In Syria the rebels have won and Beshar al-Assad has been ousted. The Assads, father Hafez al-Assad and son Bashar ruled Syria consecutively for over a half century. Bashar’s wife and three children left for Russia earlier and he has joined them.
A major reason for the rebel victory was the preoccupation of key Assad allies in their own troubled backyards — Russia in a hotted-up Ukraine and Hezbollah in strengthening its home front in Lebanon where Shia majority areas face greater insecurity under increased religious tensions.
Iran, too, diminished its support after its forces in Syria were targeted repeatedly by Israelis and suffered the loss of many revolutionary guard fighters and a senior military advisor, Brigadier General Kioumars Pourhashemi often called Haji Hashem.
All of which constituted a perfect storm for Assad, bringing about the end of his regime. One can only hope the end result is not another dictator. One interesting fact about Syria attests to its long history: Damascus the capital is the world’s oldest city having been in continuous habitation since 10,000 BC. For comparison, it is considerably older than the Egyptian civilization.
In other news about the Middle East, the British lawyer who is the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands has finally secured arrest warrants for Bibi Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, a former Israeli defence minister, and Mohammed Deif of Hamas. The latter is now reported to have been killed during Israeli air strikes in Gaza.
The charges laid out in the arrest warrants have to do with fighting a just war and avoiding civilian casualties as much as possible. Netanyahu seems to have paid little heed as he set about bombing Gaza indiscriminately.
Specifically, the charges state that both Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, who was then defense minister, bear criminal responsibility as co-perpetrators in “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts.” In addition, there are reasonable grounds to believe that “each bears criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crimes of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population” of Gaza.
By the way, Netanyahu did say after the Hamas attack killing 1200 people that he will kill them all so that it can never happen again. But perhaps it was an outburst in anger.
So it stands. Two EU countries, Italy and The Netherlands have stated already that they would arrest them on their territory. Britain is more equivocal, its spokesman saying it would require a legal process before the men could be handed over to the ICC.
The world is a large place although it appears the travel plans of the accused are going to be severely hampered. Surely if they think they are innocent, they should go before the court and clear their names.