Five years of war in Syria: five lessons Western leaders haven’t learned

The ink had barely dried on the Munich ceasefire agreement announced on February 11 by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry when only a few days later Syrians and others were casting doubt that it could mitigate the fighting and suffering that Syria has endured for five years.

Why such skepticism? Shouldn’t the world be open to any initiative that world leaders suggest can help so grave a situation?

The problem, as I see it, is that these same leaders are ignoring four key lessons from the unrelenting war and destruction of the past five years.

Lesson number 1: Assad is the problem, not part of the solution

There is one reason for Syria’s dismal human situation: the Assad government’s response to peaceful protests in 2011.

Syria’s brutality has vastly outstripped the response of other Arab governments to the region-wide uprisings of the “Arab Spring.” Long-simmering anger at Assad’s repression turned into a full-scale civil war. The fact is that the regime’s trail of destruction has been unmatched by any other group, including the Islamic State, or ISIS.

A new report by a Syrian organization estimates that 470,000 Syrians have died since the conflict began in 2011. Another recent – and unusually blunt – report from the United Nations documents the Assad regime’s responsibility for systematic policies of torture, intimidation, killing and other violence.

But despite this clear connection between Assad and Syria’s violence, the primary motivation for Western policy efforts in Syria appears to be stopping ISIS.

The Munich ceasefire, for example, specifically excludes ISIS from any suspension of hostilities. This is understandable since US involvement in Syria has been focused on combating ISIS’ would-be caliphate, in the company of France and other countries,

The West’s focus on ISIS also helps explain how Russia’s recent military involvement has helped to revive the Syrian government’s political control. By some accounts, Washington’s heightened concern to fight ISIS may make it more tolerant of Assad staying in power so that a rump Syrian state could help contain the would-be-caliphate.

Countries like the U.S. may see ISIS as its prime enemy, as ISIS itself might wish.

But, for most Syrians, it’s the Assad government that deserves that dubious honor.

Read more at disinfo.com

With prospects for the limited, impending ceasefire already dubious, leaders and activists in the West must take to heart the above four lessons of Syria’s crisis, and apply them to a fifth and final lesson.“Never again” with respect to state violence against millions of citizens must mean never again.

Unfortunately, even today in 1st world democratic western nations, there are many individuals who openly endorse state sanctioned violence against other citizens and sometimes those citizens are not doing anything except voicing their anti-government opinion. Those citizens who endorse & encourage government agencies towards violence against other citizens whom they disagree with, philosophically, means that "never again" is a moot point because when people see state sanctioned violence as appropriate for an apparent illegal activity, instead of the rule of law being exercised, we are no different to the savages we attest to be against.

How many countries have we invaded, took out the bad leader and let them try to make things better?
How many times has that plan actually worked?
All we do is send America soldiers to die for no reason and no results other than leaving the bad guy lots of our expensive equipment to use on their own people.
This who thing since 911 has cost more lives and money than it's worth.
And with all the refugees that are coming or already here because of our failed efforts you can bet that something big is coming and the blood will be on the people who Thought it was a good idea to start this $hit over a lie that took us to Iraq in the first place. ..and got this big death ball rolling.

interesting spin. It clearly worked easier to streamline Libya didn't it?? Getting desperate guys, that now the Russian/Syrian alliance is right up to the Turkish border, and the propaganda comes out full swing?? Ahh well, the same old lies are not working so well are they?

a reply to: DisinfoCom

""There is one reason for Syria’s dismal human situation: the Assad government’s response to peaceful protests in 2011.""

It was about that time I started paying attention and one person I listened to was Webster Tarpley .He actually went to Homs and gathered information from different sources .His findings are almost the same as what happened in Ukraine . ...While there were peaceful demonstrations going on there seemed to be some agent's inside the groups to escalate to a point where the police had to be called . Once that happened ,then the snipers went into action . The same thing in Ukraine where there were bullets in protesters and police .

"" Syria’s brutality has vastly outstripped the response of other Arab governments to the region-wide uprisings of the “Arab Spring. ""

Part of the Arab Spring was Kingdom of Bahrain . In that case the Saudi's military were called in to squash the peaceful protest .

"" Another recent – and unusually blunt – report from the United Nations documents the Assad regime’s responsibility for systematic policies of torture, intimidation, killing and other violence. ""


Canada had to dish out millions of $$ to a Canadian citizen for turning him over to the american CIA to be shipped off to Syria to be tortured so no need for a blunt UN report to get a slightly scewed picture .Being between a rock and a hard place Lybia went from a actual functioning country to a place with multipal governments with new fresh bombing runs by the good old US . That is quite a result that the UN helped put into legal terms to create what we see today . Syria has at least a chance to turn all of this around . Just suppose for a moment that the people that made up the opposition FSA were actually running a covert torture operation unbeknown to Assad . Much like the Covert operations that the US government doesn't know about that the CIA have become known to do .

Syria was one of the few Countries left that didn't have a Central Bank.....now they do, just like Libya and Iraq.....The chaos, War and death that follows will gladly be funded, with interest, to all parties concerned by the SAME "neutral" Bank....