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Iran vs. NATO: The Twilight War in Syria

Posted on September 22, 2011 | Comments Off on Iran vs. NATO: The Twilight War in Syria

By Austin Bay,  RealClearPolitics-

Syria’s Arab Spring civil war began as another round in a long struggle between the 10 percent and the 90 percent — the 10 percent loyal to the Alawite dictatorship of the Assad clan versus everyone else.

The civil war has now expanded into a twilight regional war between Iran and NATO, with Turkey as NATO’s frontline actor.

At one level, Iran and NATO share a common concern: Syrian disintegration. Where they differ — greatly — is on who or what prevents disintegration.

Syria is a fragile mosaic of religious and ethnic groups, to include Arabs, Kurds, Druze and numerous Christian sects. Think fractious Lebanon, only bigger, and handcuffed by a brittle police state. Sunni Muslim rebels, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood, present the biggest challenge to the nominally Shia Muslim Alawites (the sect is theologically heterogeneous). In 1982, Syrian forces under Hafez al-Assad (father of Bashir al-Assad, the current dictator) massacred at least 10,000 Sunni rebels in the city of Hama. In that pre-Internet and cell phone era, the regime hid the killing fields.

Bashir al-Assad’s forces have been more restrained. 2011’s digital communications provide real-time pictures of murder. NATO’s Libyan intervention reminds Assad that he could also face overt international action if he threatens mass reprisals. So his regime, supported by Iranian intelligence and special forces, has fought a slow war of repression, a cruel endurance contest with its own people, killing some 2,700 civilians since the rebellion erupted in February.

The regime, however, is faltering. The mosaic contains too many enemies. Iran has noticed. Earlier this month, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Assad to end his violent crackdown.

Iran wants to buy time, hoping Assad and his killers will endure. This would be an optimal outcome for Iran’s Islamic revolutionaries. Assad’s Syria provides Iran with a forward base in its proxy war against Israel, supporting Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations.

The Assad dictatorship, however, is no longer acceptable to NATO. U.S. President Barack Obama made that clear last month when he said, “For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President (Bashir) Assad to step aside.”

Iran could live with an Assad replacement who would continue to support its proxies. Exiling Assad might make room for an alternative Alawite dictator, a man with a different face, but there is no guaranty that a new Alawite face will halt the rebellion. The Libyan rebels ouster of dictator Muammar Gadhafi has encouraged Syrians. For that matter, it has encouraged Iranian dissidents — which is another reason Tehran’s dictators want the Assad regime to prevail.

NATO would like to deny Iran its Syrian base but also prevent disintegration while avoiding direct military intervention. It would also like to avoid a peacekeeping mission and nation-building operation, though that may not be possible.

Here’s the disintegration nightmare: armed sectarian mini-states, a Kurdish triangle and fragment enclaves of fear and suffering run by neighborhood warlords, each a possible Terror-Stan open to extremist subversion.

Fortunately, there are Syrian rebel leaders who know that the big losers in this hell are the Syrian people. Last week, after months of discussion, Syrian rebel leaders meeting in Turkey formed a national council. It is a diverse group, but an attempt to unify Syrian opposition to the Assad regime. Council representatives hope their organization can funnel international support to rebels inside Syria, countering Iranian support for Assad.

According to The New York Times, the council favors “a multiethnic and pluralist Syria, run without any political emphasis on religion. ” That’s NATO’s optimal outcome. Can it be achieved? Doing so requires regime change in Damascus, continually thwarting Iran and political buy-in by a majority of Syria’s citizens. At some point it will also require deploying an international security force inside Syria, to counter vengeful Iranian subversion.

Copyright 2011, Creators Syndicate Inc.

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For Syria’s minorities, Assad is security

Posted on September 20, 2011 | Comments Off on For Syria’s minorities, Assad is security

By Majid Rafizadeh,  16 Sep 2011 –

In order for minority groups, including Alawis, to join Syria’s uprising, they need assurance of post-Assad protection.
Alawites are Syria’s largest religious minority followed by the Christian, Druze, and Jewish communities [GALLO/GETTY]

When I asked a Greek-Orthodox Christian Syrian man in Bab-Toma, Damascus, if he agreed with Assad’s socio-political policies he responded that he did not support Assad’s oppressive security apparatus, but under his rule he and his family were able to freely attend church mass each Sunday and celebrate Christian holidays like Christmas each year. He followed up by saying that he had no assurance that any other sect in Syria would protect the Syrian-Christian community.

