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SECTARIAN EQUATION
Julius Caesar
Act 3, scene 1
William Shakespeare
“Blood and destruction,” “dreadful
objects,” and “pity choked” was the Bard’s searing characterization of what war
visits upon the living. It is a description that increasingly parallels the
ongoing war in SYRIA, which is likely to worsen unless the protagonists step
back and search for a diplomatic solution to the 17-month old civil war. From
an initial clash over a monopoly of power by SYRIA’S Baathist Party, the war
has spread to LEBANON, TURKEY, and IRAQ, ignited regional sectarianism, drawn
in nations around the globe, and damaged the reputation of regional and
international organizations.
ONCE LOOSED, THE DOGS OF WAR RANGE WHERE THEY WILL.
Although the regime of Bashar
al-Assad ignited the explosion with its brutal response to political protests,
much of the blame for the current situation lies with those countries, seeing
an opportunity to eliminate an enemy, that fanned the flames with weapons and
aid: the UNITED STATES, TURKEY, SAUDI ARABIA, and QATAR, plus a host of minor
cast members ranging from JORDAN to LIBYA.
The results are almost exactly what RUSSIA
and CHINA predicted when they warned about trying to force regime change
without a negotiated settlement: an opening for radical Islamists, a flood of
refugees, and growing instability in a region primed to erupt.
The war has claimed between 20,000
and 25,000 lives and wreaked havoc on a number of cities, including, Aleppo.
Just who those casualties are is in dispute. While it is undoubtedly true that
the Damascus government’s use of heavy weapons in urban areas has killed and
wounded many civilians, the opposition has carried out extrajudicial executions
of SYRIAN soldiers and Assad supporters as well.
THERE IS NO QUESTION THAT “FOREIGN FIGHTERS” ARE
INVOLVED—MOSTLY ISLAMIC JIHADISTS FROM SAUDI ARABIA, IRAQ, LIBYA, JORDAN, AND
TURKEY
“This is an asymmetrical war, and
there is a degree of expansion of violations of international law by both sides
that seems to be escalating,” says Kristalina
Georgieva, UN commissioner for crisis response.
The Damascus government has
developed its own spin on the casualties, claiming they are not SYRIANS but
“foreign fighters.” There is no question that “foreign fighters” are
involved—mostly Islamic jihadists from SAUDI ARABIA, IRAQ, LIBYA, JORDAN, and TURKEY—but
most of the insurgents are SYRIANS. Truth is always the first casualty in a
war, particularly a civil one in which the protagonists are not always easy to
define.
The fighting has produced a refugee
crisis that, while nowhere near the catastrophe generated by the 2003 U.S.
invasion of IRAQ—when 4 million fled their homes—has still sent hundreds of
thousands of people into neighboring countries. At last count, the UN had
registered almost 250,000 refugees, some 80,000 in TURKEY, 70,000 in JORDAN,
close to 57,000 in LEBANON, and over 16,000 in IRAQ.
SECTARIAN EQUATION
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The uprising has also become
increasingly sectarian. SYRIA has one of the most complex mélanges of
ethnicities and religious identities in the Middle East. Although most SYRIANS
are Sunni Muslims, there are sizable minorities of Druze, a variety of
Christian sects, and Alawite Muslims. The
Alawites, among them the Assads, have dominated the SYRIAN military since FRENCH
colonial days. The sect is associated with Shiism, although it has a pre-Islamic
history that is deeply rooted in the country’s western mountains.
According to reporting by foreign
media, jihadists are playing an increasingly powerful role in the fighting.
“The Islamist groups, which are superbly financed and equipped by the GULF
STATES, are ruthlessly seizing decision-making power for themselves,” Randa
Kassis, a member of the opposition SYRIAN National Council told Der
Spiegel. “SYRIANS who are taking up arms against the dictator but not
putting themselves under the jihadists’ command are being branded as
unpatriotic and heretics.”
DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS REPRESENTATIVES RECENTLY STATED TO REUTERS THAT 60 PERCENT OF TREATED
WOUNDED IN SYRIA WERE FOREIGN FIGHTERS.
While the SYRIAN National Council
and the Free SYRIAN Army disavow the more extreme jihadists, the latter hold
the whip hand because of their support from SAUDI ARABIA and QATAR, the main
source of weapons and funding. The rising number of car bombings is the
signature of such al-Qaeda-affiliated groups as the al-Nusra Front. Speaking in
JORDAN on September 9, al-Qaeda leader
Abu Sayyaf called for a jihad against the secular Assad regime.
