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Geoffrey Alderman

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Geoffrey Alderman,

Geoffrey Alderman

Opinion

Putin’s policy on Syria is right

August 21, 2012 10:42
3 min read

Is it really in the interests of Israel, or of the West, that the Syrian civil war should result in the departure from Damascus of President (and ophthalmologist extraordinary) Bashar al-Assad?

A great number of civilians are being killed, many by Assad's quivering regime, but some at the hands of the ill-disciplined, so-called "Free Syria Army". Both sides are guilty of war crimes. But let's get all this into perspective. Syria - like Iraq - is an artificial creation, a forcing together of tribes and religious groups that have always loathed each other.

The Assad regime represents the interests of the Alawite minority. Alawites are regarded by mainstream Muslims in general and Syria's Sunni majority in particular as adherents of an heretical sect - hardly Muslims at all. This feeling - naturally - is mutual. Syria's important Christian minority, on the basis that "my enemy's enemy is my friend", allies itself with the Alawites; some self-exiled Syrian Christians recently told me, with commendable frankness, that they feared for the future of Syrian Christianity should Assad be swept from power.

Then there are the Kurds. We haven't heard much about the Kurds in relation to the present conflict but certainly very few Kurds are enrolling in the army of "Free Syria".