In Syria there exists a diverse set of communities strongly bonded by language, region, religion, and ethnicity. The Sykes-Picot Agreement, the secret deal reached between the colonial British and French during World War I, partitioned the Middle East based on British and French interests rather than the interests of those living in Syria.

The result of the arbitrary divisions made the newly formed Syrian nation a highly ethnically and religiously diverse society – without establishing the governing institutions to harmoniously facilitate such a society. This arrangement led to decades of civil war and coup d’états in Syria until the iron-fisted Assad regime rose to power.

Comprising Muslims, Christians, Alawis, Druze and Ishmaelites, in no other country in the Middle East, except for Lebanon, do such a multiplicity of religious and ethnic groups co-exist. The Alawis or Nusayris, who number about 2,400,000, constitute Syria’s largest religious minority.

They mainly live along the coast in Al Ladhiqiyah province, where they form more than 40 per cent of the rural population (the provincial capital, Latakia, itself is largely Sunni).

The second largest minority are the Christians. Christian communities of Syria, which comprise about 10 per cent of the population, hail from both the Roman-Catholic and Protestant traditions. With the exception of the Armenians, most Christians in Syria are ethnically Arab. Syrian Christians are generally urbanites; many live either in or around Damascus, Aleppo, Hama, or Latakia. In general, they are more urbanised than Muslims and they are in relatively higher income brackets.

The Druze community constitutes five per cent of the population, making them the country’s third largest religious minority. The overwhelming majority of Druze reside in Jabal al Arab, a rugged and mountainous region in southwestern Syria.

Additionally, Syria has a very small Arabic-speaking Jewish community, as well as Yazidis who primarily live in the Jazirah and in Aleppo.

After Syria gained independence in 1946, the various sects and groups living in the region (specifically in Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Sweida and Latakia) attempted to gain power to protect their economic and legal rights. Sunni Aleppines competed for dominance with Sunni Damascenes in commercial and political life. The Druze remained solely loyal to the Druze, the Kurds to the Kurds, and tribal peoples to tribal institutions.

Alawis, the largest minority group, rebelled against Sunni-Muslim control.

In the 1970s, there existed ten different cabinets with several coups and countercoups with four different constitutions. Syrian minorities were constantly insecure and frequently subjected to prosecution. The short-lived, pre-Assad regimes were mostly Sunni dominated and there was no considerable governmental protection provided to the Druze, Christian, Shias, Jews, and Alawites.

In Syria, the Paris mandatory administration imposed a confessional system of parliamentary representation similar to that in Beirut, in which specific number of seats were allocated to Sunnis, Christians, Kurds, Druzes, Alawis, Circassians, Turkomans, and Jews. These ethnic and religious groups were guaranteed around 25 per cent of the parliament’s 142 seats.

Minority groups also protested what they believed to be an infringement on their legal and political rights. In 1950, they successfully prevented efforts by the Sunni Muslim president to declare Islam the official state religion of Syria. However, a 1953 bill finally abolished the communal system of parliamentary representation introduced by the French. Additionally, subsequent legislation eliminated separate jurisdictional rights in matters of personal and legal status which the French granted to certain minority groups during the French Mandate.

Successive Syrian administrations, including those of the Amin al-Hafez, Shokri al-Ghowatli and Shishkali governments, have attempted to create a unified Syrian national identity by eliminating the centrifugal effects of sectarianism. Despite these efforts, Syria’s post-independence history was replete with conflict between minority groups and the central government – until President Hafiz al-Assad came to power.

To protect his sect, Assad implemented laws and policies to secure all minorities from the rule of any religious-majority ideology. The Ba’ath party heavily opposed any inclusion of religion in matters of state. This policy against the rule-of-majority ideology culminated in the bloody 1982 massacre which aimed at eliminating the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement strongly opposed to Assad’s radically secular and socialist regime.

The secular socialism of the ruling Ba’ath (Arab Socialist Resurrection) Party de-emphasised Islam as a component of Syrian and Arab nationalism. However, Ba’ath ideology prescribed that non-Muslims respect Islam as their “national culture”.

In general, the Alawite communities in Latakia and Damascus, aside from the Alawite army, hold an important key to change. However, the Alawites will need assurance that their communities will be secure if they are to join forces with Sunni Muslim activists opposing the Assad regime.

Alawite religious and community leaders have attempted to reach out to Sunni religious figures – including leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood – in the past few months, to obtain assurances that their security and well-being will be protected in a post-Assad era.

