Translated material
Why the world manifests a variety of patience with Gaddafi and Assad
Katherine Ashton: Our today's message is very clear. Stop violence, respect human rights and conduct deep reforms that people ask for. Change the course and answer the aspirations and needs of people.
Irina Lagunina: According to human rights organizations, more than 850 people died over the past two months in Syria in clashes with the army and security forces. Will the sanctions be effective? Sweden Foreign Minister Karl Bildt in an interview with our correspondent in Brussels expressed doubt.
Karl Bildt: It's hard to say. This is a tool that is at our disposal, and we use it, giving sanctions more and more tough. Will they be effective? We hope, but this is the only mechanism that we have.
Irina Lagunina: The turbulent events in the Middle East and Washington’s Middle Eastern policy remain the subject of acute controversy in the United States. These disputes became even more lively after the president’s programmatic speech. The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to her on Monday, again emphasizing that President Bashar al-Asada has a chance.
Hillary Clinton: President Assad has a choice: he can stand at the head of the transition to democracy, as asked by the Syrian people, or he can, as President Obama said on Thursday, leave the road. But no doubt, if he does not lead the reform process, his regime will face more and more stringent pressure and isolation.
Irina Lagunina: The New York Council on International Relations recently held a television conference with the participation of leading experts dedicated to an international reaction to what is happening in the Middle East. Says Vladimir Abarinov.
Vladimir Abarinov: The discussion began with the fact that its moderator, editor of Forin Affers magazine Gideon Rose, asked the participants to comment on recent events on the Israeli borders. Tony Badran, an employee of the fund in defense of democracy, answered the first.
Tony Badran: in New York Times recently there was an exclusive interview with Rami Mahluf, cousin Bashar al-Assad, who is often called a “private person”, but who is actually the economic power of the Syrian regime. He expressed an unambiguous threat - said that Israel should maintain the stability of the regime in Syria, since its stability means Israel's stability. And two or three days after that, the Syrians opened the gateways: they put Palestinians from the Palestinians from refugee camps, among whom Syrian intelligence officers were closed, and brought them to the Israeli border to show Israel what he would encounter if something happens to the Syrian regime.
This action was coordinated with the action in the south of Lebanon, which was under the control of Hezbollah, in cities that are controlled by Hezbollah. There, too, Palestinians on buses were taken to the border in order to convey the same message. The Lebanese army scattered them. They shot in the air, but maybe they got into someone. In any case, they were sent back, kept on the border. The idea, in fact, was to clearly make it clear to the Israelis and the whole world: if you really press us with their backs against the wall, then what should you expect.
Vladimir Abarinov: The commentary of Tony Badran is supplemented by Stephen Cook, an employee of the Council on International Relations and an eyewitness to the revolution in Egypt.
Stephen Cook: There is every reason to believe that the Assad regime in coordination with Hezbollah and other groups seeks to weaken the pressure on Syria, warming the theme of solidarity with the Palestinians, especially on the day when the Palestinians celebrate the proclamation of the Israeli state.
If you go to Egypt now, there the dynamics are completely different. There is no longer a regime who is trying to manipulate his own people to redirect pressure. But those same activists and revolutionaries who took to the streets after acute inter -religious clashes with a call for national unity also demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinian people. And I think there is tremendous pressure in favor of a change in the current status of the CVO in Egyptian-Israeli relations.
There is nothing unexpected in this, as there is nothing unexpected in the tactics of Assad. The Egyptian opposition was the opposition of the Mubarak regime, and the strategic partners of this regime were Israel and the United States. This situation was fundamentally changed, because it contradicts the national interests of Egypt.
Vladimir Abarinov: In his next question, Steve Kuk Gideon Rose mentions the biblical plot of the flight of Jews from Egypt.
Gideon Rose: It seems that this time Israel is on the side
Pharaoh, not the people requiring him to let him go. Israel is more convenient to deal with the reliability of authoritarianism than with popular uprisings?
Stephen Cook: That's right. I think this is obvious. If you return during the years of the presidency of Bush, then such a person as Nathan Scharansky - an Israeli politician of Russian origin, who advocated democracy in the region - he was an anomaly in Israeli politics. The establishment of foreign policy and national security are realists to the brain of bones, considering any democratic changes in the Arab world a potential threat, because they can lead to power forces hostile to Israel, primarily Islamists.
It is no secret that the Israelis saw strategic value in Hosnie Mubarak. Of course, they did not have love for Assad, but Assad was predictable, he maintained order on the border and therefore inspired the confidence that one could deal with him. So in Israel there is no special enthusiasm about the possible collapse of these regimes.
Vladimir Abarinov: Tony Badran objects to a colleague - he does not consider the situation so straightforward.
