Syria: A coincidental Christian dichotomy

Patriarch Ra'i and Assad representative embrace

George Sabra in Azaz

Lebanon’s Cardinal Bechara Boutros ar-Ra'i has been itching for nearly two years to become the first Maronite patriarch to visit Syria since Lebanon’s independence in 1943.

He did it this weekend.

Syria’s ambassador in Beirut, Ali Abdulkarim Ali, officially invited Ra’i to visit Syria in the week he was elected the 77^th patriarch of Lebanon’s Maronites on the day the Syrian uprising broke out in mid-March 2011.

Ra’i, who has since been appointed cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI, entered Syria yesterday through the Masnaa border crossing.

He arrived in Damascus amid tight security measures to attend a ceremony marking the enthronement of the new patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church.

He held a mass at the Maronite Cathedral of St. Anthony in the Bab Touma district of the Syrian capital soon after arriving in the war-ravaged country.

Representing President Bashar al-Assad, Joseph Suweid, a Christian minister of state belonging to the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), welcomed him with open arms and a warm embrace in the cathedral’s entrance hall.

Although his aides said there was no political dimension to the visit, Ra’i told the congregation in a short sermon preceding the mass, “We pray each day for the birth of a new society and a new state fulfilling all our good people’s hopes.

“From here in Damascus, we join you in telling all those engaging in these tragedies: enough warfare, violence, killings and destruction of homes and landmarks.

“They say it’s for reforms’ sake. Reforms are needed in every state and homeland. But outsiders don’t dictate reforms. Reforms are homegrown to fit each country’s particular needs. No one knows a home better than its dwellers.”

Later Saturday night, Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told state-run TV, “The visit of Maronite Patriarch Beshara Ra’i to Syria has religious as well as political connotations.”

This Sunday morning, Ra’i attended the enthronement of Syria's Greek Orthodox leader, Yuhanna X Yazigi, at the Church of the Holy Cross in Qassaa, a central Damascus neighborhood.

Yazigi, bishop of Western and Central Europe, was elected Greek Orthodox patriarch of the Levant and Antioch, succeeding Patriarch Hazim Ignatius IV who died in December 2012.

Lebanese Maronites allied with Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which is supported by Syria and Iran, are hailing the trip by Ra’i to Syria as a shield for Christians.

Other Lebanese Maronite Christians, allied with former premier Saad Hariri, have expressed their misgivings.

“Here is Patriarch Ra’i in Assad’s Syria, the Syria of a child-killer regime, revealing his true colors under the pretext of participating in the enthronement of Greek Orthodox Patriarch Yuhanna X Yazigi. The pretext does not in any way hide the fact that he empathizes with Assad’s course of action,” Elias Bejjani writes in a commentary for Cedar News.

On his first visit to France in September 2011, Ra’i urged that Assad be given a chance to implement reforms because he is “open-minded” and “ cannot work miracles.”

He also indirectly defended Hezbollah’s arms by linking the party’s arsenal to Israel’s exit from Lebanon’s Shebaa Farms and the repatriation of Palestinian refugees.

Two months later, he defended Hezbollah suspects who were indicted in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri by the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).

In an interview with Reuters on 4 March 2012, Ra’i said, "All regimes in the Arab world have Islam as a state religion, except for Syria. It stands out for not saying it is an Islamic state... The closest thing to democracy [in the Arab world] is Syria.”

Three weeks ago, he said in his Sunday sermon at the seat of the Maronite patriarchate in Bkerke that Lebanon should lobby the international community to offload its Syrian refugees into “safe areas” in Syria and other Arab countries.

In his book, Le Tsunami Arabe, Franco-Lebanese author Antoine Basbous suggests Ra’i’s public endorsement of the Assad regime is a likely result of the patriarch being blackmailed by Damascus (see “The Ra’i rumor tells us little”).

In the other Syrian corner sits another Christian, this one a native Syrian born to a Christian family in the city of Qatana in Rif Dimashq Governorate.

He is George Sabra, head of the Syrian National Council and second-in-command of the Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (see my post, “Syrian opposition elects Christian leader”).

While Damascus was welcoming Ra’i, Sabra was concluding the first tour by a Syrian National Coalition leader of areas in Aleppo and Idlib governorates held by the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

A short video posted by activists on YouTube showed scrutinizing photo murals of the uprising in the small town of Azaz close to Aleppo after coming through the opposition-held Bab al-Hawa international border crossing between Turkey and Syria.

