Posted onDecember 15, 2011|Comments Off on Turkey’s “common history and a common future” with Arab countries?
BURAK BEKDİL > Cigars of the Pharaoh (I)
I borrowed the title from an episode in “Tintin’s Adventures.” It’s up to the reader to decide whether Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan should play the role of Tintin and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu that of Captain Haddock, or vice versa. Or, in a more realistic world, whether any of the Turkish heroes should play any of the roles of the Noble Sheik and Rastapopoulos. To be on the safer side of “independent Turkish judiciary,” I should not comment.
No matter who is who in “Cigars of the Pharaoh,” the Pharaoh’s land today shines like a safe haven for the spurned lover that is Turkey. Once Turkey’s fake “hudna” with Syria and Iran (and probably with Lebanon and Jordan as well) ended up where it should have ended up, the broken-hearted Turks have rushed to the land of the Pharaoh to find solace in the brotherly arms of another Arab nation.
This may be the beginning of another hudna – another brief period of peace and alliance between centuries-long rivalry, bitter memories of Ottoman colonialism, future rivalry and the fact that the Turks are too little Arab, too little Muslim and too western of a Trojan Horse for Egypt’s future rulers. Some analysts style the potential love affair as the coupling of the most unlikely of couples while the optimists, as always, find the best virtue in literally everything the Justice and Development Party (AKP) does or hopes to do.
Judging by the dominant rhetoric only, there is good reason to be optimistic. In an October interview with the New York Times, President Abdullah Gül declared that the emerging strategic alliance between Turkey and Egypt “will be an axis of democracy of the two biggest nations in our region, from the north to the south, from the Black Sea down to the Nile Valley in Sudan.”
But it may be a bad omen that Foreign Minister Davutoğlu has spoken of “a common history and a common future that Turkey and Egypt share.” In his earlier speeches, Professor Davutoğlu had spoken of “a very long, common history Turkey and Iran shared,” (the same Iran which, ignoring Mr. Davutoğlu’s protest note, threatened to bomb the NATO radar on Turkish soil twice within weeks. Never mind if other mullahs “corrected” the threats; it’s sheer taqiyya.)
Mr. Davutoğlu had also asserted that “a common destiny, a common history and a common future” were the slogan of Turkey and Syria. It is nice that we Turks do not share “a common present day” with our Syrian brothers who kill and are killed by the dictator of Damascus, Ankara’s best friend until a few months earlier.
In other remarks, Mr. Davutoğlu had spoken of “a common history, a common destiny and a common future as well as cooperation between Turkey and Greece.” The cooperation between Turkey and Greece is perfectly visible in the Aegean skies where dogfights between fighter pilots from both shores with a common history and common destiny are a daily event. And the common future may mean sending more fighter aircraft and battleships to the shores of Cyprus to guard “common exploration for hydrocarbons in the eastern Mediterranean.”
Mr. Davutoğlu had also spoken of a common history and a common future in Benghazi where, after Colonel Moammar Gadhafi, rival Libyans are now at each other’s throat in the name of democracy.
At times like this, the Turks have set out on a new adventure in Arabia in search of a new love affair with a common history, common destiny and common future: Destination Egypt! Will the great-grandchildren of the Pharaoh become a subservient nation to the neo-Ottomans after they were so to the Ottomans for centuries? Oh, what an exciting adventure…
Posted onDecember 10, 2011|Comments Off on A dialog of deafs: the different layers of the Syria uprising
10 December 2011-
There are three layers or agendas to the uprising in Syria, a local, regional and international.
This is why it is very difficult to have one position on the subject. Each person gives a priority to one agenda over the others. In addition as these three agendas are imbricated, the conflict is more complex to deal compared with other countries,
The local layer is clear, the political system in Syria is obsolete it needs a serious overhaul . While the socialist Baath ideology is valid for a country like Syria, it has been abused and corrupted. This is what the majority of Syrians believe and some have actively joined protest with the intention of achieving this goal. For them this is the priority of the uprising.
The second layer is regional taking root on the eternal antagonism between Shia and Sunnis. Since the Iran islamic revolution,the Shias who were the poorest and less estimated group in Arab countries have raised their head and do not accept anymore to be treated as second class or persecuted anymore. The Sunnis, with Saudi Arabia leading them, is refusing to allow Iran and all Arab Shias to increase their demand for power sharing and their influence the region. The Sunnis have allied with the western power who, for other reasons, are not in favor of the growth of Iran in the region. This rejection of Shias has motivated many Syrians Sunnis to protest against the Alawites, assimilated to the Shia, who are holding the power in Syria in order to topple the regime and build another one where Sunnis will be in control of the country. They demonstration reflects this ambition and the are financially supported by rich gulf countries and Turkey, another Sunni power.
The third layer is international. The US and some western allies have been adamant in weakening and neutralizing any country opposed to Israel. Two countries in the Arab world are openly at war with Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Therefore there has been a relentless efforts from the US to neutralize both countries.
After repeated failures, like the 2006 war that did not neutralize Hezbollah, the uprising in Syria offered the best opportunity to achieve the destruction of Syria from within. This is why the media campaign, the funding of the opposition and a whole plot was set up to use the two other layers as a launching pad for a total soft war against Syria.
Many Syrians are working consciously or unconsciously toward this plan and their goal is to break the country by removing all possible support it may get from its allies, namely Iran and Lebanon.
Average people will accept of reject the development of the events in Syria according to the priority they give to any of these agendas.
The Syrian government insists on the third one, the international, and would give a less importance and priorities to the two others.
The opposition is divided. The Syrian local oppositions follows the local agenda and would compromise to prevent the second and the third agendas to be executed.
The SNC is following the local and international agenda and while officially rejecting the regional, it is secretly encouraging it. The LCC and the FSA are following the local and regional agendas and ignore the existence of the third one.
Each individual favors one or more of these agendas and ignores the others. This is why sometimes it looks like a dialog between deafs.
Posted onDecember 9, 2011|Comments Off on The Free Syrian Army: A cover for Turkey or an Islamist false nose?
