Middle East Press On King Salman, Human Rights in Syria and Legacy of Gamal Abdul Nasser: New Age Islam's Selection, 29 September 2020
By New Age Islam Edit
Bureau
29
September 2020
• King Salman’s Last Call before Iran Drags
World into Chaos
By Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami
• Syrian Opposition’s Human Rights Abuses
Undermine Cause
By Chris Doyle
• ‘Nasser’s Legacy Continues to Cast a Long
Shadow’
By Sami Moubayed
• Iran Is Approaching a Boiling Point And The
Regime Is Ready With Bloodshed
By Amir Toumaj
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King Salman’s Last Call before Iran Drags World
into Chaos
By Dr. Mohammed
Al-Sulami
September
28, 2020
Saudi
Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. (File photo: AFP)
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A historic
address was delivered virtually last week by King Salman on Saudi Arabia’s
behalf at the 75th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA). The speech was
given at a crucially sensitive time, during which the world is passing through
an extremely dangerous and decisive turning point. The levers and balances
controlling the equilibrium of power both regionally and internationally are in
a volatile state. The constant factors affecting this equilibrium have been
mixed with variable ones due to the lack of a correct assessment by the major
powers of the threat posed by the Iranian regime to global peace and security.
In this
dangerous climate, King Salman’s address came as a last call before the world
slides into chaos, as it undoubtedly will if the major world powers allow Iran,
which has proved on multiple occasions that it is an irresponsible rogue state,
to acquire weapons. This could happen due to a variety of reasons: Some are
political and linked to changes in the relationship between the major world
powers and the US, while others are pragmatic and linked to greed and profit
from signing strategic arms deals with Iran. None of these pay any heed to the
constants that have contributed to maintaining the balance of power in the
world since the end of the Second World War.
Are the
countries that support Iran or turn a blind eye to its transgressions and
excesses prepared to face the ramifications that could result from a change in
the international balance of power? Such dangerous interactions cannot be
controlled if unleashed and cannot be dealt with by a policy of brinkmanship.
Allowing
the creation of an international coalition that unites Iran, Russia, China and
other regional parties in the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia — a move
that the Europeans have turned a blind eye to — cannot be considered as a safe
interaction along the lines of a pressure or negotiating card that can be
reversed with some gains.
In his
speech, King Salman reviewed the history of the Iranian regime’s excesses toward
the Kingdom over the past four decades, providing compelling evidence that the
policy to integrate Iran into the international community via the lifting of
sanctions with the aim of offering incentives for the Tehran regime to change
its hostile approach that is supportive of terrorism and extremism has not paid
any dividends. On the contrary, this policy has offered support to bolster the
Iranian regime’s hostile approach, with it taking advantage of the financial
resources made available to it to support its armed militias in the region and
use these to undermine regional security and stability.
This review
of the Iranian regime’s excesses was not aimed at seeking international help to
counter Iran, but was rather intended to highlight that the danger the Iranian
regime poses is a threat to global peace and security, not only in the Middle
East.
Saudi
Arabia has gone through different phases in the context of its relations with
Iran since the establishment of the so-called Islamic Republic in 1979. The Kingdom
began by showing respect to the choice of the Iranian people, recognizing the
new regime immediately upon the announcement of its establishment.
When signs
of openness emerged in Iran in the 1990s under former Presidents Mohammed
Khatami and Hashemi Rafsanjani and until the end of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s first
term, the Kingdom sought to strengthen its ties with Iran. It did so despite
Tehran violating the sovereignty of Arab nations and attempting to infiltrate
Arab societies and extend its influence within them.
Despite
this effort to strengthen ties, however, Iran’s regime has pursued hostile
policies, such as supporting sectarianism and extremism and meddling in the
internal affairs of Arab countries in general and in Saudi Arabia in
particular. Although Iran carried out these policies covertly in the 1990s and
2000s, it has publicly and brazenly executed them since the outbreak of the
so-called Arab Spring uprisings in Syria and Yemen. Before this, it had
permeated and taken control of the apparatuses of the Lebanese and Iraqi
states.
