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Asharq Al-Awsat
Asharq Al-Awsat
World
London - Asharq Al-Awsat

Lessons Should Be Learned in Ukraine from Situation in Syria

A Syrian man prays at a cemetery in Khan Sheikhun, a town in the northwestern Syrian Idlib province, 100 days following a suspected toxic gas attack that was reported to have killed 88 people, including 31 children. (AFP file photo)

The Syria crisis continues unnoticed, said Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, the chemical weapons expert and an adviser to the Union of Syrian Medical Charities.

Although it holds key lessons for the West about Russian President Vladimir Putin, yet it has gone virtually unnoticed by the rest of the world, he wrote in an article published by The Guardian.

“War crimes and crimes against humanity continue in the Russian-sponsored dictatorship, even as some misguided leaders want to usher Bashar al-Assad, the architect of these crimes, back into acceptable society.”

In response to the Ukraine emergency, de Bretton-Gordon stressed that there are lessons the West can and should learn from the situation in Syria.

He pointed out that since the UN removed Syria’s declared chemical weapons stockpile in 2014, Assad has continued to bomb hospitals and schools and burn villages to the ground in a macabre, medieval-style scorched-earth policy.

“Mercifully, we have not seen chemical weapons used since April 2019, but Syria today is a Russian state in all but name, and Assad a puppet dictator with strings very clearly tugged from Moscow,” he wrote.

Idlib, a province in northwest Syria, is the only region still free of the tyranny, but with millions of malnourished souls trapped there, and Assad throwing in incendiary devices to smoke them out as you would vermin, “it still resembles hell on earth.”

Even the UN has turned its back on Idlib, giving aid to Assad and his wife to distribute as they see fit.

According to the expert, Syria now represents a major Russian and Iranian presence on the edge of Europe.

If Ukraine also falls, he warned, the balance of power will very much shift eastwards. With too many European countries reliant on Russian gas, the current global instability began in Damascus.

“An emboldened Russia buoyed up by high oil prices seems much more willing to face off with NATO than it did a few years ago, when its antiquated military was no match for western tanks.”

While the rest of the world countries have cut their militaries to the bone, relying on electronics and space to fight the next war, the writer stressed that Russia has modernized its armored might, now on show around Ukraine.

He said Syria shows what happens “when you turn a blind eye and are too heavily influenced by peaceniks.”

“Those of us involved in interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 30 years have our issues with overstepping the mark in those places, but we look at Syria and know we should have done better. That knowledge should inform our response to Putin’s aggression now.”

It is clear when discussing Syria with Syrians from Idlib and regime-held areas that everybody has suffered, de Bretton-Gordon said.

Nevertheless, he noted that at least those in Idlib are getting support through Turkey, and there are some innovative projects being funded by European countries.

Many hospitals and clinics in Idlib now have solar power to run their generators and surgical theaters, as there is no fuel and the power network was destroyed years ago.

He pointed to an electric car, also powered by solar energy, distributing medicines and Covid vaccines – when they are occasionally available – around Idlib.

In a remarkable twist that would only happen in war, de Bretton-Gordon said some of these Syrian medics who have developed a viable medical system under the most trying and demanding circumstances are now offering to help in Afghanistan.

He commended the Syrian people who have shown resilience and innovation beyond compare, even as they have been let down again and again.

The writer referred to the West, which did not intervene when the regime started attacking its own people, and the US, which failed to act when the red line it declared on the use chemical weapons was crossed there.

“And finally, we stood by as Russia and Iran muscled their way across Syria to create a forward operation base on our doorstep,” he lamented.

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