U.S. diplomats squash Syrian opposition hopes

Ambassador Ford

 On the day President Barack Obama won his second term, American diplomats told participants in the Syrian opposition “jamboree” in Doha there would be no change in the Obama policy of refusing to intervene militarily or arm the resistance.

Instead, they said, Washington would seek a “political solution” to the carnage in Syria.

The American diplomats were named as U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford and A. Elizabeth Jones, a former Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs and one-time U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Samir Nashar, one of the Syrian National Council (SNC) members who attended the meeting with Ford and Jones tells today’s edition of the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, “They plainly said the United States does not envisage a solution in Syria other than the political solution.”

Nashar added, “When we told the two diplomats such an American position will ruin the reputation of the United States among Syrians, their answer was: ‘You need to relay this to the Syrians in dozes – that the United States won’t intervene in Syria and they have no choice other than a political solution.’

Elizabeth Jones

“…We reiterated that -- despite (U.S.) criticisms of the SNC – we remain committed first and foremost to the Syrian revolution’s path and objectives, which foreclose any political solution that does not commence with Bashar al-Assad standing down.”

Political analyst Rajeh el-Khoury, writing for the independent Lebanese daily an-Nahar, describes Obama 2 as just “a carbon copy” of Obama 1.

“Barack Obama is back and nothing will change. We have a carbon copy of the U.S. president who will probably be less interested in foreign policy issues in order to focus during his second term on what James A. Baker calls America’s Titanic load of debt,” Khoury says.

“Look at Obama’s wavering and elusive policies vis-à-vis (1) the Libyan revolution (2) change in Egypt, which is now causing Washington a splitting headache, and (3) the revolution in Syria, where massacres and calamities multiply because of Russia’s malign alignment with the regime and America turning a blind eye to the bloodbath and cruelly denying arms to regime opponents. If we pondered all this, we would conclude that Obama 2 could only be like Obama 1… So don’t expect U.S. policy change. You won’t see it anytime soon.”

Zuhair Qusaybati, writing for the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, notes that many regional states and politicians are pinning false hopes on Obama’s second term. Some see him arming the Syrian opposition adequately to overthrow the regime by year’s end, or warning to cut aid to Israel if it did not stop the building of settlements and the judaization of Jerusalem, or inviting Ali Khamenei to the White House to end the tug-of-war over Iran’s nuclear file and share spheres of influence in the ‘Shiite Crescent’ region.”

All this is wishful thinking, says Qusaybati, because the Obama administration’s “pullout from the region will from here on enter its second stage. So there is no good news on the way for the Syrians. Chances of the U.S. arming the opposition are low and the likelihood of military intervention is nil. Syria is abandoned to its fate. The balance of power will be decided on the ground -- at a prohibitive cost…”

U.S.-Russia back-room deal over Syria takes shape

Now that he’s won, after putting Syria on hold throughout his reelection campaign, U.S. President Barack Obama seems set to bungle the Syrian Revolution.

Instead of arming Syrian opposition rebels to topple President Bashar al-Assad, his administration is now hard-selling Russia’s roadmap for a Syrian-led political settlement.

The opening shots in the U.S.-Russian common approach to the Syria crisis came a week before Election Day, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Syrian National Council was dysfunctional.

Within days, the State Department was orchestrating the ongoing hullabaloo in Doha over a Syrian National Initiative (SNI) to replace the SNC (see my Nov. 3 post, U.S. push to overhaul Syrian opposition gains pace).

Almost at the same time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov flew to Cairo for talks with Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby and Syria troubleshooter Lakhdar Brahimi.

Lavrov told reporters at a post-talks press conference, “We decided what to do in Geneva. And it is incumbent upon us to move forwards on the basis of what was agreed upon in Geneva. And the players outside the region should coordinate and… in one direction. And Russia is doing just that. It is trying to execute what was agreed upon in Geneva.”

A more indicative sign Washington and Moscow have shaken hands on a Syria deal came yesterday from New York.

Warning Syria’s current path of violence will lead the country “to its destruction,” UN Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman -- who until last June was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State -- said there was an urgent need to “shift away” from the military logic driving the conflict and to move towards a political process.

“It has to be a Syrian-led process; it can’t be imposed,” Feltman told reporters at UN Headquarters in New York after he briefed a closed meeting of the UN Security Council on the situation in the war-ravaged country.

“It must bring real change and a clean break from the past,” he added.

