As
the UN mission to rid Syria of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons stockpiles
goes off with only minor hiccups — so far — one can’t help but ask the question, “If it
works, what happens next?”
The
answer: Business as usual, which means more killing, possibly to a higher
degree, and an emboldened rebel movement that finds itself on a increasingly
equal battlefield with its adversary.
But
while the UN mission continues, a bloody civil war rages on around it. Although
the timeline of casualties is a tough statistic to nail down, estimates from
multiple sources show similar trends in scale, with August of last year being
the deadliest month on record, and the numbers remaining relatively steady ever
since.
Source: New
York Times
Prospects
for coming peace talks don’t look good. While Syria’s Deputy Prime Minister
Qadri Jamil has voiced his support for talks between the regime and the rebel
leadership in Geneva on November 23, the rebels aren’t interested. It is also doubtful
that the seeming olive branch being extended by the government is anything more
than political posturing with no real intent to form any agreement.
Whatever
happens November 23, Syria’s future is dim. The country has literally been
destroyed not just physically, but economically as well, with little hope for
the country’s massive young population to find work once the conflict ends. The
war has wasted an entire generation of young people that could have contributed
to the country’s future, and the loss of human capital in total caused by
bloodshed is incalculable.
Compounding
Syria’s torment is the rash of international sanctions leveled against the
country that make it almost impossible to carry out trade even if violence were
to cease. The export of Syria’s most important economic lifelines, such as
petroleum products, minerals, and crude oil, has come to a grinding halt.
Syria’s
political future is uncertain. No one can imagine Syria with Bashar al-Assad at
the helm after the war ends, but if the country breaks into fiefdoms as some
have maintained as a possibility, Assad could end up retaining limited
power over a set territory. This leaves the rest of the country to determine
its own political future, and the new makeup of such an economy may find itself
mirroring the dysfunction of Israel and the way it handles the Occupied Territories.
Another
worry of many in the international community is the possibility of sectarian
massacres after the fighting stops. Shiites have become targets in and outside
of the country as the war fuels tension between the two main Muslim sects.
Iraqi violence is peaking again, with bombing after bombing targeted at Shiites in the country.
And
what if the UN’s lofty goal of seizing all of Syria’s chemical weapons fails?
After all, it isn’t difficult to imagine extremists killing weapons inspectors
in a suicide attack, thus miring foreign nations in the conflict on a much more
dangerous level. Should this happen, the international community will
essentially end up back at square one, with the Obama administration having to
go back to Congress, Russia, and hopefully Iran to work out further agreements.
But if no consensus is realized, it seems likely that President Obama may act
on his own and authorize the Pentagon to carry out the strikes he originally
planned months ago.
That
is the nightmare scenario: a situation where all of the diplomatic progress the
international community has built with Iran crumbles, Russia and the U.S.
potentially enter a covert proxy war in the country against one another, and
Syria is even less secure than it previously was.
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Joseph graduated with a Master of
Science in international relations from the University of Massachusetts Boston
and was an intern at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, DC.
He completed his BA at Arizona State University in ...
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