Syria Crisis Spilling Over Into Regional Conflict

Syria is in the middle of a civil war that is spilling over its borders, says Marc Lynch, author of a new book “The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East“.

Lynch tells host Marco Werman there’s still a “dim hope” of a negotiated settlement, despite incidents like the one this week where Syrian armed forces fired across the border, killing at least two refugees in Turkey.

“I do see it as a sign of desperation. He (Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ) sees that time is running out and he’s trying to kill his way to victory, and it’s not working,” says Lynch.

Lynch, incidentally, is credited with coining the phrase “Arab Spring”. He’s not fond of the term, but admits he might have been one of the first to have used it.

“What the concept of the Arab Spring suggests is that the entire region was frozen until then, and suddenly it melted. But what I’ve been seeing and what I’ve been describing is much more this rising tide of protests and mobilization over a very long time,” Lynch says.

He adds, “It’s not like the Arabs just woke up. They’ve been awake for a long time. They’ve just been struggling against these authoritarian repressive regime that they couldn’t defeat.”

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Marco Werman: The uprising in Syria began over a year ago as protests against the government of President Bashar Al-Assad. Now it’s looking more like a civil war says Mark Lynch. His new book is “The Arab Uprising, the Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East.” Lynch predicts a new international push in coming days to put added pressure on the Syrian government.

Mark Lynch: The push that we’re likely to see is going to be for things like referral to the International Criminal Court for more of an observer mission, for various kinds of diplomatic pressure and increased sanctions, but I think not for military intervention, which I think would be the right thing to do.

Werman: Not pushing for military intervention…

Lynch: Not pushing for military intervention would be the right thing to do. I still think that where we are right now, despite the horror and the tragedy on the ground, I see no sign that the kind of military action which might be contemplated by the international community would actually be able to make a positive difference on the ground.

Werman: I mean if you look on the ground, things are spiraling pretty out of control. This week we saw the Syrian army shoot across the border into Turkey, killing at least two Syrian refugees and wounding others, including a Turkish police officer. What do you think incidents like this mean? I mean, do you see a regional war as a consequence?

Lynch: I do see it as a sign of desperation. He sees that time is running out, he’s trying to kill his way to victory and it’s not working. We’re seeing still persistent mobilization against him. We’re seeing the resilience of the opposition and we’re seeing growing international consensus against him, so things like the firing into Turkey and the incident on the Lebanese border are exactly the kinds of things that are going to solidify international pressure against him.

Werman: If this does conflagrate into a kind of regional conflict, what does that look like to you? How do you see that kind of conflict happening with Syria in the middle?

Lynch: I think what it turns into is a protracted insurgency and civil war with ongoing violence and the deep involvement of the other states in the region, and you easily imagine an opposition being stood up and funded and supplied by the states of the Gulf and by Turkey, and by perhaps even the United States, being strong enough to maintain ongoing insurgency and war, but not strong enough to actually overthrow Assad, and then on the other side, you can see Assad getting support from his international allies, Russia, Iran, and drawing on his own support inside, and again being strong enough to survive, but not strong enough to destroy the opposition, and that just brings us into a long-term, protracted civil conflict which could drag on for quite some time and what that does, aside from being a tremendous human catastrophe and destabilizing the region, it also, the longer it grinds on, the less likely it is that you’ll be able to find any kind of peaceful political transition.

Werman: Do you think Syria is already in a civil war?

Lynch: Yeah, I think it is. I think that it’s in a civil war, but one which there’s still the dim hope of some kind of negotiated transition, not necessarily with Assad himself. The hope I think is that people around him and the people who continue to support his regime out of fear of the future, will eventually come to see that their futures are not best protected by sticking with Assad, that we can hopefully encourage those groups to dump him as a way of protecting and securing their own future.

Werman: Mark, final question, I understand you coined the term “Arab Spring.” I mean it’s become practically a brand synonymous for democracy. How do you know that was you?

Lynch: I dearly hope that it was not me. I don’t like the term “Arab Spring” at all and actually, most Arab activists don’t.

Werman: Why not?

Lynch: What the concept of the Arab Spring suggests is that the entire region was frozen up until then, and then suddenly it melted, and what I’ve been seeing and what I’ve been describing is much more this rising tide of protest and mobilization over a very long period of time. It’s not like the Arabs just woke up. They’ve been awake for a long time. It’s just that they were struggling against these authoritarian oppressive regimes that they couldn’t defeat, so it was much to my chagrin that someone in foreign policy wanted to find out where the Arab Spring came from and they did a Google search and a Lexis Nexis search, and a piece that I had written on January 5th was the first reference they could find, and so I kind of have to take over responsibility for it I suppose, but it wasn’t a coinage that I had wanted.

Werman: Mark Lynch, Professor of Political Science at George Washington University. His new book is “The Arab Uprising, the Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East.” Mark, thank you very much.

Lynch: And thank you.

Werman: The concern over Syria and doubts that President Assad will comply with tomorrow’s ceasefire deadline are being expressed in political cartoons around the globe. We have a slide show for you at theworld.org.

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