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Syria: Beware the Evils of Sectarianism
Ruthless Arab dictators have terrified the people around them to the point of total sycophancy, where praise and subservience to the “dear” leader are the only words the despot hears; this renders them incapable of objectively and logically examining a problem. Their delusions of grandeur have fossilized their brains, making them incapable of shifting their political gear to match the changed environment. Up until the start of the Arab spring, fear woven into the fabric of Arab societies through secret police, torture and violence, was the emotion that kept the masses docile and silent. No more. The revolutionary young of the Arab world have changed societies in the region. They have shown that their desire for dignity, human rights and freedom is stronger than the fear of torture and death that has imprisoned the masses for so long.
The Syrian people started their uprising peacefully, demanding reform of a tyrannical rule to allow people a voice in the way they are governed; they were not initially calling for Bashar al-Assad to go. The regime’s security apparatus responded in March 2011 with the “torture of children painting anti-regime slogans on a wall in Deraa in the south”. Patrick Cockburn, in the Independent on Sunday (12 February 2012), describes the sheer stupidity of the response thus:
“The state disastrously misjudged its moment and an atrocity, intended to intimidate would-be protesters into silence, instead provoked them to revolt. Hatred of a despotic regime and fury at repeated massacres still impels great numbers of Syrians to go into the streets to demonstrate despite the dangers”
The reaction of the regime was similar to that of the other despot Muammar Gaddafi, although Bashar al-Assad was clever enough to have a different rhetoric from that of Gaddafi, but the actions and violence are the same. This misjudgement opened up the field for neighbors and foreign powers to hijack the revolution and turn it into a proxy war with Iran, and into a sectarian Shia (Alawi)-Sunni conflict. ABC news quoted a senior Iraqi security official saying that al-Qaida-linked fighters have been travelling from Mosul in northern Iraq into Syria for the last four months. The suicide bombing of security compounds in Aleppo, killing 28 people and wounding 235 on Friday (10 February), could well be the work of such a group. The regime meanwhile is indiscriminately bombarding Sunni neighborhoods in Homs, with total disregard for civilians caught in the middle of what looks like a destructive civil war.
I am finding it difficult to grasp the concept of Saudi Arabia championing democracy and freedom in Syria.Lest we forget, this is the same government that sent troops to Bahrain to crush its uprising, rebranding a genuine struggle for justice, fairness and reform a sectarian one. Moreover, it was the Saudi King Abdullah who, in a “testy” phone call to the White House on 29 January, warned President Obama not to abandon Egypt’s despot Hosni Mubarak.
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18 Comments so far
Show AllI don't trust anything any "senior Iraqi security official" says, to begin with, when corruption runs rampant in Iraq's current government.
Adnan Al-Daini barely touches upon what an utter mess sectarian mess Syria could turn into if they descend into civil war. Syria has more communities than Iraq, and complicating the matter is the historical position of the Alawites (the religious community that the Assad clan belongs to). Prior to the French mandate of Syria, the Alawites were a poor, despised, and persecuted minority from the mountains (think the Roma of Eastern Europe, Jews in Czarist Russia, Hazara in Afghanistan, or Dalits of India) who suffered the occasional pogrom during Ottoman times. Beginning with the French colonial administration, they were recruited into the military, and they turned into a bastion of strength. Thus when Papa Assad took power via a coup in 1970, the Alawites had turned Syria's military into virtually their private power prop. Thus they are an armed and motivated minority who will do anything they deem necessary to hang on to power no matter what, and they have powerful Shia allies (whom are also their co-religionists) in Iran & Hezbollah whom have a stake in the Assads staying where they are. This can be a bloody mess that will make the break up of that other part of the Ottoman Empire, Yugoslavia, look like a minor skirmish.
I do see foreign incitement and maybe....just maybe...the Syrian guv is REALLY fighting foreign financed and armed terrorists...and everyone who has called for intervention has their own agenda...and quite possibly proxy troops on the ground creating the uproar.
Just a thought. I could be wrong...but it is worth a passing fancy.
"curmudgeon99"
This article seems suspect at best. The author seems just too comfortable with the Washington-endorsed view.
