Do-or-Die Time for al-Sharaa and Syria

Photo by © Vyacheslav Argenberg / http://www.vascoplanet.com/, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

“The United States condemns the radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis, that [have] murdered people in western Syria in recent days. The United States stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities, and offers its condolences to the victims and their families. Syria’s interim authorities must hold the perpetrators of these massacres against Syria’s minority communities accountable.” – United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio

This boilerplate statement has rendered ire and adulation for the new Secretary of State, not because it was brave and bold but because it was present.

Reports of 800 dead in the port city of Tartus, Syria on the Mediterranean Coast have dominated social media all day Sunday. Bashar Assad loyalists, who were Alawite, attacked Sunnis affiliated with the transitional government in Damascus, controlled by the Islamist democrats, HTS. Fighters loyal to the HTS launched a ferocious counterattack against Assad’s ethnic minority kinsmen, the Alawites.

The HTS reminded the world of who they could be on the battlefield. All rules of civilized or recognized warfare were abandoned. Human rights were violated with the blasé thought of a selfie next to a person sleeping on the metro. War, and its sober reminder of the human condition, was on full display and farmed out for smut clicks.

The controversy of Rubio’s statement has more to do with the strong emotions tied to Syria, the hope and the fear. The hopes of Western, Gulf State and regional boosters were dashed when the violence started. This was the fear many in the West and the region had when the revolution toppled Assad in a tidy 12 days.

Now the day is here when the good-time vibes of the holidays and new Revolution have turned into the reality of the monumental task ahead for a young and confused Syria. Realistic observers, such as Tablet’s Tony Badran, were quick to point out that the minorities attacked in Tartus had much more to do with the Captagon drug trade and Russians wanting their port returned than the ethnicity of those first attacked. The Alawite community in Tartus had long been a favored community of the Assad regime and had long-standing bad blood with every faction opposing Assad during the 12-year war.

Some journalists were correct to explain that this community had ties to Hezzbolah and the IRGC with intimate knowledge of smuggling routes for drugs, weapons, and humans. Other observers are correct in asserting that the battlefield methods were a part of the score settling that is still sure to raise its head again, as the transition is still in its conception. Some have said, unfairly, this is just the way the region operates, and it can’t be changed, but that seems jaded. After all, what was 12 years of war for, just to have more?

What is expected by less hopeful observers like the Secretary of State is accountability for the perpetrators involved. That requires al-Sharaa, the de facto leader of Syria, to assert his considerable reputation and authority over the crisis. In short, be a leader. He has touted his organization of the judiciary in Syria, even leaving women judges in place, going against the more conservative pockets of his coalition. Now, he must enforce the process.

This not only is important to the gravity of the here and now. It is ultimately about the safety, stability, and security of innocent Syrians but it’s also about the optics abroad. That is what Syrians, the world, and Marco Rubio is looking to see out of al-Sharaa. Syria is in a fishbowl and all gazes are fixed. He has to be the hard case he once was described as in his days of Jabat al Nusra. He has changed from student to jihadi to freedom fighter to a president and now he must morph into the chief law enforcement officer.

The United States condemns the radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis, that have murdered people in western Syria in recent days. The United States stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities, and offers its condolences to the victims and their families. Syria’s interim authorities must hold the perpetrators of these massacres against Syria’s minority communities accountable.

For Rubio, his statement was for all of Syria. He is correct in saying that minorities have been harassed, molested, and abused since the Revolution began. It has been in isolated pockets for individuals and the ethnic “issues” are old grievances that go back to the Cold War. Those larger conflicts, the Kurds in the east and Druze near the Golan Heights, are a surprising part of Syria. While clashes occur, they do not interrupt the day-to-day lives of Syrian civilians.

So it is that audience Rubio is speaking to with brevity. It is a good reminder to all to not take advantage of the chaos and risk involving Americans who want to leave. It was needed as the SNA and SDF clashed in two areas while the Druze communities were away from the fray.

The truth is anything except that boilerplate statement would have been misread and distorted through the lenses of opportunism and bias. The factions fighting do not care what Rubio has to say in the slightest. Their concern is with their immediate command.

Those fighting in Tartus are not interested in statements from diplomats. They are men of low character and high violence who do not recognize the norms, laws and faith that hold their own community together — for a myriad of reasons. They do not abide by laws as written down. They must be compelled by process and, if need be, force. al-Sharaa has to go be a cop.

This is a precarious situation for al-Sharaa. If he can’t bring order to the chaos, then what is the point of risking an international airport in the hands of a former Al Qaeda commander? There is no reward to this risk for Rubio and the US.

al-Sharaa does not support Russia back in Tartus. Israel does not want Al Qaeda or Turkey to have the port, they prefer Russia. The United States just wants quiet. That could come in the form of a pivot to a European presence in the port to assist in peacekeeping.

This is why it is likely do-or-die for Syria if this conflict spreads. He’s consulting with neighbors Turkey, Iraq and Jordan, which is good. That’s what governments do in times of crisis. But this has to absolutely be al-Sharaa’s execution and resolution of legal authority in Syria. It is a must. Knowing President Donald Trump’s pattern of impulsiveness — he could get the notion to use the port as leverage in some other negotiation and have the US anchor in Tartus.

And that is where al-Sharaa does not want to be.