FOR the past five years, Syria has become a laboratory of sorts where different regional and extra-regional players have experimented with their own solutions for the war-torn country. These have included regime change, propping up Bashar al-Assad’s besieged government, as well as unleashing a bevy of proxy warriors — moderate and not so moderate — upon the hapless country. The results of these experiments have, expectedly, been grim, with nearly 300,000 dead, extremist groups such as the militant Islamic State group emboldened, and millions of Syrians uprooted. The latest foreign experiment in Syria has been the brief incursion this week by Turkish forces across the border; the Turks reportedly helped Syrian opposition fighters free a border town held by IS. While the routing of IS may be welcome, the Turkish incursion raises important questions about the propriety of a foreign country taking action in Syria — which, we must remember, remains a sovereign state — without the consent of Damascus. But it is also true that respect for Syrian sovereignty was long ago discarded. A long list of foreign powers — including the US, Russia, Iran and the Gulf Arabs — have either had a limited military presence in Syria (some with the government’s approval, others in order to topple it), or have supported proxies on the ground. It must be asked whether these and any further foreign interventions will help stabilise Syria and counter extremist groups, or simply lead to more chaos.
Yet questionable as Turkey’s recent military action may be, some reports indicate that Ankara has softened its ‘Assad must go’ rhetoric and has become more sympathetic to Iranian and Russian concerns about their Arab ally. In the bleak Syrian scenario, this may be a rare ray of hope. Along with IS, Turkey is deeply suspicious of Kurdish nationalist militants in Syria, who have gained control of territory and are supported by the US. If major external powers active in Syria — namely Turkey, Russia, the US and Iran — can arrive at a consensus, it may just be possible to end the bloodbath. For this to happen, all material and political support to the rebels, particularly of the extremist variety, must cease, while Russia and Iran must pressure Mr Assad to hammer out a peace agreement with the genuine opposition. The fact is the regime change strategy has failed in Syria; the sooner its proponents publicly accept this, the better it will be for the Syrian people and their battered country.
Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2016