Slaughter in Syria

last updated 8 January 2015

The Syrian regime launched a major offensive to crush the five-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad this week, sending tanks into the opposition stronghold of Hama and several other towns. Human-rights groups reported that at least 140 people had been killed across the country, the vast majority in Hama. Tanks and troops rolled into the western city on Sunday and bombarded mosques, apartment blocks, and makeshift civilian barricades. “The tanks are firing at random,” said one resident. “The aim seems to be to kill and terrify as many people as possible.” President Obama said that he was “appalled by the Syrian government’s use of violence,” and pledged to increase pressure on the regime. The brutality of this week’s attack finally convinced the U.N. Security Council to condemn Syrian authorities for widespread human-rights violations, but it stopped short of imposing sanctions.

It’s no surprise that “Assad thinks he can slaughter the people of Hama with impunity,” said The Washington Post in an editorial. After all, Western leaders have “vehemently ruled out intervention,” the U.N. has refused to order sanctions on the regime—which has killed more than 2,000 people since March—and Obama has forgotten his threat to prosecute Assad for war crimes. But there’s little the West can do to speed Assad’s departure, said Blake Hounshell in Foreign Policy. A harshly worded resolution won’t damage “the deeply entrenched” regime, and sanctions won’t have an immediate effect. The only people who can influence when and how Assad goes are ordinary Syrians.

Some Syrians are more influential than others, though, said Elliott Abrams in The Wall Street Journal. The army’s top generals and the president hail from the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. As 74 percent of Syrians are Sunni Muslims, Alawites will pay a heavy price if the rebellion escalates into a sectarian civil war. The U.S. should urge the generals to save their community from retaliation by refusing to kill fellow citizens. The choice is simple: “Are you going to be war criminals or survivors?”