This became the “red line” that Barack Obama was talking about when threatening to initiate military intervention into Syria.
For more in this I'm joined on the phone by Richard Heydarian, a Manila-based foreign affairs analyst.
How will Obama's decision to arm the Syrian rebels affect the balance of forces in the conflict? And will it?
So far, if you look at the information given by the American officials, it is clear that the aid that they are going to provide is ammunition, small weapons, perhaps some anti-tank weaponry. But it is not clear if the delivery of anti-aircraft weapons eliminate Assad’s conventional security in the area. Therefore, the way I see it is that America’s move is just going to intensify their already bloody stalemate on the ground, and this is very unfortunate. This is going to be really destructive because there were plans, especially growing cooperation between Russia and the United States to start the diplomatic process and to resolve this issue perhaps in the upcoming Geneva talks.
The way I see it is that the decision came in a response to the regime strategic victory in Qusayr which denied further advances to the rebels. And perhaps it also has something to do with the promotion of liberal hawks Samantha Power and Susan Rice on top decision-making positions within the US. And of course there was new announcement by the UN of the high level of casualties just short of 100 000 people. Perhaps, all of these factors together have pushed the United States to use the questionable pretext of the usage of chemical weapons by the Assad’s regime as the basis to go forward with this decision.
But if you clearly see it, I think what the Obama administration wants to do here is to give some leverage to the rebel forces by giving them some military aid in order to deny further advances to the Assad’s regime. But this decision could actually draw the United States into further militarization of Syria. And there are already talks of a possible introduction of the no-fly zone over the Jordanian border where actually the United States and Jordan conducted some joint military exercises just weeks before. So, whether this is just a first step towards a full US direct intervention in Syria, it is not clear. But so far, if the United States is only going to stick to anti-tank weaponry and small weapons, what we are going to really have is a further stalemate and further distractions, and deaths on the ground.
We obviously understand that sometimes the United States acts on its own. And still, how do you think this decision by the United States will be met by the international community? How many countries and what countries do think will support it?
If you look at the responses of the world leaders, it is really actually France and the United Kingdom who have been supporting this move and a bunch of Republican leaders, such as Sen McCain in the United States. If you look at the response of others outside the transatlantic alliance and the Republican hawky circles… for example, if you look at the statement of the United Nations Chief Ban Ki’moon, he is clearly saying that he doesn’t really agree with this decision because all it is going to do, is just continue the cycle of violence and stalemate whereby the only way to really stop this civil war is to restart and really focus, and invest in a diplomatic process.
And I’m not sure how Secretary John Kerry himself welcomed this decision, because he had invested a lot of his own political capital in getting Russia onboard and even pull up the delivery of S-300 missile defense system to Syria because he wanted to see whether the Geneva could bring in some sort of diplomatic resolution. But I think in the response to America’s decision Moscow will definitely rethink about whether it should deliver the S-300 missile defense system because at the end of the day this is going to be just a movement towards the introduction of the no-fly zone on the Jordanian border and I think Russia will find it a significant pretext to urge the delivery of S-300.
So, in this sense of the initial statements are saying that it is just going to continue the stalemate. But the trajectory that it is going to set is actually a dangerous one. So, we could really move towards a military intervention in the coming months if the Geneva process is not going to work. And I think that the United States decision might spoil the Geneva talks which has actually been under pressure because the opposition forces themselves are not united on the whether they should be with the Assad’s regime or not.