Read Pepe Escobar's writings about Syria.
On Saturday, February 4th, Common Dreams presented one of Escobar's articles which was full of information beyond what this author wants us to see.
Since you mention it, I also find the author's perspective too simplistic and pat-- reminiscent of pundits like Stephen Zunes and Juan Cole, who often seem far too ready and willing to buy into the Amerikan government-promulgated, corporate mass-media amplified, pasteurized processed received wisdom product as a foundation or starting point for their analysis.
Ditto to all of the above posts. The opening phrase of this piece of caca journalism sends red flags flying all over the place: "Ruthless Arab dictators..."
Yawn. What was that, Hillary? I think I hear a buzz...
Then the opening of the second paragraph: "The Syrian people started their uprising peacefully, demanding reform of a tyrannical rule to allow people a voice in the way they are governed..."
More buzzwords, highfalutin, emotion-stirring claptrap of the sort the Washington wonks are so fond of. Did this guy take lessons or something?
A few questions remain. Just when did these peace-lovers start attacking police posts--in a carbon copy of the Libyan strategy--as attested by many independent journalists on the ground? Is that part of their idealist vision? And were they already armed when still seeking a peaceful solution? And is it just altruism and self-sacrifice that has inspired the foreign, non-Syrian, once peaceful but now not so peaceful elements also engaging in the assault on the Assad regime?
How uncanny it is that these pacifist, idealistic lovers of democracy not only have no trouble soliciting help and weapons from oligarchic imperial powers who have made a wasteland of half the Muslim world already, but also fulfill, to a T, the strategy for remaking the Middle East explicitly outlined a while ago by Zionists, PNAC neocons, and all-round warmongers and resource robbers in the West!
Useful idiots or paid mercenaries? You decide.
Exposed: The Arab Agenda in Syria
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NB04Ak01.html?fb_ref=.Ty7IxKUL2sA.like&fb_source=profile_oneline
SYRIA: NATO's Next "Humanitarian" War?
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29234
And the saber rattling escalates.
There were three regimes in the Arabic speaking world that were a problem for the US and NATO imperialists - Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Everywhere else, brutal puppet governments under the control of the western powers were in place.
Two down, one to go.
This has nothing to do with "democracy."
Yes and no. The Syrian government has certainly been in U.S. crosshairs for a long time.
Whatever honest-to-goodness pro-democratic movements arise in the Middle East are getting quickly usurped (is that the right word? I'm too tired to think straight right now) by groups with agendas (if the movements already weren't infiltrated or stoked by, say, the CIA). We saw this in Egypt, for instance. Anyway, some of those groups represent reactionary sentiments among sectors of the population and some of those groups may be receiving foreign funding/support (and sometimes there appears to be overlap between those two types of groups). Libya is a different case from Egypt in the way that it was handled - what happened in Libya was very similar to what happened in Iraq - there was massive foreign intervention "on behalf of" a certain segment of the population, etc.
Al-Daini is right to caution about the rise of sectarianism in Syria. However, it's problematic to quote "Iraqi government officials" for their "expertise" on any topic. "Iraqi government officials" are an awful and disgusting lot, which I'm sure Al-Daini knows. They will say whatever they are told to say.
The invasion of Iraq was the first blow to MENA. It served, among other things (such as access to oil resources and a convenient new place to build military bases), as a "practice" run for other situations that have been planned out well in advance by U.S. foreign policy makers, as well as a testing ground for weapons. The invasion of Iraq also destabilized the region enough to enable what's happening now. In the end, it's the ordinary Arabs who will suffer the most. Really, Arab lives mean nothing to this world. And, btw, U.S.-planned "constructive chaos" is the root cause of sectarianism - supposed inherent sectarianism in "the Arab world" is NOT the cause of the escalating tensions we see now between groups of people. For instance, co-religionists or not, many Shia Arabs in Iraq don't really care much for Iran - they tend to see the Iranian regime as rather backward.
