Hisham Melhem Al Arabiya The role of countries and foreign parties in the Syrian civil war is similar to that of foreign parties in the Spanish civil war. If the EU's decision to lift the ban on arming the Syrian opposition was aimed at increasing pressure on the Syrian regime to force it to negotiate at the second Geneva Conference, it's clear that the decision led to the opposite result. It's now certain that countries which hinted at the possibility of arming the opposition, like France and Britain, do not intend to supply the opposition with arms anytime soon and that they will definitely not do so before the Geneva Conference is held. On the practical level, these countries' stances are currently the same as that of Washington on this issue. On the political front, the EU decision has made it possible for Russia to take a stricter stance regarding arming the Syrian regime. It has also provided the forces of the Syrian regime, Iranian military and Hezbollah fighters a cover to escalate their military attacks on all fronts particularly in Qusayr which has become more symbolically, politically and strategically important than other Syrian towns and cities that have suffered from the brutal war. It is probable that in the Syrian civil war, Qusayr will gain the political and symbolic importance of Guernica, which Picasso immortalized in one of the most important paintings of the 20th century, during the Spanish civil war. A massive distance separates Guernica and Qusayr but a long line of blood links them. Both towns were completely destroyed in fighting that targeted civilians. As in Qusayr, the spearhead in Guernica was a foreign party. The raids conducted by German and Italian warplanes (as part of the fascist and Nazi support of the Spanish right wing) are what destroyed Guernica in 1937. They were the first raids on civilian targets. In Qusayr, forces of the Lebanese party Hezbollah are the ones besieging and shelling the town. In Spain, the Nazis and the fascist support of General Franco's forces and the latter's heavy use of Moroccan soldiers played a pivotal role in winning the war. In Syria, Iran and Hezbollah play a pivotal military role that has at least until now prevented the collapse of the regime. The wars in Spain and Syria have an ideological dimension which transformed them into an existential struggle. In Spain, the war was absolutely between the right wing and the left wing. In Syria, the war every day gains a hideous sectarian dimension that reflects the sectarian division between the Sunnis and the Shiites in the region. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah's recent speech was Shiite sectarian rhetoric par excellence. Attempts to embellish cannot hide how sectarian his rhetoric was. Prominent cleric Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi responded with similar Sunni rhetoric. It is true that their headdress is different but their sectarian rhetoric is the same. Spain's war burnt the European continent. We will soon be talking about the sectarian violence in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon as violence occurring on one front. — Hisham Melhem is the Washington bureau chief of Al Arabiya. Follow him on Twitter @Hisham_Melhem
