Almost a year ago today, November 17, 2011 to be specific, I analyzed the
new Syrian opposition leadership created by the Obama Administration
through the services of the Islamist regime in Turkey. It was already
obvious that the Syrian National Council (SNC) was a Muslim Brotherhood
front group, yet the Obama Administration backed it any way.
Even
if you aren’t interested in this specific issue, the SNC story is a
terrific case study of how the Obama Administration has trashed U.S.
interests abroad, and especially in the Middle East.
If
the White House’s plan had worked, Syria would definitely have ended up
with an anti-American, antisemitic regime, allied with its fellow
Brotherhood regimes in Egypt, the Gaza Strip, and Tunisia into an
anti-American,
anti-Western revolutionary bloc.
That
might happen any way since the Obama Administration is still channeling
guns to the Brotherhood and Salafists. But finally, after more than a
year, the government has given up on the SNC.
Since
the White House knew and knows that the SNC was a Muslim Brotherhood
front and knows that most of the guns given by Qatar and Saudi Arabia
are being
handed over to Islamists (presumably as long as they aren’t al-Qaida)
that result cannot be due to incompetence but to a deliberate strategy.
This is the effort to empower revolutionary Islamists on the grounds that, as Robert Worth put it in the New York Times: “potential allies who profess
to believe in democracy and civic rights.”
How
was it possible to know the SNC was a Brotherhood front? Because when
its leadership group was announced in November 2011, 10 of the 19
members were Islamists and at least two more were their reliable tools.
Although this was readily apparent from their past statements and
behavior, I was the only person in the West to write about this.
Syrian
Kurds and other oppositionists complained about this even before
November 2011 because they saw what was happening in the SNC’s
formation. Last May, two of the non-Islamists resigned, complaining that the group’s leadership was “autocratic” and dominated by the Brotherhood. The New York Timesdid
cover this story, but the significance of the development was ignored
and this information was not taken into account in any mass media
analysis of the Obama Administration’s Syria policy.
Isn’t the U.S. government backing the emergence of what would be equivalent of a fascist or Communist regime big news?
Next,
a delegation of Syrian Kurdish rebels visiting Washington DC was asked
by the State Department to join the SNC. They refused and denounced the
organization. From day one, it was clear the SNC had no support within
the country yet the White House continued to back it as the appropriate
leader for all Syrians even though Syrians didn’t want it.
Isn’t the U.S. government trying to impose the equivalent of a fascist or Communist regime on an unwilling populace big news?
Finally,
on October 31, the U.S. government discovered—amazingly enough—that the
SNC was not such a great group after all. Indeed, they accused the
organization they had created of trying to “hijack” the Syrian
revolution! Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said its members had been out of the country too long and:
“We
also need an opposition that will be on record strongly resisting the
efforts by extremists to hijack the Syrian revolution. There are
disturbing reports of extremists going into Syria and attempting to take
over what has been a legitimate revolution against an oppressive regime
for their own purposes.”
In
other words, this is an admission that the United States has been
backing a group that promotes an extremist regime in Syria. And it also
takes note of the increasingly open arrival in Syria of radical
jihadists and al-Qaida supporters. Even a Chinese magazine has covered
how Chinese Muslim Islamists are going to Syria to fight.
Yet
the announcement by Clinton fails to recognize the bankruptcy of Obama
Administration policy. A proper response and a good policy would
require:
--Stopping
the supply of weapons by Qatar to the Muslim Brotherhood units in Syria
and by Saudi Arabia to the Salafists. The American intelligence
officers are in Turkey overseeing these deliveries—to make sure nothing
goes to al-Qaida—should also make sure that no guns go to the
Brotherhood and Salafists. Only those units led by Kurdish autonomists,
defected Syrian army officers, and local non-Islamist leaders should be
supplied.
--Waking
up to the Turkish regime’s anti-American, pro-Islamist policies. Rather
than lavish praise on the Ankara regime, Obama should never use it as
an intermediary for U.S. strategy since the Turkish rulers will subvert
U.S. interests.
--Understand
that Brotherhood regimes in Egypt and Tunisia may “purport” support for
democracy and human rights they are against both things. As a
Tunisian recently wrote, providing details of the growing authoritarianism in her country, in a New York Times op-ed piece:
“There
is nothing moderate or democratic about the Islamists. They played the
moderate and democratic game to gain power. Now, in office, they keep
postponing elections to entrench themselves in the fabric of government
and judiciary by brute force.”
The ruling party’s leader, Rachid al-Ghannouchi, just gave an interview in
which he explained that a democratic framework is merely the best way
to put into power an Islamist regime with the full implementation of
Sharia law.
In Egypt, there is growing information about how the
Brotherhood regime’s new constitution is going to impose Sharia law in alliance with the Salafists.
The
U.S. government should support the anti-Islamist forces in the region
including relatively moderate Arab governments; truly moderate Arab,
Iranian, Kurdish, and Turkish democratic opposition groups; and Israel.
--Finally,
Libya was the place that this policy has just failed
tragically. The use of Islamist guards, the deference to a weak (if
well-intentioned) and badly infiltrated government to protect American
lives led to a successful terrorist attack and the murder of Americans.
The
Obama Administration’s policy of supporting America’s most dangerous
enemies in the world today is implicitly admitted and even partly
discussed. Now is the time to see how immensely disastrous and obviously
failed is this policy and to abandon it. But that’s going to be up to
American voters as the Obama Administration seems to have no intention
of really changing course.
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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