It’s counterintuitive but it’s true. The road to a political
solution in Syria goes through further militarization, while saving the whole
require working on stabilizing and securing the pieces. Few will understand
this logic and many will see it as a conspiracy, as such, it will have few early
adopters on the ground, that’s why a solution may take years to come.
Thursday December
20, 2012
Today’s
Death Toll: 117, including 5 women and 9
children: 42 in Damascus and suburbs, 23 in Daraa including 6 field executed in
refugee camp and 5 in Izra’, 18 in Hama including 7 in Halfaya, 14 in Aleppo,
10 in Homs including 7 in Houla, 5 in Deir Ezzor and 5 in Idlib.
Points of Random Shelling: 274. Clashes: 133. Rebels liberated
the check point at Tal Alnasr in Deir B’alba and too control of Al-Ishara Batallion
in Homs. In Deir Ezzor, they took control of a military industrial complex. In
Hama, they liberated a number of towns and villages including Kafar Naboda,
Karnaz, Breidij, Kafar Zeita, Jabin, Alzaka, Alhamamyat, Heyalin, Ellatamneh
and Halfaya, and are currently trying to liberate Morek (LCC).
News
Post-ABC
poll: U.S. involvement in Syria In general, Americans widely oppose
U.S. military involvement in Syria, but majorities support establishing a
no-fly zone and direct action rises if chemical weapons are used by the
government.
War
in Syria: Clashes ease at Damascus Palestinian refugee camp Some of the
more than 100,000 residents who fled the brutal violence in the Syrian capital
of Damascus began to trickle back on Thursday as the fighting subsided.
Wounded
Presage Health Crisis for Postwar Syria Four-month-old Fahed Darwish
suffered brain damage and, like thousands of others seriously hurt in the civil
war, he will likely need care well after the fighting is over. That's something
doctors say a post-conflict Syria won't be able to provide. Making things
worse, there has been a sharp spike in serious injuries since the summer, when
the regime began bombing rebel-held areas from the air, and doctors say a
majority of the wounded they now treat are civilians.
Living
Conditions Difficult in Rebel-Held Syria The crude oil they’re using to
heat one room in the house is expensive. So is the gasoline for the car that
Hassan needs for his work as a driver. Food is five times more expensive than last
summer, when it was already high. A week
ago, the electricity the 40,000 townspeople rely on for most heat was cut and
now they are struggling to keep the bitter winter cold at bay. Hassan and his
family only use one room now to eat and sleep – the rest of the house is
frigid.
Special
Reports
The city, as many Kurdish cities,
acted as a sanctuary, free from the spread of the Assad regime's forces. Today,
Ras al-Ain is under the grip of jihadis and young men with black beards and
black flags circling the streets under the banner of the FSA. Tunisians,
Moroccans, Afghanis, Iraqis, Saudis, and Syrians are in the squares, raising
the Turkish flag alongside the black flag, and the flag of independence. They
distribute bags of rice, flour, and sugar to poor and terrified residents,
after seizing many grain warehouses, with the goal of garnering local support
and using residents under the guise of freedom and toppling the regime.
What remains unanswered is whether the
Alawites could survive as a military power in the mountains. Landis says that
would depend on two factors: “Whether
Iran is willing to continue to invest and support them militarily by sending
weapons and money, and whether the Sunni Arabs overcome their deep factionalism
and unify.”
Now that the U.S. and more than 100
other countries have recognized Syria's opposition coalition, the dynamics are
changing for local councils in provinces under rebel control. These councils
are going to get money and become humanitarian aid organization and now they
have to figure out how to deliver 1,200 tons of bread a day for a population of
6 million people in Aleppo province. Melissa Block talks to Deborah Amos.
“In Syria, life can be schizophrenic
at times. I was travelling with colleagues outside Damascus one day. We were
riding in office vehicles, and on one side of the road we could see people
shooting while on the opposite side others were going about their normal
business as if nothing was happening. It was like a sci-fi movie.”
Syria
Deeply
As part of our effort to highlight
civilian stories, below is a conversation between Syria Deeply and a law
student at Aleppo University. He stopped going to class after the regime
crackdown on student protests earlier this year. The student, originally from
Raqqa, allowed us to reveal his full name but Syria Deeply decided to keep it
private. Last week his classmate was abducted by regime agents after speaking
to the press, revealing his true identity.
