Harvard's Look at Repression in the Middle East

Last weekend, Harvard turned its attention to issues surrounding the Arab Spring and ongoing resistance movements in the Middle East as Arab scholars and activists descended on the Kennedy School of Government to participate in the fifth annual Harvard Arab Weekend conference. The tumultuous events of the last year set the stage for an engaging discussion on the state of the Middle East. The panel Defending Arab Revolutionaries: The Role of the International Community addressed whether the international community has a role to play in countries like Syria and Yemen, where repressive violence against citizens protesting is only increasing and civil war looms. The panelists resoundingly concurred that international involvement is essential to stopping the bloodshed in the region, while pushing back against any talk of military intervention. This involvement needs to be carefully calculated, however, to maximize its effect. Intervention should be non-militaristic in nature, as the panelists agreed, but attention should also be paid to who intervenes and in what way.
Chibli Mallat, a Visiting Professor of Islamic Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, moderated the panel consisting of journalist and Yemeni National Council member Munir al-Mawari, Syrian National Council member Dr. Najib Ghadbian, and Amnesty International Northeast Regional Director Joshua Rubenstein. Both Mawari and Ghadbian, members of their countries’ respective opposition organizations, urged the international community, particularly the United States, to coerce the regimes of President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria into ending the violence. “We want to provide political and diplomatic pressure on the regime,” asserted Ghadbian.
One specific example of diplomatic pressure Ghadbian recommended was the suspension of Syria from the Arab League. Indeed, the Arab League suspended Syria the day after this panel spoke. The decision was met with violence on the part of pro-government supporters against embassies in Damascus, but welcomed by the Syrian National Council, which called it “a step in the right direction, and a clear condemnation of the Syrian regime.” The Arab League intends to institute a peace plan in Syria to prevent a civil war, and while the plan is meeting stiff opposition from President Assad’s government, this kind of intervention on the part of the regional community is the best course of action. President Assad may characterize the League’s action as siding with the West, but the Arab League is the only group capable of both pushing for peace and being seen as objective in the eyes of the Arab world. Intervention directly by the West, particularly by the United States, would be significantly less likely to succeed given public opinion of the United States in the Middle East. While it is true public opposition to the Syrian regime and a push for sanctions on the part of the West is important, as the panelists noted, regional involvement will be crucial.
Similarly emphasizing the need for international involvement in Yemen, Mawari added, “Without international accountability, those killers will keep killing their own people.” Rubenstein agreed as he asserted the importance of sanctions and moral isolation. Sanctions, he said, should “not be underestimated” when looking at alternatives like military intervention.In the case of sanctions and moral isolation, the US can play a high-profile role as it has the capability to persuade other UN Security Council members to sign onto sanctions and agree to publicly denounce the Yemeni and Syrian regimes.
Another area in which the US could aid the opposition is in institution-building. Mallat raised the key question of whether the national councils are organized enough to inspire countries like the United States to seriously involve themselves in Syria and Yemen. He asked both Ghadbian and Mawari if their organizations had a simple telephone number that US officials could call. The answer was no. An audience member asked if the groups’ had been working on an institutional plan for new regimes in Syria and Yemen. Ghadbian cited a project the Syrian National Council is developing that would investigate possible constitutional, educational, and healthcare frameworks for Syria, but the project is in its early stages. To allay concerns, Mawari, however, repeated what he told Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in a recent meeting: “If you’re afraid of the future of the Arab world, be a part of it.” By advising the Syrian and Yemeni national councils on the crafting of institutions, the US would be an important part of forming a new Arab world in a low-profile manner.
It will be important for the US to balance this kind of involvement with the actions of the Arab League. Other Arab nations must be seen as taking the lead in diffusing violence in both Syria and Yemen. US involvement is vital, but can ultimately do little without Syria and Yemen’s neighbors aggressively pushing for peace.
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