West and Arab Clients Losing Geopolitical Battle in Syria
By K. Gajendra
Singh
March 26, 2012
The 3rd Millennium
crusaders US, UK, France and other NATO members along with their ‘democracy
lover’ Arab clients in Gulf Cooperation Council, Riyadh and Qatar with an
Islamists ruled Ankara have been halted at Homs in Syria with stiff military,
political and strategic resistance internationally by Moscow and Beijing in
UNSC and elsewhere. The delicate task of defusing the violent conflict
situation and then working out some solution to save face has been entrusted to
Kofi Annan; former secretary general of UNO, not Washington’s favorite. Kofi
had described US led 2003 invasion of Iraq against the UN Charter and hence
illegal. So an agreement on Annan is a significant trend in itself.
In the Arab-Israeli
conflict in the Middle East, it has been said that you cannot begin a war
against Israel without Egypt (now in the throes of a revolution) and cannot
have peace without Syrian participation. The conflict in Syria has many
dimensions and very wide ranging ramifications. In the overall strategic
balance between US led West and Russia and China; Syria, Moscow’s old client
state from Soviet era allows berthing of Russian naval warships at Syrian
ports. Moscow will not give up its presence in Eastern Mediterranean. For Shia
Iran and Shias of Lebanon, Syria is crucial link and corridor for self-defense
against US led West and its nukes possessing implant Israel. China with its
huge investments in Iran will rely more and more on Tehran for its expanding
energy requirements and any weakening of Tehran via the demise of the minority
Shia Alawite elite Assad regime in Damascus would be detrimental to its
economic and long term strategic interests.
New Delhi
administration remains in disarray at home and under the malevolent influence
of IMF pensioners and the powerful US/India corporate interests and lobbies and
has been dithering but has not caved in entirely on Iran and Syria. It is a
good sign that the new powerful Uttar Pradesh Baron Mulayam Singh Yadav whose
support the government needs, has called for the removal of Montek Singh
Ahluwalia, a recent contender for the top IMF job as the current head of the
Planning Commission of India. India’s neoliberal policies at home have led to
the loot of public resources, whether in 2G wireless spectrum or in iron ores
or coal.
More than anything
else, Syria is also a key battle ground for Shia - Sunni conflict led by Riyadh
and Tehran, a conflagration which West has done its best to ignite? It will be
terrible for the Muslim Ummah, the region and the world. Washington has
partially succeeded in Iraq but with unpleasant outcome i.e. Tehran has been
strengthened.
Greater West Asia,
land of civilizations including the Mesopotamian, mother of almost all, has
been the battleground of many historic battles since ancient times. In Turkey’s
Haran, across the border with Syria, the Parthians had defeated the Roman
emperor Crassus Marcus Licinius in 53 BC, capturing the legion standards and
taking the loot to Ctesiphon (near Baghdad - now under Shia Iraqis, Tehran’s
allies), then the winter capital of the Parthians and later of Sasanians.
Crassus, had attacked the Parthians with a large force to gain military glory
and be at par with the other triumvirs, Julius Caesar and Pompey. After he lost
the war at Carrhaenear Harran, he was killed.
The present day
Western emperors, Obama of USA and Sarkozy of France have stoked the conflict
in Syria after their ‘successes in destroying Libya to augment their electoral
chances in forthcoming presidential elections at home. Reportedly 7000 Syrians
including a few thousand members of security forces have been killed in Syria
so far. It has been estimated that before the NATO invasion of Libya, five
thousand Libyans had lost lives. After the NATO bombing and the regime change
in Tripoli, some estimates put the number of dead, including brutal lynching of
Col Kaddafi, between sixty to one hundred thousands have been killed. The
country has been divided and a civil war is enfolding, with Al Qaeda and many
Muslim extremists getting into positions of power.The last have got hold of
Kaddafi’s missiles which can be employed anywhere in the world.
West loses
geopolitical battles in Ukraine and central Asia
In the current era,
after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, a triumphant US led capitalist West went
about dismantling the Union of Socialist Republics and ‘induced’ Moscow’s
erstwhile allies in Europe to join NATO and EU in spite of the promises to the
contrary made to Gorbachev. US & NATO forces dismembered the multi-ethnic,
multi-religious and multi-lingual Slav and orthodox Yugoslavia, which with
religious and ethnic affinities was strategically closer to Russia.
