Russian-Syrian parallels
On Monday, he attended the press conference of the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Syria to Russia, Riad Haddath. As a political scientist, who has long and unsuccessfully studied the course of various recent revolutionary events, he could not miss such an opportunity. The sediment from what was heard remained unpleasant: if you think about too many parallels arise and they concern not only Syria.
My first conclusion and, at the same time, the forecast, unfortunately, are negative. The situation in Syria will not be resolved to the mutual agreement of the parties in the very near future, no matter what measures the current President Bashar al-Assad would take to adopt the new Constitution of the country, form a government of national unity or change the political system. On the contrary, the confrontational situation will drag on for an unpredictable long time, and it seems that the more visible efforts to appease the opposition are taken by the Assad regime, the more actively the Syrian National Council that opposes it will act. This tendency is already felt and the consequences are quite predictable. Only two days have passed since the heads of the Foreign Ministries of Russia and the countries of the League of Arab States published a joint statement on Syria, which identified five general principles for resolving the Syrian crisis. It is the cessation of violence from all sides, an impartial monitoring mechanism, the unacceptability of external intervention, unhindered access of humanitarian aid to all Syrians, as well as the firm support of the mission of the UN special envoy and the League of Arab States Kofi Annan in order to start the internal Syrian political dialogue. And President Bashar Assad seems to have agreed with such approaches. But it was not yet in stories a case where an implacable opposition would agree to peace talks. And now, on Monday, the same Syrian National Council, as reported by Reuters, demanded that the Arab and Western states begin military intervention in order to protect civilians. Among other requirements are the creation of secure “humanitarian corridors” and zones for the protection of civilians, the establishment of a no-fly zone over the whole of Syria.
And this, in turn, only pushes the Syrian government to toughen the fight against the opposition. It was not by chance that at the above-mentioned press conference, the ambassador of this state in Russia was unequivocally stressed: it is very difficult to continue the path of reforms until there is security. And because the confrontation will continue. “We will not yield,” the ambassador said firmly, and added: “The enemies do not want to concede either.” How does this mutual intransigence end the world already knows well? The Libyan scenario is clear enough. However, not only Libyan. All the color revolutions that we have been witnessing and have been witnessing for several years are made up of approximately one, similar scenario.
When Ambassador Riad Hadddat talked about the fact that there are two oppositions in Syria, internal and external, he apparently was right. How, perhaps, he was right in that the internal opposition is ready for dialogue with the government and supports reforms. But the external opposition, consisting of people living abroad, does not want to cooperate and attracts criminals, members of Al Qaeda, mercenaries from other states who are at war with the Syrian people and government troops. All this, based on the similarity of scenarios of color revolutions, really looks like the truth. But this is, in fact, only a statement of the situation. Any opposition forces do not arise just like that, from scratch, for this to happen certain conditions must be formed. And, apparently, they take place in Syria, if anti-government protests have not stopped here for a year. Daily reports of the deaths of civilians and security forces. According to the UN, the number of victims exceeded 7,5 thousands of people, of which 2 thousands of soldiers and law enforcement officers.
In fact, it is more like an uprising or a civil war. Yes, probably, well prepared by the opposition forces, generously at the same time “fed” from outside by various “friends” of Syria. But this is war, which is one of the elements of the development of the “color” scenario. And it is used when the resources of the so-called “non-violent” actions are exhausted - various rallies and marches. An indispensable condition for the use of all these elements is a split in society, disunity within the political elite, weakness of power with excessive self-confidence and therefore complacent, lack of professionalism of the environment of the head of state, the absence or weakness of political parties and other democratic institutions, corruption and much more.
Mr. Ambassador didn’t mention anything of the kind. And asking him about it was pointless: for obvious reasons, he, of course, could not have answered anything, even if he wanted to. But the fact that in Syria all these conditions for the emergence of confrontation came together, the fact seems to be immutable and for the leadership of this country is very sad, given the experience of neighbors in the Arab world, where all the "color" scenarios were somehow played to the end.
Alas, but the Syrian events cause my association with what, in many respects, is happening now in Russia. And this is my second conclusion. We also see a split in society in our country and we observe disunity and vacillation in the political elite. And the power is not so strong and the people who make it up do not always shine with high professionalism, there are no democratic institutions, the existing parties are amorphous and impotent - citizens do not see real power in them. Attempts to reform the political system stopped at the level of parliamentary hearings. Corruption is flourishing.
Against this background, one should not delude ourselves that the rally activity, they say, has waned. The so-called non-systemic opposition has not disappeared anywhere, and it will not stop its attempts at “rocking” the situation in the country. The government has not done anything by and large to smooth out the contradictions that have arisen in society, on all its floors. Calm down after the election? In vain. We differ from Syria today in one very significant detail. Behind this state is Russia today. And who in the event of any events will be behind Russia?
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