The
Lebanese Hezbollah, the official arm of Iran in Lebanon and the Middle East,
has become a formidable burden for the Lebanese state because it has continued
to implement the Iranian regime’s agenda in the region, which is inconsistent
with the interests of the Lebanese state and not aligned with the pluralistic
model of Lebanon. Last month’s explosion at Beirut port provided further
evidence of Lebanon’s ongoing pain due to Hezbollah’s monopolization of the
state and its total submission to Iran
When the
Kingdom’s leadership decided to end the chaos, which gripped several
neighboring Arab countries and encompassed Saudi Arabia itself, it was directly
targeted by Iranian-backed militias, with the Houthis launching drone attacks
targeting Aramco’s oil facilities, threatening the global economy in its
entirety. The Houthis have fired more than 300 ballistic missiles and 400
drones toward cities in the Kingdom.
The world
should be well aware of the fact that the Iranian threat has gone beyond the
boundaries of the Middle East. Anyone can see how many bombings and attacks
have taken place in Europe, with the Iranian regime seeking to eliminate
dissidents. Also, the Lebanese Hezbollah has undertaken dangerous movements and
criminal operations in Africa and Latin America.
King
Salman’s speech provided a stark warning to the UNGA and a final call to the
world powers before a point of no return is reached if they continue to
manipulate the Iranian card, ignoring the threat Tehran poses to the world and
its support for global terrorism and extremism.
----
Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami is Head of the
International Institute for Iranian Studies (Rasanah).
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1741381
----
Syrian Opposition’s Human Rights Abuses Undermine
Cause
By Chris Doyle
September
28, 2020
That the
Assad regime bears primary responsibility for the conflicts and crises in Syria
should be beyond doubt. Its human rights record of targeting civilians,
including with chemical weapons and barrel bombs, mass detentions and
disappearances and torture, ranks it among the worst offenders anywhere on the
planet.
Never
forgetting the above, it is also vital to hold its opponents of all types to
account. What is the point of struggling to see the end of one barbaric regime
merely to see another take its place? Human rights and governance standards
matter. The standards adopted by the Syrian opposition, civil society groups
and others matter.
This is
why, from the outset of the conflict back in 2011, the Syrian regime has sought
to weaken the opposition groups. The regime released hard-line Al-Qaeda
extremists from Sednaya Prison fully aware that its forces would be fighting
these same people in the months to come.
This is why
the latest report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the
Syrian Arab Republic to the UN Human Rights Council should give considerable
pause for thought. The investigations were conducted from Jan. 11 to July 1.
Most of the
commission’s reports since it was established in August 2011 focused on the
ills of the regime. This one contains what should make for uncomfortable
reading for the Syrian opposition and its backers. In the polarized world of
Syrian politics, shining a light on opposition abuses often casts the accuser
as some sort of regime stooge. But for those who truly wish to see a different,
more humane and effective government in Syria, turning a blind eye to such
abuses hurts the cause. That the regime is far worse offers little excuse.
Much of the
report covers the actions of the Syrian National Army (SNA), an armed force
that Turkey helped set up in 2017 and used in three invasions of Syria — in
Afrin, the area around Jarablus, and the Kurdish-dominated areas in the north.
The SNA is
accused of a multitude of wrongs, particularly in Afrin, including holding
civilians in undisclosed locations, murder, rape, kidnap, and the looting of
Kurdish homes. “The Commission remains concerned by the prevalent and recurrent
use of hostage-taking by Syrian National Army forces,” the report stated.
The Syrian
regime also does not have a monopoly on torture. “One of the victims described
how, during interrogation, she had been threatened with rape and beaten on the
head by Syrian National Army members, in the presence of Turkish officials,” it
was reported. In another case, a boy was handcuffed and hung from a ceiling.
Two detainees were forced to watch the gang rape of a minor. Yazidis were
abused as well as Kurds. Most of the above constitute war crimes, as the
commission asserts. Such abuses are also going on in the areas of the northeast
that Turkish-backed forces seized in October 2019, as highlighted in a recent
US government report.
Turkey
cannot ignore what is going on in areas that are under its effective control.
“Turkey carries a responsibility to, as far as possible, ensure public order
and safety, and to afford special protection to women and children,” the
independent commission stated. Reports indicate Turkish forces were aware of
and even present at many of these abuses. Transferring Syrians into Turkey, as
has been happening, is also a war crime. Further down the line, Ankara may even
face legal consequences.
