Rebuilding Syria: The Responsibility Principle by Malcolm Lowe  •  October 13, 2018 at 5:00 am         One is amazed by the audacity wherewith those foreign interveners who have caused the most destruction in Syria call upon the rest of the world to foot the bill for rebuilding what they themselves have demolished. So the First Clause of the Responsibility Principle is that those foreign countries which intervened in Syria to pursue their own political aims – primarily Iran, the Russian Federation and Turkey – should pay up to rebuild everything that they destroyed. The Second Clause of the Responsibility Principle is that any other country or international factor should condition any further financial assistance upon the replacement of the current Syrian regime with a plausible alternative, be it through free elections or the installation of a temporary international regime, followed by Nuremberg-type trials of the chief criminals of the current regime and the repatriation and resettlement of all refugees without any form of discrimination. The Russian Federation has the military power to keep Assad the titular president of Syria forever, but it cannot expect the rest of the world to pay for such a Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani meet in Ankara, Turkey, on April 4, 2018. (Image source: kremlin.ru) Twice during 2018, the presidents of Iran, Russia and Turkey met to discuss their various interests in Syria. On both occasions, their concluding joint statement called upon the rest of the world to assist in repairing the damage caused by the ongoing Syrian civil war, in which they had intervened on behalf of one faction or another. In their Joint Statement of April 4, the presidents: "... Called upon the international community, particularly the UN and its humanitarian agencies, to increase its assistance to Syria by sending additional humanitarian aid, facilitating humanitarian mine action, restoring basic infrastructure assets, including social and economic facilities, and preserving historical heritage;" Identical wording was included in their Final Statement of July 31. Continue Reading Article