结束叙利亚战争 Jeffrey Sachs

结束叙利亚战争

https://sandersinstitute.org/blog-ending-the-syrian-war

作者：Jeffrey Sachs 项目集团 / 2016 年 2 月 16 日

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照片：Arjenis Nunez / Wikimedia Commons
叙利亚是当前世界上最严重的人道主义灾难和最危险的地缘政治热点。 叙利亚人民陷入血战，超过40万人死亡，千万人流离失所。

在外部支持者支持下的暴力圣战组织无情地蹂躏这个国家并掠夺人民。 冲突各方 — — 巴沙尔·阿萨德总统政权、美国及其盟国支持的反阿萨德部队以及伊斯兰国 — — 都已经犯下了并将继续犯下严重的战争罪行。

是时候拿出解决方案了。 但这样的解决方案必须基于对战争根源的透明和现实的解释。

年表如下。 2011年2月，在被称为“阿拉伯之春”的地区性现象中，叙利亚主要城市爆发了和平抗议活动。 阿萨德政权的反应是暴力镇压（向示威者开枪）和提出改革。 很快，暴力事件升级。 阿萨德的反对者指责该政权毫无克制地对平民使用武力，而政府则指出士兵和警察的死亡是抗议者中存在暴力圣战分子的证据。

看来早在2011年3月或4月，逊尼派反政权战士和武器就开始从邻国进入叙利亚。 许多目击者的叙述都讲述了外国圣战分子对警察进行暴力袭击的情况。 （然而，这些说法很难证实，尤其是在近五年之后。）

2011年春天，美国及其地区盟友试图将阿萨德赶下台，认为他会像埃及的胡斯尼·穆巴拉克和突尼斯的扎因·阿比丁·本·阿里一样迅速下台。 许多观察家声称，卡塔尔资助了叙利亚境内反政权活动的增加，并利用总部位于多哈的半岛电视台来煽动全世界的反阿萨德情绪，尽管这种说法很难得到明确证实。

美国对该政权实施了更严格的贸易和金融制裁。 美国官方政策的风向标布鲁金斯学会呼吁阿萨德下台，美国媒体反阿萨德的宣传猛增。 （在此之前，阿萨德在美国媒体中被认为是一位相对温和、尽管独裁的统治者，时任国务卿希拉里·克林顿直到 2011 年 3 月才指出，美国国会中的许多人将阿萨德视为改革者。）

战争的爆发可以追溯到2011年8月18日，当时美国总统奥巴马和克林顿宣布“阿萨德必须下台”。 到目前为止，暴力事件仍然是可以控制的。 包括平民和战斗人员在内的总死亡人数可能达到 2,900 人左右（根据政权反对者的一项统计）。

8月之后，死亡率飙升。 有时有人声称美国此时没有采取强有力的行动。 奥巴马的政敌普遍攻击他采取的行动太少，而不是太多。 但美国实际上确实采取了推翻阿萨德的行动，尽管主要是通过盟友秘密进行的，特别是沙特阿拉伯和土耳其（尽管这两个国家都不需要太多的刺激来干预）。 中央情报局和沙特阿拉伯秘密协调他们的行动。

当然，战争的时间顺序并不能解释这一点。 为此，我们需要检查关键参与者的动机。 首先，叙利亚战争是一场代理人战争，主要涉及美国、俄罗斯、沙特、土耳其和伊朗。 美国及其盟友沙特阿拉伯和土耳其于2011年发动战争，以推翻阿萨德政权。 美国联盟遭到了俄罗斯和伊朗不断升级的反击，其黎巴嫩代理军队真主党正在与阿萨德政府并肩作战。

美国推翻阿萨德政权的兴趣恰恰在于其对伊朗和俄罗斯支持的依赖。 美国安全官员认为，推翻阿萨德将削弱伊朗，削弱真主党，并削弱俄罗斯的地缘政治影响力。

美国的盟友，包括土耳其、沙特阿拉伯和卡塔尔，有兴趣用逊尼派领导的政权（阿拉维派是什叶派伊斯兰教的一个分支）取代叙利亚阿萨德的阿拉维派政权。 他们认为，这也会削弱他们的地区竞争对手伊朗，并更广泛地削弱什叶派在中东的影响力。

