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The Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria is trying to take over parts of a country ravaged by civil war, in which economic activity has collapsed and infrastructure has been destroyed, and before that, restore legitimacy in the eyes. of the international community is a task that is not easy.
Yoni Memani, a Middle East analyst and doctoral student at Northeastern University, believes that Syria’s ability to advance regional conflicts with Turkey will require enormous work.
In an opinion piece in Newsweek magazine, the author explains that Damascus has become an international pariah, subject to US and European sanctions, and that most of the Gulf countries are alienated from it. All these factors force Assad to reconsider the geopolitical reality of the Middle East.
The writer says Assad can see an opportunity in the fact that the international community has welcomed the decisions of many Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel, which could lead to warmer relations with the current US administration.
The writer notes that Syria in the Assad era, unlike Sudan, which is moving towards normalization of relations with Israel, is nowhere near that step.
The civil war demonstrated the extent to which Assad clung to power, as, in 2019, nearly 4 million Syrian refugees had been forced to flee to Turkey, and nearly 6.2 million Syrians had been internally displaced and, according to the United Nations envoy to Syria, an estimated 400,000 Syrians had died during the conflict. Armed.
Assad used live ammunition against the protesters and the regime’s breach of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.
Syria signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in 2013, which banned the production, use and storage of chemical weapons.
Had Syria complied with international law, it would have gotten rid of all its chemical weapons by signing the legally binding treaty. Not only has it failed to do so, indicating its inability to be a bona fide actor in the international community, but it has also used weapons against its civilian population.
Assad and his allies have tried to hide the truth about the use of chemical weapons, and Russia has blocked similar oversight initiatives by exercising its veto power in the UN Security Council.
Therefore, a regime that uses chemical weapons as a way to stay in power must be ostracized by the international community, not forgiven.
The writer believes that the rehabilitation of Syria at the international level is hampered by Assad’s intransigence regarding possible negotiations with Israel, and that Syria cannot be rebuilt with the help of the international community at a time led by one of the dictators. more bloodthirsty, according to the author.
