Operation Ostrava: Month 2, Week 1, Day 1.

Yesterday (12/3/12) Britain convened a meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) following the United Nation's Special Envoy to Syria - Kofi Annan's two day visit to the country over the weekend of 10/3/12 and 11/3/12. However I'm still so far behind on Syria I cannot comment on either the Special Envoy's visit or the UNSC meeting. So instead I'm going to talk about Syria's recent constitutional referendum.

On February 27th 2012 (27/2/12) Syrian voters overwhelmingly voted to adopt widespread changes to the nations constitution. These changes represented a political earthquake in Syria because they end the Ba'ath Party's absolute dominance of Syrian politics, allow for the formation of other political parties and pave the way for democratic, multi-party elections. However no-one is treating the referendum or it's results with much credibility because only about 50% of registered voters took part and even the most democratic country wouldn't even consider holding any form of public vote when the security situation is as bad as it is in Syria. Syria's enemies were quick to label it a "sham" but I think that's unfair. If anything the referendum demonstrated Bashar al-Assad's lack of ruthlessness and his genuine desire to bring about democratic reform.

Between 1971 and 2000 Syria was run by Hafez al-Assad who ruled with an iron fist. He presided of a totalitarian regime which was very similar to Saddam Hussein's Iraq where the only political party was the Presidents party and there was a massive security apparatus to keep the Syrian people in line and quickly identify dissidents. When those dissidents were caught or even just suspected they were subject to arbitrary detention, torture and death. When the people of Hama rose up and challenged this system in 1982 Hafez al-Assad simply shelled the city into the ground killing some 22,000 people. Hafez al-Assad always intended to hand power to his son Bassel al-Assad but he was killed in a car crash in 1994 leaving a choice between two of the other sons; Maher al-Assad and Basher al-Assad. However - possibly because of the Hama massacre - there was a feeling within the Syrian establishment that Maher al-Assad was too aggressive and too much like his father so Syria's future would be safer in Bashar al-Assad's soft hands. After giving up his career as an optician Bashar al-Assad became Syria's President in July 2000 and the world welcomed him as the man who was going to reform Syria's repressive regime.

Then on September 11th 2001 Al Qeada attacked the United States and the US responded by declaring every Muslim to be a potential enemy. In October 2001 the US invaded Afghanistan and in doing so sent out the message to all the leaders in the middle-east that if they didn't keep their populations firmly in line they would be next. Then in March 2003 the US invaded Syria's neighbour Iraq underlining that threat and ending any opportunity that Bashar al-Assad may have had to liberalise Syria's security apparatus. Then in 2006 Syrian pressure on Hezbollah forced them to agree a ceasefire which ended Lebanon's war with Israel. This made Israel very angry because they were just about to use the war as an excuse to invade and occupy much of southern Lebanon. So the Israel lobby got the US to begin building up a network of agents in Syria to make life difficult for and possibly overthrow the Syrian government. Rather then allowing them the space to liberalise and reform this left the Syrian security machine no option other then to become even more repressive.

In the summer of 2011 with input from Britain and the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) this situation came to a violent peak. While Maher al-Assad set about crushing the insurgency the only way he knows how Bashar al-Assad seems to have seen the crisis as an opportunity to drive through the political reforms he's been waiting twelve years to implement.

So I think the best way to end the killing and bring genuine democratic reform is to support Bashar al-Assad.