With that goal in mind, Feltman said, Brahimi was working with “great urgency,” mentioning that Brahimi’s deputy Nasser al-Kidwa was “monitoring” the Syrian opposition restructuring in Doha.

“The situation inside Syria is turning grimmer every day,” he told reporters, adding there was a growing risk the crisis could “explode outward into an already volatile region.”

“We might, in fact, already be seeing signs of this spillover,” Feltman said, referring to Syria-related violence in Turkey and Lebanon, and what he called “activities” in the Golan.

“We don’t think the fighting is directed at undermining the disengagement of forces agreement per se,” Feltman said in response to a question on the situation in Golan. “It is the Syrian-on-Syrian fighting. But, nevertheless, we are quite concerned about what the impact could be if there is not an immediate return to full compliance with that disengagement of forces agreement.”

Feltman flagged how Brahimi saw a June communiqué by the UN-backed Action Group on Syria as still providing an “important building block” for an eventual peace.

The Action Group is made up of the UN and Arab League chiefs; the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) as well as the Turkish foreign minister; the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy; and the foreign ministers of Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar, who are members of the Arab League ministerial committee on Syria.

At a meeting in Geneva last June 30, the Group had approved the “Geneva Declaration” -- a set of principles and guidelines for a Syrian-led transition that meets the aspirations of the Syrian people.

Among other proposed measures, the Geneva Declaration called on all parties to immediately recommit to a sustained cessation of armed violence in a bid to end the conflict, in addition to the establishment of a transitional governing body that would exercise full executive powers and would be made up of members of the Assad regime and the opposition and other groups (see full text of the Geneva Declaration in my June 30 post, Syria Action Group leaves open Assad question).

U.S. set to revisit Syria with “Riad Seif plan”

Riad Seif after his shabiha beating and behind his desk

“Syrian opposition leaders of all stripes will convene in Qatar next week to form a new leadership body to subsume the opposition Syrian National Council,” according to Josh Rogin, who covers U.S. national security and foreign policy and writes Foreign Policy’s daily Web column The Cable.

Rogin, whose article you can read in full here, writes in part:

U.S officials are “frustrated with an SNC they say has failed to attract broad support, particularly from the Alawite and Kurdish minorities. The new council is an attempt to change that dynamic. Dozens of Syrian leaders will meet in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Nov. 3 and hope to announce the new council as the legitimate representative of all the major Syrian opposition factions on Nov. 7, one day after the U.S. presidential election.

“The Obama administration sees the new council as a potential interim government that could negotiate with both the international community and - down the line - perhaps also the Syrian regime. The SNC will have a minority stake in the new body, but some opposition leaders are still skeptical that the effort will succeed.

“The Qatar meeting will include dozens of opposition leaders from inside Syria, including from the provincial revolutionary councils, the local ‘coordination committees’ of activists, and select people from the newly established local administrative councils.

"We call it a proto-parliament. One could also think of it as a continental congress," a senior administration official told The Cable.

“U.S. officials and opposition leaders are calling the initiative the ‘Riad Seif plan,’ named after the former Syrian parliamentarian and dissident who was imprisoned after he signed the Damascus Declaration on respect for Syrians' human rights in 2005. He was released in 2011, beaten up by a Shabiha gang in October 2011, and finally allowed to leave Syria in June 2012.

“Seif is central to the formation of the new council and is seen as a figure with broad credibility with both the internal and external Syrian opposition.

“‘We have to get [the internal opposition] to bless the new political leadership structure they're setting up and not only do we have to get them to bless the structure, but they have to get the names on it," the official said, noting that the exact structure of the council will be determined in Qatar, not before.

“‘We need to be clear: This is what the Americans support, and if you want to work with us you are going to work with this plan and you're going to do this now,’ the official said. ‘We aren't going to waste time anymore. The situation is worsening. We need to do this now.’

“…The U.S. government will be represented at the Nov. 7 Qatar meeting by Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, who has been dealing with various opposition groups and weighing in on the composition of the new council, a senior administration official said…”

No quick fix for Syria: It’s game on!

Putin and Obama in Los Cabos

There is no quick fix for Syria. It’s game on!

I suppose that’s what Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart Barak Obama agreed at their meeting yesterday on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico.

Speaking after the two-hour meeting, Obama said he and Putin had pledged to work with "other international actors, including the United Nations, Kofi Annan, and all interested parties" to try to find a solution to the 15-month-old Syria crisis.

Putin said the two countries had found "many common points" on Syria.