At the
start of this civil war, many of the young Syrian fighters who are now in the
SNA were just children. Many had grown up in Ghouta, east of Damascus, where
there were no Syrian Kurdish communities. Forcibly transferred to the north,
they are now sucked into Turkey’s wars to fulfill Ankara’s objectives. It is
not so dissimilar to the way many of them have been dispatched to Libya to
fight Turkey’s war there, often against Syrian mercenaries recruited by Russia.
More recently, Turkey has been sending Syrian fighters to Azerbaijan to help
fight Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Other
parties in Syria are likewise guilty on the human rights front. Hayat Tahrir
Al-Sham in Idlib, which is effectively an Al-Qaeda offshoot, treats human
rights as an alien concept. More embarrassingly for those in the anti-Daesh
coalition that backs it, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a largely Kurdish
force, is also accused of a similar litany of war crimes. The SDF is US-backed
and controls much of the east of Syria.
But it is the
focus on the Turkish-backed forces that stands out in this latest report.
Turkey is playing an ever dirtier game in Syria, re-engineering the demography
to create an Arab-dominated buffer zone along its border at the expense of
Kurdish populations it accuses of abetting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK),
a group Turkey views as terrorist. Setting Arab against Kurd in Syria is sowing
the seeds of generational conflict.
The public
Turkish response was outright denial. Ankara did, however, summon commanders of
the SNA to a meeting in Gaziantep. They were reportedly lectured on the issue
of human rights abuses as a consequence of the UN report. Time will tell if
this leads to any long-term change in behaviour.
The
international community has so far paid scant attention to these abuses. UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called on Turkey to
investigate, but few other international figures echoed her request. That
should change. The reaction of the international media has likewise been disappointing,
with at best passing reference to all of this. Then again, events in Syria are
increasingly just ignored or glossed over.
The future
of Syria depends on developing alternatives to authoritarian dictatorship.
Those who replicate the brutality of the Syrian regime have no answers to the
challenge of any transition. Worst of all, they betray the brave and principled
protesters who gave their lives in peaceful resistance to this regime — a
movement dedicated to a united Syria with one people. Sadly, from the regime to
the SNA and others, those with guns on the ground in Syria are more dedicated
to fracturing and fragmenting this great country and its people.
----
Chris Doyle is director of the London-based
Council for Arab-British Understanding.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1741346
----
‘Nasser’s Legacy Continues to Cast a Long
Shadow’
By Sami Moubayed
September
28, 2020
Gamal
Abdel Nasser (1918-1970). Photo: AFP
----
Fifty years
ago, on this day Gamal Abdul Nasser was putting an end to the war in Jordan,
otherwise known as Black September. It had been fought on the streets of Amman
between King Hussein’s army and the Egypt-backed Palestinian Liberation
Organisation of Yasser Arafat.
After
announcing success seeing off Arab kings and presidents to the airport, he
suffered a heart attack and died at 6pm on September 28, 1970. He was only 52.
The date,
September 28, had already been inscribed into Arab history books. It was on
this same day back in 1961 that Nasser had faced the first defeat in his illustrious
career, when Syrian army officers launched a coup in Damascus, toppling the
Syrian-Egyptian Union that he had co-created with Syrian President Shukri Al
Quwatli. Nasser hated that date, not knowing that it would become that of his
passing just nine years later.
A Career Of Much Success, And Failure
Until then,
Nasser had encountered nothing but astounding success since toppling the
Egyptian monarchy in 1952. He came to power in 1954, at the young age of 36. In
July 1956 he successfully nationalised the Suez Canal and fought off a
tripartite war launched against his country in October by Great Britain,
France, and Israel.
In 1958,
Syrian officers came to his doorstep, begging him to merge their coup-plagued
country with Egypt. He promised that the union republic would last 100-years
but it collapsed just 43-months later in September 1961.
September
28 would once again become a day to remember when in 2000, the second
Palestinian intifada was launched after Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Al Aqsa
Mosque in occupied Jerusalem.
“Nasser’s
legacy continues to cast a long shadow” said Syrian historian Fadi Esber,
explaining: “His overwhelming charisma and political machinations drove Syria
into a union with Egypt. The fateful marriage had a lasting impact on Syria’s
politics and economy. Nasser upended the economy of post-independence Syria
through agrarian reform laws and nationalization, paving the way for a
socialist system that would last for nearly half a century.”
Speaking to
Gulf News, he added: “Many Syrians, nevertheless, especially those ardent Arab
nationalists, mourned Nasser on September 28, 1970, and still mourn him today.”
