Assad regime can only be shot down with bullets

Given my experience as part of the mission of observers sent by the Arab League on 25 December 2011, after signing a protocol between Bashar Al-Assad’s government and Nabil Elaraby’s General Secretariat in Cairo on 19 December 2011, I can confirm that Al-Assad’s regime does not and will not understand anything other than bullets. This is something we must acknowledge and portray to the world, especially those counting on reaching a political solution with the murderous Bashar Al-Assad, who is being backed by other killers in other capitals, including Tehran and Moscow.

The Arab League mission entered Syria under different circumstances than those faced by Syria today. The current crisis in Syria has gone beyond all imaginable levels of international crime committed against a helpless and defenceless nation who called for their rights, freedoms and dignity as humans. These are the main rights guaranteed and stipulated by all international covenants, laws and legislations.

Al-Assad’s regime could have taken advantage of the mission being in the country to rescue Syria from the horrible consequences that I predicted in the resignation letter that I published on 6 January 2012. If Al-Assad had done so at the time, he would have been a partner in the government and the country wouldn’t be in the situation we are witnessing today, drowning in the swamps of bloodshed and destruction.

However, Bashar Al-Assad only accepted the entry of the observer mission in order for the observers to act as foreign witnesses that legitimise his security options and give him the green light for his early wager of the so-called “war on terror.”

Since the beginning of the Syrian revolution, Bashar Al-Assad’s regime and its allies have been planning on drowning the country in the quagmire of the international war on terror. They had accused the rebels of being affiliated with extremist organisations, including Al-Qaeda, among others. When they felt that this will not and has not worked, due to the fact that the rebels used their cameras to defeat the regime’s accusations and published the citizens’ peaceful demonstrations in which they sang and chanted for freedom and dignity, the regime resorted to another option. It chose the option of releasing extremists from its prisons and cooperating on an intelligence level with Nouri Al-Maliki’s government and Hezbollah under the auspices of the Iranian intelligence in Beirut. The Syrian regime also worked on strengthening the organisation that was known at the time as the “Islamic State in Iraq”, as the escape of over 2,000 dangerous fighters from prisons to Iraq was facilitated, while the protection on the Iraqi-Syrian borders was removed. Therefore, the regime officially helped with the birth of the “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant”, which has been abbreviated to Daesh.

Matters did not stop there. While the popular revolution against Al-Assad’s regime continued, the Iraqi government resorted to facilitating the fall of Mosul, which contained over 30,000 state soldiers armed with the most advanced heavy artillery American weapons, who fled in the face of less than 10,000 Daesh fighters armed with lightweight weapons. Hence, Daesh was able to seize billions of dollars, tonnes of gold and heavy artillery weapons that transformed the organisation from a simple and small organisation that can be easily eliminated to a state that extends from Mosul to Raqqa – the size of Great Britain. The organisation has turned into a bogeyman that has affected a number of regional and international considerations.

Therefore, it is unconceivable for the same person who committed such acts that threaten international peace and security and who killed many of his citizens, reaching the point of using chemical weapons against them in heinous massacres that targeted new born babies in the middle of the night, to respond to political solutions. He is also not expected to sit at the negotiating table with those who he sees as nothing more than terrorists whose descendants must be exterminated.

During my time in the observer mission, I tried as must as possible to contribute to the formulation of ideas to resolve the escalating crisis by means of the meetings with senior officials in the Syrian regime, including General Asef Shawkat, Interior Minister Mohammad Al-Shaar, Major General Ali Mamlouk, Maj. Gen. Ghassan Abdel Aal, and other officials. However, all they talked about was the security and military options against terrorism. At that time, there were only a few soldiers amongst the civilian rebels who refused to kill civilians and therefore left the regime’s army. These soldiers insisted on protecting the demonstrators from snipers or the gangs of “shabiha” located in some neighbourhoods who snuck into people’s homes and committed unimaginable acts of looting, murder and rape.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, Al-Assad’s regime has tried to buy time any way possible. This is what he did with the Arab League observers and then with the UN observers. The regime continues to do the same with the consecutive international envoys as well, since Kofi Annan, continuing to Lakhdar Brahimi and de Mistura. The regime will continue to do the same with all subsequent envoys who will all be destined to failure and resignation because the UN policy is like trying to sew iron with a cloth needle.

The main problem in the international community lies in its misconception of the nature of what is happening in Syria. The initiatives for dialogue and the political solution between the regime and the opposition should occur when the dispute or conflict is over who will govern. However what is occurring in Syria is a war of extermination waged by Al-Assad’s regime against the Syrian people who demanded self-determination, just like any other nation in the world, whose rights are guaranteed by international laws and charters.

Syria is now occupied by Iran with the military support of Russia. The Syrian people are resisting in order to liberate their country and they are facing genocide while they remain defenceless. This is because the world, which claims to support the right of self-determination, is depriving them of weapons.

This is the truth that the international community must deal with if it truly wants to resolve this crisis, which will dismantle the region and will have severe repercussions and consequences on world peace that will certainly affect everyone, not just the Arab and Muslim countries. This is evidenced by the terrorist operations carried out in Paris and Brussels that were adopted by Daesh, which was created by the Iranian intelligence and supported by Al-Assad’s regime.

There is no such thing as the Syrian president or an existing ruling government for the Syrian people to negotiate with. What there is now is an Iranian occupation militarily supported by Russia and the Syrian people have every right to resist by all means available to them.

The Iranian and Russian occupiers continue to promote the proposal made by Al-Assad’s regime in order to distance themselves from accusations of occupation. This is because this basis will change a number of scales and balances in the region and will result in a deadly blow to Tehran’s project. It will also address the issue of the presence of other militias in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq and will inevitably lead to the issue of Iran’s occupation of Arab areas.

All of the available data suggests that Al-Assad’s regime is merely a facade to cover up and justify the official occupation of Syria. Relying on dialogue with a façade, without the inclusion of the true occupiers, is nothing more than overlooking the truth, and this will only prolong the tragedy and increase the brutality of the occupiers.

Bashar Al-Assad’s regime only believes in the military solution, and no other solution can be used. Invaders do not leave the countries they have occupied with flowers; they leave only with bullets. Anyone claiming otherwise is against the revolution to liberate Syria from the grips of a foreign occupation, regardless of whether they say they are on the Syrian people’s side or that they are opposed to Iran’s destructive project.

Those who represent the Syrian revolution must publically distance themselves from the term “opposition” which international and regional parties are insisting on describing them as. They must declare a liberation movement in Syria against the Iranian occupier that is backed by Russia. Without doing so, the Geneva talks will remain a stage for international intervention that serves the occupation, which is regrettably at the expense of the lives of millions of Syrians who are being killed, displaced, tortured and kidnapped before the eyes of the entire world.

Last but not least, I would like to end by saying that those relying on reaching a political solution with Al-Assad’s regime are like those relying on treating men diagnosed with AIDS with birth control pills. This regime only believes in murder and genocide and the proof lies in what is currently happening in Aleppo, which is under the fire of explosive barrels and heavy artillery at the hands of Al-Assad’s forces and the forces of his Russian ally Putin. Unfortunately, this is occurring at a time when the UN special envoy is leading marathon tours in the Swiss capital city of human rights.

Translated from AlKhaleejOnline, 1 May 2016

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.