Challenging the views of the individual is the way to develop critical objective thinking; through that, actions and responses are analyzed to try and arrive at the best course of action. A despot surrounded by sycophants terrified of challenging his/her view cannot develop these faculties. Some of you say that I have gone over the top in the first paragraph in describing the setup around a dictator. You have not lived under such a system; you have no way of imagining what it is like. Some of the comments questioned that the initial uprising in Syria was peaceful, aiming at reform, human rights and freedom: why is it that some people on the left of politics are happy to believe that Egyptians, Tunisians, Yemenis and Bahrainis are justified in their struggle for these basic rights but not the Libyans and Syrians.
These rights are denied in all Arab countries regardless of the politics or the leaning of their regimes. In any case, even Bashar al-Assad acknowledged that there are genuine grievances that need addressing. The problem is he talked about these without much action. If you are Bashar al-Assad and you know that there are elements that have different agendas for your country from the stated ones, surely the thing to do is to isolate those people and carry the rest of the Syrian people with you by being flexible, measured, and quickly implementing reforms. The initial violent response did the opposite. Dictators seem to follow a script that plays into the hands of those with ulterior motives to further the interests of multinational corporations and the petty sectarian rivalries of neighbours.
A wise leader is one that understands that a small country in a strategic part of the world where most of the global energy needs reside will never be left alone. You can bet your bottom dollar that any genuine movement that aims to improve the lives of ordinary people will very quickly get infiltrated and hijacked with the aim of containing its aspirations and steering it in ways that serve the interests of foreign powers and neighbours. The actions of the wise leader should be designed to frustrate these schemes. Will Assad now at this eleventh hour change his actions to do that? I certainly hope so.
You ask "why is it that some people on the left of politics are happy to believe that Egyptians, Tunisians, Yemenis and Bahrainis are justified in their struggle for these basic rights but not the Libyans and Syrians."
No one thinks that or has said that.
As you say, the initial uprising in Syria may well have been peaceful, aiming at reform, human rights and freedom. I don't think anyone is questioning that.
Should you not have also mentioned the Iraqis? Since you did not, do you therefore not think that they are justified in their struggle for these basic rights?
We are suspicious of the motives of NATO, the US and the UK, and do not trust the narrative coming from the media.
You must know that your so-called "people on the left of politics" are not taking the positions you ascribe to them. You want to associate events in Syria and Libya with those in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Bahrain - and not with those in Iraq. You want to disappear the role of western powers in these events. You want to smear critics of the role that the western powers are playing.
Good response, Adnan Al-Daini. But the situation looks to be more complex, and the level of active external involvement looks worrisome, and seems like a repeat of Libya. There are reports of small arms flowing from across the Turkey border. And the "opposition" has so far rejected Russia's mediation offers and efforts. Sure, the Assad regime has been in power for too long, and not by democratic mandate. But the the agenda and the make-up of the at least a part of the "opposition" seems somewhat different from what the world saw in Egypt, and therefore suspect.
Agreed on your sentiments regarding Bashar al-Assad's response to the situation - it could have been more measured. Also, notice how Iraqi protests against government corruption (last year) were not covered much by Western mainstream media? As long as the government is in line with the U.S. agenda, then it can do no evil.
I have noticed how the Iraqi protests were ignored. More than that, I wrote an article about it. Please see article (link below)
http://www.sotaliraq.com/english-iraq-news.php?id=37
Thanks for the response and for considering my comments.
I will read the article of yours that you suggested,
As an aside, I appreciate and respect authors who take the time to respond to critics here. Thank you.
I like your article! Thanks! It's a tragedy that Iraqis can't protest their own "democratic" government.
excellent article appeared yesterday on what's going on with the situation in Syria on counterpunch.org
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/13/road-to-damascus-and-on-to-armageddon/
the word "dictator" is used mostly today to describe leaders who don't want to do the U.S. government wants them to do!
What Dr. Al Daini fails to mention is that from the get-go the West has declared war against Syria.
Two more points.-
One.- Why things started and got ugly in Deraa? Because Deraa is on the border with Jordan and weapons were being smuggled from there. Then started pouring in from Turkey and Northern Lebanon.
Two.- One should never forget that the Arab Sheikdoms, namely S. Arabia, Qatar etc. are beacons of democracy and bastions of Human Rights...
So, the picture is crystal-clear.