Many
Syrians blame Nasser for introducing hardline socialism into their economy,
seizing private banks and factories while confiscating lands of the urban
notability, which had ruled the country since Ottoman times.
Others
remember him for making Egypt the bastion of Arab nationalism. “He introduced
Arabism to Egypt” said Kamal Khalaf Al Tawil, a medical doctor, political
analyst, and specialist on Gamal Abdul Nasser.
His
promises to the nation included, according to Al Tawil, “sufficiency and
justice, planning, equal opportunity, industrialisation, free education,
national independence, Arab unity, and war on imperialism.” Those promises, he
added, “still live within us.”
One of his
most important achievements was striking at the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood,
which he prophetically expected to bring nothing but anguish and terrorism to
the Arab World.
Six Day War
His biggest
defeat, however, and without shadow of a doubt, was the Six Day War of 1967.
That war led to the occupation of the West Bank, Sinai, and the Syrian Golan
Heights. Historians disagree on who was to blame for the defeat, Nasser himself
or his right-hand-man Abdul Hakim Amer, commander of the Egyptian Army who was
subsequently arrested and died in prison in September 1967.
Nasser
himself preferred to take personal blame for what happened in 1967, stepping
down while setting a precedent in Arab politics. In what has now become an
all-time classic in Arab speeches, he coined the defeat as a “naksa” or
disaster, delegating his trusted colleague Zakariya Muhiddine to run the
affairs of Egypt.
Spontaneous
demonstrations broke out Cairo, Baghdad, Beirut, and Damascus, pleading Nasser
to reconsider. King Hussein famously remarked: “Only Abdul Nasser got us into
this and only Abdul Nasser can get us out.”
“The defeat
of 1967 did not break Nasser but actually encouraged him to lead a war of
attrition against Israel” said Al Tawil. “The three years of attrition were
Nasser’s moment of glory,” he added. It convinced the Americans to unwillingly
accept him as an interlocutor, on his terms, especially after he had invited
the Soviets to Egypt and two of his allies to power in Libya and Sudan.”
Since then,
many Arab leaders have tried walking in Nasser’s footsteps, inspired by his
revolutionary rhetoric and Arab nationalism. Hafez Al Assad of Syria was one of
those presidents, who came to power just two months after Nasser’s passing. So
were Arafat and Muammar Gaddafi, who premiered in Libya back in September 1969,
often citing Nasser as his role model?
https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/nassers-legacy-continues-to-cast-a-long-shadow-1.74185620
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Iran Is Approaching a Boiling Point And The
Regime Is Ready With Bloodshed
By Amir Toumaj
28
September 2020
The Islamic
Republic of Iran has recently stepped up its repressive tactics with a series
of high-profile executions in response to mass anti-government protests over
the last two years. As the root causes of protests remain unaddressed, more
violence and terror should be expected.
Despite
global protest, the state executed national wrestling champion Navid Afkari on
September 12, after rights group raised concerns that he had been tortured and
forced to confess without a fair trial.
Afkari’s
execution follows a successful high-profile campaign against death sentences
imposed on three young men convicted for their involvements in the November
2019 protests. Like Afkari and countless other political prisoners, authorities
tortured them, denied them a fair trial, and tormented their families. A court
upholding the men’s death sentences triggered global outcry including from US
President Donald Trump, and an unprecedented online campaign on Iranian social
media. In response, authorities commuted their death sentences, although they
are still imprisoned indefinitely.
After that
tactical retreat, Iran’s judiciary executed an alleged spy and then political
prisoner Mostafa Salehi, arrested during the late December 2017 – early January
2018 protests, to fortify the state’s wall of fear.
Protests
mobilized again on the web and the global stage after the judiciary announced
it would uphold Afkari’s death sentence for allegedly stabbing a water
municipality employee in a mass protest in August 2018. Afkari’s brothers too
have been given lengthy prison sentences. International athletic associations
and Trump called for Afkari’s release. It seemed as if the international and
domestic pressure would work again. Or so people thought.
Authorities
suddenly announced Afkari’s execution; he himself was apparently unaware until
the last minute, and his lawyer and family say he was denied a last visit.
Authorities have reportedly blocked roads in the vicinity of Sangar village in
Fars Province to prevent more people coming to his grave.