Using as pretext the
119 attacks on US symbols of economic and military might in New York and
Washington, which more and more people are now coming round to believe was an
inside job, Washington, instead of
attacking Saudi Arabia and Egypt, from where most of the hijackers originated,
first bombed Afghanistan, coercing ally Pakistan into joining it or get bombed
to stone age and installed a former UNOCOL consultant Hamid Karzai as the new
ruler in Kabul after the Taliban leadership disappeared into Pakistan and
northern Alliance marched into Kabul. Then on flimsy grounds Washington
illegally invaded Iraq in 2003 for its oil. Almost a million and half Iraqis
have died since then; the country divided, devastated, destroyed and poisoned
with depleted Uranium waste.
Taking advantage of
the unraveling of USSR into many states now in utter disarray, under the
pretext of US led 'War on terror' in Afghanistan, Washington acquired bases in
the heart of central Asia; in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, the last
next door to China’s turbulent Turkic speaking Uighur province of Xinjiang.
Washington then
organized US franchised (like McDonalds, KFC outlets) street revolutions
financed by US non-governmental fronts and organizations, CIA and Washington’s
envoys in former Russian allies in Europe and in Moscow’s near abroad. It
succeeded in Serbia (from which Montenegro was detached making it landlocked),
Georgia and Ukraine, but failed in Belarus. In Uzbekistan, where the regime
change was attempted a few weeks after Kyrgyzstan regime change in March 2005,
feisty Islam Karimov expelled the US forces from its air force base.
The February 2010
results of Ukraine’s bitterly fought presidential elections giving victory to
Victor Yanukovich, a pro-Russian former prime minister, against maverick
‘Orange Revolution’ heroine prime minister Yulia Timoshenko, Washington
favorite, confirmed the US roll back from Kiev.
Pro-Moscow April
2010 ‘Revolution’ in Kyrgyzstan
Then the Geopolitical
Battle in Kyrgyzstan over US Military Lily pond in central Asia was lost after
Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev fled the capital Bishkek on 7 April, 2010 in
the wake of widespread violence in which 75 people were killed and 400 wounded.
Ms. Otunbayeva, a former foreign minister, took over. The new regime; dependent
on a resurgent Russia is pro-Moscow. US still remains an unwelcome ‘guest’ at
the Kyrgyz Manas airbase.
Assad’s Stand at
Baba Amr, Homs; a Turning point in Middle East!
In 1982 when the Sunni
Moslem Brotherhood rose and assassinated over 100 Alawite officers and Baath
party officials in the Syrian town Hama, Bassar Assad’s uncle, Rifaat was sent
by late president Hafez Assad to pacify the town. He had allegedly butchered
between 20,000 to 40000 inhabitants, creating a new phrase. "Rule or
die". Any further continuation of Western intervention would result in
'you haven’t yet seen anything' violence.
In this continuing
struggle, with the West losing ground, the battle at Baba Amr Homs could become
a historic turn around.
I am copying below a
very well researched and cogently written account of the current situation in
Syria based on reliable sources, giving military and diplomatic moves and
countermoves in Syria, the region and around the world.
New Phase in Syria
Crisis: Deal making toward an Exit
By Sharmine Narwani
Originally published
on 21 March 2012 in English al-Akhbar
Published here with
permission from the author
In recent weeks, there
has been a notable shuffle in the positions of key external players in the
Syrian crisis. Momentum has quite suddenly shifted from an all-out onslaught
against the Assad government to a quiet investigation of exit strategies.
The clashes between
government forces and opposition militias in Baba Amr were a clear tipping
point for these players – much hinged on the outcome of that battle. Today, the
retreat of armed groups from the Homs neighborhood means one thing: the
strategy of militarizing the conflict from within is no longer a plausible
option on which to hang this geopolitical battle. Especially not in an American
or French election year, when anything less than regime change in Syria will
look like abject failure.
