Syria’s crisis is more Strategic than a Human Rights issue

As I write these lines, attacks against the city of Homs in Syria are continuing. This attitude has been boosted by the “ carte blanche” the Regime in Damascus has received from Russia and China, when they both vetoed the United Nations Security Council Resolution on Syria.

Russia’s motives are clear. Syria is an ally since the 70s and remains Russia’s only direct access in the Mediterranean, and its last strong friend in the Middle East. The veto, against the wishes and proposals of the Arab League, the US and the European Union, gives Russia a renewed international presence and promotes their image as a world power, which can resist pressure from all sides.

In last Sunday’s NYTimes, Thomas Friedman has defined Russia in just a few lines. “It has become a “sort-of-but-not-really-country.” Russia today is sort of a democracy, but not really. It’s sort of a free market, but not really. It’s sort of got the rule of law to protect businesses, but not really. It’s sort of a European country, but not really. It has sort of a free press, but not really. Its cold war with America is sort of over, but not really. It’s sort of trying to become something more than a petro-state, but not really.”

Friedman concludes: “the more Putin throws his support behind the murderous dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the more he looks like a person buying a round-trip ticket on the Titanic — after it has already hit the iceberg. Assad is a dead man walking”.

But there is also another dimension to the crisis in Syria: Iran, and its continuous international expansion, as Charles Krauthammer published recently in the Washington Post. Iran has a net of proxies in the region, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza. Its influence is growing in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and is diversifying towards Latin America, with Ahmadineyad´s recent tour of Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Cuba.

But Syria remains the most important asset for Iran, as it is the only Arab State openly supportive and allied to Iran in the Middle East. Through Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran has regained an outpost in the Mediterranean for the first time in over 2.000 years.

But, make no mistake; the tensions between the Arabs and Iran are mainly religious. Iran is the major enemy of Arab countries historically, and remains so today. Arab States are, with the exception of Iraq, mainly Sunnis, while Iran is Shiite. The Assad clan, who belong to a small alaui sect, an offspring of Shiism, rules Syria.

The Syrian crisis is, therefore, not only about democracy and liberty. If Assad’s regime falls, the Arabs would welcome Syria back into the Sunni fold. Turkey has once again changed tack and believes a regime change in Damascus would increase its influence in the area of the former Ottoman Empire.

Finally, Iran would be forced, together with the impact of the sanctions on its nuclear program, to retreat from the Middle East for decades to come. Saudi Arabia on the one side and Israel on the other would certainly not miss them in the region.

For the West, for once, the choice is not between Human Rights and Strategic interests. We can afford to bet on both at the same time. So let us openly support the Arab League in the Syrian issue.

And now the West seems united, but we do have to remember that the Spanish Socialist Government of Zapatero, both with Moratinos and Jimenez as Foreign Minister) supported Assad for a long time, both in the European Union and in the UN and with a trip of support by Trinidad Jimenez to Syria after the riots began. The recent change of government in Spain, with the Partido Popular in power, has not entailed a change in the officials responsible for Syria in the Spanish Foreign Service, who have been confirmed in their positions by the new Minister, but we can hope that Spain will no longer adopt different positions from other partners.

There are therefore, more than the obvious issues at stake in Syria today, and Russia and China are clearly positioned in this conflict of “ ideologies and civilizations” once again. Lest we forget old times…