Published: 02-12-2011 –Le Figaro–
By Georges Malbrunot
After eight months of a bloody crackdown that killed more than 3,500 people, the uprising against the regime of Bashar al-Assad is now at a crossroads. The revolt was less peaceful and more militarized. “At Homs, Idleb, in three or four cities around Damascus and in some localities near Daraa to the south, there are only armed clashes,” tells us Haytham Mana, the head of the National Coordination, one of Syrian opposition groups in exile. First consequences of this drift: the toll has dramatically risen in recent weeks. To the tortures certainly much more numerous committed by the henchmen of the regime we have now acts of revenge particularly bloody, as the recent attack on a bus driver (7 killed) near Homs. Sectarian clashes also are hardening in the mixed areas, where the seeds of a civil war are the most disturbing.
Second consequence: those responsible for the Coordination and their rivals of the Syrian National Council (SNC) are about to be overtaken by radicals on the ground but also in Turkey, where the Syrian army took refuge free (FSA) consisting of several thousand deserters, who now claims rocket attacks against buildings of the intelligence services of Bashar al-Assad. A delegation of the National Council, headed by its leader, Bouran Ghalioun, went to meet Monday with Colonel Riad al-Assad – no relation with the Syrian Rais, ed – who controls the ASL. But the meeting was rather cold. And it is not clear that the military had agreed to comply with the demands of policy.
Ghalioun, like the National Coordination, object to the ASL attacking the troops still loyal to Assad. For two reasons: it would precipitate a civil war that would benefit the regime, which would use it to crush the dissent. But more because the SNC and Coordination do not want to be overwhelmed by those who, behind the scenes, are pulling the strings behind the Colonel Assad.
The agenda of the Brotherhood may differ from that of the seculars
Who are they? “Some members of the Muslim Brotherhood out of Syria, including Turkey, and all those inside no longer believe in peaceful demonstrations and now want to do battle with weapons in hand,” said a member of SNC, who recognizes that they “are becoming more numerous.” The brothers are members of the National Council, but ultimately, their agenda could differ from that of “seculars”, who make up the main organization of the Syrian opposition.
A return to past events is necessary. From June, the first defections in the army led to the creation of the Movement of official free around the Colonel Hussein Harmoush. But from his camp in the Turkish province of Hatay, he refused to pass under the control of the Muslim Brotherhood who had approached him, says Haytham Mana. A few days later, Colonel Harmoush was mysteriously kidnapped by the Syrian intelligence services, thanks to an connection with of Alevis, a close branch to the ruling Alawites in Syria within the Turkish security apparatus. Several opposition leaders Syrian suspect in fact the Turks have simply delivered Harmoush the Syrians to make him pay for his refusal to cooperate with the Islamists. Recognizing their failure, they then turned to the Syrian Army Colonel Assad’s free, weaker, therefore less able to resist pressure.
Riad el-Assad, a blanket used by the Turks
For an official of the CNS, “Assad today is a cover used by the Turkish authorities” that he and his men confined in a base of the province of Hatay bordering Syria. Turkish intelligence service (Milli Istibarat Teşkilat) controls its movements while an officer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs responds to interview requests that journalists wish to have with the head of the FSA.
According to French intelligence services, the FSA is strong of 8000 men, but generally not used in combat, often coming from the administration of the army. The majority of its members are actually soldiers that are not returned to their barracks at the end of a permission. Locally, they would rely on militias that have decided to join the protest.
Under these conditions, we understand why the ASL much needs assistance and supervision: its support would be provided by Turkey and other Western countries. Much like the Libyan rebels at the beginning of the revolt against Gaddafi. Except that with Damascus, the risks of retaliation are far more higher than the late Colonel Libyan buffoon.
By Georges Malbrunot
Comments Off on The Free Syrian Army: A cover for Turkey or an Islamist false nose?
U.S. troops are in the process of completing their withdrawal from Iraq by the end-of-2011 deadline. We are now moving toward a reckoning with the consequences. The reckoning concerns the potential for a massive shift in the balance of power in the region, with Iran moving from a fairly marginal power to potentially a dominant power. As the process unfolds, the United States and Israel are making countermoves. We have discussed all of this extensively. Questions remain whether these countermoves will stabilize the region and whether or how far Iran will go in its response.
Iran has been preparing for the U.S. withdrawal. While it is unreasonable simply to say that Iran will dominate Iraq, it is fair to say Tehran will have tremendous influence in Baghdad to the point of being able to block Iraqi initiatives Iran opposes. This influence will increase as the U.S. withdrawal concludes and it becomes clear there will be no sudden reversal in the withdrawal policy. Iraqi politicians’ calculus must account for the nearness of Iranian power and the increasing distance and irrelevance of American power.
Resisting Iran under these conditions likely would prove ineffective and dangerous. Some, like the Kurds, believe they have guarantees from the Americans and that substantial investment in Kurdish oil by American companies means those commitments will be honored. A look at the map, however, shows how difficult it would be for the United States to do so. The Baghdad regime has arrested Sunni leaders while the Shia, not all of whom are pro-Iranian by any means, know the price of overenthusiastic resistance.
Syria and Iran
The situation in Syria complicates all of this. The minority Alawite sect has dominated the Syrian government since 1970, when the current president’s father – who headed the Syrian air force – staged a coup. The Alawites are a heterodox Muslim sect related to a Shiite offshoot and make up about 7 percent of the country’s population, which is mostly Sunni. The new Alawite government was Nasserite in nature, meaning it was secular, socialist and built around the military. When Islam rose as a political force in the Arab world, the Syrians – alienated from the Sadat regime in Egypt – saw Iran as a bulwark. The Iranian Islamist regime gave the Syrian secular regime immunity against Shiite fundamentalists in Lebanon. The Iranians also gave Syria support in its external adventures in Lebanon, and more important, in its suppression of Syria’s Sunni majority.
Syria and Iran were particularly aligned in Lebanon. In the early 1980s, after the Khomeini revolution, the Iranians sought to increase their influence in the Islamic world by supporting radical Shiite forces. Hezbollah was one of these. Syria had invaded Lebanon in 1975 on behalf of the Christians and opposed the Palestine Liberation Organization, to give you a sense of the complexity. Syria regarded Lebanon as historically part of Syria, and sought to assert its influence over it. Via Iran, Hezbollah became an instrument of Syrian power in Lebanon.
