G-8 countries stumble over Assad condemnation

G-8 leaders wrapped up their two-day summit in Northern Ireland on Tuesday without a consensus on the role Syrian President Bashar Assad will play, if any, once the civil war in his country comes to an end. Leading Arab columnists are furious at Western leaders for allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin to derail any progress on kicking Assad to the curb.

The London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat reports that Putin, while warning the West against sending weapons to the Syrian opposition for fear they could one day be turned against them, does not hesitate to continue sending arms to prop up the Syrian military. In his own defense, Putin claims “Russia has signed contracts with the Syrian military that date back years. The contracts must be honored.”

According to the Dubai-based media channel Al-Arabiyya, the G-8 member nations did manage to issue a statement supporting a conference in Geneva in August to “reach a political solution to the crisis on the basis of the establishment of a comprehensive, democratic, and uniform Syria.” British Prime Minister David Cameron issued a personal statement to the press that he “cannot imagine a scenario whereby Assad plays a role in a future Syria. We want to purge radicals from the ranks of the rebels and create a functioning government that will come after the fall of Assad.”

However, Arab columnists remain severely unconvinced by the British prime minister and other Western leaders’ words because the official G-8 joint statement makes clear mention that power in Syria should not be taken by “extremist factions” in the opposition without a word said about Assad’s forces. It is the opinion of many Sunni Arab leaders that Assad’s forces are more brutal than even Al-Qaeda.

“After more than two years and two months of uprising and the deaths of over 100,000 Syrian citizens, the leaders of the G8 countries managed to state that Bashar Assad is the victim fighting armed terrorist groups,” writes Abdel Bari Atwan in an op-ed in the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi. “This news will certainly shock the Syrian opposition and its supporters, especially in the Gulf states.”

Atwan goes on to dismiss the West’s fear that weapons it supplies to the rebels will end up in the wrong hands as unfounded and says that it should trust Major General Salim Idriss, the chief of staff of the Free Syrian Army.

“This man has expressed his willingness to do the job required if he is provided with arms and money,” Atwan insists. “Putin confirms he will not allow the establishment of a no-fly zone in Syria and will continue to support the Assad regime with heavy weaponry. The West once again allows Assad to lie to the world and say he is the victim of deception by the West and the Arabs.”

In another op-ed in the Saudi-owned A-Sharq Al-Awsat titled “Syria’s Libyan intervention time,” Syrian Christian writer and human rights activist Michel Kilo confirms that Syria has reached the same stage in its civil conflict that Libya had when Western and Arab countries commenced military action.

He explains that the size of the US intervention in Syria will ultimately determine the outcome of the war. With the US military currently conducting one of the largest military exercises in history in neighboring Jordan, Arab columnists are hopefully speculating that decisive American military action will tip the scales against Assad once and for all.

While Assad may have indirectly gained points thanks to his Russian friends, the economic tumult in Syria continues to batter the Syrian lira. The Doha-based media network Al-Jazeera reports that Washington’s decision to arm the Syrian opposition combined with reports of aid flowing in from Gulf countries has caused the lira to rise to 205 to the dollar, a record high. The lira has lost 20% of its value in the past four days and 77% since the beginning of the civil war.

This news is leading Syrians to convert their cash into pure gold, despite the Syrian Central Bank’s insistence that the country has the solid financial backing of Iran and Russia. Syria’s Central Bank is permitting its citizens to buy a maximum of 1,000 euros per day. With financial chaos in Syria all but guaranteed, Arab eyes are waiting to see how much money Russia and Iran are willing to spend to ensure Assad’s survival.