Syria rejoins Arab League after Saudi-Iranian peace
On Sunday, Saudi Arabia and Iran reconciled, allowing Syria to rejoin the Arab League.
Due to its 2011 crackdown on peaceful protesters, which led to a war that killed over 500,000 people and displaced half the country, the Syrian government had been essentially isolated on the world stage for over a decade.
For years, the UAE has supported reintegrating Syria into the region, but many Arab states have opposed it.
After normalizing relations with arch-foe Iran, one of the Assad regime’s primary allies, Saudi Arabia joined the lobbying efforts.
“Syria’s regional isolation is officially broken,” analyst Fabrice Balanche said, calling Sunday’s decision a “diplomatic victory” for Assad.
“The earthquake is the best opportunity to get closer without losing face,” he added. “Saudi Arabia’s concern for Syria is part of the context of reconciliation with Iran.”
Syrians in exile fear that if Arab states normalize diplomatic ties with Syria, refugees worldwide could be forced back to a violent dictatorship they oppose. Sunday’s decision was a blow to them.
The Syria Campaign, a rights group, called the readmission a “whitewashing of 12 years of atrocities” and a “devastating setback for justice”.
Since Syria was expelled from the Arab League for its 2011 crackdown on nonviolent protestors, nothing has changed. Only Arab states’ morality has changed. “The regime’s brutality and scale of violations have increased over time,” said Laila Kiki, executive director of The Syria Campaign.
The instant decision allows Bashar al Assad to go to Saudi Arabia for the Arab League’s May 19 meeting.
On Sunday, the foreign ministers who gathered in Cairo to make the decision stressed their “keenness to launch a leading Arab role in efforts to resolve” the Syria situation and its “humanitarian, security and political consequences”.
Reintegrating the regime is important to many members because Captagon, a methamphetamine produced by the Syrian government, has inundated the region. Saudi Arabia is the main drug market in the area, while Iraq and Jordan struggle to prohibit it from crossing their borders.