Send Austin Home
The Sectarian Turnabout
The crackdown in Syria was sectarian in nature from the very beginning,
as evidenced by the statements of various Syrian officials at the time
including those of Assad himself. Still, thanks to the goodwill and hard work of
the country’s pro-democracy activists, it took almost 18 months to transform the
revolution into a sectarian uprising. The tide began to turn in the Summer of
2012, during which the overwhelming brutality of the Assad regime, the cynical indifference
of western powers, the competing agendas of regional players, and the shameful inadequacy
of traditional opposition groups combined to feed the most extremist tendencies
on the ground, and Syria began to fracture.
By August 2012, and as I noted in my report at the time, The
Shredded Tapestry, the point of no-return in the devolution of Syria seems
to have been reached. Only a massive intervention can save the country now, and
there are no takers. We may not be able to save the whole anymore, but we might
be able to stabilize the pieces so that humanitarian conditions are improved
and spillover effects are contained. It will take many years to put the pieces
back together. But these processes will not be possible until all sides realize
that they cannot have it all.
A combination of pain, anger and ideology will make selling this vision
at this stage a well-nigh impossible task.
But, and as my colleague, Amr al-Azm, argues,
getting to a point where dialogue over these issued is made possible, requires serious
investments in militarization. Indeed, a political solution requires changing
the military realities on the ground.
Entering
negotiations to hand over power to the opposition requires the regime’s loss of
one or more major urban cities. The potential ability to seriously threaten
core areas of Alawites, Assad’s tribesmen, and Damascus simultaneously would be
significant game changers. The loss of Aleppo and Idlib would put opposition
forces within reach of the Homs and Hama hinterlands, core areas of the Alawite
communities. The loss of Deir Al-Zor would lay open the desert road Tariq
Al-Badiya that swings across the eastern steppe through Palmyra and opens up
the eastern and southern approaches to Damascus, where fighting is
on-going. Such a threat would force the
regime and its Iranian and Russian mentors to reconsider their calculus regarding
the containment of the crisis, making them more likely to seriously engage in
alternative options, such as negotiations for a transition.
Meanwhile, we should always be weary of Russian leaders waxing wise and
reasonable, as Russian President Putin just did:
“Our position is
not for the retention of Assad and his regime in power at any cost but that the
people in the beginning would come to an agreement on how they would live in
the future, how their safety and participation in ruling the state would be
provided for, and then start changing the current state of affairs in
accordance with these agreements, and not vice versa.”
The question is here: what did Putin do to get Assad to accept sitting
down with the opposition to discuss these issues? The Obama Administration was willing
to give Putin the lead in this matter for many months, but he produced nothing.
Rather he and his officials refused to put any kind of pressure on Assad, whether
through the UN or their own outreach. Moreover, in their media coverage and official
statements, they wholly adopted Assad’s version of events, and in all their discussions
with opposition figures, they put the burden for halting ongoing violence on
them! Their strategy was to beat down the victims into submission and prep them
to accept whatever pittance Assad chooses to offer them. Meanwhile they kept
arming Assad. The net effect of their activities: giving Assad enough time to tear
the country apart.
So, pardon us for not buying whatever offer Putin seems to be peddling.
Video Highlights
Fierce clashes took place in the plush Mazzeh Neighborhood in
Damascus City at night http://youtu.be/cXAoMFeUtKk
, http://youtu.be/X5LM3BFKEHk Earlier
in the day, missile launchers from the nearby military airport were busy pounding
surrounding suburbs http://youtu.be/79Sc_YELW5c
Towns and communities around Damascus continue to come under heavy
shelling: Deir Al-Assafeer http://youtu.be/hB1eeGOuilY
Rebels in Damascus Suburbs use their confiscated tanks to pound
pro-regime positions around Damascus International Airport http://youtu.be/ZvOlzAEBi6c Clashes also
take place near Agraba http://youtu.be/M2Bor8k1EIg
Leaked video shows pro-Assad militias abusing women detainees in Haffeh,
Lattakia http://youtu.be/SJMg5SB042c
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