The Syrian crisis and the need for a Federal Europe

The mess has started quite a long time ago — say around 2009 or so . It was observed and largely celebrated as the “Arab Spring”. Autocratic regimes were falling out of peoples’ demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt. Then Libya and then something started in Syria.

In Libya Gaddaffi, this insane dictator, was left without allies and soon lost control. He was overthrown and had brutal death. However, after Gaddaffi’s fall, chaos reigns in Libya. Pretty much like Afghanistan or Iraq, with the difference that the US and their allies did not seem willing to pay the cost of installing and supporting what initially is a puppet government which hopefully by the time will evolve to a true national democratic administration in the western sphere of influence (well, to be honest, let’s just ask ourselves if that finally happened in Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere else, despite the huge investment in dollars as well as the sacrifice of soldiers’ lived).

Early enough, I tend to believe even before Gaddaffi’s fall, we start hearing about demonstrations in Syria which were brutally faced by Assad’s autocratic regime. Soon, without really understanding how, those protesters turned to a well-armed force which started fighting a civil war against the Syrian governmental forces.

This time however, contrary to the Libyan case, Assad was not left alone. Russia was not seeming willing to lose their last stronghold in the Middle East and in the Mediterranean, Iran was finding a great opportunity to extend their influence out of Lebanon with Hezbollah and China possibly was supporting Assad too — perhaps more quietly that Russia and Iran.

The US actively supported the Syrian rebels, perhaps also through Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Then, the unexpected happened: A monster called ISIS was born (let’s ask again ourselves, should this have been unexpected or not?).

In the struggle for influence, western powers did not hesitate to partner with devil and then, obviously, devil turned against them — Interestingly, primarily against Europe, because of proximity but also because of weakness.

After a lot of effort, cost and sacrificed, finally the monster was eventually killed. This however was a moment of truth, because the proxy-war this was came to an end.

The Assad regime seemed to have won on the military front against the rebels. In other words, Russia and Iran seemed to have won the war against US and NATO — in proxy level of course.

How high is the probability for this fact to be accepted by the US and NATO leadership? I think the probability equals to zero.

Suddenly then, an excuse (which can very well be absolutely real — but it’s still an excuse) has been found for an open involvement of the Western powers in the Syrian crisis.

It’s an extremely dangerous situation which can lead to completely unpredictable development — some people dare saying even to the WW-3, which I don’t believe personally, but I’m still very much afraid of possible consequenses.

From a European perspective I only get extremely upset when I see the largest economy of this World to passively observe. We have not even let ourselves think what is the true European interest. Perhaps several European nations such as Germany, UK, France and Italy, even our small Greece, have analysed the developments and try to position themselves optimally. But they are just too small to play a catalytic role.

Once glorious nations are obliged to have a miserable follower position in those events which largely change the course of history.

Would it be the same if the EU was united in terms of defense- and foreign-policy? No, it absolutely would not.

First — on the diplomatic level — a truly united Europe would rather easily have made it to avoid this almost decade-long deadly conflict, which led to the complete destruction of a whole country and unimaginable pain and suffering to countless human beings.

Second — on the military level — a truly united Europe would have the authority and the muscle to impose a solution compliant to the European ideals at a region so close to continental Europe (and definitely much closer than Russia or the US).

The Syrian crisis is a very loud bell that we Europeans must listen to. It might be our last chance to stay relevant in international geopolitics and hence have a meaningful say on how our own lives will be shaped in the decades to come.

Increasing our defense spending is just an immediate need. In order to be truly helpful we urgently need to plan for and to implement federal European defense forces and to pool together All of our diplomatic muscle to an autonomous federal European ministry for foreign affairs.

Doing that, together with our monetary union, we shall have all three pillars necessary for a true federation to be acknowledged and supported by the 500 millions of Europeans as well as respected and taken seriously by the rest of the World.

Because today, let’s face the ugly truth, Europe neither is respected nor taken seriously by the key stakeholders of the so called Syrian conflict.