Imperialismo e guerra civil no mundo árabe: a tragédia síria: aporias e consequências da falta de intervir

Abstract

Second part of an article analyzing the Syrian crisis within an international context, dealing with the situation in Syria from the popular anti-regime revolt and consecutive civil war from 2011 to the onset of 2014. It defends the position that only a much more proactive international posture has a chance to curb the violence and lay the bases for a wide-ranging debate to rethink coexistence of the various communities, ethnical and religious groups. Among factors that made such coexistence more problematic in Syria (as well as in Lebanon and Iraq) than elsewhere in the Middle East are unresolved questions of collective identity. The outcome of the communitarian clash was a largely one-party modernizing dictatorship of one community (the Alawite) over the others; its contradictions eventually sparked the 2011 demonstrations. Despite calls to democratize Syria’s political structure, the extreme heterogeneity of its society did not allow unification of the oppositions. The latter, weak to start with, received little aid from abroad, while the regime enjoyed help of Hizbullah, Iran, Russia and other allies. Paradoxically the Assad regime’s use of WMD against Syrian civilians buried the possibility of international intervention, and in the end weakened democratic and/or liberal forces even more, and strengthened the Shiite axis and Sunni jihadists. As a result, as of late 2013, what had been an internal civil war started to mutate more and more into an open war of proxies for Saudi, Turkish, Iranian and other interests. The article argues that the conflict cannot be resolved solely by internal factors, relativizes the role of the State in its future solution, and outlines elements of a new democratic constitution with ample guarantees for minorities; discusses the dilemmas surrounding the role of Islam; and explains why resolving the Syrian conflict is linked to a solution of other Mideast conflicts.