French surgeon Jacques
Beres, a founder of the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders
who recently returned from treating wounded in SYRIA, told Reuters that
60 percent of his patients were foreign fighters. “It’s really something
strange to see. They are directly saying that they aren’t interested in Bashar
al-Assad’s fall, but are thinking how to take power afterward and set up an
Islamic state with Shariah law to become part of the world emirate.”
The surge of extremism is not
restricted to SYRIA. IRAQ has been convulsed by bombings aimed at the Shiite
community, killing over 300 people between July 21 and August 18. On September
9, nearly 400 people were killed or wounded in 13 IRAQI cities. Alawites have
been targeted in TURKEY and Shiites in LEBANON, the latter in a replay of
sectarian attacks five years ago in Tripoli by the SAUDI-funded Fatah al-Islam.
Comment by Geopolitical
Analysis and Monitoring: It should be notes that many times Alawites are confused
with Alevis from TURKEY. For more information see: Alawites
in Syria and Alevis in Turkey: Crucial Differences
ANKARA IS DISCOVERING THAT THE DOGS OF WAR ARE RANGING
UNCOMFORTABLY CLOSE TO HOME
While TURKEY’S Islamist Prime
Minister Recep Erdogan is playing a key
role in the war by supplying the rebels, Ankara is discovering that the
dogs of war are ranging uncomfortably close to home. IRAQI-based KURDS, who
have long fought for an independent state made up from parts of TURKEY, IRAQ,
SYRIA, and IRAN, have stepped up operations against the TURKISH military, and
the TURKS are apprehensive
that SYRIA’S KURDS might join in. TURKEY’S “Kurdish problem” might explain why
Erdogan has toned down his rhetoric against SYRIA, though the explanation might
also be simple politics—Ankara’s involvement in the SYRIAN civil war is not
popular with the average TURK.
“TRIGGER HAPPY” FRENCH AND ITS RIPPLE EFFECT IN THE LIBYA
SAGA
The conflict has also damaged the
UN, though that is mainly fallout from the organization’s role in the overthrow
of the Gaddafi government in LIBYA. Moscow and Beijing backed UN Security
Council intervention in LIBYA because they were assured that there would be an
attempt to negotiate a political solution. The AFRICAN
Union (AU) had already begun such talks when the FRENCH started bombing and
the war went full-tilt.
The AU is still unhappy with the UNITED
STATES, FRANCE, and BRITAIN over LIBYA, and the AFRICAN organization’s warning
that the collapse of LIBYA might fuel instability in other areas of the
continent appears to be coming true. The current war in MALI is a direct result
of the massive number of weapons that poured into the rest of AFRICA following
the LIBYAN war, as well as the empowering of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb,
an extremist group that played a role in overthrowing Gaddafi.
As intractable as the SYRIAN war
looks, there is room for a political resolution, but only if the protagonists
and their supporters stand down. The Damascus government will have to recognize
that one-family rule went out with feudalism, and that its opponents have real
grievances. On the other side, the opposition will have to drop its insistence
that there will be no talks until the Damascus government resigns. A zero-sum
approach by either side will simply translate into a continuing war.
But this will also mean countries
fueling the opposition with guns and supplies will have to back off as well.
And those nations that constantly talk about the threat of “terrorism” need to
confront the extremists’ financers.
“The US and ISRAELI obsession with IRAN
has led Washington to turn a blind eye to the dangers posed by SAUDI policy,”
writes Anatol
Lievan, a war studies professor at King’s College, London, which “has
helped lay the basis for Islamist extremism in PAKISTAN and elsewhere.”
Comment by Geopolitical
Analysis and Monitoring: These are not obsessions but calculated strategies by all
parties involved in order to gain geopolitical and economic bargaining powers
and other leverages, which will be agreed upon behind “closed doors”.
Furthermore one should not forget that the USA (officially) and ISRAEL
(unofficially) are close allies with SAUDI ARABIA. Thus they are fully aware of
SAUDI policies.
Other countries affected by the war,
including LEBANON and IRAN, need to be brought into the process as well.
Lastly, the role of regional and
international organizations needs to be reconfigured. The LIBYA war damaged the
AU, the ARAB LEAGUE, and the UN because the political process was hijacked by
NATO and Gaddafi’s enemies. The UN can play a key role in bringing peace, but
not if it serves the interests of one side over the other.
By Conn Hallinan via fpif
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