Deadly distractions
Editorial Board
7/6/2013 3:35:47 PM
Selective amnesia
With the world’s attention turned to the rapid and undeniably enthralling events in Egypt at the moment, Syria’s battlefields are being dangerously neglected by the media and those supposed friends of the revolution, which is allowing the regime to up the scale and intensity of its massacres across the country.
The fierceness of fighting in Syria has reached unprecedented levels. At the moment it is focused in the central city of Homs, the heartbeat of the revolution, which has been held by the rebels for two years. From the air and on the ground, the regime is trying with all its might to wrest back control of the city, capital of a strategically located province.
This week government forces also destroyed the city’s official records building, another apparent attempt to wipe out the city and its history.
This assault on Homs is important for two reasons. First, because it is the only place the rebels can really call the capital of their movement, so its loss would be both a major logistical blow and a huge loss of morale to the opposition. And second, the timing has been carefully chosen by the regime as it falls at a moment when Europe and the U.S. appear to be suffering from acute amnesia. When just two weeks ago they were enthusiastically discussing arming the rebels, apparently then a pressing issue, they now have forgotten any such sense of urgency.
Able to capitalize on this knowledge that arms are not going to be arriving any time soon, the regime has been able to launch new campaigns across the country, with the ever constant support of Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and Iraq.
The recent power transition in Qatar has also boosted the regime’s position, where now former Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani was perhaps the rebels’ biggest cheerleader and benefactor, the kingdom’s position on the opposition is now decidedly less clear.
When U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met earlier this week in Brunei, their noncommittal stance on Geneva II - saying it might happen in August - also provided another adrenaline injection to Assad and his troops.
The final nail in the coffin was the events in Egypt, distracting at the best of times, but the specifics of the situation proved to be a godsend to Assad. With the Muslim Brotherhood ousted from power, one of the regime’s fiercest enemies has suffered a major blow.
Assad and co. have been able to take advantage of all these scenarios - the simultaneous nature of which the regime could not have dreamt of in its wildest dreams - to carry on with its bloody pursuits.
The hypocrisy of the international community at this moment seems to know no limits. Aside from the loss of life on the ground, once things calm down in Egypt, and people again look to Syria, the superpowers may realize they have blood on their hands.
With the world’s attention turned to the rapid and undeniably enthralling events in Egypt at the moment, Syria’s battlefields are being dangerously neglected by the media and those supposed friends of the revolution, which is allowing the regime to up the scale and intensity of its massacres across the country.
The fierceness of fighting in Syria has reached unprecedented levels. At the moment it is focused in the central city of Homs, the heartbeat of the revolution, which has been held by the rebels for two years. From the air and on the ground, the regime is trying with all its might to wrest back control of the city, capital of a strategically located province.
This week government forces also destroyed the city’s official records building, another apparent attempt to wipe out the city and its history.
This assault on Homs is important for two reasons. First, because it is the only place the rebels can really call the capital of their movement, so its loss would be both a major logistical blow and a huge loss of morale to the opposition. And second, the timing has been carefully chosen by the regime as it falls at a moment when Europe and the U.S. appear to be suffering from acute amnesia. When just two weeks ago they were enthusiastically discussing arming the rebels, apparently then a pressing issue, they now have forgotten any such sense of urgency.
Able to capitalize on this knowledge that arms are not going to be arriving any time soon, the regime has been able to launch new campaigns across the country, with the ever constant support of Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and Iraq.
The recent power transition in Qatar has also boosted the regime’s position, where now former Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani was perhaps the rebels’ biggest cheerleader and benefactor, the kingdom’s position on the opposition is now decidedly less clear.
When U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met earlier this week in Brunei, their noncommittal stance on Geneva II - saying it might happen in August - also provided another adrenaline injection to Assad and his troops.
The final nail in the coffin was the events in Egypt, distracting at the best of times, but the specifics of the situation proved to be a godsend to Assad. With the Muslim Brotherhood ousted from power, one of the regime’s fiercest enemies has suffered a major blow.
Assad and co. have been able to take advantage of all these scenarios - the simultaneous nature of which the regime could not have dreamt of in its wildest dreams - to carry on with its bloody pursuits.
The hypocrisy of the international community at this moment seems to know no limits. Aside from the loss of life on the ground, once things calm down in Egypt, and people again look to Syria, the superpowers may realize they have blood on their hands.