It is crucial that the Sunni opposition offer such promises, which would encourage the Alawites to join the revolt en masse.

If the Sunni majority is be able to reassure the Alawites and the other minorities – who believe they need the regime’s protection – that they will not be subjected to acts of vengeance after Assad, their participation could significantly strengthen the revolution.

Sunni religious and political leaders can save Syria from a potential sectarian-ethnic war.

Two questions remain: Can Sunni leaders assure Syrian minorities that they will not face reprisals in a post-Assad Syria? And in doing so,can they prevent the current democratic revolts from descending into civil war?

Majid Rafizadeh is an Iranian/Syrian Fulbright teaching scholar, currently conducting research at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is a columnist for Harvard International Review.

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Sept 19, 2011 U.S. Is Quietly Getting Ready for Syria Without Assad

Posted on September 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

By HELENE COOPER NYT

WASHINGTON — Increasingly convinced that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria will not be able to remain in power, the Obama administration has begun to make plans for American policy in the region after he exits.

In coordination with Turkey, the United States has been exploring how to deal with the possibility of a civil war among Syria’s Alawite, Druse, Christian and Sunni sects, a conflict that could quickly ignite other tensions in an already volatile region.

While other countries have withdrawn their ambassadors from Damascus, Obama administration officials say they are leaving in place the American ambassador, Robert S. Ford, despite the risks, so he can maintain contact with opposition leaders and the leaders of the country’s myriad sects and religious groups.

Officials at the State Department have also been pressing Syria’s opposition leaders to unite as they work to bring down the Assad government, and to build a new government.

The Obama administration is determined to avoid a repeat of the aftermath of the American invasion of Iraq. Though the United States did not stint in its effort to oust Saddam Hussein, many foreign policy experts now say that the undertaking came at the expense of detailed planning about how to manage Iraq’s warring factions after his removal.

Syria is sure to be discussed when President Obama meets Tuesday with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey on the periphery of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, administration officials say. A senior administration official said the abandonment of Mr. Assad by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and European nations would increase his isolation, particularly as his military became more exhausted by the lengthening crackdown.

Another Obama administration official said that with 90 percent of Syria’s oil exports going to Europe, shutting the European market to Damascus could have a crippling effect on the Syrian economy and could put additional pressure on Mr. Assad’s government.

“Back in the 1990s, if Syria wanted credit and trade and loans that they couldn’t get from the United States, they went to the Europeans,” said Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Obama administration official. Now, Mr. Takeyh said, Europe has joined the United States in imposing sanctions on Syrian exports, including its critical oil sector.

Aside from Iran, he said, Syria has few allies to turn to. “The Chinese recognize their economic development is more contingent on their relationship with us and Europe than on whether Assad or Qaddafi survives,” he said, referring to the deposed Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Eight months ago, the thought of Syria without a member of the Assad family at the helm seemed about as far-fetched as the thought of Egypt without Hosni Mubarak or Libya without Colonel Qaddafi.

But intelligence officials and diplomats in the Middle East, Europe and the United States increasingly believe that Mr. Assad may not be able to beat back the gathering storm at the gates of Damascus.

Mr. Obama’s call last month for Mr. Assad to step down came after months of internal debate, which included lengthy discussions about whether a Syria without Mr. Assad would lead to the kind of bloody civil war that consumed Iraq after the fall of Mr. Hussein.

The shift moved the administration from discussing whether to call for Mr. Assad’s ouster to discussing how to help bring it about, and what to do after that.

“There’s a real consensus that he’s beyond the pale and over the edge,” the senior Obama administration official said. “Intelligence services say he’s not coming back.”

To be sure, Mr. Assad may yet prove as immovable as his father, Hafez al-Assad, was before him. Many foreign policy analysts say that the longer Mr. Assad remains in power, the more violent the country will become. And that violence, they say, could unintentionally serve Mr. Assad’s interests by allowing him to use it to justify a continuing crackdown.

Many factors may make his exit more difficult than the departures of Mr. Mubarak in Egypt and President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia. For one thing, both the United States and Europe have become more distracted in recent weeks by their economic crises.

Furthermore, while Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and even Yemen all imploded, those eruptions were largely internal, with their most significant ramifications limited to the examples they set in the Arab world. A collapse in Syria, on the other hand, could lead to an external explosion that would affect Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and even Iraq, foreign policy experts say, particularly if it dissolves into an Iraq-style civil war.