美国 — — 并非第一次 — — 相信阿萨德会轻易被推翻，因此依赖于自己的宣传。 该政权面临强烈的反对，但也得到了相当多的内部支持。 更重要的是，该政权拥有强大的盟友，特别是伊朗和俄罗斯。 认为两人都不会回应的想法太天真了。

公众应该认识到中央情报局领导的斗争的肮脏本质。 美国及其盟国向叙利亚派遣了大量逊尼派圣战分子，就像美国在 20 世纪 80 年代向阿富汗派遣了逊尼派圣战分子（圣战者组织）（后来成为基地组织）一样。 沙特,

拉比亚、土耳其、卡塔尔和美国经常支持一些最暴力的圣战组织，他们愤世嫉俗地错误估计这些代理人会做肮脏的工作，然后以某种方式被推到一边。

美国和欧洲主流媒体认为，俄罗斯对叙利亚的军事干预是危险的、扩张主义的。 事实是不同的。 《联合国宪章》不允许美国组织联盟、资助雇佣军和走私重型武器来推翻别国政府。 在这种情况下，俄罗斯只是做出反应，而不是采取行动。 它正在回应美国对其盟友的挑衅。

结束战争需要遵守六项原则。 首先，美国应停止公开和秘密推翻叙利亚政府的行动。 其次，联合国安理会应落实正在谈判的停火协议，呼吁美国、俄罗斯、沙特、土耳其、卡塔尔、伊朗等各国停止向叙利亚境内武装和资助军事力量。

第三，所有准军事活动都应该停止，包括美国支持的所谓“温和派”的活动。 第四，美国和俄罗斯 — — 实际上还有联合国安理会 — — 应该让叙利亚政府严格承担责任，停止对政权反对者采取惩罚性行动。 第五，政治过渡应该在各方建立信任的情况下逐步进行，而不是通过任意、破坏稳定的急于“自由选举”的方式进行。

最后，应敦促海湾国家、土耳其和伊朗就能够确保持久和平的区域框架进行面对面谈判。 阿拉伯人、土耳其人和伊朗人已经共同生活了数千年。 他们，而不是外部势力，应该引领该地区的稳定秩序。

Ending The Syrian War

https://sandersinstitute.org/blog-ending-the-syrian-war

BY JEFFREY SACHS   PROJECT SYNDICATE / FEBRUARY 16, 2016

Photo: Arjenis Nunez / Wikimedia Commons

Syria is currently the world’s greatest humanitarian catastrophe and most dangerous geopolitical hotspot. The Syrian people are caught in a bloodbath, with more than 400,000 dead and ten million displaced.

Violent jihadist groups backed by outside patrons mercilessly ravage the country and prey on the population. All parties to the conflict – President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the anti-Assad forces supported by the United States and its allies, and the Islamic State – have committed, and continue to commit, serious war crimes.

It is time for a solution. But such a solution must be based on a transparent and realistic account of what caused the war in the first place.

The chronology is as follows. In February 2011, peaceful protests were staged in Syria’s major cities, amid the region-wide phenomenon dubbed the “Arab Spring.” The Assad regime reacted with a shifting mix of violent repression (shooting at demonstrators) and offers of reform. Soon, the violence escalated. Assad’s opponents accused the regime of using force against civilians without restraint, while the government pointed to the deaths of soldiers and policeman as evidence of violent jihadists among the protestors.

It seems likely that as early as March or April 2011, Sunni anti-regime fighters and arms started to enter Syria from neighboring countries. Many eyewitness accounts tell of foreign jihadists engaging in violent attacks on policemen. (Such accounts are, however, hard to confirm, especially after almost five years.)

