Since last summer, the Syrian regime, which has been waging a costly war against its own people for more than 11 years, and Russian forces have gradually escalated tensions in the northern Syrian province of Idlib. The very location is the war-torn country’s last opposition stronghold where around 3 million people are stuck. Sending a message to the world, and specifically to Turkey, Russian jets have continued to drop bombs since the first day of the new year. Despite the deal reached between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart President Vladimir Putin more than three years ago in Sochi to stop violence in the Idlib province, which neighbors Turkey, Assad's forces' off-and-on attacks and Moscow’s airstrikes have killed hundreds of civilians, including many children. The regime has once again shown its obsession with Idlib, which it needs to declare its victory.
In addition, in the Daraa province, the cradle of the Syrian revolt in 2011, between 700 and 1,300 civilians were killed just in 2021, according to different human rights organizations’ statistics. Some of those killings are reportedly assassinations by unknown murderers. The regime promised amnesty to regime-opposed figures when it reclaimed the region with the help of Iran and Iran-supported Hezbollah of Lebanon. However, unsurprisingly, the vengeful Damascus did not remain true to its word.
Meanwhile, Western countries led by the United States, who was the first to say "Assad must go" as they pretended to be friends of the Syrian people, have started to remember the bloodbath after years of ignorance.
A letter in America
On Jan 11, 2022, the U.S. Congress released a letter signed by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairperson Robert Menendez and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairperson Gregory W. Meeks over Syria addressed to President Joe Biden. As if it were something new, the letter said that there are "several urgent issues" regarding Syria and U.S. Syria policy. Assad’s crimes against the Syrians including chemical weapons, torture, bombs targeting hospitals, as well as using starvation as a tool, are remembered at last by Washington, which cares only about the PYD, the Syrian offshoot of the PKK that is listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S., but nothing else in Syria for more than seven years.
The letter requests an interagency meeting over Syria following a two-page declaration of violence in Damascus. But for now, it looks like it is just a form penned for the sake of formality. As if the U.S. finally realized that the Assad regime has stolen over $100 million in funds sent for humanitarian aid over more than two years, why does no one ask how financial aid was handed to the brutal regime in the first place? Moreover, if humanitarian support is so crucial, why doesn’t anyone care about the economic situation in Syria while the coronavirus crisis continues?
Refreshing our memories during the Spanish civil war, the letter to Biden also notes that the Caesar Act, which came into force in mid-2020 to sanction the Syrian government for its war crimes, has failed. As is recalled, not only Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany and fascist Benito Mussolini of Italy gave support to Gen. Francisco Franco, but U.S. companies too, including Ford, General Motors and Texaco provided machine tools, trucks and oil despite the U.S. embargoes. In the end, then-U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt admitted that their policy toward Spain had been a grave mistake.
The letter also mentions the regime’s well-documented evidence of torture, rape and extreme humanitarian violence directly linked to the Syrian butcher Assad. This was clearly shown in the Caesar Report involving 900,000 government files that were released in 2014 and which revealed almost 55,000 photographs of bodies of the detainees who horrifically died in the regime’s detention centers. The letter came soon after a Human Rights Watch statement saying that a verdict by a court in Germany in a trial for torture survivors and international justice is expected this month. In this case, where the charges of crimes against humanity against a former Syrian intelligence officer have been the first for the very well known but largely ignored state terror of the Syrian regime, the Caesar photos smuggled out of Syria by a defector, code-named "Caesar," will be used as evidence. To date, the photos of horrific torture just bounced from one exhibition to another in Europe.
Obama and his red line
We are not waiting for Biden’s approach to the letter in question with patience anymore. The U.S.' Syria policy has not been clear, realistic or rational, perhaps ever since the beginning of the uprising. He had varying and always contradictory policies that were not fruitful for the U.S. or its allies. Former President Barack Obama’s failures in Syria made us give up hope about the White House. Obama tried to be an "anti-war" president, and he was the first among world leaders who tried to get rid of Assad quickly. But then, he changed his mind.
After the chemical attack in eastern Ghouta, in which around 1,300 people were killed, he said the U.S. would intervene as the chemical weapons were his so-called "red line." We later understood that his priority was to push Iran, the backer of the Assad regime, into a tight corner and make Tehran accept the nuclear deal negotiations. The U.S. and Russia made an agreement to carry the chemical weapons out of Syria, which was obviously absurd since it was declared. And Iran and 5+1 countries signed the nuclear deal, from which former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew. That was how Obama tricked the Syrian people and stirred up more trouble.
So, how can we expect the Biden administration to do something, anything, against the Assad regime by acting differently from Obama while the U.S. is working on a new deal with Iran, the tenacious supporter of Damascus? In Washington, it’s just talk but no action when it comes to the Assad regime.
P.S.: After a long break due to a recovery period from an illness, I am finally back writing my column. I am so grateful to my paper, which supported me during hard times. Thank you, Daily Sabah, and thank you, dear colleagues.