Es ging nie im Regime Change in Syrien

Dankenswerterweise hat sich Brain Whitaker der Behauptung angenommen, den USA oder dem Westen sei es je um Regime Change in Syrien gegangen. Das nämlich war nie der Fall, trotz einiger halbherziger Erklärungen Obamas und anderer, Assad müsse gehen. Was linke und rechte Apologeten Assads, unterstützt von russischen Medien behaupten, ist schlich falsch:

If you weren’t following Syria and its international relations before the war, it’s easy to be fooled by the regime-change meme. Assad’s defenders make it sound plausible by drawing analogies with Iraq, where the goal of overthrowing Saddam Hussein had been official American policy for more than four years before the 2003 invasion. The Iraq Liberation Act, approved by Congress in 1998 under the Clinton Administration, vowed support for “efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime”. (...)

But what of the claim that the west had been pursuing a regime change strategy for Syria ever since 9/11 – in other words, for the best part of a decade before the conflict began?

To summarize, then, there is no sign that western governments, during the 10 years or so leading up to the current conflict, sought to overthrow the Assad regime or had serious plans to do so.

Apart from a short period around 2005-2006, Syria was not a major concern or preoccupation among western governments or foreign policy analysts. In that respect it was very different from Iraq which between the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the war in 2003 had been a constant and much discussed issue.

This is not to say that relations between western powers and Syria were good. They were often difficult but had ups as well as downs. The general approach by western powers was to use a combination of pressure and inducements in the hope that Syria would change its ways. In some areas Syria cooperated; in others it did not and the broad picture, on both sides, was one of wary coexistence.

Internally, under the brutal rule of Hafez al-Assad and the Ba’ath Party, Syria had given rise to one of the region’s most repressive regimes and, internationally, it considered itself part of the “resistance” to Israel and western political influence in the Middle East. (...)

When Bashar al-Assad inherited the Presidency from his father in 2000, it was widely seen as a hopeful development. At 34, he was still relatively young and seemed to be a moderniser. Among other things, he was head of the Syrian Computer Society; he made some gestures towards tackling corruption and, for the first time in almost 40 years, allowed publication of an independent newspaper (though it did not survive for long).

Bashar also had connections with Britain. A graduate in medicine, he had spent some time in London doing postgraduate studies in ophthalmology and, shortly after becoming president, he married Asma al-Akhras, an investment banker from a Syrian family who had been born and raised in Britain. Asma was a glamorous figure who attracted media attention and, with the aid of western PR firms, helped to give the regime a more acceptable image.

With a new president in Damascus, and one with significant British connections, the government of Tony Blair sensed an opportunity to develop better relations. During a Middle East tour in 2001, Blair made a hastily-arranged stop-off in Damascus where he was photographed chatting with Bashar in the courtyard of the historic Umayyad mosque. It was the first such encounter in more than 30 years and the discussions did not go particularly well. Regardless of that, Bashar and his wife were received in London the following year on an official visit which included lunch at 10 Downing Street an audience with the Queen. (...)

To summarize, then, there is no sign that western governments, during the 10 years or so leading up to the current conflict, sought to overthrow the Assad regime or had serious plans to do so. The relationship – though fraught at times – was seen as one that could still be managed by diplomatic means and without a full-on confrontation. It’s also worth noting that in March 2011, during the initial stages of the Syrian uprising, US Secretary of SHestate Hillary Clinton was still calling Assad a reformer and an article in Haaretz newspaper described him as Israel’s favourite Arab dictator. (...)

If the Arab Spring protests hadn’t spread to Syria in 2011 and been met with a vicious response, it’s very likely that relations between Syria and western governments would have been plodding along on the same bumpy road that we saw during the decade before the conflict broke out.

Claiming there was a long-standing plan to oust the regime serves a political purpose but the evidence simply does not support it. It’s a case of trying to shape the facts to fit a desired narrative – a narrative that blames the conflict on western machinations rather than decades of dictatorship. And that is an insult to the countless Syrians who, before the conflict turned violent, took to the streets demanding an end to repression.