And so the external players
are shifting gears – the more outspoken ones, quietly seeking alternative
options. There are two de facto groups that have formed. Group A is looking for
a face-saving exit from the promised escalation in Syria. It consists of the
United States, European Union and Turkey. Group B, on the other hand, is
heavily invested in regime-change at any cost, and includes Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, and some elements of the French, US, British, and Libyan establishments.
Before Baba Amr, these
two groups were unified in maximizing their every resource to force regime
change in Syria. When the UN Security Council option was blocked by Russia and
China, they coalesced around the General Assembly and ad-hoc “Friends of Syria”
to build coalitions, tried unsuccessfully to bring a disparate opposition
fighting force (Free Syrian Army) under central leadership, pushed to recognize
the disunited Syrian National Council (SNC), and eked out weekly “events” like
embassy closures and political condemnations to maintain a “perception
momentum.”
But those efforts have
largely come to a standstill after Baba Amr. A reliable source close to the
Syrian regime said to me recently: “The regime eliminated the biggest and most
difficult obstacle – Baba Amr. Elsewhere, it [eliminating armed militias] is
easier and less costly at all levels. Now both political and military steps can
continue.”
Deal making Begins
in Earnest
The first clear-cut
public sign of this new phase was the appointment of Kofi Annan as UN envoy to
Syria. Annan is an American “concession” that will draw out this deal making
phase between the Syrian government, opposition figures and foreign governments
potentially until the May 2012 parliamentary elections.
This phase is what the
Russians, Chinese, Iranians, and other BRIC countries have sought from the
start: the creation of a protective bubble around Syria so that it has the time
and space necessary to implement domestic reforms that will not harm its
geopolitical priorities.
Syria threatens to
blast open a Pandora’s Box of newly-motivated “soldiers of God.” And while
sectarian anger may be the fuse, the conflagration will take place on a major
geopolitical fault line in the Mideast, at a delicate time, on one of Israel’s
borders.
Deal making and
dialogue can be seen everywhere suddenly. Annan is only a figurehead masking
these multilateral efforts. Reports are coming in that the US has kept a steady
dialogue with the Syrian regime throughout. Opposition religious figures
–mostly Muslim Brotherhood in their day-job guises – have met with the regime
in recent weeks. And prominent Syrian reformists who reject military action and
are open to dialogue with the regime, are now being sought out by various
European governments.
The European Union
(EU) kicked things off in March in a joint foreign ministerial communiqué
rejecting military intervention in Syria. This was swiftly followed by Kofi
Annan’s strong warning against external efforts to arm the Syrian opposition,
with various Americans making similar soundings in his wake.
One very prominent
Syrian reformist who has remained engaged with both sides of this conflict,
confided that the externally-based Syrian opposition are now “looking over each
other’s shoulders – none yet dares to speak out.” The fact is, says the source, “They are
getting military assistance, but nowhere near enough. They need much, much more
that what they are getting, and now the countries backing this opposition are
developing conflicting agendas.”
Three high-level
defections from the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) were announced
within days of that conversation, hinting further at the fundamental policy
shifts occurring in all circles, behind the scenes.
The game has changed
along Syria’s borders too. Turkey, a ferocious critic of the Assad government
this past year, is reconsidering its priorities. A participant in a recent
closed meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu reveals the
emptiness of Turkish threats to form a “humanitarian corridor” or security zone
on their Syrian border. Davutoglu says my source, insisted in private that
“Turkey will not do anything to harm Syria’s territorial integrity and unity
because that will transfer the conflict into Turkish territory.”
Recent deliberations
with Iran also seem to have resonated with the Turks. During Foreign Minister
Ali Akbar Salehi’s January visit to Ankara, a source tells me that an
understanding was reached. The Iranian FM is said to have warned Turkish
leaders that they were leveraging a lot of goodwill – painstakingly built up in
the Muslim/Arab world – in return for “no clear benefit” in Syria. According to
my source, the Turks were encouraged to strike a bargain to regain their
regional standing – the key concession being that Assad would stay through the
reform period.
A Hard Dose of
Realpolitik
Although Turkey has
backtracked from its belligerent public posture, there are still elements in
the country that remain rigid on Syria. The same is true for the US and France.
