By Karen DeYoung, Published: December 25
Planning for the day after the anticipated fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has become a race against time that many proponents of a pluralistic, democratic Syria fear they are losing.
In Washington, Istanbul and elsewhere, opposition activists and their supporters are establishing databases and drafting the outlines of an interim structure to govern Syria until something more permanent can take its place.
But even those who have been working on the plans doubt they will serve as more than suggestions in a post-Assad atmosphere that they predict will be characterized at best by conflict and chaos. At worst, they see a sectarian bloodbath and a possible takeover by extremists fighting on the side of rebel military forces.
Many Syrian activists believe the United States and Europe have exacerbated the challenges by forbidding interactions with the armed opposition in the country while Assad is still in power.
“What we really need is to work with the most prominent and moderate leaders in the Free Syrian Army to make them national leaders, to create a strong organization for them under political leadership,” said Rami Nakhla, executive director of the Istanbul-based Day After organization, which is providing technical support to the U.S.-backed Syrian Opposition Coalition.
Restrictions against any interaction with the armed opposition, he said, are “a big strategic mistake.”
Others say that U.S. humanitarian assistance to Syria, provided indirectly and largely invisibly through non-governmental organizations, has had only a negligible effect in the conflict and that massive reconstruction aid planned for the day after Assad’s fall will come too late to win Syrian hearts and minds.
“No one is thinking about the day after. They’re thinking about today, and whether they’ll be alive tomorrow,” said Tom Malinowski, Washington director for Human Rights Watch.
Categories: Arab World, Asia, Syria