“The Sunnis are increasingly arming, and the situation is polarizing,” said Vali Nasr, a former Obama administration official in the State Department and the author of “The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future.”

“Iran and Hezbollah are backing the regime,” Mr. Nasr said. “There’s a lot of awareness across the regime that this is going to be pretty ugly.”

That awareness is fueling the desire to plan for a post-Assad era, Obama administration officials say. “Nobody wants another Iraq,” one administration official said on Saturday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

At the same time, the administration does not want to look as if the United States is trying to orchestrate the outcome in Syria, for fear that the image of American intervention might do the Syrian opposition more harm than good. In particular, administration officials say that they do not want to give the Iranian government — which has huge interests in the Syrian government and is Mr. Assad’s biggest supporter — an excuse to intervene.

But one administration official pointed to the remarkable call earlier this month by Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for Mr. Assad to ease up on his crackdown as a sign that even Iran’s leaders are worried about the Syrian president’s prospects.

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Sept 19, 2011 Syria: Convergence of US, Turkey Regional Interests

Posted on September 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

Ensuring security, controlling energy resources and protecting Israel are major strategic goals of the United States in the Middle East. If achieved, they will pave the way for US’ supremacy over its traditional and emerging rivals.

During the Cold War and following US failures in Southeast Asia, Korea and Vietnam, Washington tried to achieve those goals by forming regional alliances and giving active role to a powerful regional ally. Conclusion of such treaties as Baghdad (CENTO) and bolstering Iran’s role as regional gendarme could be explained along the same lines.

Following the Islamic Revolution and invasion of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union, US strategic interests were faced with a major challenge. Increased resistance from Iran and the threat of dominating the Persian Gulf oil resources by the Soviet Union made the United States change its tactics. Instigating Iraq to attack Iran and providing unbridled support for the Baathist regime during the Imposed War in addition to backing Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviet army with the help of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were examples of new tactics.

After termination of the Cold War, expulsion of Russian troops from Afghanistan and subsequent implosion of the Soviet Union, the United States became an unrivaled power which supposed it could defend its worldwide interests single-handedly. Therefore, new US Middle East policy unraveled fast. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait provided Washington with a golden opportunity to play the role it dreamed of. Finally, the United States’ interventionist policy reached its acme following 9/11 with military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Since that time, however, the realities on the ground have proved that the US power is stalled by with many restraints in the region and unilateralism cannot continue for long. The Middle East is actually the starting point and finishing line of US unilateral policy. American statesmen experienced the bitter taste of defeat right in the same region which had helped them savor victory.

For the American statesmen, reduced ability of Washington to influence Middle Eastern developments has offered a complicated challenge on the way of designing an efficient Middle East strategy. The United States had enough power to protect its regional interests without caring for balance of power between Iran and Iraq from 1991 to 2006.

Before that, Washington sought to establish a desirable balance of power between Iran and Iraq by first supporting the former Iranian Shah and then backing Iraq in its war against Iran during 1980s. From early 1990, however, forceful expulsion of the Iraqi army from Kuwait and disintegration of the Soviet Union completed the US dominance over the region. The Clinton Administration was able to pursue its interests without caring much about balance of power between Iran and Iraq. The dual containment policy could be tolerated and Clinton was greatly successful in both isolating Iran and Iraq, and forging a peace deal between Arabs and Israelis.

After Clinton’s term ended, the Republican Bush changed course in favor of unilateralism. However, final failure of Bush in changing the region through regime change or democratization brought US under tremendous pressures from three sides.

Firstly, collapse of the Iraqi government in the war with the United States clearly changed the balance of power in favor of Iran at a time that Washington claimed invincibility of its policies and universality of its values.

Secondly, US emphasis on democracy would lead to election of anti-US governments and faced Washington’s policy with a theoretical paradox. Popularity of Islamist parties such as Muqtada Sadr in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine practically invigorated the policy of resistance in those countries without giving any support to political groups advocating Western liberalism.

The aforesaid parties and groups, which were more organized than rivals, made the most of election mechanism to keep their main cadres intact and promote anti-American messages which also targeted US’ lackey regimes in the region. So, they succeeded to erode the influence of West-dependent political groups in Iraq and Lebanon as well as the Palestinian Authority while promoting their own agendas.

