- Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and feared threat to invade Ukraine, has grabbed attention
- Simon Tisdall says Syria, not Crimea, directly affects western security in more basic ways
- Much of northern Syria under control of jihadi groups, united in opposition to West – Tisdall
- Syria is in the process of becoming a bridgehead to Europe for al Qaida, he adds
Editor’s note: Simon Tisdall is assistant editor and foreign affairs columnist at the Guardian. He was previously foreign editor of the Guardian and The Observer and served as White House correspondent and U.S. editor in Washington D.C. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely his.
(CNN) — Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and what many fear is its apparent threat to invade Ukraine, has riveted international attention since the crisis erupted with February’s revolution in Kiev. Excitable talk has proliferated as fast as North Korean missiles.
Pundits obsess about a new Cold War, a showdown with “mad bad Vlad” Putin, and the resulting need to boost military spending (always a Pentagon favorite). The talk is all Ukraine, Ukraine. Politicians and diplomats have put everything else on hold.
Including Syria, which is a big mistake. Far more than an argument over an obscure shard of territory on the edge of Nowhere-on-Don, the catastrophe now taking place in and around Syria ranks as a fundamental challenge and threat to the current world order.
Syria, not Crimea, directly affects western security in very basic ways. What’s happening there is changing the power balance in the Middle East. And unlike in Ukraine or the Baltic republics or other post-Soviet lands, a vast human catastrophe is unravelling, apparently without end. In Syria’s real, not phoney, war, more than 100,000 people have died so far.
The total number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, for example, has now passed the 1 million mark, according to the U.N.’s refugee agency — and that does not include the tens of thousands who have not registered with the agency. About 12,000 are fleeing Syria for Lebanon each week.
The refugee outflow is also affecting Jordan, Turkey, Egypt and Iraq. As the war enters its fourth year, the overall refugee total is around 2.5 million. A further 6.5 million Syrians are internally displaced, and 9.3 million are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the U.N. The suffering concealed behind these bald figures is appalling, as any visitor to the refugee camps will testify. Children are particularly badly affected.
Yet even if they are not swayed by the human cost of a conflict that has become depressingly familiar, basic considerations of self-interested realpolitik suggest governments, politicians and diplomats should be paying more attention to Syria.
One obvious reason is the way the war has been exploited to facilitate the spread of Islamist fundamentalism. Large areas of northern Syria are now under the control of jihadi groups and militias who, whatever else they may disagree about, are united in their opposition to western values and interests.
Syria is in the process of becoming a bridgehead to Europe for al Qaida and like-minded fanatics. It is already a magnet for young European Muslim men who want a piece of the global jihad. They then bring their new “skills” home.
A second reason to take a second look at Syria is the way instability there is steadily spreading outwards to affect neighboring countries. Turkey’s neo-Islamist government, having initially tried to broker a peace deal, now regards itself as virtually at war with Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Last week the
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