Is The West Making Syrian Suffering Worse?

The 'Arab Spring' hit Syria in March last year when security forces arrested and tortured a group of teenagers - for painting revolutionary slogans on their school's walls. They opened fire on the resulting protest march, killing four, and again at a funeral for the victims, killing at least one more. As a display of brutal incompetence by the Syrian regime it is hard to see how this could have been beaten.

Before that commentators were generally agreed that Syria was unlikely to be seriously affected by the changes affecting the more southerly autocratic regimes in the region. Although far from democratic, President Bashar Al-Assad was seen as reasonably popular within Syria, had already brought in some mild reform, and represented stability and security in a large country with a varied population. Opposition and protest groups were fragmented and localised; Syrians saw the possibility of breakdown, even civil war, and were thought to be horrified at the risk. The horrible example of neighbouring Iraq made it all too clear what could happen.

The trouble is that all those arguments still stand, except that Assad isn't doing so well at imposing security himself. Syria is currently headed toward anarchy and civil war, and Western intervention is just making chaos more likely. The Independent reports that the death toll to date is thought to be around 10,000, whilst a further 1.5 million are estimated to need 'urgent humanitarian assistance'.

Meanwhile the spotlight of the Western media is on every minor uprising, encouraging revolt to happen and criticising every attempt to prevent rebellion from growing. The publicising of the violence leads to pressure from consumers of the media to 'do something', without any idea what that 'something' is. So now Western leaders are again talking about 'regime change'.

We've been here before, in Iraq. Years of sanctions which hit the poorest, and limited oil-sale schemes which benefited the corrupt, until finally the West got the invasion it wanted and Iraqis got anarchy. At least in Iraq the regime had been genuinely evil: something like a million people had suffered and died under Saddam Hussein, so the half-million plus who died under US rule could, arguably, be said to be vaguely proportionate.

Under Bashar Al-Assad, the only report of significant regime killings I can find was at the 2004 Al-Qamishli riots, where clashes between Arabs and Kurds, combined with police brutality, led to some 30 deaths (some reports set the figure as high as a hundred). Since the Western media focussed on Syria the death toll is well up in the thousands; if full-scale civil war or other form of anarchy breaks out then that will be in the hundreds of thousands, maybe even worse. Brutal suppression of rebellion can be bloody; sometimes the alternative can be worse.

It is notable that the diplomatic games around Syria refuse to involve Iran: if there was a serious interest in peace then Iran and Russia are the two states with a realistic chance of making a difference, but peace and justice are really not the name of the game here. If they were then the focus would be much more on the Arab Gulf states, particularly Bahrain, where a tiny but immensely wealthy regime oppresses the majority of citizens with little more than token complaints from its Western 'friends'.

I'm not saying that Assad is a good leader, nor that Syria is anything other than autocratic and corrupt. But what's happening there now isn't part of an 'Arab Spring' movement toward democracy. It's small localised revolts which are gradually growing towards outright civil war; and civil war is very bad indeed for the people of a country.

So, next time you see a news report of deaths in Syria, before you indulge in self-righteous indignation and claim 'something must be done' ... just take a moment to think that it is likely that your 'something' will just make matters worse. By responding like that you may well be a part of the problem.

News Corporation: How Stupid Do They Think We Are?

Yesterday's news that News Corporation are throwing the staff at News Of The World to the wolves by closing the paper is surely a new low in corporate cynicism. Few, if any, of those at the paper now were there during the time of the scandals, yet it is their jobs being sacrificied - presumably to protect the jobs of those who were there but are now part of the News Corporation management: Rebekah Brooks, James Murdoch and, of course, Rupert Murdoch. It's not as if the Murdochs are famous for being hands-off.

The most cynical part of the News Corporation ploy is the near-certainty that once the dust settles there will be a launch of The Sun On Sunday, or some such title, looking remarkably similar to the old NoW, and hoping to pick up the same old advertising contracts. Meanwhile this prospect is likely to help keep the old NoW staff from saying too much, as they will be hoping for jobs on the 'new' paper.

David Cameron, UK Prime Minister, is desperately spinning, hoping to avoid too much of the flak, whilst keeping his News Corp buddies as sweet as possible. I anticipate an intended end-game where the various inquiries decide that all of the British media has behaved badly, not  just the News Corp titles which led the 'race to the bottom' in newspaper standards in the first place; where News Corps gets given full control of BSkyB; and where nothing meaningful changes.

I hope for, but don't expect, rules restricting the amount of control one organisation - never mind one individual - has over the British media, with News Corp having to sell its shares in BSkyB; along with significant restrictions on cross-subsidies which distort the media marketplace (for instance, those manipulations which gave Murdoch his large stake in BSkyB in the first place). I also hope for a major clampdown on tax avoidance by large multi-nationals, such as News Corp, since these tax dodges give such organisations an unfair, and distorting, advantage over those organisations who do pay their taxes. In addition, I'd like to see nationality rules, such as those in the US (if they still apply?), restricting who owns major parts of the British media in the first place, but that's unlikely to happen.

One important question in the kerfuffle to come will be how effectively Andy Coulson has been silenced. He was editor of the News Of The World immediately after Rebekah Brooks/Wade, so it seems likely that he knows where some of the evidence is hidden. Since he is obviously being sacrificed by News Corp to protect her, I wonder why he should continue to keep her secrets?