Daily Times

Syrian Prime Minister Imad Khamis has termed this week’s local elections as evidence that his country has defeated terrorism and is returning to normalcy. And while these represent the first such polls since 2011 — it cannot be ignored that ballots could only be cast in government-held areas.

Be that as it may, this translates into some 40,000 candidates competing for 18,478 local administrative council seats. The outcome appears all but a foregone conclusion given that the overwhelming majority of those contesting are members of the ruling Baath party; or else strongly tied to it. This has reportedly led to a lower voter turnout than has seen in previous elections. Though it remains difficult to put figures to this as the Assad regime continues to play coy on this front.

Naturally, experts and Syria watchers have denounced the polls as little more than a smokescreen; to hoodwink the international community into believing that Damascus has ultimately won the internationalisation of what started out as a civil war. Albeit it one that involved state brutality against the citizenry. Admittedly, the regime has yet to exert its writ over the Kurdish-held parts of the northeast as well as Idlib province in the northwest; the largest area still under rebel control and home to some three million people. But that does not detract from the fact that with the backing of both Russia and Iran — the regime now holds two-thirds of Syrian territory. Indeed, it recently retook the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta.

This represents a resounding failure on the part of the US and its NATO allies. While keeping in mind the enormity of collateral damage: more than 500,000 killed and 11 million displaced. Yet it would be a misstep for the latter to denounce the Syrian elections as little more than an exercise in self-serving propaganda. Not because this is not the case. It is. But simply due to the fact the West has no moral authority to make this call. Not when Afghanistan has been under American military occupation for 17 long years. Not when international forces report that the Taliban control or contest 44 percent of territory. Not when the BBC puts this figure at 70 percent. Not when violence from all sides continues. Not when there are fears of a resurgent Al Qaeda. And definitely not when Afghans are expected to, against this backdrop, go ballot-boxing next month.

For, to many, this represents nothing but an exercise in American vanity. To underscore how the military intervention was worth it; to install democracy through the barrel of someone else’s gun. This is a story that has been repeated in Iraq. And it does not wash. What it does suggest, however, is that a new chapter in the Great Game has begun. Especially when it comes to propaganda wars. With both sides exploiting the identical narratives that contend elections alone are sufficient to whitewash possible war crimes. When everyone knows this to be untrue. Not least local populations on the grounds that are under fire from all sides.

Thus it can never be enough to condemn one side alone. For that is the way selective justice lies.  *

Published in Daily Times, September 19^th 2018.