The third issue is inattention to Arab-Israeli peace accord by the United States which played an essential role in election of Hamas. Withdrawal of Israel from parts of the occupied territories further strengthened the claim of Hamas and Hezbollah that resistance was the best way to get concessions from Israel. This subsequently undermined Palestine Liberation Organization because it pursued negotiations with Israel on a two-state solution.

The United States’ endless problems in Afghanistan and Iraq; increased resistance pivoted around Iran, especially in Lebanon and Palestine; economic brunt of war; expansion of domestic dissatisfaction; and Arab world uprisings with possible loss of traditional allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia have put the United States at a difficult situation. Undoubtedly, soft and hard power sources of Washington will not be able to help it weather the existing dire straits by keeping up unilateral policy of the past. Even if domination over regional oil and gas resources is still possible, protection of Israel would need a powerful regional ally which in addition to having power must be popular too. Such an ally must revive interaction-minded currents in the face of resistance and play the role of an intermediary in localizing US goals in the region.

In return, the United States will promise to support ambitions of such an ally even when it aims to become a regional power. Such support would hinge on convergence of strategic interests.

Now, in view of regional developments and the loss of traditional allies, Turkey under the rule of Justice and Development Party is in the best situation to accept such a role at regional and international levels. Therefore, Ankara is the United States’ candidate number one for the revival of old policy of balance of powers with reliance on a regional power.

New conditions following September 11, 2011, gradually provided grounds for Turkey to assume the role assigned to it by the United States.

Those conditions include:

A) Successful management of the country in a democratic way and avoiding of extremism;

B) Solving problems with neighboring countries and winning regional countries’ trust by assuming mediatory roles in such issues as Iran’s nuclear case and also by taking part in peacekeeping operations in Lebanon and elsewhere;

C) Maintaining strategic relations with the United States through NATO;

D) And the most important test: taking position in support of Palestinians while maintaining strategic relations with Israel despite early tensions.

Of course, Turkey’s role in Palestine will be second-handed and mostly of a propaganda nature. Turkey will take no initiative in Palestine.

The United States was originally against election of an Islamist political current in the 1990s’ Turkey. However, following 9/11 and US failures in Afghanistan and Iraq, political approach of Justice and Development Party seemed more desirable than those of Iran, the Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas in Gaza, Saudi Salafis, al-Qaeda or the Islamic Jihad. Meanwhile, the United States needs a trustworthy ally to set direction of future trends in the region and create balance of powers against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Thus, after failure of the US unilateral policies in region, the United States is shaping new balance of powers around Turkey as the main axis.

Grounds provided by Justice and Development Party in the country as well as at regional and international levels will pave the way for Turkey to play a more active role in regional developments and pursue its ambitious foreign policy goals.

On the whole, facilitating factors for Turkey’s new regional policy are as follows:

A) Relative isolation of Iran and Ankara’s good relations with Tehran though at a safe distance;

B) Saudi Arabia’s involvement in regional developments, especially in Bahrain and Yemen;

C) The Arab Spring and new opportunities for Turkey to interfere in regional developments;

D) Concurrence of Turkey’s efforts with new US approach to strengthen a regional ally in order to sway influence on current and future developments and create a counterbalance to Iran’s regional power; and

E) Success of the Islamist government to put domestic affairs in order and reduce Turkish army’s intervention in politics.

http://www.newsnow.co.uk/A/520541378?-16531

 

 

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Sept 19, 2011 Opposition has to find common ground in Syria

Posted on September 20, 2011 | Comments Off on Sept 19, 2011 Opposition has to find common ground in Syria
National Editorial (UAE)

On the six-month anniversary of the first anti-regime protests in Syria last week, opposition groups in Istanbul announced the formation of a Syrian National Council to steer the transition to democracy. But it was the second such announcement – the first one a month ago in Ankara turned into a fiasco.

Even people who were named as opposition leaders distanced themselves from the first council, saying it failed to represent protesters who were risking their lives on the ground in Syria.

This time it is imperative that they find common ground. For a start, a single voice will help to convince Russia, China, India and Brazil – all of which continue to support the Assad regime – to take a stand against the bloodshed. These countries do not side with the regime for existential reasons, as Iran does, but for strategic interests. Russia, for example, has a Cold War base in the coastal city of Tartus, its only naval presence on the Mediterranean.

A unified alternative to the regime will begin to convince the international community at large that it is safe to invest in the opposition. It is time to begin considering a future beyond the regime, although admittedly the Assads’ violent grip on power has shown few signs of weakening.

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/editorial/opposition-has-to-find-common-ground-in-syria

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