Iran and Syria, therefore, entered a long-term if not altogether stable alliance that has lasted to this day. In the current unrest in Syria, the Saudis and Turks in addition to the Americans all have been hostile to the regime of President Bashar al Assad. Iran is the one country that on the whole has remained supportive of the current Syrian government.
There is good reason for this. Prior to the uprising, the precise relationship between Syria and Iran was variable. Syria was able to act autonomously in its dealings with Iran and Iran’s proxies in Lebanon. While an important backer of groups like Hezbollah, the al Assad regime in many ways checked Hezbollah’s power in Lebanon, with the Syrians playing the dominant role there. The Syrian uprising has put the al Assad regime on the defensive, however, making it more interested in a firm, stable relationship with Iran. Damascus finds itself isolated in the Sunni world, with Turkey and the Arab League against it. Iran – and intriguingly, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki – have constituted al Assad’s exterior support.
Thus far al Assad has resisted his enemies. Though some mid- to low-ranking Sunnis have defected, his military remains largely intact; this is because the Alawites control key units. Events in Libya drove home to an embattled Syrian leadership – and even to some of its adversaries within the military – the consequences of losing. The military has held together, and an unarmed or poorly armed populace, no matter how large, cannot defeat an intact military force. The key for those who would see al Assad fall is to divide the military.
If al Assad survives – and at the moment, wishful thinking by outsiders aside, he is surviving – Iran will be the big winner. If Iraq falls under substantial Iranian influence, and the al Assad regime – isolated from most countries but supported by Tehran – survives in Syria, then Iran could emerge with a sphere of influence stretching from western Afghanistan to the Mediterranean (the latter via Hezbollah). Achieving this would not require deploying Iranian conventional forces – al Assad’s survival alone would suffice. However, the prospect of a Syrian regime beholden to Iran would open up the possibility of the westward deployment of Iranian forces, and that possibility alone would have significant repercussions.
Consider the map were this sphere of influence to exist. The northern borders of Saudi Arabia and Jordan would abut this sphere, as would Turkey’s southern border. It remains unclear, of course, just how well Iran could manage this sphere, e.g., what type of force it could project into it. Maps alone will not provide an understanding of the problem. But they do point to the problem. And the problem is the potential – not certain – creation of a block under Iranian influence that would cut through a huge swath of strategic territory.
It should be remembered that in addition to Iran’s covert network of militant proxies, Iran’s conventional forces are substantial. While they could not confront U.S. armored divisions and survive, there are no U.S. armored divisions on the ground between Iran and Lebanon. Iran’s ability to bring sufficient force to bear in such a sphere increases the risks to the Saudis in particular. Iran’s goal is to increase the risk such that Saudi Arabia would calculate that accommodation is more prudent than resistance. Changing the map can help achieve this.
It follows that those frightened by this prospect – the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey – would seek to stymie it. At present, the place to block it no longer is Iraq, where Iran already has the upper hand. Instead, it is Syria. And the key move in Syria is to do everything possible to bring about al Assad’s overthrow.
In the last week, the Syrian unrest appeared to take on a new dimension. Until recently, the most significant opposition activity appeared to be outside of Syria, with much of the resistance reported in the media coming from externally based opposition groups. The degree of effective opposition was never clear. Certainly, the Sunni majority opposes and hates the al Assad regime. But opposition and emotion do not bring down a regime consisting of men fighting for their lives. And it wasn’t clear that the resistance was as strong as the outside propaganda claimed.
Last week, however, the Free Syrian Army – a group of Sunni defectors operating out of Turkey and Lebanon – claimed defectors carried out organized attacks on government facilities, ranging from an air force intelligence facility (a particularly sensitive point given the history of the regime) to Baath Party buildings in the greater Damascus area. These were not the first attacks claimed by the FSA, but they were heavily propagandized in the past week. Most significant about the attacks is that, while small-scale and likely exaggerated, they revealed that at least some defectors were willing to fight instead of defecting and staying in Turkey or Lebanon.
It is interesting that an apparent increase in activity from armed activists – or the introduction of new forces – occurred at the same time relations between Iran on one side and the United States and Israel on the other were deteriorating. The deterioration began with charges that an Iranian covert operation to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States had been uncovered, followed by allegations by the Bahraini government of Iranian operatives organizing attacks in Bahrain. It proceeded to an International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran’s progress toward a nuclear device, followed by the Nov. 19 explosion at an Iranian missile facility that the Israelis have not-so-quietly hinted was their work. Whether any of these are true, the psychological pressure on Iran is building and appears to be orchestrated.
Of all the players in this game, Israel’s position is the most complex. Israel has had a decent, albeit covert, working relationship with the Syrians going back to their mutual hostility toward Yasser Arafat. For Israel, Syria has been the devil they know. The idea of a Sunni government controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood on their northeastern frontier was frightening; they preferred al Assad. But given the shift in the regional balance of power, the Israeli view is also changing. The Sunni Islamist threat has weakened in the past decade relative to the Iranian Shiite threat. Playing things forward, the threat of a hostile Sunni force in Syria is less worrisome than an emboldened Iranian presence on Israel’s northern frontier. This explains why the architects of Israel’s foreign policy, such as Defense Minister Ehud Barak, have been saying that we are seeing an “acceleration toward the end of the regime.” Regardless of its preferred outcome, Israel cannot influence events inside Syria. Instead, Israel is adjusting to a reality where the threat of Iran reshaping the politics of the region has become paramount.
Iran is, of course, used to psychological campaigns. We continue to believe that while Iran might be close to a nuclear device that could explode underground under carefully controlled conditions, its ability to create a stable, robust nuclear weapon that could function outside a laboratory setting (which is what an underground test is) is a ways off. This includes being able to load a fragile experimental system on a delivery vehicle and expecting it to explode. It might. It might not. It might even be intercepted and create a casus belli for a counterstrike.
The main Iranian threat is not nuclear. It might become so, but even without nuclear weapons, Iran remains a threat. The current escalation originated in the American decision to withdraw from Iraq and was intensified by events in Syria. If Iran abandoned its nuclear program tomorrow, the situation would remain as complex. Iran has the upper hand, and the United States, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia all are looking at how to turn the tables.
