The Arab League moved to suspend Syria’s membership on Saturday, in a strong repudiation of President Bashar al-Assad’s violent repression of protesters. By acting against Syria, a central member of the Arab League, the organization took their boldest stance yet in support of the sweeping democratization of the Arab world.
The formal suspension began Wednesday, and gave Assad one last chance to carry out an agreement to end the violence — a bloody crackdown that has received considerably less attention from the international community than other Arab Spring uprisings in Libya and Egypt.
In response to the decision, Syrian ambassador Youssef Ahmed accused the League of being “subordinate to American and Western agendas” on Syria’s state television.
In response to the revolutionary wave that has swept the Arab world since spring of this year, the Arab League is attempting to accommodate democracy without triggering an armed takedown of the Syrian government, or international intervention like that in Libya. It’s a fine tightrope to tread, as deaths in the country continue to mount.
The Arab League consists of 22 member nations, including Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Qatar and Egypt among others. Both Egypt and Iraq abstained from Saturday’s vote. Qatar, a small but influential nation in the Persian Gulf, came out in strong support of the measure, sharply refuting the accusations by Youssef of carrying out a Western agenda.
The United Nations has put the death toll in Syria at 3,500 since the uprising began in March; more than 100 civilians have been slain since Syria accepted an Arab League agreement to halt the violence in November.
This move by the Arab League could pave the way for harsh sanctions against the Syrian government, or even a military intervention if the violence persists. The resolution also called for Arab states to withdraw their ambassadors in Damascus, the Syrian capital. However, the United Nations Security Council has been ambivalent about the violence in Syria, offering a few weak condemnations and no agreed-upon plan of action.
This news comes at a time of economic vulnerability in Syria, where European embargos on Syrian oil have devastated production by as much as 75 percent, according to statements by European diplomats to the international press. Syria’s oil exports represented anywhere from 15 to 35 percent of the state budget, and more than 90 percent of those exports went to Europe.
Furthermore, the Arab League made vague allusions to political and economic sanctions against the Assad government, though the exact nature of these sanctions is still unspecified.
Assad assumed control of the country in 2000, inheriting the position from his father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria with an iron fist for nearly 30 years, drawing criticism for human rights abuses and the executions of his political opponents.
It is unlikely, then, that the Arab League’s decision to politically humiliate the government of Syria will put an end to the violence. Indeed, the Assad family has ruled over Syria for 40 years, and will not cede that power without a fight.
For the United States and allies, the move by the Arab League is a fortunate one that takes the pressure off of Western shoulders to make the first move in condemning the Syrian government. President Obama applauded the Arab League’s leadership on Saturday during his Pacific-Asian diplomatic summit in Hawaii. But for a U.S. making a quick pullout from Iraq and the region at large, the League’s defense of human rights and the Syrian people’s move for democracy is heartening.
The Arab League also hosted a meeting of Syrian opposition leaders in Cairo on Tuesday, in what will hopefully be the start to a peaceful dialogue.
