Syrian Dust

by Francesca Borri

  You can’t understand much about Syria if you don’t understand Israel. One reason for the difference between Libya and Syria, between intervention in Libya and nonintervention in Syria, is that Libya doesn’t border Israel, while Syria does. And Israel has reached some sort of equilibrium with Assad. Its only problematic border today is with Lebanon. The Assads have always confined themselves to words, whereas to Israel the new Syrian rebels seem a little too Muslim, a little too Arab, and Israel still hasn’t decided whether it prefers Assad or the opposition. A safe dictatorship or an unknown democracy.

  And the fact that Israel hasn’t decided, with this Arab Spring that burst out, unexpected, and above all, indecipherable, is another reason why the United States, with Europe following suit, hasn’t acted. They haven’t decided either.

  That is, they hadn’t decided.

  Because now, suddenly, everyone has decided.

  Now, suddenly, Syria is on the front page.

  And journalists are already on their way to Turkey.

  “What, you’re still at home?” Lorenzo asks me at 3:19 p.m. “Don’t tell me you’re going to miss the rockets.”

  Because we all know what’s needed now.

  We all care about Syria, apparently.

  About human rights.

  We must bomb.

  And yet we had started writing about Syria in February 2012 because we believed the red line had been crossed then. When the peaceful demonstrations against Assad had been leveled by bullets and mortars. But clashes between the regime and the newborn Free Army, little more than boys with Kalashnikovs and flip-flops, quickly flared, and we found ourselves facing another red line, that of war. Fierce fighting, street by street, inch by inch. Just as quickly, the dead began to mount up by the hundreds, by the thousands. And we began telling editors to call us before wrapping up so we could update the figures. Then, all of a sudden, the first foreign fighters arrived. And it seemed like another red line: that of a Syria held hostage to other people’s battles and strategies. Until missiles began to rain down on us. Until we saw the command of the Free Army in Aleppo replaced by that of Jabhat al-Nusra, Islamists linked to Al Qaeda. Until we ran into Syrians who were more and more emaciated, sallow, haggard from hunger and typhus, while no one even recorded the death count anymore, since so many weren’t even pulled out of the rubble.

  We’d crossed the last red line a month ago. In Aleppo. Two children shot for uttering a word against Islam. Because the truth is that the only red line is the trail of blood and gore left by the wounded, their torn bodies dragged away in the dust when—after the missiles, after the mortars—the snipers get their turn, firing on the rescuers.

  Interpretations and opinions about the chemical attack, at present, are divergent as usual. What sense did it make for the regime to do it? Assad’s defenders ask. After the capture of Qusayr, and now with the explicit support of Hezbollah, Assad is clearly on the upswing. Why give the U.S. an excuse to intervene, especially with UN inspectors right there in Damascus? Not only there in Damascus, but there to investigate another chemical attack, one near Aleppo, for which the major suspects, instead, are the rebels. Who supposedly did it to divert international attention. But in the area of the attack, the regime was in trouble, Assad’s opponents argue. It was in danger of having the rebels enter Damascus. And most importantly, his opponents are convinced that while Assad may have an iron grip on the situation, everyone knows that the regime has long been in the process of crumbling. With Bashar flanked and surrounded by multiple centers of power. And the chemical attack might therefore have been carried out without agreement among the leaders, or ordered by leaders competing with Bashar—starting with his brother Maher.

  Everyone, these days, spouts an opinion and interpretation.

  Revealing who the perpetrator was based on YouTube videos.

  But then, truthfully, is it critical to know who it was? Does anyone still doubt that the regime carries out crimes against humanity, or that the rebels commit war crimes? Because there’s another red line that we crossed months ago, when the Syrians began fleeing not only from the areas controlled by the regime, but also from the so-called liberated areas, terrorized by anarchy, looting, summary executions, kidnappings, and ad hoc Islamic courts.

  What does it matter, chemical weapons or conventional arms? With more than one hundred thousand dead, it’s time to act in Syria. Did the father of my friend Fahdi, an Alawite, who died in Latakia for lack of medicine, die because of cancer or because of the war? As Cassese used to say, quoting Mark Twain, there is always a simple solution to complex problems: the wrong one.

  Many people, these days, recall Kosovo. But the only similarity with those seventy-eight days of bombing, it was 1999, is Russia’s veto, which now, as then, obstructs the UN and its Security Council. Besides that, the context is radically different. The confrontation between the Albanian majority and Serbian minority does not compare to the tangle of diversity and the plurality of actors and interests that make up Syria. The underlying issue here is that the opposition is heterogeneous and divided, with Islamists as the dominant group. What could be the objective of the bombing, when the real reason for the lack of action on the part of the international community is not the Russian veto but the absence of an alternative to Assad? The war in Kosovo ended with a protectorate that lasted for years. As general Wesley Clark, supreme commander of NATO at the time, recalled, it was the opposite of a shock and awe operation, of two days of bombing like the ones we’re talking about now. In any war, he told us, we must have clear political goals, and above all, be prepared for escalation: exactly like what happened in Kosovo, two days that became seventy-eight, until Milosevic surrendered. Except the context of this possible escalation, now, is not Yugoslavia, it’s a Middle East where everywhere you look there’s a coup, a drone, a car bomb. Ramallah is one of the most inured cities at the present time, and yet, when three Palestinians were killed the other day, the entire West Bank flared up.

