History of Arab interventions argues against role in Syria
Last Saturday, in an interview on US television, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the emir of Qatar, threw a rock in the very still pond of Arab bewilderment over Syria. He recommended that Arab troops be sent to the country “to stop the killing”. If previous Arab military interventions in fellow Arab countries are anything to go by, the bewilderment will not soon dissipate.
It’s still unclear what Sheikh Hamad had in mind. His statement could have been a tactical manoeuvre, to place the onus for the carnage in Syria on other Arab countries, at a time when Qatar finds itself virtually alone in aggressively opposing the regime of President Bashar Al Assad. Or the emir could have been thinking of something more specific, namely Arab military protection of so-called humanitarian corridors, to safeguard Syrian civilians.
The idea may not be as far-fetched as it appears, even though Damascus has rejected any kind of foreign military involvement in its affairs. The French government has supported establishing humanitarian corridors, which presumably would be sustained from Turkish territory. The Turkish leadership, itself at a loss over quite what to do in Syria, may welcome such a scheme if it enjoys Arab approval, and if the boots on the ground are Arab.
Moreover, humanitarian corridors defended by Arabs, rather than by Turks, would be a way to avoid alarming Syria’s Kurds. It is difficult to see how Russia and China, let alone the United States or the United Kingdom, could actively oppose an Arab consensus on an initiative that circumvents the United Nations Security Council.
At this stage, we can only speculate over what Sheikh Hamad meant by his cryptic comments. Yet those Arab governments reluctant to go along with his project, and they doubtless are many, can point to the dubious record of Arab military operations during the past half-century to chill any ambient enthusiasm.
In the most relevant case, in 1976 the Arab League deployed what was known as the Arab Deterrent Force to Lebanon, to end the civil war in the country. When formed, the force included soldiers from a variety of Arab nations, although the vast majority were Syrian.