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By M K Bhadrakumar via Asia Times
SUBTEXTS ARE INVARIABLY MORE
SIGNIFICANT THAN THE MANIFEST NARRATIVE
The narrative could not have been simpler - SAUDI ARABIA
has taken its cold war with IRAN, which is being fought on the beaches, in
the air and in the hills of the MIDDLE EAST, to the great arena of the
Muslim ummah. And IRAN has badly lost in the tournament.
However, the summit of the ORGANIZATION OF ISLAMIC COOPERATION (OIC) in
Mecca this week had a subtle subtext, and anyone who knows Muslim politics
would sense that on such occasions the subtexts are invariably more
significant than the manifest narrative.
The narrative itself is that SYRIA has been banished from the Sunni world
and IRAN could do nothing to stop it from happening. It is posted all over
the Western media. Washington even expressed
satisfaction that a "strong signal" had been delivered to
Damascus.
THE OIC AS A REGIONAL ORGANIZATION
IS NOTORIOUSLY INEFFECTIVE
But was SYRIA indeed the core
issue at the OIC summit? It seems more like a case of the SYRIAN crisis
providing the peg on which certain subtexts could be hung for all to see.
No one is mistaken that the majority opinion within the OIC as reflected in
the decision to suspend SYRIA'S membership is going to decide that
country's future. Arguably, the summit sends a signal to SYRIA, but then,
Damascus has no dearth of signals these days from far and near, and that is
not the issue. All said, the OIC as a regional organization is notoriously
ineffective. For decades it fulminated against INDIA on the Kashmir issue
and even constituted a Contact Group on the subject - with TURKEY and SAUDI
ARABIA charioting it - but New Delhi chose to ignore it and no one knows
today whether or not it is still around.
A tough regime like the one in Damascus would know that the OIC is
toothless and that SAUDI ARABIA'S wish has always been a command for the
organization. Ironically, SYRIA used to counsel New Delhi not to lose sleep
over the ISI Contact Group.
THE SYRIAN CRISIS -A FIRST-RATE
WRESTLING MATCH BY EXTERNAL POWERS OVER REGIONAL HEGEMONY
The heart of the matter is that the SYRIAN crisis has now transcended the SAUDI-IRANIAN
paradigm and has morphed into a first-rate wrestling match by external
powers over regional hegemony - and the most powerful among them are not
even Muslim countries. It is not in the interests of the most powerful
protagonists - the UNITED STATES, EUROPE, RUSSIA, CHINA - to give the
impression that their security policy is to support the Sunnis or the Shi'ites in the MIDDLE EAST.
CHINA
AND RUSSIA HAVE THRICE DRAWN THE “RED LINE” IN THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL
The Western powers are reluctant to intervene in SYRIA while the diplomatic
track has tapered off; RUSSIA and CHINA are moving on with their mundane
life after having thrice drawn the "red line" in the United
Nations Security Council; and the US and TURKEY have been left in solitude
to grapple with the difficult question of how to proceed to end the
violence against the backdrop of the failure of diplomacy and the blunt
refusal of the Bashar al-Assad regime to give in despite all the body blows
given to it - this, in a nutshell, is the current SYRIAN situation.
Simply put, the OIC has no role here. In fact, if it had one, that too was
lost after the flawed decision at Mecca to draw the bridges leading to
Damascus - whereas, with a little more imagination, the OIC could have
aspired to position itself to play the role of a facilitator-cum-mediator
at an opportune moment in future.
FRONT
AGAINST SECTARIANISM IN THE MUSLIM WORLD
So why did SAUDI ARABIA think up this untimely initiative to convene an
extraordinary summit of the OIC? The central objective of the SAUDI
initiative was to present a united front against sectarianism in the Muslim
world. Tehran understood this early enough, which explains its considered
decision to participate in the summit in Mecca despite the near-certainty
that the conclave would end up censuring the SYRIAN regime in one form or
another.
In turn, IRAN also rose to the occasion by giving a measured response at
the level of the foreign minister to the OIC's decision to suspend SYRIA'S membership.
Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in Mecca: "SYRIA should have
been invited to the summit to defend itself and also so that the
participants could have listened to its official views." He explained
that Tehran objected to the OIC decision because "this is against the
very charter of the organization". Salehi added: "In our opinion,
cooperation is more logical [than suspension and] ... we should seek a
mechanism to exit the SYRIAN crisis by way of the opposition and the
government engaging in talks to create favorable conditions" to end
the crisis.