At this point, they appear to be following a two-pronged strategy: Increase pressure on Iran to make it recalculate its vulnerability, and bring down the Syrian government to limit the consequences of Iranian influence in Iraq. Whether the Syrian regime can be brought down is problematic. Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi would have survived if NATO hadn’t intervened. NATO could intervene in Syria, but Syria is more complex than Libya. Moreover, a second NATO attack on an Arab state designed to change its government would have unintended consequences, no matter how much the Arabs fear the Iranians at the moment. Wars are unpredictable; they are not the first option.
Therefore the likely solution is covert support for the Sunni opposition funneled through Lebanon and possibly Turkey and Jordan. It will be interesting to see if the Turks participate. Far more interesting will be seeing whether this works. Syrian intelligence has penetrated its Sunni opposition effectively for decades. Mounting a secret campaign against the regime would be difficult, and its success by no means assured. Still, that is the next move.
But it is not the last move. To put Iran back into its box, something must be done about the Iraqi political situation. Given the U.S. withdrawal, Washington has little influence there. All of the relationships the United States built were predicated on American power protecting the relationships. With the Americans gone, the foundation of those relationships dissolves. And even with Syria, the balance of power is shifting.
The United States has three choices. Accept the evolution and try to live with what emerges. Attempt to make a deal with Iran – a very painful and costly one. Or go to war. The first assumes Washington can live with what emerges. The second depends on whether Iran is interested in dealing with the United States. The third depends on having enough power to wage a war and to absorb Iran’s retaliatory strikes, particularly in the Strait of Hormuz. All are dubious, so toppling al Assad is critical. It changes the game and the momentum. But even that is enormously difficult and laden with risks.
We are now in the final act of Iraq, and it is even more painful than imagined. Laying this alongside the European crisis makes the idea of a systemic crisis in the global system very real.
Posted onNovember 1, 2011|Comments Off on Why Contain Iran When Its Own Aims Will Do Just That?
By Vali Nasr – Oct 31, 2011
Iran is once again in America’s cross hairs. Even before the allegations of an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, concerns about Iran were high, with an impending U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq possibly leading to increased Iranian influence there. U.S. opinion and decision makers are expanding their estimate of Iran’s adventurousness and calling for new containment measures.
In both exercises, there is room for misjudgment. In fact, Iran has not become more ambitious of late; rather, its aspirations have been underestimated. As for attempting to rein in Iran, that could prove both counterproductive and unnecessary.
Until recently, the U.S. government regarded Iran as subdued, weakened and relatively isolated. There was considerable evidence for this view. Iran’s leadership is deeply divided. Its economy is reeling as a result of economic sanctions, which have reduced trade and therefore contact with the Arab world.
What’s more, Iran’s standing in the Middle East appeared to be declining after the Arab Spring. The “Arab street,” once enamored with Iran’s bluster, is now turned off by the country’s suppression of dissent at home and its support for the oppressive Syrian regime. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad put down a growing uprising. The possibility of a collapse of the Assad regime threatens to confound Iran’s plans for regional domination. Syria is Iran’s main Arab ally and its conduit for aid to Hezbollah, the militant, Islamist Lebanese group that Iran has used as a proxy to menace Israel, the U.S., Lebanon itself and others.
A Different View
From Tehran, however, the situation looks quite different. For one thing, Iran is not as worried about losing sway in a post-Assad Syria as many in the West think. Iran calculates that until Syria gets back the Golan Heights, a plateau captured by Israel in the 1967 war, any government in Damascus will need Hezbollah as a force to pressure Israel. And with Hezbollah comes Iranian influence.
Iran’s leaders are clearly preparing for the possibility of Assad’s fall. Even while claiming nefarious outsiders are fomenting the unrest in Syria, they have begun to add veiled criticisms of the regime’s brutal crackdown, an obvious means of pandering to the street.
What’s more, Iran’s leaders perceive that it is the U.S. position, not theirs, that has weakened in the region. They see U.S. troops withdrawing precipitously from both Iraq and Afghanistan; U.S. relations with Pakistan turning ever more sour; and Arab dictators who have been propped up by America for years under threat or already gone. The brazen nature of the Washington assassination plot supports the idea that Iran sees the U.S. as soft.
Given this perception, Iran is asserting itself. In the past two years, it has eschewed serious engagement with the U.S. on the Iranian nuclear program, Afghanistan or anything else. Rebuffing the U.S. idea of a hot line to avoid conflict in the Persian Gulf, Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, Iran’s navy commander said, “The presence of the U.S. in the Persian Gulf is illegitimate and makes no sense.”
Fill the Void
Iran’s goals are to hasten the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq and fill the void left behind. Iran has increased its outreach to the Taliban and is pushing to complete a project to supply natural gas to Pakistan through a pipeline connecting the two countries. In Iraq, it has supported stepped-up attacks by the Iranian-backed Shiite resistance and is talking about having an expanded role after the Americans leave, for instance by volunteering to train the military. Iran is also exploring diplomatic relations with Egypt, which it has not had in years.
In this U.S. election season, presidential candidates will be tempted to propose strategies to contain Iran’s aspirations. To be seriously effective, such plans would require Arab countries as well as Russia and China, major trading partners of Iran, to sign on to a concerted policy of isolating the country. That’s unlikely to happen, given the Arab world’s preoccupation with Libya and Syria and the eagerness of Russia and China to do business with Iran.
Moreover, if the U.S. confronts Iran directly, it would probably work to the advantage of Iranian leaders, allowing them to divert attention from domestic woes such as inflation, unemployment and the embarrassing alienation between Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The U.S. should not hand them that opportunity.
The alternative is to let Iran’s ambitious regional strategy play out. So far, it hasn’t gone so well. Iran has clashed over Syria with Turkey, which is hosting anti-Assad forces. And Iran’s strained relations with the other big Mideast power, Saudi Arabia, have been tested anew by the Washington plot and by the suspicious assassination in May of a Saudi diplomat in Karachi, Pakistan.
Iran expects greater influence in Iraq and Afghanistan once U.S. troops leave, but with that will come greater burdens. Once absent, America can no longer be the focus of opposition in both places. Instead, Iran may replace the U.S. as the target of popular anger, blamed for the failure of government to meet people’s needs. Iran may prove no more able to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan than the U.S. has been. Iran is adept at causing security headaches in the region but is untested when it comes to resolving them.
