Will arming the Syrian opposition be Good?

In a piece written for CNN, Anna Macdonald reports that the EU, effective June 1, will suspend the arms embargo against the transport of military weapons to any party in Syria that has been in place for the last two years. Russia responded by affirming its desire to send anti-aircraft missiles.

I agree with the spirit of Macdonald's assertion, that sending weapons to the Syrian opposition will not only prevent bloodshed, it will actually prolong the war in Syria and inflict even more hardships to the civilian population. I also agree that only a diplomatic solution will provide the best prospects for ending the war.

Arming the Syrian opposition, who are not immune to committing atrocious human rights violations against civilians, will only afford them and not to mention provide them, with the means to further inflict indiscriminate human rights violations against the populace. Besides, the Syrian opposition is not really a united and coherent force, which means that the weapons will not be used for its intended purpose, ending the violence, in the most effective and efficient manner. Instead, arming the Syrian opposition will provide various opposition players more ammunition to basically do what they want. The opposition is ruled by various leaders who have their own vested interests at heart, and such interests are not always carried out with due respect to civilian lives. The only uniting force that holds the Syrian opposition is their mutual hatred of al-Assad and desire to topple his government.

The frayed opposition receiving European arms, or any arms of international origin, will only mean that even if they are somehow able to topple the regime, the resulting power vacuum will ensure another bout of civil war in the quest to grab power. The variegated opposition in this nightmarish scenario will now use their foreign supplied guns to eliminate each other, all in the mad rush to hold Damascus in its clasp, with the end in view of ruling Syria.

Providing arms at the current state of  the Syrian opposition is simply counterproductive and unreasonable,  in large part because the EU would find it difficult to whom to give the arms to, the so-called Free Syrian Army is actually an umbrella organization for all opposition groups, and is not a monolithic group one would like to think. Indeed, the act of giving arms to the FSA will in itself cause friction in that groups will be vying to get the most number of weapons they could possibly grab. Infighting will only add more cracks to an already weak arrangement among its various sub-groups.

The diplomatic solution therefore is the very important and very reasonable alternative. Although it will be exhausting, as fighting would inevitably go on during the duration of its undertakings, at least it will provide a more stable platform in which all parties can have a voice, especially the opposition, which is made up of many mini-leaders, all with their own strategies and even interests.

In addition, as soon as EU weapons gets into the arms of the FSA, Russia and Iran will be even more motivated to supply a greater amount of weapons to the regime, only enflaming the war and ensuring that more civilian deaths and more refugees will pour in to neighboring countries. The drawing possibility of Lebanon being dragged into the war will become even more of a possibility. The Syrian Civil War therefore could open itself another front in which more and more foreign nations will become increasingly sucked in.

The EU should consider that its weapons could only incite further hardships, further suffering and further civilian deaths to an already suffering populace.