29 February 2016By Eyad Abu Shakra
The unfolding Syrian crisis is now looking more and more like a carbon copy of
the Palestinian crisis. Almost all the ‘constants' of world powers towards the
near east in the aftermath of the First World War remain unchanged. We are
still living the same religious, cultural, interest-based considerations that
led to the partitioning and apportionment of the near eastern territories of
the Ottoman Empire under the ‘Sykes-Picot' Agreement' around 100 years ago.
Indeed, one of the parties to the ‘agreement', Sir Mark Sykes, was not far
from the close circle behind the ‘Balfour Declaration'.
The current Syrian uprising, just like the early Palestinian uprisings of the
first few decades of the 20th century, started as a spontaneous popular
uprising calling for freedom, dignity and the right to self-determination.
However, it soon discovered it was being surrounded by the ‘game of nations'
that has no respect for people and no regard for human rights. Gradually,
thereafter, the picture was getting ever clearer in parallel with emerging
disparity between the fighting forces on the ground.
The regional role of the Al-Assad clan's regime has been clear for all to see;
it began even before Hafez Al-Assad officially took over the leadership of
Syria in late 1970.
The job of Hafez Al-Assad, very much ‘the man of the Right' within the Ba'th
Arab Socialist Party, was to adopt a ‘realistic' regional policy willing to
co-exist with ‘the region's realities', the most prominent among which were:
1- Respecting Israel's existence.
2- Confronting all radical groups from the revolutionary extreme Left to the
Islamist extreme Right.
3- Penetrating these groups, outbidding them after hijacking their slogans and
when the need arises, resorting to murder and purges.
For 8 years Hafez Al-Assad manoeuvred his way, implicitly supported by
international acquiescence, peddling slogans such as ''Arabism'', ''Arab unity'',
''secularism'', and ''corrected socialism'' as exportable merchandise. During
those 8 years he was entrusted by Henry Kissinger to destroy the Palestinian
resistance movement in Lebanon and ‘control' unruly Lebanon in the turbulent
1970s. This took place despite – or because of – Al-Assad's participating in
the ‘October 1973 War' (Yom Kippur War) against Israel. Later on, in 1982,
world leaders looked the other way as he committed the ‘Hama Massacre' in
which he butchered between 20,000 and 40,000 people in 27 days.
In 1979, when the ‘Islamist Revolution' led by ayatollah Khomeini succeeded in
Iran, the Al-Assad ''Arab secular'' regime in Damascus was its prime supporter
in the Arab world and continued to support it even when it declared its
strategy of ‘exporting the (Shi'ite) Revolution'. Later on, when Iraq, backed
by many Arab countries that were worried by Tehran's expansionist dreams and
actions, fought Iran, the ‘Ba'thist' regime in Damascus sided with
‘Khomeinist' Tehran against Baghdad's brotherly ‘Ba'thist' regime.
In spite of this stance and thanks to Hafez Al-Assad's astuteness and skills
in providing strategic services to major global players whenever and wherever
needed, the regime's fortunes were not adversely affected.
Things began to change as Al-Assad senior gradually began to loosen his grip
on power which was officially transferred to the ‘second generation' heirs
within the clan in 2000. The change, however, has been conspicuous in style
and approach, without any change in the basic political affinities and
alliances. Out went the days of wise political dealings and finely-tuned
balancing acts, and in came the style of brash exclusion and omission through
murder, which accumulated mistakes and encouraged Iran to take a greater role
in handling political and security matters.
The ‘series' began with the alleged ‘suicides' of former prime minister
Mahmoud Al-Zu'bi (less than one month before Bashar Al-Assad inherited the
presidency). He was later followed by former senior military and intelligence
strongman Gen Ghazi Kan'aan and others. Subsequently, opponents were
assassinated across the borders in Lebanon, including former Lebanese prime
minister Rafic Hariri; and this policy was expanded to become as strategy
within and outside Syria. At this point it became impossible to decide where
crucial political decisions were being taken – in Damascus or Tehran?
The situation in Lebanon has been the best marker for what has been going on
in Syria. The so called ‘Syrian-Lebanese security apparatus' which was
effectively running Lebanon behind the façade of a president who controlled
nothing oversaw the creation of the de facto ‘state' of Hezbollah which is a
branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). Today Hezbollah is the real
‘state' that is much more powerful than what has become of the Lebanese ‘statelet'.
Proof, if proof is needed, is Lebanon's refusal to condemn the attack on Saudi
Arabia's embassy in Tehran at both the Arab Foreign Ministers' meeting and the
Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Foreign Ministers Council's meeting
that discussed the issue. Hezbollah's preventing the election of a president
for more than a year and a half, forcing the Lebanese government to release a
former cabinet minister already convicted based on his recorded confession
that he was planning a series of murderous explosions to cause sectarian
turmoil, and the failure of the government to prevent Hezbollah from engaging
in wars outside Lebanon are other forms of proof.
Pressure exerted on the Syrian opposition which is already encountering
Iranian land occupation, Russian aerial bombardment and ISIS terrorism, gives
credence to Seymour Hersh's report about the joint efforts of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff and the US Defence Intelligence Agency with Russian, Israeli and
German intelligence services to defend the Bashar Al-Assad regime. Today,
Washington has fully adopted Moscow's position towards Syria; in fact some
voices from the Israeli intelligence community throughout 2015 have followed
the same line.
Furthermore, American active collaboration with secessionist Kurdish groups in
northern Syria, along the borders with Turkey, gives the impression that
,despite Vice President Joe Biden's ‘grey' talk , Washington is truly working
for an independent Kurdish state in the near east. An Israeli lawmaker,
actually, said the other day ''The Kurds deserve a state of their own''!
Back in Lebanon, it is worth recalling that the Maronite Patriarch Bechara
Ra'i was the first prominent figure that candidly expressed his reservations
about the Syrian uprising by saying several times both in Lebanon and during
his visits abroad, beginning with France, what amounts to ''Al-Assad may be a
bad guy, but what the uprising might give is a worse alternative''. This
precisely reflects the climate created by the ‘alliance of minorities'
mentality in the near east. It was in the very heart of the political thinking
of those who conjured up the Anglo – French mandates and the ‘religious
homelands' starting with Israel.
Unfortunately, before the partition maps could be enforced, this ‘alliance of
minorities' (i.e. non-Sunni Arabs) was missing nothing but the creation of
ISIS and the JCPOA (the American – Iranian nuclear agreement) which makes the
Vali-e-Faqih and his Revolutionary Guards the instigators of the grand Muslim
– Muslim civil war.
Eyad Abu Shakra is the managing editor of Asharq Al-Awsat. He has been with
the newspaper since 1978.
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