Failure on that front would leave Iran, rather than the U.S., in the middle of renewed civil conflict in Iraq or Afghanistan. It also would have direct implications for Iran domestically. Renewed chaos in either country would send refugees flooding into Iran and increase drug trafficking and violence in the border areas.
Iran may come to remember fondly the period when the U.S. military absorbed resentments in the region.
(Vali Nasr is a Bloomberg View columnist and a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this article: Vali Nasr at vali.nasr@tufts.edu
Posted onOctober 31, 2011|Comments Off on Amid Syria protests, businessmen remain loyal to President Assad
By Reese Erlich, Correspondent –
posted October 28, 2011 –
The economic reforms of President Assad helped earn the loyalty of businessmen. Without their support, his government would be in far greater danger of collapse due to Syria protests.
Damascus- Rana Issa, the owner of an advertising and marketing business in Damascus is struggling. She’s had to lay off five of her 20 employees in the seven months of political and economic upheaval since Syria‘s antigovernment uprising began.
But unlike the street demonstrators, Ms. Issa doesn’t blame President Bashar al-Assad‘s government for her woes. As a Palestinian, Issa expresses strong support for his government, which she says has afforded more rights to Palestinian refugees and their children than either Israel or other Arab countries.
“We feel secure with Dr. Bashar al-Assad as president,” she says. “He has achieved a lot of reforms. The opposition hasn’t given him enough time.”
Some Syrian cities have been persistently roiled by protests; today, at least 30 protesters were reported killed across the country – the highest toll in weeks – with the unrest focused in Homs and Hama. But the two biggest cities, Damascus and Aleppo, have seen much smaller demonstrations because the cities’ business communities continue to favor the government, says Nabil Sukkar, a former World Bank economist who now heads an economic consulting firm in Damascus.
Drastic drops in tourism revenue and biting sanctions have taken a toll on the Syrian economy. While Syria’s gross domestic product grew by 3 percent last year, the IMF predicts a negative 2 percent this year. However, large- and medium-sized businesses, which the West hopes to turn against the regime with its sanctions, remain largely supportive of the Assad regime.
Syria’s big business elite is closely intertwined with the ruling Baath Party through financial and family ties. Disloyalty to the government can mean not only loss of lucrative government contracts, but political isolation and even jail.
Mr. Sukkar says big business leaders are pragmatic. “They expect the unrest to end sooner or later. The regime is well entrenched. The Army is certainly loyal to the government.”
Decline in tourists hurts business, however
However, some small businessmen, suffering financially because of the tourism decline and sanctions spurred by the regime’s crackdown, have shifted to the opposition.
The owner of a clothing business in Damascus’ main souk, or marketplace, says he used to be a strong supporter of Assad, but he blames the government for the collapse in tourism and the general decline in business activity. The business owner, who asked to remain anonymous, says he has had only one foreign customer in the last three months. They’re usually the mainstay of his business.
“The souk is like a graveyard,” he says.
He now supports the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political party that has been active in the street demonstrations against Mr. Assad. The government accuses the Brotherhood of being an extremist group seeking to impose an Islamic state on Syria, but the shopkeeper considers them moderates, likening them to the elected Islamist government in Turkey.
The Muslim Brotherhood “wants an end to corruption,” he says. “Young people are fighting for their rights.”
Why businessmen are loyal to Assad
Conflicting attitudes towards the Assad government date back to economic changes that began in 2004, when Syria shifted from a centrally managed economy to a more privatized one. The business elite benefited as the government allowed creation of private banks, insurance companies, and an airline.
The growth of large corporations in turn spurred creation of small- and medium-sized companies such as the marketing firm owned by Rana Issa. Government policies created economic growth and loyalty among business leaders.
But the new liberalization policy also amplified Syria’s system of crony capitalism, leading to charges of widespread corruption.
Demonstrators have singled out Rami Makhlouf, for example, a cousin of President Assad and owner of the country’s largest cell phone company. Critics say he’s made tens of millions of dollars due to family connections.
Bouthaina Shaaban, a top adviser to the president, admits that corruption remains a serious problem in Syria. “Rami Makhlouf isn’t the only one who made money in the past period,” she says in an interview at the presidential palace. “There are many people, big capitalists, who made a lot of money.”
But, she argues, the government has taken steps to reform. “This crisis has made us 1,000 more times more aware,” Ms. Shaaban says.
Detrimental effect of sanctions
The crisis has been made worse by economic sanctions imposed by the US and Europe, says Shaaban. The US prohibits the export of most American products to Syria and has levied sanctions against some Syrian leaders. In May, the EU imposed an arms embargo on Syria, and a travel ban and assets freeze on selected Syrian leaders. In September the EU severely restricted crude oil imports.
So far, the sanctions haven’t shaken support for the government, according to Nabil Toumeh, CEO of Toumeh Orient Group, a large Syrian conglomerate. Business people are angry at the West because the sanctions are being widely applied, not just against Syrian political leaders.
Mr. Toumeh’s long-time Austrian supplier of magazine printing paper recently stopped shipments because of the sanctions. Sanctions are also hurting his construction company because he can no longer import construction material from Switzerland, and buying the same material from another country is quite expensive, he says. He’s had to lay off workers.
Although sanctions are likely to make life more difficult for business people by driving up costs, they won’t bring down a government that has popular support, according to Toumeh. Instead, businesses will find ways around the sanctions, Toumeh says. “Merchants say if the door is closed, you open another.”
Seventy percent of the Syrian economy is controlled by the private sector, giving the business elite tremendous political clout as well. Economist Sukkar says if big business shifts sides, it could spell an end to the government, but that’s not likely in the short run.
“If there are any strikes or serious opposition on the part of the business community, they could paralyze the economy,” he says. “If that happened here, it would be disastrous. But frankly I don’t see that happening.”
Mr. Erlich received a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting for his coverage of Syria.
Posted onOctober 28, 2011|Comments Off on The western support for authoritarian regimes in the Middle East
A blogger view about the role of Western countries in the Syrian case.
