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Fri, June 17, 2011 | Rubin Reports | By Barry Rubin

Syrian refugees greet each other at the Turkish Red Crescent camp in the Yayladagi district of the Turkish city of Hatay, two kilometers from the Syrian border, on June 15. (AFP/Mustafa Ozer)

Western Failure to Support the Real Freedom Fighters in the Middle East Is A Disgrace

Anthony Shadid, the New York Times’ pro-Islamist correspondent, writes an article on the “resignation” of Rami Makhlouf from the Syrian regime without finding him involved in any actual corruption. This is like writing an article on former Rep. Anthony Weiner and mentioning in one sentence that some claim he uses social media. It’s easy to provide a detailed account of Makhlouf’s depredations but here he emerges as a sort of sympathetic figure, his resignation as proof that the Asad dictatorship is listening to the masses.

But there’s nothing funny about events in Syria. Recently, a Syrian dissident friend wrote me, “People are being massacred and nobody cares a damn.” In a real sense, it is tragic that he’s right. Yes, the Obama Administration is now saying “tough” things about the Syrian regime and putting on the minimum sanctions, but in the face of mass shootings and torture, it amounts to nothing. Compare this to the media and administration outrage against Israel, or the demand for the immediate resignation of Egyptian President Husni Mubarak for far fewer crimes and in the face of a much less significant uprising.

I’m certainly not advocating military intervention but why is that happening in Libya to help an opposition that is largely Islamist and commits its own atrocities compared to the official indifference — yes, that’s what it is despite the cosmetic government statements — toward those who really deserve support. And leaving aside humanitarian considerations, why no support for those who are relatively friendly to the West compared to the succor given to its enemies? That’s wrong in both moral and realpolitik terms.

Is there going to be any support demonstration for the Syrian uprising (or for the Iranian opposition, or against repression in Turkey, or in support of the moderate opposition in Lebanon) in any European or North American country in which people participate who aren’t from those countries? Is there going to be a single teach-in or meeting on a single college campus anywhere? Doesn’t anyone else see how amazingly tragic a situation is that when people seek real democracy the West is indifferent but when radical forces seek to establish dictatorships or even use terrorism they receive support and encouragement from flotillas to sanctions’ movements to demonstration from the West?

I do note that the EU is gradually increasing sanctions on Syria.

It is hard to determine precisely what’s happening in Syria but I have posted a small sample of the materials available. I feel like someone watching the Warsaw Ghetto uprising or the Polish and Slovak national risings during World War Two, or the Hungarian uprising of 1956 or that in Czechoslovakia in 1968 as freedom fighters are murdered.