Tony Badran: I would partly argue with this opinion. There is such a theory, especially in the Arab press, and this is already a well -established look that the reason for the stability of the Syrian regime is that Israel protects it. I think this is at least an exaggeration.
Vladimir Abarinov: To prove his point of view, Tony Badran referred to the statements of some prominent Israeli politicians who warn about the threat coming from the Assad regime. Stephen Cook, however, believes that these statements do not change the overall picture.
Stephen Cook: I do not think at all that the Assad regime remains in power thanks to the Israelis. But I think that such changes greatly nervous Israelis. Yes, Israeli officials make some statements. But they do not lead to a fundamental break in Israel with the old order. I think they are still deeply concerned about what is happening. Over time, they may begin to bet on other scenarios. But their first motivation, given how much they invested in Assad, was and to a large extent the desire not to drown the Assad regime.
Vladimir Abarinov: We were talking about the Middle East policy of the Barack Obama administration. According to Gideon Rose, a double standard is manifested in it in relation to various, but equally repressive regimes. Stephen Cook agrees.
Gideon Rose: Now let's look at Washington, Steve. Two months ago, the United States, together with Britain and France, began a military operation in Libya - it seems to be with the aim of protecting the civilian population from the atrocities of the regime. At least 800 Syrians were killed by Assada, 10 times more imprisoned or disappeared, and so far no one has yet been outraged. Why do the United States and the West as a whole relate to the population of countries that they do not like, better than to the population of their actual allies?
Stephen Cook: This is an amazing question that I have no answer to. The administration definitely created a precedent with its actions in Libya. I believe that at that moment the excessively optimistic confidence reigned that NATO’s military-air power would make Gaddafi leave relatively quickly. And this is one of the reasons why the administration does not want to do at least something in relation to another terrible regime.
It seems that the administration misses what seems to me a magnificent strategic opportunity - the opportunity to bring the end of the Assad regime closer, which if it does not solve some other strategic tasks in the region, then at least significantly promoting their solution. For example, the problem of Iran isolation. It is Syria who plays the role of the main coordination center, through which the Iranians participate in Arab politics and are trying to influence the region’s position for their malicious purposes. I have no reason to believe that any regime in Syria, which will replace the Assad regime, want to maintain a strategic partnership with Iran.
It amazes me. Perhaps the administration knows something that we all do not know, but it seems completely obvious that, unlike the departure of Gaddafi, Assad’s departure will bring real strategic benefits. Perhaps they are held by hope for the resumption of the peace process. I cannot imagine that someone believes in it. I can’t imagine that someone believed that Assad is a reformer. Perhaps this is one of the cases when the administration believes the signals from Ankara, which is looking for a scenario for solving the Syrian problem in which Assad carries out reforms and remains in power. But I believe that this is outside of any probability.
Both I and others are lost in conjectures why the administration is so slow and why it, despite its sharp statements about violence in Syria, does so little in order to solve the problem seriously.
Vladimir Abarinov: Tony Badran considers such a policy to be a short -sighted and ultimately illusory.
Tony Badran: Listen, but this is the main idea of American politics regarding not only Syria, but the entire region. It can be formulated in three catchy words. The first is the “interaction”, the second is the “peaceful process” and the third is the “restraint of Iran”. Therefore, you should interact with the Syrians, involve them in the peace process and repel them from Iran. And this was the essence of the whole policy over the past two years. And this is what determined the attitude to the Iranian "green movement" in 2009. This was clearly stated. It was not with his hand to support him, because it would damage the prospects of interaction with the Iranian regime. It is felt to this day - it is not by chance that the Secretary of State Clinton called Assad a reformer. She repeated it twice in May - that there is still an opportunity for reforms and so on, and the like. As I put it in one of my articles, it looks like a victory of hope over reality. This is an illusory position.
Vladimir Abarinov: Why did American experts see the beginning of the Arab revolutions? According to Steven Cook, they were captured by an erroneous idea of the sustainability of the authoritarian regimes of the region and paid little attention to deep social processes.
Stephen Cook: I think there are a number of problems that have been faced with analysts studying the region - both representatives of academic circles and government experts. One of them is that we owned the past, the idea that the future is predetermined by the past. Mubaraku and his predecessors - Sadatu, Naser - for years managed to get out of crises. The defeat in the war, rebellions, attempts, economic underdevelopment - all this was supposed to put the regime in a dangerous position, but this never happened. So, in my opinion, analysts believed that the institutions of authoritarianism in these countries are stronger and more flexible than we thought. They were dissimilar to the old regimes of Eastern Europe. Another problem - in my opinion, we were too carried away by the regime policy and did not pay attention to what is happening in society.
Vladimir Abarinov: Unlike neighboring countries, in Saudi Arabia, according to Stephen Cook, there is no social potential for the coup from below.