In his first speech on Syria, United States President Barack Obama warned Assad of potential strikes against the Syrian regime in response to Assad’s confirmed use of chemical weapons on Eastern Ghouta of the Damascus suburbs. Accusations that the Assad regime perpetrated this gross violation of human rights have sparked debate about the airstrikes in the philosophical and political realms of the opposition. Syria Untold was able to get insights from some promiment people whom this issue concerns.
Academic Rim Turkmani, a board member with an organization called Building the Syrian State, says that she is against the airstrike because what it aims to do is not in favor of the Syrian people, especially not for those who are Assad’s hostages in prisons and throughout Syria.
Any time military assets of the regime are compromised, Assad escalates his brutality with more lethal weaponry. The attack will not destroy all of Assad’s killing machines, and instead will only promote Assad to using chemical weapons more.
In addition to the direct factors that might affect Syrians, Turkmani emphasizes on some societal factors. “If the regime is attacked in a limited fashion it will revive much stronger and with more support, because it will be perceived as a hero that survived an attack from the United States.” She makes this point by noting how pro-Assad protesters have been protesting all across the world in recent days.
Regarding an alternative to the airstrike, Turkmani claims that a better approach would be to drag the regime into a political field, one which would take collective approval from all political powers in the world. She emphasizes that the regime might survive an airstrike, but it cannot survive unified political pressure from all influential powers in the region.
Lawyer Shoresh Derwish, an executive member of the Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party says that the regime finds new ways to escalate its killing mechanisms on a daily basis due to reluctance to act on behalf of the world. He highlights the complexity of the region Syria lies in and western fears of extremism threatening the region’s stability.
The best solution in Syria is a political one that is inclusive to all Syrians and divides power amongst them equally, because the two possible outcomes of the airstrike are either the weakening of Assad’s forces, or being empowered by allies who are willing to back Assad in a regional war.
Activist Dima Nicolas states that she is against the US airstrike because it does not do much for Syria except increase its destruction.
I have been advocating an end to arms and killing inside Syria, so how am I expected to stand with a western strike that is not aimed at addressing Syrian aspirations?
On the other hand, writer Abdallah al-Hallaq tells us that he is with the airstrike because the desperate situation Syrians are in prompts for a military campaign that could degrade Assad’s capabilities enough for the revolutionaries to finish the regime’s forces off. “The regime clearly does not want a political solution. The United States strategized on ignoring the gross human rights violations of the regime until it reached a politically unavoidable threshold.” Al-Hallaq wishes that an American airstrike against the regime was an option earlier; possibly preventing extremism from spreading in the manner it has today.
The top priority today is to rid Syrians from Assad’s murder, and although the west surely is not acting based on humanitarian intentions, their non-humanitarian goals overlap with what Syrians need today. The airstrikes will hurt Assad no matter how limited they are.
Amid these various opinions, the western powers still have their own calculations to make. Just as the pro-intervention opposition has failed in inciting it, those among the anti-intervention opposition will fail in preventing it, making it more evident that the fate of Syrians is more and more in the hands of others.