  Many interpret intervention as a defense of the West’s credibility: the use of chemical weapons, it is argued, cannot go unpunished. The word of a U.S. president cannot be ignored. In fact, it all seems very much in keeping with our role in Syria up until now. Because it’s not at all true, of course, that we’ve been absent. Until now, the strategy had been to arm and support the rebels, but not too much, not completely: only up to the point of ousting Assad through a transition that would involve both renewal and stability—with the emphasis on stability. A stability that despite the rhetoric would guarantee Israel a more secure border. Only it didn’t work because the opposition proved to be a disaster, because Al Qaeda appeared, because Assad chose to demolish Syria rather than capitulate. Nothing new, then. Contrary to appearances, the impending bombings are yet another “Yes but no” that doesn’t answer the fundamental question: What is the alternative to Assad? A man who has caused a million children to become refugees, and who orders airstrikes against the rest.

  As for credibility, chemical weapons, prohibited by conventional international law, have been excluded from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Because they constitute a unique category—weapons of mass destruction—along with biological and, in particular, nuclear weapons, whose possessors are known to all. And so, here we are being outraged over a red line that we have not classified as a war crime, just to reserve the right to cross it. Maybe it should be remembered that while it’s true that international crimes exist—that is, crimes that involve individual criminal responsibility—in this case, complicity in international crimes also exists. For example, the sale of arms to those who then use them to commit international crimes. None of these crimes are subject to regulation. You have to be careful to defend your credibility. One day you could be taken seriously.

  well then.

  To recap.

  In the morning, I now find thirty new editorials for each corpse, a photo f
rom Aleppo, and thirty articles on Syria, and it seems that no place exists in the world except Syria.

  Now everyone cares.

  And here I am reading admiringly. Because they write all these editorials from New York, Paris, Rome, Honolulu—elegant editorials, not an adjective out of keeping. All these precise, detailed analyses. With no hesitation. And without ever having been in Syria. People think it’s easy. But the truth is that writing in Aleppo, from the front, we are all great writers. Even you, if you were to come to the front tomorrow, could come up with a front-page feature, a piece filled with big scenes, adrenaline, rhythm, blood. I’m not kidding. The front is the easiest thing to write about. You just have to make sure you come back alive. What’s really hard is writing about Syria if your entire Middle East is the copper plate you bought on vacation in Morocco. Then, sure, you have to be great.

  And so here I am reading admiringly. These polished editorials, the Arab Spring, democracy, Jefferson, Rousseau—these editorials that range from the French Revolution to October 1917 in Russia, to the Greeks of course, to Sparta, Athens, Gorbachev, and the Berlin Wall. There’s a magnificent parallel drawn this morning, extremely learned, between Egypt and Syria, comparing these Sunnis and Shiites to the Guelphs and Ghibellines, the Girondists and Jacobins. When there are no Shiites in Egypt.

  Not one.

  We followed the UN inspectors’ arrival in Ghouta live, moment by moment, all of us with bated breath, because now we all care about Syria, and because Assad finally said yes, that the inspectors could continue on, now that they’d already come that far, but only to determine whether gas had actually been used, not to determine who had used it. Just to confirm that strange things had indeed been happening in Syria lately, like clouds of gas all of a sudden. In short, while we were all on Twitter, Britain’s Prime Minister Cameron consulted Parliament and Parliament voted no. No to military intervention. And then Obama decided to consult Congress. But he must have consulted the polls first, which must not have been encouraging. Because of the budget bill, actually, not because of Syria, since the budget had to be approved within a few days in the U.S. or government spending would be halted. And so the Republicans, taking advantage of the tight deadline, upped the ante, and in exchange for a yes on Syria demanded amendments to health care. Somewhat like what happened in Italy, right? When at crucial moments, at a vote critical to the fate of the country, in exchange for a yes, every deputy wants funding for a parade, for a debate team, for a Protected Designation of Origin for a local cucumber. In short, while Obama was busy consulting everyone who could be consulted, Russia consulted Assad. And asked him to dismantle his chemical arsenal.

  That’s where we are, more or less. At Russia’s initiative. If Assad gets rid of his chemical arsenal, there will be no bombings. That is, no bombing of Assad. Those by Assad may continue. So the U.S. must now consult with Saudi Arabia and the European Union, then the European Union must consult with its individual members and Saudi Arabia with the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Then all of them—Arabs, Europeans, and Americans—all of them together will consult with Russia, after Russia has consulted with Iran. And after they have all then gone ahead and consulted with Turkey—which is neither here nor there on the map and so each time they run the risk of forgetting it completely—then the whole world can finally consult with the UN.

  The whole world except the Syrians.

