi’ite Alevi, who have been forming the Syrian army structure since colonization by France. After gaining independence, the Alevi’ excess enabled them to take power in the country. However, the Alevi are 30% of the population; the other 70% are the Sunni. In previous years the Alevi tried to minimize the religious factor in the country through pan-Arabism. They present themselves as Arabs. Nevertheless, changes in the Islamic world from the 1980s have led to the influence of the religious factor on the political situation. The Syrian government has many times suppressed Islamic parties, especially “The Muslim Brotherhood”, as the Alevi know that in case of shifting of power to the Sunni they will face the fate of the Shi’ites in Saudi Arabia. That is why the Alevi will never hand power to the Sunni. They are ready even for separation of the country, if only not to live under the Sunni. This is the reason why Assad’s administration is supported by Tehran. Strong ties between Damascus and Tehran enable Assad to hold onto power.
Moreover, there are civil Sunni in Syria, who assign themselves to the current power, and it is hardly a distribution of political forces in the country that will be unfavourable for Assad. Furthermore, Russia and China support Assad’s regime in the UN. The Security Council could only adopt a note, which urges Assad to use less violent measures against demonstrators. This note is not a resolution. Russia sells armaments to Syria. If we sum it up, we will see that the situation in Syria differs from that in Libya,” Abdolvand believes.
According to him, the West is constrained by the fact that Assad is supported by Iran, Russia and China.