REDRAWING THE RULES OF THE GAME
Second, the developments in SYRIA are steadily bringing religious
sectarianism into the open in a way that does not suit any of the major
regional protagonists - SAUDI ARABIA, IRAN, QATAR or TURKEY - since almost
all of them are as much vulnerable to the fallouts from any deepening of
the sectarian fault line as SYRIA could be today.
Shi'ites constitute almost 20% of
the SAUDI population, more than 35% in Kuwait and almost 70% in BAHRAIN.
Alawites are a restive minority with long-standing grievances of
persecution, accounting for 20% of TURKEY'S population (on top of the
alienated KURDS, who form another 20%).
Comment by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring: Alevis from TURKEY are commonly confused with Alewites from SYRIA
and vice versa. For more background information regarding above mentioned
subject see:
ALAWITES IN
SYRIA AND ALEVIS IN TURKEY: CRUCIAL DIFFERENCES
Indeed, IRAN too has a substantial Sunni minority
NONE
OF THE REGIONAL PROTAGONISTS STANDS TO BENEFIT FROM PUSHING THE ENVELOPE
AND ESCALATING RELIGIOUS TENSIONS
Third, no matter what happens on the ground, Sunnis are
going to play a much more influential role in SYRIA'S political life than
before, which again means that none of the regional protagonists stands to
benefit from pushing the envelope and escalating religious tensions. Also,
the fallouts of religious tensions are certain to be very serious. The signs are visible already that the
Shi'ite-dominated eastern provinces of SAUDI ARABIA are on the boil.
This constitutes a formidable challenge to the royal family both in
geographic and economic terms. For more background information see: http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.com.ar/2012/07/sunni-versus-shia-middle-easts-new.html
Even as the OIC began its deliberations in Jeddah, ominous signs appeared
in LEBANON, with the Shi'ite Meqdad clan kidnapping more than 20 Syrians in
retaliation for the abduction of one of their kinsmen by the so-called Free
Syrian Army. The Meqdad clan has threatened that "the snowball will
grow" and that SAUDI, QATARI and TURKISH nationals will be targeted.
SAUDI ARABIA promptly issued an advisory to its nationals to leave LEBANON
immediately. The UNITED ARAB EMIRATES and QATAR have taken similar steps.
There are reports of dozens of SYRIANS being kidnapped in Beirut and of
gunmen taking to the streets in the Shi'ite suburb of Tiro in the southern
part of the city.
That is to say, while the OIC summit initiative may not have any direct
impact on the near-term trajectory of developments in SYRIA itself, it has
taken into account the existential challenge posed by religious tensions
and has adopted a long-term approach aimed at containing the several
available potentially inflammable political hot spots in the region from
assuming sectarian overtones.
REDRAW
THE RULES OF THE GAME IN SYRIA
In sum, the OIC summit's rebuke to SYRIA adds up to little consequential
beyond the symbolic. The summit could not be expected to heal the SAUDI-IRANIAN
rift, which stems from a clash of national interests. But what the OIC
summit aimed at it may well be achieving, namely to redraw the rules of the
game in SYRIA and to "secularize" the political differences and
conflicts.
How far the OIC's message will travel among the diehard militants time only
will tell, but King Abdullah certainly made an important conciliatory
gesture to IRANIAN President Mahmud Ahmadinejad by seating him at his side
to welcome the leaders attending the summit.
As Reuters reported: "Ahmadinejad, wearing the dark suit and shirt
without tie favored by IRANIAN leaders, sat at the left hand of the king in
his traditional Arab robes. The two were shown talking and sometimes
laughing together."
This is where the "subtext" makes its presence felt as the real
narrative. By any reckoning, the gesture to Ahmadinejad was an overture by
the SAUDI king to the IRANIAN nation that no matter what happens in SYRIA
(or over SYRIA) in the coming period, "we are both Muslims".
Curiously, a summit that was billed as a potentially big showdown between SAUDI
ARABIA and IRAN ended by adopting King Abdullah's proposal on the setting
up of a center in Riyadh for dialogue among different Muslim sects. It is
tempting to think that the OIC may have understood finally its tryst with
destiny.
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