A closer look at recent events in Syria, despite their outward incoherence, reveals a pattern. Syria’s motley opposition is obviously unable to deal with President Assad’s regime using military means. The rebels fail in many ways, primarily in trying to occupy at least a small part of that country and establish a government that could expect international recognition. Mujahideen streaming into Syria from all parts of the Muslim world recognize no authority, acting independently, mostly solving their own problems. What is happening is a worse kind of Afghan scenario when the commanders of small units are engaged in skirmishes and looting civilians.
It is also obvious that the architects of Assad’s overthrow among the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, in the West and in Turkey planned a completely different course of events. They are losing patience and the lack of success on the battlefield and in the political sphere is being replaced by canards meant to conceal their frustration and failed plans.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) website reads that the Syrian Air Force continues to use cluster bombs that have been discarded by 77 countries. On October 9-12, Syrian activists placed videos on the Internet that testify to at least 20 air raids by government troops on guerilla targets, and that the Syrian army uses Soviet-type RBC 250/275 and 500 cluster bombs.
Cluster bombs are dangerous not only for the enemy, but also for civilians, mostly children. When dropped, such bombs release or eject smaller submunitions that cover a range of hundreds of meters. HRW website has a video with children playing with unexploded cluster bombs. A cluster bomb, if it does not detonate when dropped, remains lethal for several months, even years, because it can explode when touched like a landmine.
The Treaty on Cluster Munitions came into force on August 1, 2010. It was ratified by more than 77 countries except Syria, Russia, the US, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel. These countries maintain that cluster munitions are legitimate to use in combat.
It is practically impossible to verify HRW information and videos. It is easy to believe that the Syrian government troops are using these weapons, just as it is easy to assume that these videos are fake as part of information warfare against Assad’s regime, even though this regime can hardly be further discredited; discussing its humaneness would be ridiculous. On the other hand, the opposition does not show any special delicacy and does not use this kind of weapons due to technical problems, including the lack of aircraft. The most important aspect of this information is that the cluster bombs are Soviet-(Russian-) made.
The British network BBC said Monday that weapons shipments intended for the Saudi military have been diverted to Syrian militant rebels fighting against the Syrian army in Aleppo. “Three crates from an arms manufacturer – addressed to Saudi Arabia – have been seen in a base being used by rebel fighters in the city of Aleppo,” BBC correspondent to Syria Ian Pannell reported. How the small crates reached Aleppo is unknown, and the BBC was not allowed to film their contents. There is a photo of a wooden crate whose marking is to the effect that the contents were made at a factory in Luhansk and that the crate was delivered to the Saudi capital, Ar Riyadh, from Hostomel Airport near Kyiv.
What weapons is the opposition using? Certainly not of Saudi or Qatari manufacture because no weapons are made there. So they must come from the United States, France, and so on. No one in the West is concerned about how these weapons find their way to Syria. No one is accusing anyone of violations. Only a few crates with unknown contents and Ukrainian marking cause genuine excitement.
One can assume that information warfare is being waged mostly against Russia and China, although Beijing is content to make statements and vote at the UN Security Council. Verbal attacks against Moscow are constant and on a broad range. However, the impression is that those aiming them do not know current physical and political biography; that they care little about such aspects as the existence of independent Ukraine, using maps printed in the 1970s-1980s. Hardly likely, the information attack against Kyiv was for a different purpose.
While the desire to put Moscow in a bad light is understandable, considering its support of Assad’s regime, Ukraine has adopted a totally different stand and even if those crates contained weapons, they were in the hands of rebels being supported by the West and the Gulf. Obviously no reason for a verbal attack, yet it took place. Therefore, it was meant as a signal to Kyiv. One is reminded of similar reports concerning shipments from Belarus, but for Lukashenka it was like water off a duck’s back and the verbal attack quickly abated. Not so the Ukrainian crates, although there is no further incriminating evidence.
At one time the scandal with Ukrainian Kolchuga radars in Iraq resulted in Leonid Kuchma’s diplomatic isolation. The crates in Syria are nothing by comparison, but in a situation such as this one it is necessary to have patience. Something more substantial may surface. A lot will depend on the Western countries’ attitude to the outcome of the parliamentary elections in Ukraine. It is clear that our government will be dealt a side blow, the force of which it is still not possible to predict.
This regime is exposing itself to such blow with its desire to get the constitutional majority come what may, so they can change the Constitution. This desire meets with objective domestic and foreign resistance. Combining these polarized trends is easier said than done.
First, international financial organizations will be asked for help. A difficult task. Although the IMF appears to be softening its rigid stand, this is an advance, and not a monetary one. Whether it will become monetary depends more on Kyiv than Washington.
Second, as in the case with Iraq, there are no formal accusations, considering that the weapons were shipped to Saudi Arabia and that there are no international sanctions. Nevertheless, the overall information background is getting increasingly negative with political consequences.
Third, the hue and cry about imported weapons in the Syrian conflict has a number of objectives, with negative PR [spin] being applied against each country involved in or with the conflict. Regrettably, Ukraine is once again exposed to external influence and those currently in power are to blame in the first place.
