Saturday, March 03, 2012

Alan Berger's thoughtful piece on Syria


"FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE called states the “coldest of all cold monsters.’’ Anyone doubting the truth of Nietzsche’s dictum need only contemplate the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad and the complicity of his backers in Tehran and Moscow — and then ponder the hesitation of onlooker states to accept what a UN resolution has called their “responsibility to protect’’ civilians from Assad’s tanks, artillery, and snipers."
Berger concludes by with a prescription for a democratic, pluralist states with guarantees for minority community, of course including the 'Alawis.  The dilemma is that the Syria regime has systematically decimated civil society in the Syria with the result that the sinews of a participant political system need to built de novo.  As in Iraq and in Libya, it is not that the people would not wish to live in a freer, even democratic society, but the prospects are problematic, except insofar as political institutions are constructed along sectarian or kinship lines.  The legacy of these rapacious regimes is a deformed political space, and only time, and trial and error may rehabilitate that space.

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