As
I lay here waiting for the gurney to take me into the operating room
and read the hundreds of kind letters from so many of you I hope to fill
in your time with one more article
Focus
is everything, knowing what the central problem is and dealing with it.
Here I want to discuss three articles that I basically agree with to
point out how they miss the key issue and thus are somewhat misleading.
I’m glad to see these three articles being published but it’s a case of,
to quote Lenin, two steps forward, one step back.
First, the Washington Post published an editorial entitled,
“The time for patience in Syria is over.” It criticizes “America’s long
paralysis in responding to the conflict in Syria,” pointing out that
the war and horrific bloodshed is escalating. And it concludes:
“President
Obama called on [President Bashar al-] Assad to leave office, a proper
reaction to the brutality. But Mr. Obama has not backed his words with
actions that might help them come true.”
It
isn’t every day that a mass media organ criticizes Obama. Yet there are
two problems. One is that the measures the newspaper proposes are very
much out of date:
“No
one is arguing for a Libyan-style intervention into Syria at this
point. But the United States and its NATO allies could begin contingency
planning for a no-fly zone, now that Mr. Assad is deploying aircraft
against the opposition. Instead of providing only non-lethal support,
such as medical supplies and communications gear, America could help
supply weapons to the outgunned opposition fighters. It could work with
Turkey and other allies to set up havens for them.”
Since
the opposition has been asking for a “no-fly zone” for about six
months, arguing that the NATO allies “could begin contingency planning”
for one isn’t exactly a bold measure. Moreover, while the United States
is only directly “providing only non-lethal support,” it is facilitating
the supply of lethal weapons by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. And third,
there are already safe havens for the opposition fighters in Turkey.
So
none of those three ideas are decisive or even highly relevant. The key
point is mentioned in passing in another passage, calling on the United
States, “…To get a better read on opposition forces and to encourage
those less inclined toward sectarianism.”
Yet
this is the central issue! There is no point in supporting an
opposition that’s going to procue a government dominated by the Muslim
Brotherhood and Salafists! That’s the issue: The United States should do
everything possible to help moderates—both defected officers and
liberal politicians--gain the upper hand. It should work closely with
the Kurds and press hard to make sure that Christians are protected and
that the opposition (or at least parts of the opposition responsible)
will be punished if it commits massacres.
Is that so hard to see?
But guess what? Senator Mario Rubio also never mentions the Islamism issue in his article on
how the United States should intervene in Syria. He better get an
advisor who knows something about the Middle East fast or he may end up
as another John McCain on the Middle East.
Second, Vali Nasr has some good points in a New York Times op-ed. But I perceive two very big flaws. One of them is a warning:
“If
the Syrian conflict explodes outward, everyone will lose: it will spill
into neighboring Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey. Lebanon and Iraq in
particular are vulnerable; they, too, have sectarian and communal
rivalries tied to the Sunni-Alawite struggle for power next door.”
Really?
The issue is not that the conflict is going to spill over but that it
is part of a Sunni-Shia battle that will be a major feature of the
region in the coming decades. Lebanon and Iraq are merely other fronts
in this battle and whatever happens in Syria isn’t going to start some
new problem in those countries.
The
question is merely who wins in Syria. A Sunni victory in Syria would
empower a moderate-led Sunni community in Lebanon against Hizballah. As
for Iraq, another Sunni power will make that government unhappy but
isn’t going to intensify already existing sectarian tensions there. And
Kurdish autonomy in Syria isn’t going to set off a Kurdish-Turkish war
in Turkey either.
But
it is dangerous to pretend that a solution in Syria will make the
Sunni-Shia battle go away. The most likely change is a post-Assad regime
that would strengthen the Sunni side in the regional picture. That’s
good if you feel Iran is the main threat but bad if you worry about
growing Sunni Islamism.
The other point is even more serious. Nasr advocates bringing Russia and Iran into some kind of joint solution in Syria:
“But
the single most important participant would be Iran. It alone has the
influence on Mr. Assad and the trust of various parts of his government
to get them to buy in to a transition.” This kind of talk makes for an
op-ed likely to be published and appreciated in the United States, but
such arguments have no connection to the reality on the ground.
The
interests of the outside and inside parties are too much at odds.
Anyone who imagines that the current regime and the opposition can form
some kind of coalition arrangement under international pressure is
imagining things. And when analysts promote fantasies they are not doing
anyone a favor. Even if such a thing would be cobbled together it
would collapse in weeks.
Let’s
face reality. Either Assad will survive and unleash a bloodbath or he
will be replaced by the opposition, which might unleash a bloodbath.
Again, that’s why the main priority must be to support moderates,
including Kurdish nationalists seeking autonomy, in the opposition.
Moreover, why should the United States possibly want to please Tehran,
whose regime is the world's leading source of international terrorism,
anti-Americanism, subversion in the Middle East, and antisemitism that
is doing everything possible to obtain nuclear weapons and using them
for aggressive purposes? Of course, at times one can overreach and
compromise can be useful. Yet the dominant idea in the current era seems
to be that helping your friends and weakening your enemies is some kind
of bizarre belief. In Syria it makes no sense at all.
My third case study is a Los Angeles Times article about
growing Islamism and radical Islamic intolerance in Egypt. It is
welcome that the newspaper is actually covering this story. But there’s
something very curious in the article. Every example of extremism is
portrayed as being Salafists. The Muslim Brotherhood are the moderates:
“President
Mohamed Morsi, a religious conservative, has called for tolerance, but
many Islamic fundamentalists see a historic moment to impose sharia, or Islamic law, on a country left off balance by political unrest and economic turmoil.”
In
other words, there are these bad extremists who want to impose Sharia
but fortunately the Muslim Brotherhood and the president it elected are
against it!
The article continues:
“The
struggle between ultraconservative and moderate Islamists has
reverberated through generations. It is as critical a balancing test for
Morsi as his battle to pressure the Egyptian military to relinquish
control over the nation. Morsi courted Salafis during his campaign and
is now confronted with their agenda and insistence that he not appoint a
woman or a Christian as a vice president.”
I
don’t think the Brotherhood was eager to appoint a woman or a Christian
as vice-president, since its position on the issue has been identical
to that of the Salafists. To portray Morsi as a man who might want to
restrain the Salafists somewhat makes sense but only in the context of
having the same goals but more patient tactics. If the Muslim
Brotherhood is now the protector of democracy, moderation, and tolerance
in Egypt, those three virtues don’t have much of a future there.
The
article is on somewhat better grounds by calling the al-Azhar
university establishment as “moderate thinkers,” though they are also
capable of very radical stances. Yet there’s another problem here:
eventually the government will remove the al-Azhar leaders and replace
them with reliable Brotherhood members.
And the article seems wrong when it says, “Moderates call for a document based on the "principles" of sharia,
which would be less strict and offer broader civil liberties to women
as well as Christians and other non-Muslims.” According to reports in
the Egyptian media the Salafists have accepted the “principles” approach
because of another provision that the meaning of that term will be
determined by clerics and not judges. And, anyway, isn’t Morsi and a
parliament dominated by Brotherhood and Salafist legislatures going to
be choosing judges in future? And there are plenty of radical Islamists
who can and will become court judges.
The
article quotes Mahmoud Ashour, a former deputy al-Azhar official now at
the Islamic Research Center as saying, "President Morsi cannot hide
from these issues.” Hide from them? They are the center of his program!
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