By Jennifer Smith, News Correspondent
Experts called for immediate diplomatic approach and international cooperation to resolve controversial issues in Syria in a panel discussion on Tuesday.
The panel, “Syria and the World: Panel Discussion on Controversial Issues in Security Studies,” was hosted by the Department of Political Science and the Northeastern Humanities Center, focused on the history and present status of Syria’s political turmoil.
Syria, currently in the midst of internal conflict, is a pressing topic with regard to US foreign policy. Though the violent protests and practices have been ongoing since 2011, the Syrian government’s confirmed use of chemical weapons against its citizenship sparked international outcry.
“Syria has been the dominant recent issue in the Middle East,” said Mitchell Orenstein, professor and chair of the political science department at Northeastern.
Orenstein organized a series of discussions to address current controversial issues domestically and around the globe.
Panelists Rami Khouri, a senior fellow with the Middle East Initiative, Belfer Center, John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; Valentine Moghadam, professor of sociology and director of Northeastern’s International Affairs Program; and Franck Salameh, an assistant professor of Near Eastern Studies at Boston College’s department of Slavic and Eastern Languages lead the discussion.
Salameh focused on the divisions between Middle Eastern states, referencing a New York Times article, “How Five Countries Could Become 14,” that sparked some debate about a potential partitioning of Syria. There is “no real unity or cohesion” within Syria, according to Salameh, noting that the deeply divided region had been sitting on the brink of a conflagration for years.
He also cautioned against dismissing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as “dim, deluded or a reluctant figurehead.” Rather, Assad’s hold on his power and shaping of the conflict suggests that he might be doing something right.
The US considered a military strike against Syria earlier this year, which Moghadam asserts would have been a terrible idea. Negative repercussions have always followed these significant past western interventions, she said, drawing a comparison to Afghanistan in the 1980s, where the insurgent Mujahideen were “armed by the CIA and joined by jihadists.”
The loss of US legitimacy and credibility, on top of the fact that a strike against Syria would have been illegal under international law, has Moghadam confident that the situation calls for “a diplomatic and political solution, not a military one.”
The Syrian conflict represents the biggest proxy war of all time, Khouri said. International parties view it as “an existential battle that they cannot lose.” Russia’s facilitation of a peaceful turnover of chemical weapons was crucial, he said, and the key drivers to end the violence are the US, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Middle Eastern tensions have long been a contentious issue in the US, and “it’s crucial to study the regions and be aware of both sides,” said Enayat Younes, a senior international affairs major who attended the panel for a class. “It’s big.”
This event, attended by approximately 200 students and faculty members, marked the opening of two new Northeastern centers: Resilient Studies and International Affairs and World Cultures. The second event in the controversial issues series will be on drones and killer robots, taking place on Nov. 22.