So I guess you hate Bush, Condoleeza Rice, Cheney and most of the US present Congress and practically the whole western world for the unpunished Gaza crimes on children. And what about Chirac and the other Europeans countries who stood silent when in 2006 children were killed in South of Lebanon? Forgotten?
I condemn western countries that have taken advantages of the inherent flaws and weaknesses in some personalities in the Middle east to manipulate them to reach their own selfish goal.
The Shah, Mobarak, Ben Ali, Saleh, Ataturk were for decades pushed and encouraged by Western countries to oppress their people in the name of ‘fear” either from communism or Islam.
The occupation of Palestine sponsored by western countries has created a generation of Arab and regional authoritarians regime cherished and manipulated by the Western countries.
Syria is the only country that had a leadership opposed to the manipulation by the West, the only “non-puppet” regime in the area.
Just for that, it deserves admiration.
It has been targeted relentlessly to join the cohort of pro-west leaders. While the corruption has been present, the country has had a consistent support of the Palestinian conflict at the core of the whole illness of the region.
With the cost of not developing its economy as fast as other countries fed with millions of dollars for their submission, Syria has stood slow but independent.
The latest attack , using the “arab spring” movement as a cover up is actually an attempt of a coup d’etat. That the government reacts with indiscriminated violence is not justified but understandable when it stands against powerful countries like the US, France, the UK who can manipulate people and media easily.
If you look at it this way, deaths are as much imputable to the Western countries incitations to hatred and to a change of regime that would have made Syria another puppet as to the awkward and excessive methods used by the government on the defense. The government’s aim was to stop and prevent demonstrations that could degenerate into civil war and break the resistance Syria had toward western plans in the region in support of Israel. It was also certainly to keep the power structure intact and in the same hands.
Your hatred is natural but it should also be directed to the countries behind this situation, while you probably believe they are genuinely calling for ‘freedom’ and democracy.
We all care for the lives of children, but foreign policy and greed are cynical, they don’t value human lives.
Posted onOctober 26, 2011|Comments Off on Arab Spring boosts political Islam, but which kind?
By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor | Reuters –
(Reuters) – More democracy is bringing more political Islam in the countries of the Arab Spring, but Islamist statements about sharia or religion in politics are only rough indicators of what the real effect might be.
The strong showing of Tunisia’s moderate Islamists in Sunday’s election and a promise by Libyan National Transitional Council leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil to uphold sharia have highlighted the bigger role Islamists will play after the fall of the autocrats who opposed them.
These Islamists must now work out how to integrate more Islam into new democratic systems. Many terms used in the debate are ambiguous and some, especially the concept of sharia, are often misunderstood by non-Muslims.
Jan Michiel Otto, a Dutch law professor who led a recent study of how 12 Muslim countries apply sharia, said political Islam covers a broad spectrum of approaches.
“If sharia is introduced, you don’t know what you’ll get,” said the Leiden University professor, editor of the book Sharia Incorporated. His study indicated that, contrary to what many Western observers might think, more Islam did not always mean less liberty.
Yasin Aktay, a Turkish sociologist at Selcuk University in Konya, said Sharia itself was not a defined legal code and not limited to the harsh physical punishments seen in Saudi Arabia or Iran.
“That’s a fetishised version of sharia,” he said.
ENNAHDA LEADS THE WAY
Many Middle Eastern constitutions already enshrine Islam as the official religion and mention sharia as the basis of law, but also have civil and penal codes based on European models.
Apart from Saudi Arabia, which has only Islamic law, Middle Eastern countries apply a complicated mix of religious and civil law. Sharia can be applied almost symbolically in one country, moderately in another and strictly in a third.
Ennahda, the Islamist party leading the vote for Tunisia’s constituent assembly, is the first in the Arab Spring countries to have to start spelling out how much Islam it wants.
It says it respects democracy and human rights and wants to work with secularist parties to draft a new constitution. Its leader Rachid Ghannouchi has long advocated moderate Islamist policies like those of the AKP, the ruling party in Turkey.
The Tunisian constitution declares Islam as the official religion but does not mention sharia as the foundation of the legal system. Given the country’s strong secularist traditions, Ennahda would face serious opposition if it tried to have sharia declared the basis of law there.
Aktay said Ghannouchi’s writings in the 1980s helped to influence Turkish Islamists to shift their paradigm from seeking a state based on sharia to entering democratic politics.
Since then, the AKP’s success in Turkey has served as a model for Ghannouchi as he entered practical politics in Tunisia, he added.
EGYPT’S MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD
Egypt, which is due to elect a new lower house of parliament by early December, describes Islam as the state religion in its constitution and calls it the main source of laws.
The Muslim Brotherhood is expected to emerge as the largest party. Its bid to build a “Democratic Alliance” has foundered, with most of the liberal and rival Islamist groups splitting away to run on their own or form other blocs.
“I don’t believe the Brotherhood will claim more than 25 percent of the parliamentary seats, which is an important bloc but not a majority,” said Hassan Abu Taleb from Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
Egypt has also allowed several Salafist groups to run. The Salafists, who Abu Taleb said could take up to 10 percent of the vote, want strict implementation of Islamic laws, including those their critics say are anti-democratic.
LIBYA
In Libya, former dictator Muammar Gaddafi ruled by decrees that included mention of Islam as the state religion and sharia as the inspiration for at least some laws.
NTC chairman Jalil surprised some Western observers on Sunday by saying sharia would be the source of Libyan law, but he had already spoken in more detail about it.
“We seek a state of law, prosperity and one where sharia is the main source for legislation, and this requires many things and conditions,” he said in early September, adding that “extremist ideology” would not be tolerated.
The exact place of sharia in the legal system in practice will only be settled once a new constitution is written by a constituent assembly and approved by a referendum.
Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood has fewer than 1,000 members because under Gaddafi recruitment was secretive and restricted to elites, said Alamin Belhaj, a member of the NTC and a senior member of the group.
SYRIA
Syria, where an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad has been raging since March, has a secularist government but mentions Islam as the source of law in its constitution.
The main opposition body, the National Council, has so far named 19 members to its general secretariat. Four are members of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and six are independent Islamists.
It has yet to spell out its platform or make clear what kind of a state should take over, if Assad is overthrown.
