It was no surprise that the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria finally came up with a report that implicated both the Bashar Al Assad government and the terrorists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) in war crimes and crimes against humanity. For more than three years, the fighting in Syria has been notorious for its brutality and willingness of all sides to use gross acts of horror to shock and frighten the population at large. Government forces have dropped barrel bombs on civilian areas, some containing a weapon of mass destruction in the form of chlorine gas. They have also been named in the UN report as committing killings, torture and other war crimes that should be prosecuted. Isil has been named as being guilty of mass killings, attempted genocide, torture, enforced disappearance and displacement. The report singled out as particularly disgraceful the fact that children were made to participate in these acts.
However, the political outcome of the UN report is likely to be very different for the two sides. The Syrian government is waiting to be rehabilitated and Isil faces an international coalition of the willing ready to take it on and defeat it utterly. The Al Assad regime is feeling a lot more confident despite its gross record as the international community reacts with horror at Isil’s advance and seeks whatever allies it can find in its struggle to defeat the group. Al Assad sees an advantage in this process and has indicated that his forces are willing to help the allies led by Iraq along with the US, Saudi Arabia and Iran against Isil.
In time it may be embarrassing for Al Assad when it is revealed how involved he was in supporting the Islamists in the opposition in order to split the Syrian National Council, which he did very successfully. Even in recent months, there have been reports that the Syrian government has been buying oil from Isil in order to give them some income. Al Assad’s worst nightmare would be a coherent and united secular opposition benefiting from American and Arab support so he has used the Islamists to avoid this fate. But he will have to dump any lingering links he has once the growing Iraqi and international military action against Isil starts to succeed.