  After all, it was only tear gas in the beginning. Tear gas and clubs. Then, one day, bullets. And after the bullets, one day, mortars. From mortars to helicopters. From helicopters to tanks. “In reality, that red line is a green light. It appeases Assad, who except for gas can use any other weapon and no one will react,” Abdallah told me on my first morning in Aleppo, when we were up to cannon fire, but the missiles and planes had not yet arrived.

  If only we listened to the Syrians sometimes. Abdallah had set up the Media Center to help us foreign journalists, who had in the meantime been writing about a Sunni majority oppressed by the Shiite minority. Although beside him, explaining Syria to us, there was also Loubna, an Alawite.

  “It is surprising, honestly, that they are talking about deterrence. Because if the goal is to discourage a return to the use of gas, an American attack is the best incentive to incite those interested in outside intervention to use it. And there are many of them among those who oppose the regime, but also among those within the regime who aim to replace Assad,” Mohammed Noor, another veteran of the Media Center, says today. He deals with refugees now, along with many other activists who went from demonstrations to working in the mess halls for internally displaced persons. Because in February Abdallah was killed by the rebels, who don’t want journalists around anymore to witness the fact that they are building a new regime, while we continued writing in hope of a revolution for freedom.

  Syria is more and more complicated.

  But when have we ever listened to the Syrians? Certainly not these days, when all of a sudden the world has started focusing on Syria. And of the dozens of editorials I read, the only thing that comes to mind is an old line attributed to Mark Twain: “God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”

  Because the entire debate has been about everything except Syria. About our credibility, at the beginning, about respect for rules and red lines, about America’s role in the world, about unipolarity and multipolarity, and about the twilight of the United Nations. About humanitarian intervention, Kosovo, Bosnia, ethics, and realism. Ethics and cynicism. Then the English Parliament turned Cameron down. And it was time to analyze relations between the United States and Great Britain. And France, what will France do? Will it take advantage of Britain’s withdrawal to recoup an international role? And Europe, does it exist? And the Arab countries, of course, the Gulf and the price of oil. And then Obama decided to consult Congress and the debate focused on him, not on Syria. A weak president, a strong president, a president who uses strong words, an undeserved Nobel, Republicans and conservatives, the trauma of Iraq. Is he a hawk or a dove? Or simply confused? Guantanamo, drones, and maybe he’d be better off concentrating on the debt and the economy. And so on, up until the recent Russian initiative for destroying Assad’s chemical arsenal. And now it’s all about analyzing relations between the U.S. and Russia, and Putin’s return, and Iran—how does all this affect Iran’s nuclear capability? Which is the only thing of real interest, because, as usual, who knows the consequences for Israel? Actually we’ve talked about everything these days except possible solutions. Negotiations, transitions. And we asked everyone for an opinion. Except the Syrians.

  And so the debate says little about Syria, but a lot about us. Because in point of fact, once we’d gotten over the shock of the images of the chemical attack, once we began to think clearly, there was nearly unanimous consensus on the uselessness of retaliation. For differing reasons. Some in support of negotiations, others in favor of a more incisive intervention with ground troops. In any case, the idea of two days of missiles seemed senseless to many. The war, they kept repeating, will go on as before. Moreover, the repercussions on neighboring countries would be unpredictable. Yet, when Obama stopped the countdown and decided to consult Congress, the criticism of a ineffectual hawk turned into criticism of a reluctant hawk. It’s surprising, isn’t it? No one denies that intervening in Syria is a complex and controversial decision, yet we object to the fact that Obama decided to listen, to think. To reflect. We object to the fact that he allows himself to be influenced by the opinions of the American people. Like that ingenuous Cameron—didn’t he know that voters are against the war because they are self-seeking? Because they don’t understand what’s in the true national interest? Didn’t he know that if it were up to them, we would never have landed in Normandy? We question democracy.

  We question what is basically our goal in Syria.

  We want a self-confident leader, a commander who projects muscle and testosterone; we want a hero
who acts, and acts quickly, even though we’ve just warned him that it’s hopeless, and even risky, to act solely for the sake of acting. Cheering from the stands now passes for debate, social networks are our parliament: today, this is what we mean by democracy.

  But, most importantly, why have we decided that no diplomatic solutions exist for Syria? For a mediator, the most thorny standing case is Israel and Palestine: two protagonists, one subordinate to the other, one ensnared by the other, left alone at the negotiating table with their imbalance of resources and power. But a plurality of protagonists and interests, as we have in Syria, always results in a meeting of interests, as well as differences—opportunities, as well as obstacles. “The only reason to support Assad is if you consider the alternative to be worse. If you think Assad, though criminal, is less criminal than the rebels. And vice versa: those who side with the rebels now side with the rebels only because they are against the regime.” I could delete the quotation marks; it’s what they all tell you in Syria. No one can lose, but no one can win. And yet, they also say, this is exactly why there’s room for compromise.

  For peace.

  If only we listened to the Syrians at times.

  If only we cared about what the Syrians had to say, we could now avoid days of debate on the Russian initiative. And not just because they’ve been neutralizing chemical weapons for twenty years now in Iraq. “What do I think of all this?” asks Mohammed Noor, making a long story short. “That more than 110,000 Syrians have been killed by conventional weapons. Eighty times the number of gas victims.”