1. 1
THE MEANING OF MILITARY INTERVENTION IN SYRIA
Fernando Alcoforado *
Syria faces, since March 2011, a civil war that has left around 100 thousand people
dead, destroyed the country's infrastructure and caused a massive humanitarian crisis.
Due to the conflict, more than 2 million Syrians left the country towards the
neighboring countries causing a massive refugee crisis. Syrian President Bashar al-
Assad's, minority Alawite Muslim, faces an armed rebellion trying to overthrow it. At
the beginning, the rebellion had a peaceful character, with the Sunni Muslim majority
and the general population claiming more democracy and individual freedoms. But
gradually, with the violent crackdown by security forces, it was turning into an armed
revolt.
President Bashar al-Assad argues that the rebellion is inflated by international terrorists,
including the terrorist network Al-Qaeda, with the support of Western powers and that
is just to keep defending national integrity. It's too big a danger that, if the Assad regime
is overthrown, the power falling into the hands of Islamists linked to al Qaeda that
comprise the largest military force in the country after the Syrian Army. The United
States are still reluctant to intervene in the region since the rebellion is increasingly
dominated by Islamic militants with ties to Al-Qaeda terrorist network. The Syrian Civil
War is reviving the Cold War tensions between East and West since the United States,
other Western powers and some Arab countries like Saudi Arabia support the rebels,
while Russia and China give support to Bashar al-Assad.
There is no doubt that many violent and brutal crackdowns in Syria are being practiced
by the regime of Bashar al-Assad in contrast to demonstrations of the population against
the dictatorship and the action of armed opposition groups armed by Western powers
led by the United States. Among the armed opposition groups of Syrian dictator Bashar
al-Assad, are former soldiers, deserters, who joined the fighters, as well as international
terrorists, according to what happened in Libya, when the ministers quit the government
and led with many military, which reinforced the base of opposition to Gaddafi and
constituted the major internal allies of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization
North Atlantic), which ended up completely destroy the regime of Moammar Gadhafi.
Likewise there was a justification for military intervention in Iraq on the grounds not
confirmed the existence of weapons of mass destruction, intervention in Syria can
happen on the grounds that the government of Bashar al-Assad have recently conducted
chemical attack killing more than 300 people, many of them children, on the outskirts of
the capital, Damascus. Rebels accuse the government of President Bashar al-Assad of
being behind the operation. Assad, meanwhile, denies claiming responsibility for the
use of chemical weapons is the rebels to create the motivation for foreign military
intervention in support of them and adds that it would not make sense for the
government to use its chemical weapons in that situation, since there is no defined front
line between the forces loyal to the regime and the rebels.
Rumors of a military intervention in Syria Western countries are increasingly insistent
in the international press. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that Britain and
the Western powers can intervene militarily in Syria even without the consent of all
members of the UN Security Council, as happened in Iraq and Libya. Under the guise of
fighting a ruthless regime like Syria, the United States and other Western powers seek
to achieve two strategic objectives, not only with regard to the control of major oil-

2. 2
producing sources in the world, but also to ensure the survival the State of Israel, the
spearhead of their interests in the region.
It can be argued that the intervention of the Western powers in the Middle East,
alongside rebel groups supported by the CIA, it would also explain the intention of the
United States, Britain and France to strengthen the role of Western powers in the region
and to impose limits on the process of democratization of Arab countries. It should be
noted that Syria has a fundamental strategic importance because it is the last stone
geopolitical chess in the region, whose fall would lead to the encirclement of Iran,
allowing Western allies reach the territory of the country by the Mediterranean Sea and
Iraq that would guarantee passage to Allied troops reach Iranian borders.
Syria, which borders Israel, has always been important in the Middle East and,
especially today, is part of a geopolitical chess very delicate because it is an ally of Iran,
along with who sponsors terrorist movements extremely aggressive, like Hezbollah and
Hamas in opposition to the State of Israel. Syria is not the ultimate aim. The fall of the
Syrian regime aims to curb the strengthening of Iran, whose ability to produce nuclear
weapons would make it virtually unattainable in the Middle East and become a regional
power able to control the region holds the largest oil reserves in the world. Anyway, this
is all that is at stake. Most likely, if there is an end of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in
Syria as a result of popular uprisings and the actions of undercover agents, will only
increase further instability in the region as it did in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt and
Yemen.
In turn, Russia has great interests in the region, because a long time, since 1950, has an
alliance with Syria. With Russia's help, Syria has received large shipments of weapons
and deployed an extensive network of air defense, which could make it difficult to
maintain a no-fly zone imposed by the UN, if implemented in the future. One must also
consider the fact that it is through Syria that Russia can monitor the Mediterranean, with
the military base Tartur, installed there, the only Navy that it has outside its territory. It
is therefore a very broad geopolitical confrontation of various sorts in the region. It
should be noted that Syria has a powerful army equipped with weapons supplied by
Russia principally and Iran. Syria has aircraft operated by remote control, supplied by
Iran. Syria also has two powerful allies, Russia and China in the Council UN Security.
Given the catastrophic results of the NATO intervention in Libya, Russia and China
decided to harden their positions in the UN Security Council and hinder the attempts of
the United States and other Western allies to repeat the same strategy in Syria.
It is virtually impossible to pass a new resolution in the Security Council to intervene
militarily in Syria. Meanwhile growing impatience of Israel, which becomes difficult to
see a possible attack by Western powers on Iran with the consent of the UN. If the
Western powers do not quickly take down the government of Syria, making it
impossible to secure a siege Iran, the trend is that Israel decides to attack the Persian
country, believing that the time benefits Iranians, giving them conditions to improve its
ability to deal with nuclear energy. The fear that Iran build atomic artifacts that threaten
Israel, as it has missiles with ability to move them hundreds of miles away, has much
more to do with geopolitical hegemony in the region.
* Alcoforado, Fernando, engineer and doctor of Territorial Planning and Regional Development from the
University of Barcelona, a university professor and consultant in strategic planning, business planning,
regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São
Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo,

3. 3
1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do
desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,
http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel,
São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era
Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social
Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG,
Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (P&A Gráfica e Editora,
Salvador, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global
(Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011) and Os Fatores Condicionantes do
Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), among others.