Syrian civil war spills into Lebanon

The Middle East is running out of places that are not on fire and Israel won’t be able to avoid the flames forever.

By AARON HECHT
Syrian civil war spills into Lebanon (photo credit: Reuters)
Syrian civil war spills into Lebanon
(photo credit: Reuters)
Over the past one-and-a-half years, the uprising against Syrian president Bashar Assad has spiraled downward into an outright civil war, claiming as many as 15,000 lives and displacing tens of thousands.
The consequences of this conflict could be grave for the entire region, especially if the Assad regime loses control of its chemical and biological weapons or the fighting spills over into Lebanon, as is now starting to occur.
With mass murder transpiring before our eyes, many are calling for foreign intervention on moral grounds and to prevent the conflict from spreading. But most Western governments are extremely reluctant to intervene militarily as in Libya, even while Iran, Hezbollah, Russia and China provide Damascus with weapons, armed fighters and diplomatic cover to varying degrees.
Thus various security experts, including the IDF intelligence branch, have forecast that the Syrian regime will likely hold out into 2013, all the while bludgeoning the opposition. Yet most assessments predict Assad will eventually fall, giving way to an uncertain outcome.
Condemnation has been almost universal of the Assad regime’s brutal tactics, which in recent weeks have included massacres in Houla, Homs and other Syrian cities. Hundreds of civilians have been murdered in heavy artillery barrages by the regular army and by the guns and knives of allied Shabihah militiamen. As a result, nearly every Western capital has expelled all Syrian envoys.
The recent escalation came after international envoy Kofi Annan led a diplomatic push for a negotiated end to the violence, and Damascus grudgingly accepted a contingent of UN observers.
But Annan’s truce terms have been ignored by both sides and the UN observers are now confined to their quarters after being repeatedly threatened and attacked, mostly by pro- Assad forces, while on patrols.
One key reason why Annan’s peace mission failed and the clashes intensified was that Saudi Arabia led a successful effort to arm the rebel Free Syrian Army with guns, RPGs and anti-tank rockets via Turkey. In response, Syrian forces began openly shelling rebel strongholds, while also deploying helicopter gunships to strike rebel forces.
Watching the carnage across the border with increasing concern, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told his cabinet in early June that “what is happening in Syria [is] civilians are simply being slaughtered. We see the horrifying pictures of children and the elderly. This is a slaughter that is being perpetrated not only by the Syrian government. Iran and Hezbollah are helping it, and today the world needs to see this axis of evil... Everyone should understand the environment we live in.”
“Syria has the world’s largest arsenal of chemical weapons, along with rockets and missiles that can reach all of Israel.
They also cooperate with the terrorist organization Hezbollah and Iran.
Unfortunately, we are slowly returning to the reality of an existential war, a ritual that has spanned generations. Those Syrians who do that to their own people will do the same thing to us if they get the chance,” warned IDF deputy Chief-of- Staff Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh.
Western leaders share Israel’s concerns that Syria’s stockpile of chemical and biological weapons may fall into the hands of terrorists, that rebel ranks inside Syria are increasingly filled with Islamic jihadists, and that Syrian refugees flooding into neighboring countries could destabilize the region. Fears are also materializing that Syria’s civil war could also spill over into Lebanon and reignite the savage 15-year civil war fought between its Sunni, Shi’ite, Christian and Druse sects. Since late April, signs of the Syrian firefight jumping the border have been on the rise.
In Tripoli, gunfights broke out between Sunni gunmen and a small Alawite militia linked to the same ruling minority sect in Syria. The violence quickly spread to Beirut, where sporadic street clashes continued for weeks.
Lebanon’s army, normally a unifying element in the country, found itself taking sides in the fight almost against its will. At a northern checkpoint, two Sunni clerics opposed to Assad were killed by a soldier. Sunni riots then broke out, leading to the deaths of several troops.
To make matters worse, incidents of hostage-taking are cropping up on both sides of the border.
“There is now... a real threat of the conflict spilling over into Lebanon,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cautioned recently. “Given the history and ethnic and religious make-up of the population, and the principles on which the Lebanese state is based, it could end very badly.”
The situation has been further exacerbated by reports that Hezbollah has sent hundreds of militiamen into Syria to help Assad suppress the revolt, enraging Sunnis in Lebanon, Jordan and the Gulf oil states. This, in part, prompted the recent Saudi-led arm shipments to rebel forces inside Syria.
In the Arab world, which is 85 percent Sunni, the reputation of Hezbollah has been severely tarnished of late. Widely seen as a champion not so long ago for standing up to Israel in the 2006 Second Lebanon War, the group is now viewed as one of Assad’s last props and an errand boy for Iran.
Meanwhile, large numbers of Syrian refugees in Lebanon are attempting to buy weapons, receive training and head back into Syria to continue the struggle to topple Assad.
“We are entering a phase of protracted instability in Lebanon. There is no direct way in which these events will be fully contained,” assessed Eurasia Group analyst Ayham Kamel.
Meanwhile, a recent report by the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood also has been behind the strengthening of the rebel movement inside Syria. Namely, the Brotherhood has solicited fatwas from Muslim clerics endorsing the use of force against Assad and even offering generous sums for his capture, while helping finance and arm the Syrian opposition.
Given the recurrent turmoil in Egypt and other parts of the region in the wake of the Arab Spring, one Israeli analyst quipped, “We are running out of places in the Middle East which are not on fire.We won’t be able to avoid the flames forever.”
The dangers to Israel and the world are real, yet Western leaders remain reluctant to intervene militarily in Syria as occurred in Libya. The Arab League recently tabled a draft resolution in the Security Council which would authorize the potential use of force against Syria under Article 7 of the UN Charter. That is unlikely to pass soon, but calls are increasing in the US and Europe to at least arm the opposition forces.
While intervention is seen as a humane alternative to the current bloodbath, Mideast scholar Dr. Daniel Pipes has come out against it on merely humanitarian grounds, arguing that the rebels have committed atrocities as well, Western democracies are loathe to take on another protracted military mission in the Middle East, and the successors to Assad’s totalitarian rule may turn out even worse.
“Sooner or later, after Assad and his lovely wife decamp, Islamists will likely seize power, Sunnis will take vengeance, and regional tensions will play out within Syria,” Pipes concluded in a recent op-ed for The Washington Times.
However, former Bush White House security adviser Elliott Abrams contends that the US and other Western powers should be arming the opposition forces in Syria. In a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post, Abrams said that while the humanitarian imperative for bringing down Assad was obvious, the strategic case was equally clear and strong.
Abrams said an outcome whereby Assad remained in power would send the completely wrong message to every authoritarian leader in the region – that by using brute force you can avoid the fate of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak.
On the other hand, he explained, the collapse of the Assad regime would pull Iran and Hezbollah down a peg.
Abrams added he was not worried that jihadist elements would take control of post- Assad Syria, partly because those now involved in the struggle are not Syrians.