by Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser
August has been recorded as the bloodiest month in the year and a half campaign for the revolution to remove the tyrant Bashar Assad and his military apparatus from power in Syria. With over 5,000 dead at the barbaric hands of the Syrian military and the UN recording over 100,000 refugees last month alone, there is no indication that Assad’s military tyranny is abating.
Despite this, we still see no discernible strategy from the Obama Administration on how to secure a free Syria. Secretary Clinton has failed yet again this week in negotiations with the Chinese to find a path forward. These negotiations fail primarily because the Chinese know that the President does not have the resolve or inclination to act in this region.
This administration has clearly determined that action of any sort is not in its best interest heading into November’s presidential election. That inaction has essentially given the Assad regime free reign to decimate the Syrian people and opened the door to the jackals of the region in the form of Iran, Al Qaeda and Hezbollah.
As the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday the Iranians have resumed airlifts through Iraqi airspace of arms and personnel to support Assad’s regime. Iran’s Quds force has become the de facto training battalion of Assad’s ruthless Baathist Alawite militia. Even more disturbing, many experts believe that Iran is perfectly content to allow Syria to disintegrate into another Afghanistan if it means keeping the prospects of a Western influenced free Syria from emerging from its current hell.
That would be a disastrous outcome for the entire region. We are already seeing violence spill over into Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. How long will it be before we see this violence knocking on Israel’s door?
Yet Clinton’s State Department cannot even articulate a clear position against the Iraqi government allowing the use of its airspace by the Iranians.
Further recent reports indicate that Al Qaeda and Hezbollah are ratcheting up their involvement in the country. In fact it appears that these organizations are turning the situation into an opportunity for sectarian violence against each other. While watching these two purveyors of American and Muslim tragedy destroy each other may sound enticing, ceding them the prize of Syria is simply outrageous. Doing so at the cost of Syrian lives is inhumane and criminal.
Syria deserves better from the West and the international community. It needs real leadership. It needs a focus on freedom for its people.
Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser is a devout Muslim and founder of Save Syria Now!–a group of Americans of Syrian descent organizing to put pressure on the United States to call for immediate action to be taken against the regime of Bashar Assad of Syria and to bring true liberty to the people of Syria. We stand with the Syrians protesting in the streets to end the tyranny of the Assad family. For more information please visit our website at http://www.savesyrianow.org/.