Trapped In Hell

"Tell the world we are trapped and living in hell. We need to be saved."

The world hears. The world has been watching. And those who express those sentiments are well known to wish the international community to haul itself under the auspices of the United Nations to move beyond sanctions to direct action. There is, after all, the precedent set by NATO, under a UN mandate, becoming actively involved in the Libyan conflict of protesters overturning the Gadhafi regime.

Like Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Moammar Gadhafi too insisted that Islamists, terrorists, al-Qaeda, and foreign interests were all involved in unsettling the order of his country, and that his people loved and respected him and wished him to continue ruling as a gentle tyrant. He is now dead, ghoulishly murdered at the hands of Libyans. Whose tribal instinct led them to dispatch a rival tribe's dictator over them, and who now mete out torture to those who inflicted it upon them.

A recent poll of Syrians by a neutral agency was surprised to learn that approximately 55% of Syrians would prefer the current al-Assad regime to continue. That is the express wish of the percentage that supports their president. Validating what Bashar al-Assad continues to claim, like Gadhafi before him, that he is beloved and trusted by his people. Admittedly not all his people, certainly not those who have formed the ranks of the protest movement.

The Alawite Shia regime is supremely confident that God is on their side. The Sunni majority know equally well that God supports them, not their oppressors, for God is just and mighty and His will be done. The protesters are being provided with weapons by outside sources through Turkey. And the regime's military forces, equipped with tanks, armoured personnel carriers and anti-aircraft guns have moved in to re-take the suburbs of Damascus and Homs, Hama and other cities from the rebels.

The thousands of Sunni military personnel who have defected have been trained well, as once being part of al-Assad's troops, albeit no longer loyal to his vision of the country. They have successfully mounted attacks against his loyal troops, adding to the chaos and the carnage that will invariably, inevitably lead to all-out and prolonged civil war. While the Arab League condemns their member-country and its leader.

And while the Arab League is resolute in its denunciation of Bashar al-Assad, its resoluteness does not extend to sending in their own armed forces to subdue and remove the regime, giving pause to the slaughter and enabling the regime opponents to take its place. They've no stomach for hand-to-hand combat in crowded city centres, or bombing closely confined populated areas.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have officially recognized the Syrian National Council as the country's new, official representative. The League must surely be capable of moving in to defuse the situation; they haven't the gut for it.

Instead, they have appealed to the United Nations Security Council to rule and to intervene, knowing full well that China and Russia, both of whom have full veto powers, will rule active intervention for regime change out. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are willing enough to provide the funding for arms purchases on behalf of Syria's rebels, but they are loathe to enter the fray with their own militaries, preferring NATO to re-enact its Libyan involvement.

This is, of course, the same Arab League and its component members who have in the not-so-distant past, bitterly chastised the West for interference in Arab and Muslim affairs, for invading threatening Arab countries and disabling their dictators, bringing opportunities to countries that have languished in medieval mind-sets, to enter the 21st Century. Such 'opportunities' are viewed askance at threatening their own status as benevolent dictators.

And here, now, in Syria, the regime's military officers are amazed at the level of the attacks that have succeeded in wounding and killing their men, filling up hospitals and morgues. "I was surprised to find myself fighting in Damascus. We never expected a situation like this. The terrorists were well trained, well armed and in uniform."

The 'terrorists', of course, once part of their own military. The foreign fighters the regime insists have infiltrated Syria, much as Syria was a conduit for foreign fighters and al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadists filtering into Iraq during the American occupation, are local men and teenage boys, with widespread support from the local population. Fighting alongside the regime-defected troops.

Bashar al-Assad may very well be battling 'terrorists' and 'foreign elements' and 'Islamists', but they are his own, home-born and -bred. Should his regime fall, it may be likely that Islamists will gain, much as they have elsewhere, where the local population has determined it is their turn to unseat their very own tyrant.

And then it would be of prime interest to see whether the ties with Iran, with Hezbollah, with Hamas, will continue to prosper, threatening the region and by extension the world, with the potential of yet another kind of Islamism, completely dedicated to jihad, nuclear if need be.