"I
know what the world thinks of us, we are Communists, and of course I
have said very clearly that we are not Communists; very clearly."
--Fidel Castro, 1959
U.S. policy toward Syria has changed but
it is too late. A senior State Department official said at the meeting just concluded of opposition groups: "We have to help the moderates, people like [Chief of Staff of the Free Syrian Army] Salim Idris….”
Unlike
Castro, the Islamists in Syria never lied about their goals and
ideologies. Now the Islamists are far more powerful and well-armed than
anyone else, courtesy of U.S. policy. Oh, and there's one more problem.
Many or most of the Free Syrian Army's troops, that is the supposed non-
or anti-Islamist alternative, are also Muslim Brotherhood supporters.
So
what’s there to do with revolutionary Islamists controlling Syria and
sooner or later, though it might take a couple of years, taking over the
whole country or at least gaining recognition as the legitimate
government of Syria while the regime holds out in the northwest of the
country?
That’s
okay, says the main line of U.S. policy. We don’t care if they are
America-hating fanatics who want to impose Sharia, suppress or even
massacre Christians, and commit genocide against Jews. Just as long as
they aren’t affiliated with al-Qaida.
Beyond this, there’s
mostly wishful thinking. Compare these statements by a Turkish diplomat and a Saudi newspaper:
“Once Assad is gone, al-Qaeda won’t stay
long in Syria.”
"We know that there are radical forces like [al-Qaida] but do not overestimate them.”
But
it seems impossible to get the mainstream debate to recognize the fact
that the problem is not merely al-Qaida but other radical Salafists and
another Muslim Brotherhood government.
What kind of situation would another Egypt bring about in the Middle East?
What
will happen within Syria which historically is a far more radical
entity (for historical, political culture, and geopolitical reasons)
than Egypt?
What will be the fate of all those modern-oriented women, liberals, Alawites, Christians, Druze, and Kurds?
Going
beyond the largely worthless current debate on Syria let's look ahead
into the seemingly inevitable future. We can reasonably assume that the
Assad regime might last another year or two but it will either retreat
to the Alawite areas by then or have fallen totally. There is by the way
another possibility. Rebels make advances in Damascus, then use the
opportunity to announce the establishment of a provisional government
there. The United States
and other countries then recognize it--despite Assad's continuing hold
on much of the country--as the legitimate government of Syria.
Whatever
happens, there will be a Muslim Brotherhood regime in Syria and Obama
will support it. The Salafis will not rule but they will kill people,
intimidate non- or anti-Islamist forces, and probably be the main force
in various local areas of the country.
Many
conservatives and Republicans favor more intervention which means in
practice working even harder to install an Islamist regime in Syria.
That's a terrible idea. With few exceptions they never seem to grasp the
point about supporting the non-Islamist forces and not just the Syrian
rebels in general as if they were glorious freedom fighters.
A
few other people favor supporting the Assad dictatorship to keep the
Islamists out of power. This is another terrible idea. Aside for
morality and the impossibility of saving Assad, no Western country is
going to adopt such a policy. Whatever its past, the Assad regime had in
effect
become an Islamist regime, a Shia Islamist regime, and its fall will
weaken Iran and Hizballah.
The
problem, of course, is that its fall will also strengthen the Sunni
Islamists. According to estimates by my colleague, Dr. Jonathan Spyer:
--Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, has about 6,000 fighters.
--The Syrian Islamic Front (dominated by Ahrar al-Sham) has about 13,000 fighters.
--The
Syrian Islamic Liberation Front, which seems close to the Muslim
Brotherhood, (including the Farouq Brigade of Homs; Suqour al-Sham of
Idleb, and Tawhid Brigade of Aleppo) has about 40,000 fighters. It is
not clear whether these groups are under the Brotherhood's discipline.
If they aren't then the situation is even
worse since that means the Salafist forces are stronger than they seem.
Even
this numerical advantage understates the Brotherhood’s power because
its political leadership is centralized while Jabhat al-Nusra is spread
thinly across the country and the Syrian Islamic Front is a loose
coalition of different Salafist groups.
But
the Brotherhood won't suppress even
the most extremist ones, that is al-Qaida, as long as they don't attack
the new central government and don't disrupt the country too much. The
Brotherhood will let them attack, massacre, and bully the country's
Alawites, Christians, Druze, political moderates, and non-Islamist
women.
The
too-late proposed Western strategy is to strengthen non-Islamist forces
in Syria and to create safe zones, for minorities and to keep out
Salafists, near Syria's borders. This looks good on paper but it won't
work for several reasons.
First,
the non-Islamist forces are too weak to hold any territory. his might
be influenced by the successful creation of such a zone for the Kurds in
northern Iraq. Yet the Iraqi Kurds were a well-armed, coherent ethnic
group that was sufficiently united and had favorable terrain. These
conditions don't apply to Syria, or at least only for Syrian Kurds and
Druze, not for the Sunni Muslim majority or Christian minority. The
setting up of safe zones on, say, the Jordanian and Israeli borders will
simply be an attractive target for Salafists who will mobilize popular
support by branding the "moderates" as the traitorous tools of infidels
and attacking them. Non-Islamist forces are also at this point
unreliable and some of those groups touted as "moderates" seem to be
closer to the
Brotherhood.
And
then we will once again be told that the Islamists and lots of Muslims
only hates the West because it invades their countries and intervenes
against them. Incidentally, don't be surprised when after the revolution
the victorious Islamists will claim that the West was behind the old
dictatorship--a lie--and that not giving the rebels even more weapons
was a Western stab in the back that further merits hatred.
Given
these realities, then, the task of Western policy will be based on the
understanding that they will not be able to shape events in Syria. It
could have been different if a proper policy had been followed earlier.
The
best that can be done now would be to help Christians either to survive
or flee; to assist Druze and Kurds protect themselves by strengthening
the former's militia and the latter's autonomy; and even, as a purely
humanitarian strategy if Assad has fallen, to help Alawite civilians not
guilty of war crimes to escape. Otherwise, thousands of people could
be massacred.
There are other important issues that simply are not being fully discussed:
Will
Western countries allow those in threat of being killed to be granted
political asylum for thousands of Druze, Christians, Alawites, and
moderate Sunni Arabs? Or will they insist that everything is great in
Syria and even push back the refugees who have already left the country?
Will
Western countries correct the disastrous policy toward Egypt and
actually help moderate Sunni Arabs, or at least anti-Islamist Sunni
Arabs, to organize for elections and political influence so that the
Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists don't steamroller over them?
Will
Western countries give additional help to Israel, having helped to
bring it a new and more energetic enemy on its border, or Jordan, a
moderate regime that the West usually takes for granted?
Will
Western countries do a better job than in Libya about collecting
advanced weapons so they aren't use for terrorism against Syria's own
people, a Syrian Kurdish autonomous zone, Israel, Jordan, and
Iraq?
People
will continue to debate increased Western intervention but--and U.S.
policymakers now partly understand this--to deal with the strategic
disaster that's been created, in part by them.
If you are interested in reading more about
Syria, you're welcome to read my book The Truth About Syria online or download it for free.
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--------------------
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
next book, Nazis, Islamists and the Making of the Modern Middle East,
written with Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, will be published by Yale University
Press in January 2014. His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, also published by Yale. Thirteen of his books can be read and downloaded for free at the website of the GLORIA Center including The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East and The Truth About Syria. His blog is 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
Forthcoming Book: Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East (Yale University Press)
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
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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