“We agree to cooperate bilaterally and multilaterally to solve regional conflicts,” the leaders said in a joint statement, adding: “In order to stop the bloodshed in Syria, we call for an immediate cessation of all violence and express full support for the efforts of UN/League of Arab States Joint Special Envoy Kofi Annan, including moving forward on political transition to a democratic, pluralistic political system that would be implemented by the Syrians themselves in the framework of Syria’s sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity. We are united in the belief that the Syrian people should have the opportunity to independently and democratically choose their own future.”

But despite the optimistic rhetoric at the meeting, the Obama administration is unlikely to change its stand on many issues, including Syria. This is what a former member of the Reagan Administration, Paul Craig Roberts, told Russian 24/7 English-language news channel RT.

“I am convinced Putin does not want a conflict with Washington. He wants to resolve the issue of the missile bases that are surrounding Russia. He does not want conflict. And Obama does not want any conflict either. But he is just a member of the government that wants regime change in Syria. And Obama is not exactly in position to be able to stop that.”

“Obama will do what he can to get along with Putin, but still has to represent the agenda of regime change,” Roberts added. “And the situation I think is unresolved.”

BBC News in turn quotes correspondents as saying there were no smiles between Obama and Putin during the news conference, and their interactions seemed stiff and strained.

Bouthaina Shaaban, a political adviser to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said after talks in Moscow this week with Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov that Damascus “welcomes the (Moscow) idea” of convening an international conference on Syria.

Later today, UN Security Council members will be briefed in consultations by the head of the UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS), Maj.-Gen. Robert Mood. The briefing has taken on further significance following Mood’s decision last Saturday to suspend UNSMIS activities until further notice.

It is also likely the Council’s next briefing from Annan himself may be moved forward from its currently scheduled date of June 26 to later this week.

The long and short of all this is that the give and take over the Annan mission, the UN monitors’ task and Russia’s proposed Syria conference will resume ad infinitum.

And the carnage will not stop anytime soon.

Editorially, leading Lebanese political analyst Nicolas Nassif, writing this morning for the staunchly pro-Assad Beirut daily al-Akhbar, believes the Syria stalemate will “probably persist another few months.”

In his think piece -- titled “Syria: The regime in daytime and the rebels at night?” – Nassif lists a series of observations regarding Russia’s stand on the Syria crisis. He says unnamed Lebanese officials formed the impressions on the sidelines of their just-concluded “mission” in Moscow.

Nassif itemizes five of their specific observations as follows:

1.     Moscow “behaves as though there is no Syria crisis. It carries on fulfilling military contracts signed with the Syrian government. It explicitly ignores Western sanctions against the regime, saying it doesn’t bother about them and they are irrelevant. It reiterates its determination to fulfill all contracts signed between the two countries.”

2.   Moscow does not conceal its “full coordination with Damascus on events and developments facing the regime, particularly as concerns its opponents who are being funded and armed unconditionally.” Russian officials do not deny being aware of escalating violence against the regime, which says it is in a position of legitimate self-defense. Contrary to previous impressions, “Russia is neither surprised nor embarrassed by the growing violence.” In step with Damascus, it lays the blame at the door of the opposition’s Western and Arab backers.

3.     Moscow reads the election of Syrian Kurdish activist Abdulbaset Sieda head of the Syrian National Council (SNC) as “an attempt to introduce the Kurdish factor into the equation and broaden the scope of confrontation with the regime religiously, socially and ideologically. Another aim of Sieda’s election is to turn the Kurds against the Syrian president who naturalized them and gave them their civil rights at the onset of the crisis.”

4.  Inasmuch as they are adamant about standing by Assad’s regime, and notwithstanding their call for an international conference on Syria, the Russians acknowledge that one reason for their own opposition’s demonstrations against Putin is his endorsement of Assad. But having been duped in Iraq, Libya and Yemen, the Russian officials told their Lebanese opposite numbers they won’t let this happen with Syria, whether inside or outside the UN Security Council.

5.     Moscow’s “confidence in the survival of the regime of Assad and his inner circle parallel its blind faith in the Syrian army’s unity and cohesion. Russians consider the Syrian army an immutable bedrock that will “protect the regime, prevent its collapse and preclude the president’s forcible ouster…”

On the ground in Syria, Nassif registers pluses and minuses for the regime and its opponents over the past three months.

