Syrian Crisis_Talk by Feroz Mithiborwala_Part 3
Channel: ORF Mumbai
Date: 2016-01-13

About the talk: 
The war against Syria is enmeshed in various regional and geopolitical complexities. In fact the war is being led by an alliance comprising largely of the West and Israel, with the Gulf monarchies of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE and Bahrain. Even mainstream Western sources have alluded to the fact that the ISIS and the Jabhat al Nusra (Al Qaeda of Syria) are being funded, armed and backed by key Arab allies of the West.
 
The Syrian war theatre is also witnessing the rise of Russia and Iran key powers that are once again capable of taking on the Western “idea of sovereignty”. Clearly the battlefields of Syria are leading to major tectonic shifts in the very balance of geopolitical power. The conflict has so far resulted in deaths of over a quarter of a million civilians. Over four million Syrians have fled their homeland to seek refugee status in other countries in the neighbourhood and in Europe; nearly seven million people are believed to have been displaced within Syria. The situation threatens to spiral into a global conflict. However, there are political solutions, if the world and regional powers truly want to avert a global catastrophe. It is here that India and other key nations of the Global South can play a vital role.
About the speaker:
Feroze Mithiborwala is a secular activist who devotes his efforts principally to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Western imperialism in Asia. He is best known for having led a humanitarian convoy that travelled from India to Gaza in the winter of 2010–11. A keen observer of the ongoing conflict in West Asia, Feroze has visited Syria thrice in the past three years (2013, 2014 and 2015). Besides a handful of journalists, he is the only Indian to have understood the complex and multiple geopolitical undercurrents that have made West Asia, and Syria in particular, witness unabated hostilities and give rise to a global humanitarian crisis.