The
judiciary does not plan to stop with Afkari. At least 30 political prisoners
are reportedly on death row Activists have warned that one Kurdish man and 4
Ahwazi-Arab political prisoners are at risk of imminent execution.
Rights
groups have recently warned of an increase in the use of execution. Prominent
political prisoner Narges Mohammadi on September 18 penned a letter from prison
warning about the gravity of political prisoners’ plights, urging to act before
it is “too late.”
Repression
has also tightened. Mohammadi and another prominent prisoner Nasrin Sotoudeh
say their treatment in prison has deteriorated. Dozens of members of the Baha’i
faith were arrested over the summer. A number of Christian converts were exiled
to cities far from their homes after their prison sentences, a new form of
punishment for them according to International Christian Concern. At least
3,600 such as whistle-blowers have been arrested and at least one newspaper
suspended for spreading “fake news” about the spread of COVID-19 in Iran.
More Protests Expected
The Islamic
Republic is preparing to crush more protests. Since November of last year, the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has introduced neighbourhood-based
Basij paramilitary units across the country to, as a senior commander put it,
deal with “thugs and disruptors of security” in cooperation with the security and
judicial apparatus. The Law Enforcement Forces (LEF), the first line of defines
against protesters, has also restructured and declared commitments to implement
more advanced weapons and technology. This allocation of resources amid a
budget shortfall and cuts to salaries of security forces including in the IRGC
reflects fears of more unrest.
The
mounting use of execution is rooted in the Islamic Republic’s desire to secure
its rule amid shaky grounds and fears of more looming protests. The regime has
used repressive tactics throughout its history, including when authorities hung
over 5,000 political prisoners toward the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988. One
of the judges who liberally handed death sentences was Ebrahim Raisi, who today
is the chief of Iran’s judiciary.
Since the
end of 2017, Iran has witnessed two massive, nationwide protests, as well as
other sporadic protests like the one Afkari was arrested in, that have engulfed
the Islamic Republic’s traditional support base that encompass religious, working-class
rural and urban areas. The state’s crackdown in 2019 was far bloodier than ever
before. Whereas before security forces primarily used street melee and arrests
to crush protests, this time they opened fire from the onset. The death toll
has been in the hundreds - 1,500 according to Reuters - surpassing in a matter
of days the death toll of months of 2009 post-election protests.
Iran is
facing more mass protests because the Islamic Republic because is incapable or
unwilling to address society’s political and economic grievances. Reformists,
who were instrumental in propelling Hassan Rouhani to presidency in 2013 and
2017, have experienced a crisis of public confidence since the 2017-2018
protests, as they have been unable or unwilling to deliver on promises to
meaningfully implement reform through the ballot for over two decades.
Iranian
officials are particularly concerned about economic triggers for more
nationwide protests. The 2017-2018 protests started in response to skyrocketing
staple prices, most notably eggs, and the 2019 protests followed sudden cuts to
fuel subsidies; both then spread to encompass broader political and economic
grievances aimed at the Islamic Republic. While re-imposed US sanctions
designed to pressure Iran into a new nuclear deal have significantly damaged
the Iranian economy and contributed to a plummeting currency, protesters called
out the Islamic Republic itself rather than US sanctions before and after the
US exit of May 2018, most notably in the bloody November uprising. Iranian
newspapers openly discuss how corruption and mismanagement have hit Iran’s
economy. The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded Iran’s economic misery, raising
the risk of further economic-induced protests.
Indeed,
while Iran has a long history of labor protests, strikes in August spread from
strategic energy-sector facilities like petrochemicals and refineries in the
south to the north. While a deputy minister recently blamed foreign media
coverage of strikes, accusing them of a plan to “Syrianize Iran,” he did
concede that calls for protests had tripled in the last year, and acknowledged
that “some” Iranians were involved – a tacit recognition that protest calls
were not just a foreign plot.
All signs
suggest the Islamic Republic is expecting more protests. On this point, they
are probably correct. Iranians will likely soon reach another boiling point,
and Tehran will only commit more violence to cling to power at any cost.
----
Amir Toumaj is an independent researcher
focused on Iran who has experience in the private sector and think tanks. He
has published dozens of articles and reports, and his research has appeared in
congressional testimonies and prominent global media outlets.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2020/09/28/Tehran-s-tightening-repression-forebodes-more-unrest
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