Syria opposition head Bahra leaves UK empty handed

The head of the Syrian National Council, Hadi al-Bahra, came to the UK for the Friends of Syria meeting hoping for more Western action against Assad. He is likely to have been disappointed.

MENA

4 min read

Abubakr al-Shamahi

12 November, 2014

syria hadi al-bahra snc englishsite andrew cowie wpa getty

Al-Bahra is still waiting on further Western support (Getty)

Hadi al-Bahra has been driving home his message so often that it has almost become a catchphrase.

“The [US-led] coalition is fighting the symptom of the problem, and not the cause,” the head of the opposition Syrian National Council has said, in more or less the same words, to the Arab press, to the Guardian, and to the BBC, among others.

The symptom he is referring to is Islamic State (formerly known as ISIS). The cause: the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Bahra wants more action from the West in fighting Assad, and supporting groups like his, and their affiliated military partners on the ground in Syria, loosely brought

The [US-led] coalition is fighting the symptom of the problem, and not the cause.
- Hadi al-Bahra, head of the SNC

together as the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The uprising against the Assad regime began in the heady days of the Arab revolutions of 2011, but despite a brutal crackdown by the regime three years of fighting, leaving over 200,000 dead on all sides, the first active military intervention by the West was against IS and al-Qaeda affiliated rebel groups, and not Assad. In fact, the air strikes arguably leave Assad in quite a good position militarily.

If Bahra intended to come back from the UK with a promise that Assad would be on the receiving end of British air strikes, however, then it appears he will leave disappointed.

Phillip Hammond, the British foreign secretary, told a press conference after meeting Bahra that, "Britain backs the SNC."

“I reaffirmed … that Assad can play no future role in Syria,” Hammond said. “It [the regime] is conducting a brutal and indiscriminate campaign against the moderate opposition and civilians in an effort to destroy prospects for the political settlement that Syria and its people so badly need.”

Yet, there was no direct plan of action apart from a promise to train what the West deems moderate rebels.

“We are providing non-lethal equipment and the UK expects to make a significant contribution to the US-led Train and Equip programme,” Hammond said.

This policy is what led Bahra to describe the West's position vis-a-vis intervention in Syria as “confused” in an interview with the Guardian on Monday.

“Our friends are not serious enough in providing the proper amount of aid and support to help us create enough military pressure inside Syria to press the regime to return to the negotiating table,” Bahra added.

That kind of intervention is extremely unlikely ahead of 2015 general elections, according to Michael Stephens, the Royal United Services Institute's (RUSI) Research Fellow for Middle East studies, and the head of RUSI Qatar.

“There will be no British air strikes [against Assad] before the elections, unless something very big happens,” Stephens said.

“The British government don't want to take any risks before the elections,” he added.

With the Conservative government facing a strong challenge from the Right, Prime Minister David Cameron is unlikely to take any big chances ahead of polling.

In addition, Cameron lost a vote in parliament in 2013 when he was pushing for airstrikes against Assad's forces.

Britain has been involved in air strikes against IS in Iraq. But targeting IS has solid popular backing in the UK following IS propaganda videos featuring the beheading of Western hostages.

Moreover, a parliamentary vote on whether to conduct British air strikes in Iraq was passed overwhelmingly in September.

Nadim Shehadi, an associate fellow at Chatham House, said that vote was a result of the British government's desire to support American policy.

“It was not a vote about ISIS, or Iraq, or Syria, or terror. It was a vote on the special relationship between the United States and Britain,” said Shehadi.

Moreover, Shahedi suggested the Iraq precedent would prevent any deeper British involvement for now.

“My prediction last year was that we are in a situation vis-a-vis Syria which resembles the situation with Iraq between 1991 and 2003,” he said. “Whatever intervention that happened was calibrated to keep him [Saddam Hussein] just enough in power, but not to have him collapse. I think we have the same situation now in Syria.”