“In Syria, the Islamist current is a moderate movement,” said Omar Idlibi, an activist with the grassroots Local Coordination Committees.
(Reporting by Tom Heneghan in Paris, Tamim Elyan and Shaimaa Fayed in Cairo and Mariam Karouny in Beirut; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Comments Off on Arab Spring boosts political Islam, but which kind?
Posted onOctober 22, 2011|Comments Off on The ‘great game’ in Syria
By Alastair Crooke
This summer, a senior Saudi official told John Hannah [1], former United States vice president Dick Cheney’s former chief-of-staff, that from the outset of the Syrian upheaval in March, the king has believed that regime change in Syria would be highly beneficial to Saudi interests: “The king knows that other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself, nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria,” said the official.
This is today’s “great game”: the formula for playing it has changed; the US-instigated “color” revolutions in the former Soviet republics have given way to a bloodier, and more multi-layered process today, but the underlying psychology remains unchanged.
The huge technical requirements of mounting such a complex
game in Syria are indeed prodigious: but in focussing so closely on technique and on coordinating diverse interests, inevitably something important may recede from view, too.
Europeans and Americans and certain Gulf states may see the Syria game as the logical successor to the supposedly successful Libya “game” in remaking the Middle East, but the very tools that are being used on their behalf are highly combustible and may yet return to haunt them – as was experienced in the wake of the 1980s “victory” in Afghanistan.
It will not be for the first time that Western interests sought to use others for their ends, only to find they have instead been used.
In any event, the tactics in Syria, in spite of heavy investment, seem to be failing. Yet Western strategy, in response to the continuing cascade of new events in the region, remains curiously static, grounded in gaming the awakening and tied ultimately to the fragile thread connecting an 88-year-old king to life.
There seems to be little thought about the strategic landscape when, and as, that thread snaps. We may yet see the prevailing calculus turned inside out: nobody knows. But does the West really believe that being tied into a model of Gulf monarchical legitimacy and conservatism in an era of popular disaffection to be a viable posture – even if those states do buy more Western weapons?
What then is the new anatomy of the great game? In the past, color revolutions were largely blueprinted in the offices of the political consultancies of “K” Street in Washington. But in the new format, the “technicians” attempting to shape the region [2] , hail directly from the US government: according to reports by senior official sources in the region, Jeffrey Feltman, a former ambassador in Lebanon, and presently assistant secretary of state, as chief coordinator [3], together with two former US ambassadors, Ron Schlicher and David Hale, who is also the new US Middle East Peace Envoy.
And instead of an operations center established in some phony “Friends of Syria” organization established in Washington, there is a gold-plated operations center located in Doha, financed, according to a number of sources, by big Qatari money.
The origins of the present attempt to refashion the Middle East lie with the aftermath of Israel’s failure in 2006 to seriously damage Hezbollah. In the post-conflict autopsy, Syria was spotlighted as the vulnerable lynchpin connecting Hezbollah to Iran. And it was Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia who planted the first seed: hinting to US officials that something indeed might be done about this Syria connector, but only through using the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, adding quickly in response to the predictable demurs, that managing the Syrian Brotherhood and other Islamists could safely be left to him.
John Hannah noted on ForeignPolicy.com [4] that “Bandar working without reference to US interests is clearly cause for concern; but Bandar working as a partner against a common Iranian enemy is a major strategic asset”. Bandar was co-opted.
Hypothetical planning suddenly metamorphosed into concrete action only earlier this year, after the fall of Saad Hariri’s government in Lebanon, and the overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak in Egypt: Suddenly, Israel seemed vulnerable, and a weakened Syria, enmired in troubles, held a strategic allure.
In parallel, Qatar had stepped to the fore, as Azmi Bishara, a pan-Arabist, former Israeli parliament member, expelled from the Knesset and now established in Doha, architected a schema through which television – as various in the Arabic press have reported [5] – that is, al-Jazeera, would not just report revolution, but instantiate it for the region – or at least this is what was believed in Doha in the wake of the Tunisia and Egyptian uprisings.
This was a new evolution over the old model: Hubristic television, rather than mere media management. But Qatar was not merely trying to leverage human suffering into an international intervention by endlessly repeating “reforms are not enough” and the “inevitability” of Assad’s fall, but also – as in Libya – Qatar was directly involved as a key operational actor and financier.
The next stage was to draw French President Nikolas Sarkozy into the campaign through the emir of Qatar’s expansive nature and ties to Sarkozy, supplemented by Feltman’s lobbying. An “Elysee team” of Jean-David Levite, Nicholas Gallet and Sarkozy, was established, with Sarkozy’s wife enlisting Bernard Henri-Levy, the arch promoter of the Benghazi Transitional Council model that had been so effective in inflating North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into an instrument of regime change.
Finally, President Barack Obama delegated Turkey [6] to play point on Syria’s border. Both of the latter components however are not without their challenges from their own security arms, who are skeptical of the efficacy of the Transitional Council model, and opposed to military intervention.
The Turkish leadership, in particular, is pushed by party pressures in one direction [7] , whilst at another there are deep misgivings about Turkey becoming a NATO “corridor” into Syria. Even Bandar is not without challenges: he has no political umbrella from the king, and others in the family are playing other Islamist cards to different ends.
In operational terms, Feltman and his team coordinate, Qatar hosts the “war room”, the “news room” and holds the purse strings, Paris and Doha lead on pushing the Transitional Council model, whilst Bandar [8] and Turkey jointly manage the Sunni theater in-country, both armed and unarmed.
The Salafist component of armed and combat experienced fighters was to have been managed within this framework, but increasingly they went their own way, answering to a different agenda, and having separate finances.
If the scope of the Syria “game” – for let us not forget the many killed (including civilians, security forces, and armed fighters) make it no game – is on a different scale to the early “color” revolutions, so its defects are greater too. The NTC paradigm, already displaying its flaws in Libya, is even more starkly defective in Syria, with the opposition “council” put together by Turkey, France and Qatar caught in a catch-22 situation. The Syrian security structures have remained rock solid [9] through seven months – defections have been negligible – and Assad’s popular support base is intact.
Only external intervention could change that equation, but for the opposition to call for it, would be tantamount to political suicide, and they know it. Doha and Paris [10] may continue to try to harass the world towards some intervention by maintaining attrition but the signs are that the internal opposition will opt to negotiate.