The US and its regional allies tried to nudge Assad from power in the spring of 2011, thinking that he would fall quickly like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Many observers assert that Qatar funded an increase in anti-regime activity within Syria and used the Doha-based broadcaster Al Jazeera to boost anti-Assad sentiment worldwide, though such claims are hard to pin down definitively.

The US imposed a tightening noose of trade and financial sanctions on the regime. The Brookings Institution, a bellwether of US official policy, called for Assad’s ouster, and anti-Assad propaganda in the US media soared. (Until then, Assad was considered in the US media to be a relatively benign, albeit authoritarian, ruler, and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted as late as March 2011 that many in the US Congress regarded Assad as a reformer.)

The launch of the war can be dated to August 18, 2011, when President Barack Obama and Clinton declared that “Assad must go.” Up to that point, the violence was still containable. Total deaths, including both civilians and combatants, ran perhaps to around 2,900 (according to one tally by regime opponents).

After August, the death rate soared. It is sometimes claimed that the US did not act vigorously at this point. Obama’s political foes generally attack him for having taken too little action, not too much. But the US did in fact act to topple Assad, albeit mostly covertly and through allies, especially Saudi Arabia and Turkey (though neither country needed much prodding to intervene). The CIA and Saudi Arabia covertly coordinated their actions.

Of course, the chronology of the war does not explain it. For that, we need to examine the motivations of the key actors. First and foremost, the war in Syria is a proxy war, involving mainly the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran. The US and its allies, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, started the war in 2011 in order to overthrow Assad’s regime. The US alliance was met with escalating counterforce by Russia and Iran, whose Lebanese proxy army Hezbollah is fighting alongside Assad’s government.

The US interest in overthrowing Assad’s regime was precisely its reliance on Iranian and Russian backing. Removing Assad, US security officials believed, would weaken Iran, undermine Hezbollah, and roll back Russia’s geopolitical reach.

America’s allies, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, were interested in replacing Assad’s Alawite regime in Syria with a Sunni-led regime (Alawites are a branch of Shia Islam). This, they believed, would also weaken their regional competitor, Iran, and curtail Shia influence in the Middle East more generally.

In believing that Assad would be easily overthrown, the US – not for the first time – was relying on its own propaganda. The regime faced deep opposition, but also had considerable internal support. More important, the regime had powerful allies, notably Iran and Russia. It was naive to believe that neither would respond.

The public should appreciate the dirty nature of the CIA-led fight. The US and its allies flooded Syria with Sunni jihadists, just as the US had flooded Afghanistan in the 1980s with Sunni jihadists (the Mujahideen) that later became Al Qaeda. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and the US have regularly backed some of the most violent jihadist groups in a cynical miscalculation that these proxies would do their dirty work and then somehow be pushed aside.

According to the US and European mainstream media, Russia’s military intervention in Syria is treacherous and expansionist. The truth is different. The US is not allowed under the UN Charter to organize an alliance, fund mercenaries, and smuggle heavy weapons to overthrow another country’s government. Russia in this case is reacting, not acting. It is responding to US provocations against its ally.

Ending the war requires adherence to six principles. First, the US should cease both overt and covert operations to overthrow Syria’s government. Second, the UN Security Council should implement the ceasefire now under negotiation, calling on all countries, including the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and Iran, to stop arming and funding military forces within Syria.

Third, all paramilitary activities should cease, including those of so-called “moderates” backed by the US. Fourth, the US and Russia – and, indeed, the UN Security Council – should hold Syria’s government strictly responsible to desist from punitive actions against regime opponents. Fifth, the political transition should take place gradually and with confidence building on all sides, rather than through an arbitrary, destabilizing rush to “free elections.”

Finally, the Gulf States, Turkey, and Iran should be pressed to negotiate face to face on a regional framework that can ensure lasting peace. Arabs, Turks, and Iranians have all lived with each other for millennia. They, not the outside powers, should lead the way to a stable order in the region.