by Jonathan Todd
There is much to enjoy and admire in the New Statesman centenary issue. I read of George Orwell taking a bullet through the throat, as he fought in the Spanish civil war. And that John Gray thinks: “For the foreseeable future, no one will rule will world”. The transition from the G7 to the G20 reflected the passing of power to the global south and talk of the G2 denotes the centrality of China and the US but maybe G-zero is more apt in a world without predominant power.
Is the sorrow of Syria a harbinger of a G-zero world that no one, whether reluctantly or otherwise, is willing or able to police? Roosevelt, unlike Hitler and Stalin, was as disinclined to involve his country in the Spanish civil war as Obama has been to date in Syria. Yet Orwell walked towards the bullets. Where are the Orwells of today? If the war in Syria is a war for rights and democracy, why isn’t the International Brigade on the frontline?
The truth is that Syria is sucking in Jihadists who don’t believe in rights and democracy, not liberals prepared to stand up for these values, which is one of various reasons why Syria is not a simple war for rights and democracy. Little is simple in Syria.
Last week Channel 4 showed a documentary by Olly Lambert, who had spent weeks living deep inside Syrian territory – with both government and opposition supporters. Both sides think that the other would exterminate them if they did not fight and that they are opposing the sectarianism of the other. Western liberals, thousands of miles from the frontline, might see their kin in those who have risen up against Assad.
But how confident can the Alawites and other Syrian minorities be that these opposition forces, largely Sunni and increasingly under the influence of Saudi Arabia and Al-Qaeda, will not extract a bloody revenge as soon as they are able? Why wouldn’t these minorities lay down their arms for a future Syria that respected their rights and gave them the vote if this is what the opposition offer?
If the UK were to arm the opposition then we would be risking these arms being used for the persecution of these minorities. Equally, weaponry from Iran and Russia is being used by the Syrian government to persecute their opposition. While such persecution is utterly repellent, it would be to succumb to Bertrand Russell’s fallacy of superior virtue of the oppressed not to be concerned about the sectarian and extremist motives of the opposition.
It can reasonably be argued that this sectarianism and extremism has been encouraged by the disengagement of western liberals, whether in the form of latter day Orwells or military intervention by their governments. Nonetheless, the durability of the Assad regime suggests both that any such intervention would be unlikely to move swiftly to a conclusion and that peace in a post-Assad Syria would be hard won.
The costs of winning the war and the peace in Syria seem such that no one in our G-zero world can meet them. What would be even less affordable, however, would be “something like an Afghanistan – this time in the Levant”, which is what a recent FT editorial claimed is risked “unless the US and the Europeans openly support those fighting for freedom”. As undesirable as something like Afghanistan would be, it is an oversimplification to contend that it is only for freedom, as the FT would understand it, that the Syrian opposition are fighting.
There are many in Syria who remain loyal to Assad who have more support for FT-style freedom than some of those who have risen up against Assad. Beyond this paradox lurks ancient sectarian divisions, which the great game of the region exacerbates. The best future for Syria would explode this paradox, reach across these divides and be rooted in this shared support for freedom.
Whether such a future can be achieved and how are tremendous imponderables. It is, ultimately, more a political than military challenge: the reconciliation of seemingly conflicting interests. But, of course, military might presently frustrates political progress. If the west somehow intervenes to shift this military calculus, we should also be prepared for the long haul of arriving at a lasting Syrian political settlement, which respects the rights of all.
This would be a task of immense fortitude and patience. All of which, perhaps, our governments exhausted themselves of in the sands of Iraq and Helmand. Just as somewhere between the Spanish civil war and now, people like me stopped joining the International Brigade and started running sponsored half-marathons.
Nothing about Syria is easy. But all of us, from Obama down, have a duty to confront its anguished complexity and to do what we can to reduce its suffering.
Jonathan Todd is Labour Uncut’s economic columnist. You can sponsor his run in the Sheffield half marathon here
Tags: civil war, Helmand, International Brigade, Jonathan Todd, Save the Children, Spanish civil war, Syria
I’d be a bit wary about ‘International Brigades’ in this day and age. You could say that Al Queda is an International Brigade’ if you want to take it to a ridiculous extreme; or Mercenaries are an Int Brigade of sorts; or the French Foreign Legion is an Int Brigade.
Its better that you don’t get outsiders interfering in other peoples civil wars, which usually, after much suffering on either side, resolve themselves in the end, for the better. Think back to the English Civil Wars of 1640; sometimes that bloodletting is necessary just clear up matters and settle disputes festering for ages.
Sometimes ‘War’ is necessary. In fact another war between Israel and the Allied Palestinian Solidarity Front, where Israel was oundly beaten and forced to negotiate might actually help resolve the problem for good, because the present ‘peace talks are certainly getting nowhere.
“Nothing about Syria is easy.”
The decision to stay out of it *should* be easy. There should be no more neoliberal and neocolonialist interference in the Middle East.
Of course, any war in which Israel was “soundly beaten” would also mean the end of the Israeli state and probably genocide of the Jewish population. The Israelis live in a very tough neighbourhood and one assumes they take the statements of their friends and neighbours at face value and thus regard the maintenance of a strong defence as existential.
As to our intervention in the Syrian Civil War, where on Earth is our advantage? Apart from the fact that our armed forces are in total disarray after two losing wars, fought without any strategic end state in mind, without any political will to prevail, without any significant popular support (for the war, not the troops) and without sufficient troop levels, any intervention would be a thoroughly nasty little war, fought on the other end of a painfully long supply line. Add to that the fact that our national interest is not really affected one way or the other by events in Syria (unless the rebels win and install some horrible aggressive theocracy, of course) and the logic is compelling to wring our hands from the side lines and stay the hell out – just as we are doing.
Way cool, a number of pretty logical points! I truly appreciate you penning this editorial and the remainder of your website is really good!