US-led allies weigh their options

Beirut: Washington has warned Syrian President Bashar Al Assad that his days are numbered, but it now faces the vexing problem of how to dislodge a defiant leader intent on snuffing out the 11-month old uprising against him.

One option increasingly under consideration is arming the rebels; another is to just look the other way should its Arab Gulf allies do so.

On Tuesday, the Obama administration said it would not support giving weapons to the Syrian opposition — for now, at least — despite calls from some congressional leaders to do so. Washington said its current focus is to organise a "contact group" to build stronger ties with the Syrian opposition and pressure Al Assad with tightened economic sanctions.

But diplomats acknowledge privately that although this effort has value, it is likely to have limited impact even as the Syrian death toll continues to rise. Meanwhile, Al Assad stood his ground on Tuesday, welcoming Russia's foreign minister to Damascus.

Pro-government demonstrations took place in the country's two biggest cities, ostensibly staged to thank Russia and China for their weekend veto of a UN Security Council proposal calling on him to cede power.

Faced with limited options, Western powers and their Arab League allies have begun "trying to decide what to do about support for the armed opposition", said Andrew Tabler, a longtime Syria analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "This discussion is going to suck everybody in."

Syria's singular geopolitical importance renders the outcome of its rebellion potentially more disruptive than that of other "Arab Spring" upheavals. Syria borders Israel, wields great influence in Lebanon and is a patron of the Islamic militant group Hezbollah.

Not isolated

Perhaps most critically, Syria is not isolated. One key ally is Iran, which is suspected of seeking nuclear arms capabilities while locked in a bruising battle for dominance with others in the region.

The Syrian government also has support from neighbours Iraq and Lebanon. As such, an armed struggle to oust Al Assad is likely to be protracted and bloody, with nasty sectarian overtones, analysts say. It could also involve alliances with militants and others whose view of a future Syrian society may be directly at odds with the concept of a Jeffersonian democracy.

Experts foresee the possibility of a long-term proxy war, with outside funding for arms for Syrian rebels in an updated version of the 1980s battle for Afghanistan.

The fight for Syria has already revived a Cold War trope: Russia backs and arms the government in Damascus, whose ouster is sought by Washington and its allies in Europe, the Arab world and Turkey, an emerging regional powerhouse that has turned on Al Assad.

"In Syria you have three layers: a global struggle, a regional struggle and an internal struggle," said Rami Khoury, director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

Sectarian subtext

Syria's sectarian subtext — a majority Sunni population seeking to free itself from the yoke of Al Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam — raises disturbing comparisons to the bloody sectarian warfare that consumed neighbours Iraq and Lebanon.

Minorities, including Alawites and Christians, are terrified that an intolerant, Muslim Brotherhood-led government would emerge from the ashes of the Syrian regime led by the Al Assad family for four decades.

So far, US, European and Arab states have endorsed an expansion of the approach of squeezing Al Assad via non-lethal means: by toughening economic sanctions, bolstering overtures to the fractious Syrian opposition and seeking to broaden Syria's diplomatic isolation.

US officials say they have no immediate plans to provide security aid to the Syrian rebels but are taking no option off the table.

"We are not considering that step right now," Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said on Tuesday. But diplomats acknowledge privately that the non-military strategy is likely to only alter Al Assad's behaviour slowly at best, even as the body count from his crackdown on dissent continues to rise.

Thus, the question of whether to provide intelligence help, arms and money to rebels is assuming a growing urgency. Among the voices calling for a tougher approach against Al Assad on Tuesday was US Senator John McCain.

"We should start considering all options, including arming the opposition," said the 2008 presidential candidate. "The bloodletting has got to stop."

Whether arming the opposition would increase or reduce bloodshed, however, remains unclear. Advocates for military aid say, whether the West likes it or not, the fight is lurching towards civil war and defeat of the insurgents would squander the strategic gains made by the opposition.

— Los Angeles Times