By guest author, Michael Corgan
Does the ongoing Syrian civil war have echoes of the Spanish civil war of nearly 80 years ago?
If the conflict were only between the Syrian government and rebel forces (as was true in opposing Franco), then it would be easy for liberal or humanitarian interventionists to oppose what Assad has done to his people and support the rebellion. Indeed, many have already done so.
During the Spanish civil war, as far as outsiders were concerned, there were communists versus Nazis, and a choice was unappealing on those grounds. In Syria today, outsiders of equally unsavory character and practices are intervening for their own purposes, and that makes choosing sides problematic.
Hezbollah supports Assad and Al Qaeda has an increasing role in shaping rebel efforts. How can one aid either side without aiding those Shia and Sunni extremist militant groups so fond of terrorists tactics, and so responsible, in Syria as elsewhere, for the deaths of many innocent Muslims?
As far as outside interests go, you also have the U.S. trying to assert some role in the area versus Russia, which is loath to abandon a long-time client state and lose its only overseas base.
The biggest problem is for the neighboring outsiders. Turkey can probably handle the huge influx of refugees from the fighting, but Jordan is strained and poor fractured Lebanon could fall apart as enlivened Shia-Sunni fighting spills into its land.
There seems to be no workable ending in sight. Nor even a less deadly one. The best that the watching world can do now is to take care of the refugees whose numbers continually swell.