But the real danger in all this, as John Hannah himself notes on ForeignPolicy.com [11], is that the Saudis, “with their back to the wall”, “might once again fire up the old jihadist network and point it in the general direction of Shi’ite Iran”.
In fact, that is exactly what is happening, but the West does not seem to have noticed. As Foreign Affairs noted last week, Saudi and its Gulf allies are “firing up” the Salafists [12], not only to weaken Iran, but mainly in order to do what they see is necessary to survive – to disrupt and emasculate the awakenings which threaten absolute monarchism.
Salafists are being used for this end in Syria [13] , in Libya, in Egypt (see their huge Saudi flag waving turn-out in Tahrir Square in July ) [14] in Lebanon, Yemen [15] and Iraq.
Salafists may be generally viewed as non-political and pliable, but history is far from comforting. If you tell people often enough that they shall be the king-makers in the region and pour buckets-full of money at them, do not be surprised if they then metamorphose – yet again – into something very political and radical.
Michael Scheuer, the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency Bin Laden Unit, recently warned [16] that the Hillary Clinton-devised response to the Arab awakening, of implanting Western paradigms, by force if necessary, into the void of fallen regimes, will be seen as a “cultural war on Islam” and will set the seeds of a further round of radicalization.
Saudi Arabia is America’s ally. The US, as friends, should ask them if the fall of Assad, and the sectarian conflict that is almost certain to ensue, is really in their interest: Do they imagine that their Sunni allies in Iraq and Lebanon will escape the consequences? Do they really imagine that the Shi’ites of Iraq will not put two-and-two together and take harsh precautions?
One of the sad paradoxes to the sectarian “voice” adopted by the Gulf leaders to justify their repression of the awakening has been the undercutting of moderate Sunnis, now caught between the rock of being seen as a Western tool, and the hard place of Sunni Salafists just waiting for the chance to displace them.
Notes
1. See here.
2. See here.
3. See here and here.
4. See here.
5. Qataris seeking alternative for Waddah Khanfar to manage Al-Jazeera, Al-Intiqad, 20 September 2011.
6. See here.
7. See here.
8. See here.
9. See here.
10. See here.
11. See here.
12. See here.
13. See here.
14. See here.
15. See here.
16. See here.
Alastair Crooke is founder and director of Conflicts Forum and is a former adviser to the former EU Foreign Policy Chief, Javier Solana, from 1997-2003.
Posted onOctober 19, 2011|Comments Off on The Syrian stalemate and the Lebanese (mis)givings
By Scarlett HADDAD | 20/10/2011
(L’Orient-Le Jour- Lebanon Translated from french)
While the mediation of the Arab League is heading for a clinical death, the situation in Syria continues to divide the Lebanese between those who believe that the fall of the regime is inevitable, even imminent, and those who think that Bashar al-Assad almost got over it. The reality, as is often the case elsewhere, however, is between these two extremes.
Back from Syria, visitors report that the regime is in total control of the situation in large cities, particularly Aleppo and Damascus, where incidents occur regularly, but are quickly contained.
In remote areas, the situation is more confused. Small communities have often to deal with robbers and other troublemakers that are not necessarily with the opposition but take advantage of the fact that the police are busy elsewhere.
At present, the real problem for the Syrian authorities is concentrated in Homs where a security chaos is prevailing. In this socially diverse city, the police have no control over entire neighborhoods, which are in the hands of the opposition. But authorities remain broadly confident, preferring to let the opposition exhaust itself or sink into violence, which to them would only serve to discredit them to the people. Besides, everyone (almost) now recognizes that violence is the fact of both sides.
According to many Lebanese figures who visited Syria recently, the regime of Bashar al-Assad is more serene, confident that the situation is bound to evolve in its favor.
It considers itself protected from foreign intervention and sanctions of the Security Council of the United Nations by the Chinese and Russian veto, which is part of the long-term strategy of these two states and is therefore not subject to a sudden change. Similarly, it considers itself protected internally by the strength of its institutions, including the army and security forces that did not suffer from significant defections, seven months after the start of the insurgency.
Turkey, which represented a real threat to the Syrian regime with its plan to create a buffer zone at the border and thus give a bastion to the Syrian opposition, is currently immersed in its own problems with the Kurds but also with the various components of its social fabric.
Spearhead of European-American plan to destabilize Syria, Turkey is now virtually paralyzed, and the harsh statements of its leaders against the Syrian regime and their considerable support for the Syrian opposition do not constitute a real threat to Assad.
As a matter of fact, the real problem of the Syrian regime is elsewhere. It lies mainly in the deepening of the divide between the community components of the Syrian society, especially between Sunnis and Alawites.
Now, members of both communities are openly critical of each others, while for many years, the religious approach was apparently non-existent in Syria. If there is actually a plan of confessional destabilization through the exacerbation of sensitivities between Sunnis and Shiites, as the camp hostile to the Americans believes, it is scoring points in several countries in the region, particularly Syria.
This new reality hinders the process of reforms intended and announced by the Assad regime. Thus, in a climate as exacerbated, if the reforms were to occur through an electoral process, the regime may fall. It’s obviously what it does not want. Therefore it would be in a kind of impasse, convinced of the need for reforms, but reluctant to give them shape and risk its survival.
This allows us to reach the following conclusion: the system is therefore still the reins of the country and is not seriously shaken. But there is no end in sight to the internal crisis.
The authority has shown that its security approach widely criticized has allowed it to remain in place and push the opponents to resort to violence, but has not yet found a solution that allows it to calm the opposition.
Faced with such findings, many Western governments believe that the Syrian crisis would take more time and that its outcome is uncertain.
The Lebanese that are waiting for an early resolution to this crisis will be disappointed, and the Lebanese political class that have been waiting for the evolution of in Syria to move in one direction or the other would need to change its plans and approach.
The Syrian regime seems here to stay, even if it has less time to spend on local developments in Lebanon. It would be a positive development if the Lebanese of all affiliations, stop keeping an eye on Syria before making a decision about them. Not to mention their watches, set permanently on the Syrian hour
Comments Off on The Syrian stalemate and the Lebanese (mis)givings