Among them:

• The army has “lost control of cardinal sections of the rural areas of some major cities such as Damascus, Aleppo and Idlib… The chaos there was condensed in a sentence: ‘The regime in daytime and the rebels at night.’”

• The number of mass protests against the regime has dwindled considerably.

• Save for Homs, “which has been marginalized, destroyed and depopulated,” the regime maintains full control of the big cities, specially the capital Damascus.

Syria: Houla children slain, Ban whines, Moscow ferrying arms

Slain children and woman (right) in Houla

The opposition Syrian National Council declared three days of national mourning and urged the UN Security Council to take deterrent measures against the Syrian regime under Chapter VII in reaction to a horrific massacre in the Homs suburb of Houla.

At least 88 people were killed in Friday’s outrage, almost 50 of them women and children.

BREAKING NEWS: UN mission chief General Robert Mood said in a statement the monitors had counted more than 92 bodies in Houla, and called the incident a "brutal tragedy." The statement said, 

"This morning UN military and civilian observers went to Houla and counted more than 32 children and over 60 adults killed."

The SNC “called on the Free Syrian Army to prevent regime militias from reaching civilian areas by blockading roads by all possible means.” It also pushed for an urgent Arab League Ministerial Council meeting to cut all residual diplomatic and economic ties with Damascus.

The SNC said some 300 were wounded in Houla, as government forces shelled and attacked the town. It said some victims were killed by mortar shelling, while knives slaughtered others.

It reported on its website Houla “was shelled for 12 consecutive hours. The shelling was followed by a massacre carried out by shabiha thugs and regime mercenaries… (who) slaughtered women and children. Some families were able to escape with the help of activists, while the fate of other families remains unknown.“

The SNC’s acting-president Burhan Ghalioun told reporters, "What happened in Houla is a systematic crime intended to stoke sectarian fires in the country. UN envoy Kofi Annan must head to Houla as soon as he arrives in Syria so he can witness firsthand what happened there. He said, "I told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and the monitors I spoke to that Kofi Annan cannot continue his mission after the massacres that have taken place, as he visits Damascus without batting an eyelash."

The army and security forces killed at least 20 other civilians elsewhere in Syria after tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets after Friday prayers.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon warned Friday the risk of all-out conflict was growing in Syria where groups fighting President Bashar Assad now control "significant parts of some cities.”

"There is a continuing crisis on the ground, characterized by regular violence, deteriorating humanitarian conditions, human rights violations and continued political confrontation," he said in his 13-page report dated Friday, which is to be debated by the UN Security Council next week.

He said UN monitors noted “continued Syrian army troops concentrations and heavy weapons in population centers…

“There are continuing reports of a stepped-up security crackdown by the authorities that has led to massive violations of human rights by Government militias, including arbitrary arrests, torture, enforced disappearance and summary execution of activists, opponents, and defectors…

“There are continuing reports that thousands of Syrians are being detained in a network of Government-run facilities of different kinds… The pace and scale of access to, and release, of detainees is unacceptable given the commitment of the Government…

“There has also been some, but not enough, improvement in entry and freedom of movement of journalists in Syria… However, the Government still requires that journalists seek specific permission in advance for in-country travel, which is often not forthcoming. They are often only permitted short stays that do not facilitate in-depth reporting…

Anti-Assad demonstrators in Binnish near Idlib yesterday

“The obligation of the Syrian government to respect the freedom of association and the right to demonstrate peacefully is clearly not being observed… Credible information indicates that, after the observers left (the Aleppo University on 9 May 9, 2012, Government and irregular elements fired tear gas and live ammunition in the air, raided the campus and killed between two and five students in addition to arresting up to 200….

“While demonstrations are carried out in many other parts of the country, many have reportedly been broken up with the use of live ammunition and lethal force, and arbitrary arrests of protesters. It is clear that the broad context of intimidation and human rights violations does not constitute an environment in which citizens can express their opinions or demonstrate freely…

“Most elements of the (Annan) six-point proposal have yet to be implemented.”

Ban said UN efforts to end the conflict had seen only "small progress", adding that the "overall situation in Syria remains extremely serious".

"Professor Katsman" is said to be carrying Russian weapons to Tartus

On the day Ban also urged Member States not to arm either side in the conflict, a Russian cargo ship loaded with weapons was reported to be en route to Syria and due to arrive at Tartus port this weekend.

One diplomat told Reuters a Maltese firm, which is owned by a Cypriot company that is owned by a Russian firm, owns the vessel, which is called “Professor Katsman.”