When
a delegation of Syrian Kurdish rebels recently visited Washington DC,
the State Department met them to ask for a favor. What was it? The Obama
Administration urged them to join the Syrian National Council (SNC),
the organization created by the U.S. government through Turkey to lead
the movement and receive Western aid for all Syrian opposition groups.
But the Turkish Islamist regime, which Obama put in charge of forming the SNC, put the Muslim Brotherhood
in control, a fact I pointed out within hours of the announcement of the SNC leadership's names.
Now
that several SNC leaders have resigned complaining about Brotherhood
domination, followed by some Arab journalists pointing out the obvious
Brotherhood domination at the SNC’s last meeting, that reality is clear.
But the implications of such an incredibly foolish policy—America
putting an anti-American, antisemitic group into the “official”
leadership of Syria’s rebels—have never been properly examined as a case
study for Obama’s disastrous Middle East policy.
The
Kurds had walked out of the talks that formed the SNC last year when
they saw how Islamists would be in control. Not only do they
oppose Islamism itself but they also see the Brotherhood as an
Arabizing and centralizing group that would impose a regime that was
oppressive toward the non-Arab Kurds.
Now,
with the Obama Administration ignoring their concerns, the new U.S.
effort so backfired that the enraged Kurds in the delegation spoke for the first time of breaking up Syria altogether!
To
sum up, Obama policy has strengthened the Islamist forces in the
opposition and fragmented the rebels, thus helping preserve a radical
anti-American Syrian regime that is an ally of Iran or helping make any
revolution more likely to produce a radical anti-American Syrian
Islamist regime that will be an ally of an Islamist Egypt.’
Now comes a very peculiar story in the Washington Post with the headline, “Syrian rebels get influx of arms with Gulf Neighbors’
Money, U.S. coordination.” Let’s break this down logically:
--The Saudis and Qataris have been providing arms already.
--They know how to buy weapons, how to get them to the Syrian border, and how to give them to Syrian rebels.
What
do they need American “coordination” for? What does the word
“coordination” mean? I presume it means that the Obama Administration,
absolutely clueless about what to do regarding Syria, simply wants to
take credit for others’ actions. It is part of the pre-election spin
about what a great job Obama is doing.
Yet
there is another problem here, a potentially devastating one. Who is
getting the weapons? There are different people and groups in the Syrian
opposition. Some are Salafists who feel comfortable with al-Qaida; some
are Brotherhood men; some are ex-Syrian army officers, professionals
and relatively apolitical; and some are liberal who really want
democracy.
Whoever
gets these weapons will be tremendously empowered. So what’s to say
that the arms being “coordinated” by the United States aren’t going to
revolutionary Islamists? While this is a complex subject, there is
information that these arms supplies up until now have not been
sufficiently discriminatory toward moderates and away from Islamist
radicals. We will know
more in the weeks to come if we can see and identify which opposition
groups in what parts of Syria have become better armed.
And
if it comes out that the U.S. government is "coordinating" the arming
such people with weapons—as it is already helping their political
counterparts in the SNC—wouldn’t that be a tremendous scandal?
Let's
be clear here: A proper U.S. policy would help moderate Syrians
overthrow the Assad dictatorship and make sure weapons went to the best
elements in the Free Syrian Army's decentralized forces. Such a policy
would make sure to deny money, weapons, and power to the Islamists and
Salafists, who are proportionately far weaker in Syria than in Egypt.
Obama
policy follows the worst possible course. It minimizes U.S. help to the
revolution while at the same time ensuring that a disproportionately
large amount goes to Islamists.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in
International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of
International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His
book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University
Press. Other recent books include The
Israel-Arab Reader (seventh
edition), The Long War for
Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.
Professor Barry Rubin, Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center http://www.gloria-center.org
The Rubin Report blog http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/
He is a featured columnist at PJM http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/.
Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal http://www.gloria-center.org
Editor Turkish Studies,http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t713636933%22
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