A retired Greek ambassador believes the Kurds will benefit the most from Syrian crisis
Mallias, served as the Greek ambassador to Washington from 2005 to 2009
Hermione Gee/(BasNews) Erbil:
A retired Greek ambassador welcomes US President Barak Obama’s proposal to intervene in Syria, and believes the Kurds would be the bigger winner with the collapse of Assad Regime.Ambassador Mallias, who is currently visiting the Kurdistan Region, predicts that democracy in the Middle East and North Africa will prevail: “Generally speaking, the era of Ba’ath-style dictatorships is coming to an end. The era of non-democratic, centralized countries in the region is also coming to an end. Despotic rulers will have to reform.”
But it will take time, he cautions: “Moving to full democracy is not a single act but a process and from the point of view of Syria we’re going to see a revision of the political system within its borders – that’s the first phase.”
Mallias, who served as the Hellenic Republic’s ambassador to Washington from 2005 to 2009, will be speaking at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani on Wednesday, September 11.
A central figure in peace building and stabilization efforts in the Balkans in the 1990s, Ambassador Mallias’s talk, “From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to Tahrir Square: The Case of Freedom, Democracy and Peace,” will draw parallels between the fall of communism in Europe and the Middle East’s Arab Spring – emphasizing both the push toward peace, democracy and freedom and the subsequent conflict along ethnic, nationalist and religious lines.
Liberty, democracy, tolerance
Ahead of his talk, Ambassador Mallias visited the offices of BasNews in Erbil to discuss the current situation in Syria and the international community’s response to the crisis.
“I’m not an expert [on Syria],” Mallias says, “but I’m very familiar with the issues at stake: liberty, democracy, tolerance, respect for differences, peace.”
After 20 years working in the Balkans, Mallias was appointed Director of Balkan Affairs at the Greek Foreign Ministry and also served with several European Union Monitor Missions in the region.
Mallias, supports US intervention in Syria “I take seriously what Obama has said and reiterated. I cannot support that a dictator can kill 100,000 of his own people. We should have acted earlier but the value of human life is not equal in the global stock exchange. One hundred thousand people. What if they had been Germans or Americans or Japanese? The value of life is not the same all over the world.”
Kurdish gains
A strike on Syria could be beneficial for the region’s Kurds, Mallias says. He describes Kurdistan Region as “the most stable region in the Middle East” and expects the Kurds to benefit if Assad is overthrown.
“I think they would be the big winners from the geopolitical changes in the region, especially after, or if, the Assad regime falls, because [Syria has] been a big factor in oppressing the Kurds for a long time.”
Apathy
Mallias sees another unfortunate similarity between the post-communist Balkans and the current situation in Syria: the apathy of the international community.
Despite years of killing, mass graves, rapes, and the total destruction of historic cities, it took the genocide of over 8,000 Muslim men at boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica for the international community to intervene.
Srebrenica was the redline for America in 1995; in 2013 it appears to be Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians on the outskirts of Damascus. An estimated 1,400 men, women and children were killed during one attack on August 21.
Four pillars of wisdom
While Mallias doesn’t question the need to strike against the Assad regime, taking lessons from America’s 2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom, he stresses the need to meet four politico-military conditions before doing so.
He laid out what he calls these “four pillars of wisdom” in an article for the Huffington Post earlier this month:
- A decisive configuration and firepower force is needed to secure the effectiveness of any kind of military operation
- A clear political aim/target has to be fixed
- A definition of ’’success’’ should be clear(ed) in advance
- The political ’’exit strategy’’ definitely secured to avoid premature ’’mission accomplished’’ celebrations
At the end of the day, Mallias asks, if no action is taken and Assad goes unpunished, “what is the message to other dictators?”
But it will take time, he cautions: “Moving to full democracy is not a single act but a process and from the point of view of Syria we’re going to see a revision of the political system within its borders – that’s the first phase.”
Mallias, who served as the Hellenic Republic’s ambassador to Washington from 2005 to 2009, will be speaking at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani on Wednesday, September 11.
A central figure in peace building and stabilization efforts in the Balkans in the 1990s, Ambassador Mallias’s talk, “From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to Tahrir Square: The Case of Freedom, Democracy and Peace,” will draw parallels between the fall of communism in Europe and the Middle East’s Arab Spring – emphasizing both the push toward peace, democracy and freedom and the subsequent conflict along ethnic, nationalist and religious lines.
Liberty, democracy, tolerance
Ahead of his talk, Ambassador Mallias visited the offices of BasNews in Erbil to discuss the current situation in Syria and the international community’s response to the crisis.
“I’m not an expert [on Syria],” Mallias says, “but I’m very familiar with the issues at stake: liberty, democracy, tolerance, respect for differences, peace.”
After 20 years working in the Balkans, Mallias was appointed Director of Balkan Affairs at the Greek Foreign Ministry and also served with several European Union Monitor Missions in the region.
Mallias, supports US intervention in Syria “I take seriously what Obama has said and reiterated. I cannot support that a dictator can kill 100,000 of his own people. We should have acted earlier but the value of human life is not equal in the global stock exchange. One hundred thousand people. What if they had been Germans or Americans or Japanese? The value of life is not the same all over the world.”
Kurdish gains
A strike on Syria could be beneficial for the region’s Kurds, Mallias says. He describes Kurdistan Region as “the most stable region in the Middle East” and expects the Kurds to benefit if Assad is overthrown.
“I think they would be the big winners from the geopolitical changes in the region, especially after, or if, the Assad regime falls, because [Syria has] been a big factor in oppressing the Kurds for a long time.”
Apathy
Mallias sees another unfortunate similarity between the post-communist Balkans and the current situation in Syria: the apathy of the international community.
Despite years of killing, mass graves, rapes, and the total destruction of historic cities, it took the genocide of over 8,000 Muslim men at boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica for the international community to intervene.
Srebrenica was the redline for America in 1995; in 2013 it appears to be Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians on the outskirts of Damascus. An estimated 1,400 men, women and children were killed during one attack on August 21.
Four pillars of wisdom
While Mallias doesn’t question the need to strike against the Assad regime, taking lessons from America’s 2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom, he stresses the need to meet four politico-military conditions before doing so.
He laid out what he calls these “four pillars of wisdom” in an article for the Huffington Post earlier this month:
- A decisive configuration and firepower force is needed to secure the effectiveness of any kind of military operation
- A clear political aim/target has to be fixed
- A definition of ’’success’’ should be clear(ed) in advance
- The political ’’exit strategy’’ definitely secured to avoid premature ’’mission accomplished’’ celebrations
At the end of the day, Mallias asks, if no action is taken and Assad goes unpunished, “what is the message to other dictators?”
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