Diplomatic observers for Syria

I’d like to revive an idea that I put forward more than a month ago:  diplomatic observers for Syria.

I think we are in for the long haul in Syria.  Bashar al Assad shows no signs of giving up.  The international sanctions will pinch with time, but Iran is doing its best to counter them.  While Bashar’s support has frayed in Damascus and Aleppo, that is only around the edges.  The protesters are under a lot of pressure and have been unable to do what the Libyans did so successfully:  put together a proto-government that could project a constitutional framework and roadmap to elections.

Military intervention is simply not in the cards.  The Arab League isn’t asking for it.  Russia has so far blocked all serious propositions in the UN Security Council.  Moscow’s naval base at Latakia guarantees this will continue.  I imagine Putin admires Bashar’s spunk and isn’t going to worry about what is done to the demonstrators.  Turkey may stiffen its position a bit, but Ankara hasn’t yet done anything that really pinches hard.

If the protest movement in Syria is going to survive, it needs some help.  We’ve been through this before.  In some of the darkest days of the Kosovar rebellion against Serbia in 1998, the international community provided a Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission that reported on who was doing what to whom.  It was too little too late and did not avoid war, but it was that mission that confirmed mass atrocities and helped to rouse the international community to its military intervention.

I don’t expect in Syria that there will be a military intervention, even if an observer mission were to confirm mass atrocities.  The Russians won’t sign on to it, and I doubt the Americans and Europeans have the stomach to do it without Security Council authorization, which is what they eventually did in Kosovo.

But an international observer mission would likely reduce the ferocity of Bashar’s assault on Syria’s citizens and give us a far better window on what is happening than we have at present.  Ambassador Ford’s visits to the protesters have clearly been a boost.  Multiply that 1000 times in quantity (hard to match Ford in quality) and you’ve got something that might make a difference.

Would Bashar agree to it?  At some point, he is going to be feeling the international pressure enough to make concessions.  It is unlikely he will make any serious political reforms, since those would put his hold on power at risk.  If he thinks that agreeing to international observers might eventually help him to relieve international pressures, he might do it.

In any event, I don’t see a downside to proposing it.  The protesters have been literally crying for international protection.  Civilian observers are not what they have in mind–some of them would like military intervention.  But if the Arab League were to press the case and recruit the observers, the time may come when Bashar will yield to the proposition.  If he doesn’t, all the worse for him:  it suggests he has a great deal to hide.

I fear that if we fail to get something like this in place, the Syrian protest movement may fail, as the Iranian one did.  That would be a big defeat for democratic forces in the Middle East, which are having a hard time elsewhere even if Libya and Tunisia seem to be proceeding more or less in the right direction.

In Yemen, the return of President Saleh to Sanaa has upped the ante and increased the violence.  In Egypt, it is no longer clear–if ever it was–that the country will end up with a significantly more democratic system than the one Hosni Mubarak reigned over for decades.  A Bashar victory in Syria would encourage reactionary forces elsewhere and help Iran to survive the Arab spring with its main client state still firmly attached.  We haven’t got a lot of cards left to play on Syria:  proposing international observers is a half measure that might be worth a try.

PS,  October 26:  The Syrian National Council is now calling for international monitors.

PPS, Octoer 28: Human Rights Watch likes the idea too.