Ayoon Wa Azan (Everyone is sacrificing the Syrians)

The situation in Syria is as follows: - The regime is coming down brutally on its own people. - Some opposition factions are outbidding the regime in cruelty and brutality. - Hezbollah is gambling with the lives of its fighters to defend the Syrian regime (a mistake). - The countries that are able to intervene militarily do not want to do so. - The countries that want to intervene militarily cannot do so. - Israel has carried out airstrikes inside Syria. The regime threatens to respond every time, but contents itself with killing Syrians instead. The above is all facts. I will begin by commenting on the last item: The Syrian regime does not need to threaten to respond, and does not even need an Israeli attack to respond to. All the regime has to be careful about is killing civilians, and its attacks would be justified if, say, it showers the nuclear reactor in Demona or the oil refinery in Haifa with a hundred rockets, and even a thousand if it possesses them. Israel may be able to intercept one or two rockets, but the Iron Dome has much more bark than bite, and cannot stop a large number of incoming rockets. Nevertheless, the Syrian regime has not taken the initiative to attack first as Israel has done. The regime does not even respond to attacks, something that no one in the world can reproach Syria for doing as this would be its legitimate right. In the meantime, there is an ongoing humanitarian disaster, and all solutions being proposed are not stopping it. Returning to confirmed facts, I have the following: - President Obama has declared that his country would not intervene alone in Syria, but only as part of an international group. - I heard the same from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. - The UK’s Foreign Secretary William Hague said that the only possible solution in Syria must be political. - The Syrian president wants a solution that would guarantee his remaining in power, something that no one in the opposition accepts. - The United States and Russia have agreed to hold the Geneva II conference, but they did not work out the details. There is no realistic reason to be optimistic that an international conference next month would succeed where the previous conference held a year ago had failed. - The Qatari intervention in Syria is not helping the Syrians. Billions of dollars in funding for the political and armed opposition is not a solution, and only serves to protract the crisis. Once again, I will begin with the last item: Qatar is the smallest Arab country, with less than 200,000 people, or half the population of any known neighborhood in Cairo. Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was mainly motivated by the personal dispute between President Hosni Mubarak and officials in Qatar. I heard the details about this directly from President Mubarak and Maj. Gen. Omar Suleiman, and conveyed them to the Qatari official in question. He denied them and gave me a different account. However, I will withhold the details so as not to make the situation worse. The intervention by the smallest Arab country in the politics of the largest one has created a situation in Egypt that I find much worse than what the Egyptians had complained about under Mubarak. Case in point: the economy and the security situation in Egypt today. Likewise, I fear a day when the Qatari intervention in Syria would lead to creating worse conditions than those the Syrians had to live with under the regime of Hafez al-Assad and then his son Bashar. There are many campaigns against Qatar in our countries and around the world. I have opted years ago to refrain from commenting, positively or negatively, about Qatar’s Arab or international policies, so that I do not join the ranks of prejudiced people or sycophants. Therefore, I limit myself today with noting my concerns that the Qatari role in Syria could lead to further killing and destruction. If Qatar wants to punch above its weight in the region, there are many ways to do that without causing further bloodshed in Syria. The Syrian regime deserves whatever happens to it, and so does the terrorist pro-al-Qaeda segment in the Syrian opposition. But the Syrian people are our people, and everyone helping to protract the tragedy must shoulder their historic responsibility. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.