Damascus's longstanding ties to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza, add another dimension to its possible reprisals against punitive measures. Libya Gaddafi has enemies around the world, particularly in his own region. Western intervention would almost certainly not have happened if it had not been endorsed by the Arab League, and actively supported by a couple of Gulf states.
Only Venezuela spoke out strongly in Gaddafi's defence, while Zimbabwe was one of the few states thought willing to give him safe haven if he stepped down. Syria Unpredictable but almost certainly serious and hard to contain. Proximity to, and enmity towards, Israel risks turning any outside intervention into another chapter in the Israeli-Arab struggle.
Iran's alliance with Damascus and its willingness to take on the west by proxy, as it did in Iraq, is another risk. It would be likely to destabilise Lebanon, where Hezbollah has a close relationship with Syria and Iran. Plastics set to overtake coal plants on GHG emissions, new study shows. The path to a livable future. Corporate giants promote climate action, but work with oil lobbyists in state capitols.
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Of course Syria is not in Africa, but there are enough similarities in the unfolding of events to use this example to question whether the preferred African approach can work.
What is happening in Syria is much closer to that option than what happened in Libya, where there was an external military intervention. I remain very skeptical of the motivation behind the intervention in Libya but we now have a clearly contrasting situation where no outside military intervention is occurring.
At time of writing, Al Jazeera reports claims of civilian deaths of 7,, and the use of extreme force against centres of the uprising continues. The main international intervention so far has been an Arab League observer mission that had to withdraw after making no impact. Africa as a whole is better off without electoral fraud, 1-party states and military dictators.
But does it need a NATO-style intervention? At some point if the Assad regime continues to massacre its own people, something has to happen, otherwise why do we have organisations like the UN? The situation in Syria is different. While the regime does have access to the state coffers, it faces a resource shortage. These individuals have strong incentives to act against the return of businessmen who left Syria at the outset of conflict as they will threaten their position, and indeed there have already been instances where new elites have sought to deter the return of pre-conflict elites.
The lack of resources has also forced the Syrian regime to sub-contract roles and responsibilities formerly assigned to the state. As Tobias Schneider has noted [4], the Tiger Forces and the Desert Hawks — two leading regime-aligned forces — are funded by wealthy individuals rather than the state.
The Desert Hawks, meanwhile, were founded by Mohamed and Ayman Jaber, who had originally made their fortune from oil smuggling to Iraq as part of oil for food in the s. Despite pledging allegiance to Assad, both the Tiger Forces and the Desert Hawks have continued to run their own smuggling operations and practice considerable autonomy. Finally, external patronage of course continues to play a direct and major role in the perpetuation of conflict in Libya and Syria. The reduction in, and eventual withdrawal of, military support to the armed opposition in doomed its military prospects, while the regime remains reliant upon Iranian and Russian military and economic support to stay afloat.
Similarly, foreign intervention in Libya determined the course of the revolution. And foreign intervention continues. International support has enabled Haftar to strengthen his position in Eastern Libya and refuse to meaningfully engage international mediation efforts.
In both Libya and Syria, then, the position of armed groups to project force is the determining factor behind the support that they receive from external actors. Despite the differences between the Libyan and Syrian conflicts, the contexts share many commonalities. Each contains powerful individuals and groups who benefit from the status quo, some directly involved in conflict, and others who simply profit from it.
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