The fact that 2012 is an important election year in both countries plays a part
in the strategy shuffle, but there are other pressing concerns too.
One major worry is
that there aren’t a lot of arrows left in the quiver to fire at Syria. Without
the UN Security Council granting legal authority to launch an offensive against
Syria, there are only piecemeal efforts – and these have all been tried, if not
yet exhausted: sanctions, demonstrations, arming militias, cyber warfare,
propaganda, diplomatic arm-twisting, and bribing defectors. But a whole year
has passed with no major cracks in support from the regime’s key constituencies
and that has caused some debate about whether this kind of tactical pressure
may ultimately backfire.
In Washington in
particular, alarm bells have been ringing since militant Islamists infiltrated
the Syrian opposition militias, some pouring in from Iraq where they were only
recently targeting American interests. The US has spent the better part of a
decade focusing its national security apparatus on the threat from Al Qaeda and
militant Islam. The execution of Osama Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda-related
figures was meant to put a seal on this problem – at least in the sense that
the organization has shriveled in size and influence.
But Syria threatens to
blast open a Pandora’s Box of newly-motivated “soldiers of God.” And while
sectarian anger may be the fuse, the conflagration will take place on a major
geopolitical fault line in the Mideast, at a delicate time, on one of Israel’s
borders – and changing winds could fan those flames right back in the direction
of the United States and its allies.
That is a red line for
the US military and a sizeable chunk of the Washington political establishment.
There are other Americans, however, who are unable to view the Syrian crisis
outside the prism of Iran and its growing regional influence. US Assistant
Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman, who has spent years now orchestrating the
defeat of the Iran-led “Resistance Axis,” is one such player in the capital.
Feltman is part of
Group B, alongside Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The battle in Syria has become an
existential one for Group B. They have played too hard and revealed too much,
to be able tore-assert themselves into any impartial regional role in the
future – unless there is a changing of the guard in Syria.
As Group a moves
toward a face-saving exit from the crisis, we are going to witness a re-telling
of events in Syria. The Western “mainstream media” and major international
NGOs, which have served as little more than propaganda tools for various governments
seeking to escalate the Syrian crisis and vilify the Assad government, are
suddenly “discovering” dangerous elements in the Syrian opposition. This
scene-setting is just as deliberate as the false narratives we have witnessed
from Group A since the start of the crisis.
Group B, on the other
hand, remains unable to take its eye off the Syrian brass ring and may continue
to employ increasingly brazen and foolhardy tactics to stimulate chaos inside
the country. Syria may be Group B’s graveyard unless they are brought into
these deals and promised some protection. I suspect, however, that they will
instead be utilized as a valuable negotiating tool for Group A – brought into
play if deal making is not working to their advantage.
While negotiations plod
on over Syria, we can be assured that most external players have little or no
consideration for actual Syrians. The regime will be focused on the long haul,
which includes ridding the country of armed groups, ensuring that major
roadways are free of IEDs and snipers, implementing a watered-down reform
program with token opposition members to give lip service to progress, and
becoming even more entrenched in the face of regional and foreign threats.
Meanwhile, the West
and its regional allies will happily draw out a low-boil War of Attrition in
Syria to keep the Syrian regime busy, weakened and defensive, while further
seeking to cement their hold on the direction of the “Arab Spring.” They will
pull levers to create flare-ups when distractions or punishments are warranted,
with nary a care to the lives and livelihoods of the most disenfranchised
Syrians whose blood is this conflict’s main currency.
It will never be
certain if there was a revolution in Syria in 2011. The country became a
geopolitical battleground less than a month after the first small protests
broke out in various pockets inside Syria. And it is not over by a long
stretch. Syria will continue to be the scene of conflict between two regional
blocs until one side wins. This may be a new phase in Syria today where players
are converging to “cut some losses,” but be assured that they are merely
replenishing and repositioning their reserves for a broader regional fight.
Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering
the Middle East. She is a Senior Associate at St. Antony's College, Oxford
University and has a Master of International Affairs degree from Columbia
University's School of International and Public Affairs in both journalism and
Mideast studies.