Editor’s Note: The destruction of Syria by its chemical weapons-using dictator, Bashar al-Assad, is one of the greatest unpunished war crimes of the 21st century. Syria and Ukraine are connected as victims of Russian wars and a weak Western response. The Kyiv Post hosted a June 18, 2018 conference “Bringing Peace to Syria & Ukraine” and will regularly write updates about the issue, with the support of Kyiv Post publisher Adnan Kivan, a Ukrainian citizen and Syrian native.
There is a country that Russia has caused more devastation in than Ukraine this century. It’s Syria.
The butcher of Damascus, Bashar al-Assad, is destroying his nation to save his power as murderer-in-chief of ruins. And he can’t do it without the immoral support of Russian (and Iranian) forces. They are on a rampage again — bombing civilians and hospitals, after looking the other way, if not offering encouragement, over the years as Assad attacked his own people with chemical weapons.
If the Western world, including U. S. President Donald J. Trump, refuses to take action and ostracize the Kremlin for its destructive war in Ukraine — killing 13,000 and dismembering 7 percent of the nation — then surely it should for its actions in Syria, where more than 500,000 have been killed in the bloody civil war and at least 10 million displaced, with half of them finding refuge abroad — in Turkey, Syria, Jordan and other nations — before they stopped accepting refugees. Syria had only 20 million people before the civil war broke out in 2011.
The latest news is similarly heartbreaking. Only one province in Syria remains a stronghold for rebels opposed to Assad: the northwestern Idlib province on Turkey’s southern border, which is now closed to fleeing refugees. Idlib has an estimated three million people. Now, Assad and his allies are mounting an offensive aimed to wipe out the rebels — and, because of the indiscriminate attacks — civilians living there as well. The United Nations reported more than 500,000 people have fled the southern Idlib and northern Hama region, moving towards the Turkish border, according to Syria in Context, a reliable English-language newsletter providing weekly updates.
The people are trapped between the borders and the battles. Reuters has an excellent Aug. 23 multimedia story about the situation. The United Nations says that Russia is backing the Assad assaults, which include bombings of markets, bakeries, schools, and hospitals. In typically cynical fashion, Russia is attacking in Idlib and ignoring a cease-fire agreed with Turkey. The Kremlin’s flouting of cease-fire agreements is something Ukraine is intimately familiar with after nearly six years of defending the nation.
Of the roughly 16 million people left in Syria, most are living in poverty and other inhumane conditions. Syria lost its tourism industry, according to its own tourism minister, who estimated the losses at $2.3 trillion. The year before the war, Syria attracted 9 million visitors.
The humanitarian situation is dire, not only in Idlib province. Syria in Context notes the possibility that Russia will deny refugees in the southern Syrian refugee camp of Rubkhan, near the Jordanian border, with humanitarian aid.
Lies and vile propaganda from Russia also link Ukraine and Syria.
Rather than rebels fighting a dictatorial regime, the Kremlin’s propaganda outlets label opponents of Assad as terrorists, similar to Moscow’s failed attempts to label the EuroMaidan Revolution as a “fascist coup” that overthrew Russian-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. They also use the same propaganda as they do in Russia’s war against Ukraine — that the victims or defenders of their homeland are responsible for the violence and ceasefire violations. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov further blames the West, saying it is thwarting moves by Assad for national unity and a constitutional commission.
NATO member Turkey is the West’s best hope in the conflict. It is already sheltering more than three million Syrian refugees within its borders. Turkey, Iran, and Russia are considering another summit in Ankara on Syria on Sept. 16, according to Putin press secretary Dmitry Peskov.
Whatever Russia has in mind for Syria, it’s not peace or rebuilding the nation.
Joseph Daher, part of the Wartime and Post-Conflict in Syria Project, offers some pretty depressing statistics, writing for the Carnegie Middle East Center: The cost of rebuilding Syria, should the war end, could approach $400 billion, in a country with a gross domestic product that declined to $17 billion and where now an estimated 90 percent of the population lives in poverty.
It’s impossible to say how this horror show will end. Syria, as a nation, doesn’t seem to exist anymore. Perhaps the best that we can do as people is to help keep innocent Syrian civilians alive and punish those responsible for the war crimes and mass murders. To do that, the West will have to stop appeasing Putin and start isolating him further and putting tougher sanctions against him.
