The Arab League moved to suspend Syria's membership on Saturday, accusing the government of President Bashar al-Assad of defying an agreement to stop the violent repression of demonstrators, and it threatened economic and political sanctions if he did not comply.
In acting against Syria, a core member of the Arab League, the group took another bold step beyond what had been a long tradition of avoiding controversy. Alarmed by the region-spanning upheaval of the Arab Spring demonstrations, league delegates said they were trying to head off another factional war like Libya's, in which the group took the unprecedented step of approving international intervention.
Syria's formal suspension is to start in four days, offering what senior Arab League officials described as a last chance for Mr. Assad to carry out a peace agreement his government had accepted. The plan called for the Syrian government to halt the violence directed toward civilians, to withdraw security forces from civilian areas and to release thousands of political prisoners.
Throughout the meeting, the Syrian ambassador, Youssef Ahmed, kept shouting that the move was illegal because such a decision had to be unanimous, participants said. He later repeated the claim on state television and accused the league of being "subordinate to American and Western agendas." Nabil el-Araby, the Arab League's secretary general, pushed the initiative to a vote, with 18 of the league's 22 members supporting the action, Yemen and Lebanon opposing, Iraq abstaining and Syria not voting at all.
"We are hoping for a daring move from Syria to halt the violence and to begin a real dialogue toward real reform," said Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, the prime minister and foreign minister of Qatar, as well as the current league chairman.
Arab governments, seeking to reflect popular demand for democratic change, are trying to address the issue without prompting the violent downfall of the Syrian government or international military action, analysts said.
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"They all want to appear democratic, proactive and standing up for people because they are so embattled at home," said Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, Lebanon.
Previously, when the Arab League was more of a dictators' club, cautious members like Egypt and Saudi Arabia put the brakes on any activism. But the uprisings appear to be rewriting that formula, with Qatar already buoyed by its success in pushing the envelope on Libya.
"The Qataris, as is their wont, are getting out in front and pushing the agenda without anybody able to slow them down because the Syrians are still killing people," Mr. Salem said.
United Nations figures put the death toll at 3,500 since the uprising started in March, with more than 100 civilians killed since Syria accepted the Arab League plan on November 2.
President Obama praised the action on Saturday and promised to keep up pressure on Syria. "After the Assad regime flagrantly failed to keep its commitments, the Arab League has demonstrated leadership in its effort to end the crisis and hold the Syrian government accountable," he said in a statement.
When the league moved in March to approve international intervention to protect civilians in Libya, a step that led to NATO airstrikes, it was acting against a small, unpopular member of the organization. But Syria is a core member of the league, and the action on Saturday was surely a blow to Syria's self-image as "the beating heart of Arabism."
The organization was trying to walk a tightrope between bringing pressure to bear without bringing foreign military intervention, Sheik Hamad said. "Syria is a dear country to all of us, so it pains us to take this decision," he said, adding, "We want to find a solution to the problem within an Arab framework."
Diplomats involved said that Algeria was particularly outspoken in trying to give the Syrians even four more days to avoid repeating the Libyan example, but it was not alone. "They don't want some sort of a blank check that is given to the Security Council to try to take this issue in hand," said one Arab diplomat involved in the negotiations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic concerns. "Some people are saying that if the regime comes under intense pressure from the Arab side, then they will make some changes."
Analysts said the move certainly set the stage for greater international intervention, including broader sanctions, without endorsing it immediately.
Although the action on Saturday brings such a reckoning closer, the international opinion has been divided about Syria. The United Nations Security Council has been unable to agree on any actions other than issuing weak statements of condemnation.
The Arab League resolution also says economic and political sanctions can be applied, though it did not specify any, and it called for Arab states still keeping ambassadors in Damascus, Syria's capital, to withdraw them.
The suspension and threatened sanctions come at a difficult time economically for Syria, with American, European and Turkish officials saying that they believe that the economy remains Mr. Assad's greatest vulnerability.
European diplomats say a European embargo on Syrian oil has devastated that sector, reducing oil production by as much as 75 per cent. Syria's oil exports represented anywhere from 15 to 35 per cent of the state budget, and more than 90 per cent of those exports went to Europe. The diplomats say that the Syrian government has not paid foreign oil companies since August, and that Chinese workers have recently begun leaving the oil fields north of Deir al-Zour for home.
Sheik Hamad and other participants repeatedly emphasized that it was up to Syria to reverse the decision by carrying out the peace plan. Both frustration with Syria and personal animosity toward President Assad, particularly from Qatar's leaders, helped drive the Arab League decision, participants said.
The Arab League also called for a meeting of Syrian opposition leaders in Cairo in three days to forge some sort of consensus on negotiations with the Assad government. That, too, is an attempt to put added pressure on Syria, since up until now the opposition has been bitterly divided about whether to engage with the government.
Some opposition figures inside Syria worried about the repercussions of the Arab League's decision. Louay Hussein, a prominent dissident in Damascus, said he thought the suspension would have little effect on Mr. Assad's leadership itself.
"The more the pressure increases from outside, the more the regime turns violent," said Mr. Hussein, who has not aligned himself with the Syrian National Council, an opposition bloc based abroad. "The suspension won't provide any positive result. The regime has one aim, controlling power, so suspending its membership is worthless."
In Damascus, a crowd reacted angrily to the resolution, attacking the Saudi Embassy, witnesses said. But outside the Arab League's offices, near the heart of the Egyptian uprising in Cairo's Tahrir Square, a group of about 100 protesters claiming common cause with Syrian demonstrators said they had hoped for more from the group: that it would call for President Assad to step down. Abdel Fattah al-Allawi, 23, who wore a Syrian flag draped over his shoulders as he protested, said he worried that the suspension might have the opposite of the desired effect.
"They agreed last time to stop the killing," he said, "and they killed even more people."
©2011 The New York
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