Syrians are in urgent need of our help

Syrians are in urgent need of our help Thirteen years ago I became refugee as result of the war that Milosevic was waging in the Balkans. I had lost many friends and hope for life. Only when NATO started to bomb military targets I got the hope back that one day peace will be restored. During that time, I learned many words of war terminology, but one that stayed in my mind was scorched earth, unlimited use of force that exterminates people. Only dictators can come up with such strategy and implement it mercilessly, they will never stop unless they are stopped by force. Use of chemical weapons only confirms that Bashar al-Assad must go otherwise he will not stop. Few months ago I went to Lebanon and Turkey and met Syrian refugees. The déjà vu of being a refugee haunted me. It reminded me again that being a refugee is not a term of only physical displacement; it erodes people’s dignity to the point of hating everyone and not understading how is it that the world can just sit and watch while thousands of people are killed, kids are murdered with chemical weapons, and millions are forced to become refugees? The Syrian conflict, or for that matter any conflict, is neither simple nor black and white. I also understand the consequences of taking military action to intervene in a conflict that there are so many external factors and parties are intertwined; every responsible act has its own consequences and so does not doing anything. To lead and claim leadership also means to act and make difficult decisions sometimes not even with clear ending. Globalization does not only imply absorbing and using global resources for ones needs. It means collective responsibility for maintain and respecting international conventions and treats, respect for human rights, rule of law and security. The world must not sit and watch innocent Syrian civilians being killed. It is embarrassing to see how leaders and public opinion are becoming immune of videos and pictures from Syria showing kids dying from use of chemical weapons and conventional military force, neither should be tolerated. Again, I understand there are interests, Russians do not want to lose control over seaports and a market for their weaponry and want to play again in the world league of important state actors perhaps claiming leadership of BRIC+, the West has different interests that come from Sykes-Picot agreement, Iranians have their own interest too, Turkey is dealing with their interest in the region and growing fears from the likely creation of Kurdistan in that part of the world. Everyone has some interest and others might take advantage of any situation, but the big question is: should these interests be achieved or maintained through killing innocent people of Syria? Isn’t there space for those interests to be negotiated and emulated in peaceful way? It is clear that UN is not capable of establishing useful path for ending the war. Both Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi tried while over 100 thousand people got killed during these attempts. And we have seen this in case of Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, there is no chance that UN Security Council will ever agree in a common position for joined action to stop the war anywhere in the world. This inability does not diminish the role of UN. It just proves how much reform is needed to make it a useful and decisive global governance institution. Maybe it will never be, but can the world afford to wait? Does that mean that wars and dictators can emerge every day and have free ride in killing innocent civilians and violate all international conventions? Here is the moment of disagreement with world peace and human rights activists that oppose military interventions, we cannot stand against the need for military action when the very same people we demand human rights for are being gassed and killed or are forced to leave their country. Intervening militarily in a foreign country it is the most unpopular and most undesirable decision to make for any president . It is especially for Obama, the president who has decided to pull US soldiers out from Iraq and Afghanistan. It is true he received the Nobel peace prize, but that will lose its meaning if he does not do anything to restore peace in Syria, if he turns blind eye to kids and women being killed there. The question that many ask is: why the US? The answer is simple- Who else? If it was not for Clinton administration’s actions in 90s, we would not be remembering one Srebrenica today where more than six thousand people got killed in one day, but many more. If it was not for Clinton Administration’s actions in ‘90s, we would not be talking for Palestinian refugees only but we would be talking about Kosovar Albanians spread all over the world as result of scorched earth scheme of Milosevic’s regime. It is clear that Europeans are in fear of their own action and NATO is losing ground as the only significant military power in the world due to difficult internal political decision making mechanisms. Let’s not fool ourselves; there is nobody else left except US. I do not think that Russia, the country that is imprisoning its own citizens and using everything in their power to silence any democratic voice, would suddenly stand up and care to fight for Syrian lives, even less when they are directly supporting and arming Assad. It is clear that latest move from Russians is to buy more time and to tactically make it more difficult for any strikes to be successful in hitting the right targets. Even bad weather can make it more difficult let alone moving targets or shielding military targets with civilian hostages to make the intervention look bad. It is the responsibility of democratic governments in the world and those who have invested so much in promoting human rights to stand together against aggressions and dictators in the world. If not now after more than 100 thousand lives lost and almost two millions refuges, with war gaining intensity and the growing risk for further radicalization and spill over in the region There is also huge potential for this war to become viable industry; and the intervention in the future will be even more unavoidable, more risky, and more expensive. It is time for Americans, Europeans, the new moderate Iran government, and Arab countries including Egypt to join forces to stop the war in Syria. This cannot be done through Geneva II alone. The process of getting parties to agree to sit around the negotiation table and reach peace agreement; it has to have the real power that can punish those who kill civilians and attempt to gain more territory to strengthen their positions. Unfortunately dictators understand only the language of military force and power. Nobody else wants that except dictators that are ready to kill their own people just to remain in power or to serve to the interests of their sponsors who have larger geopolitical interest. Can the mess be avoided after the intervention? First of all, the intervention cannot be looked at from the perspective of post intervention. Those are and should be treated as two separate phases. The intervention should serve to stop the war, full stop. What happens after is the issue of how, in practice the agreements reached during negotiations will be implemented. Often these agreements become side tracked to dysfunctional international missions often lead by United Nations and removing ownership from the hands of locals. Most of the time this is justified in the name of stability in the country. In fact, what happens is that UN and other international organizations rush into the country in the name of reconstruction and rebuilding the society, and end up trying to extend their role in order to keep their own organizations going and funded for as long as possible. Syria is known for its intellectual, and educated and secular population. This should be considered a strong argument for intervention, intervene before this capacity is lost to other countries or killed. This human capacity should be the basis of new programs for reconstruction and rebuilding Syrian society. An interim government for next three years lead by Syrians should be the primary focus of the agreement for reaching peace. This interim government should be charged with supporting and legitimizing structures from village councils to municipal and national representatives. In three years this process should produce a constitution that is adopted by the representatives that are drawn from the direct will and vote of citizens of Syria. Only after this, should elections be scheduled based on that constitution. Having elections before a constitution is adopted, it will guarantee legitimization and empowerment of warlords and people who had profited from war and post war trade and relationships with international community representatives. There is little to no place for citizen voice to be heard. In this scenario no rule of law and no legitimate institutions will be created and the economy and trade will fall in hands of criminal structures. This process will be hard to be reversed and it will disappoint Syrians in long run. The new Syrian society should emerge from the will of the people and not from an imposed and internationally steered processes. International assigned body should only be there for three years to guarantee and support the implementation of peace agreement and condition international aid. The international community and its efforts to support Syria should be fully coordinated and controlled by Syrian led institutions and or interim government. Local Civil Society organizations should be directly supported to demand accountability and transparency from interim government and support rebuilding the new Syria. There is enough expertise around the world on how to do this right and not deploy needless consultants and create organizations that are donor driven and detached from reality and primary focus of work. UN and its agencies should not have a role as leading organizations, if at all, they should be coordinated and directed by ministries and their priority agendas with strong accountability mechanism build within the mission. Syrians should be able to pick up the model and the country after which they can construct. The Syrian agenda by should be articulated by Syrian people grounded in Syrian context and ownership. Any other scenario leads to Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Haiti and other failed international post conflict reconstruction missions but the military intervention to stop the war and killings cannot be blamed for failures in post conflict interventions Haki Abazi

Syrians need our support