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| Artwork by Syrian artst Wissam Al Jazairy |
By Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia’s analyst, author and kingpin
of the impending Al Arab TV news channel writing today for pan-Arab
al-Hayat
An ugly sectarian scenario is now in motion in Syria.
Some doctors are indecisive by nature.
If lab results confirm their diagnosis that a patient
requires difficult surgery, they first prescribe medication, hoping this would
help spare the patient a complex surgical procedure.
Skeptics would say the doctor sought to profit from
prolonging the treatment or lacked confidence in his ability to perform the
surgery. Optimists would argue the doctor simply tried not to put the patient’s
life at risk.
U.S. President Barack Obama faces a similar problem
with the Syrian patient. The intentions of the other treating physician –
Russian President Vladimir Putin – are flagrant. But there is no escape from
leaving the Syrian patient under the consortium’s care.
Obama and Putin know the medication they prescribed
is not working. They asked their foreign ministers to get together and hammer
out a political solution.
The two presidents are aware the regime totally
rejects “peace” as a self-defeating proposition and that the opposition craves
for peace after having been forced to take up arms.
The two presidents also realize the regime’s talk of “negotiations”
is a PR gimmick.
To pave the way for peace negotiations between the
two warring sides, the regime and the Russian Federation want arming of the
opposition to cease.
But there are no “two warring sides.” There is simply
a repressive regime bent on retaining power on one side and an enraged and
revolting population seeking freedom and a new Syria on the other.
The regime is not facing one Syrian party or sect.
The Free Syrian Army and the Syrian National Coalition embrace and enfold all
the Syrians’ sects, which despite their different stripes and trends are now
united “against the regime.”
They will break up into opposing groups and political
parties once they contest democratic elections after the regime’s fall.
The majority of quasi-loyalist Syrians now living in
Damascus and in parts of Aleppo and Homs that remain under regime control will
take to the streets to demand change as soon as the regime security services
begin to falter.
Obviously, one precondition for any peace agreement
between the regime and the opposition – if Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry sponsor
one – would be a cessation of violence by the two sides.
By definition, the cessation of violence would ensure
freedom of association and the right to demonstrate peacefully without risking
prosecution.
This would take us back to the starting point
demanded by the Syrian people in March 2011 and then by the Arab League, the
United Nations, Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi.
That starting point has been rejected by the regime
all along. It will be rejected again and again for evermore.
Peace and nonviolence don’t work in the regime’s
favor. The regime lives by the sword and won’t win except by the sword.
So why waste time on fruitless initiatives?
The answer lies in the game of so-called
“international diplomacy.”
Obama, Jordan’s King Abdullah, Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and all Arab and European leaders wish for something to
happen in Damascus that would bring the conflict to a close without their
intervention.
But there are no signs of such a thing happening.
Instead, the Syria crisis has started spilling over.
Seven Iraqis were killed last week as they escorted
Syrian soldiers who had sought refuge in Iraq after being evicted from a border
crossing. The Syrian “regular army brethren” were in a convoy heading to
recapture the border crossing from the Free Syrian Army. Unidentified gunmen
ambushed the convoy inside Iraqi territory. It is unclear whether they belonged
to the FSA or to its Iraqi Sunnite allies. The latter are avowed supporters of
the Syrian revolution, raising its flag in their uprising against Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government.
Iraqis who are already divided over their internal
affairs have thus added an extra discordant issue.
In turn, Iraq’s Shiites are not hiding their backing
of the Syrian regime’s war despite claiming deployment in Damascus of their
armed brigade, named after Abul Fadhl al-Abbas,
is simply meant to protect the shrine of Sayyeda Zeinab.
Incidentally, the shrine is revered by Syria’s
Sunnites, much as the Egyptians venerate the Tomb of Imam Hussein
in Cairo.
It’s all pure and utter sectarianism.
An absurd exploitation of a 1,400-year-old conflict
is rearing its head to entice the simple-minded into a fierce battle once the
FSA breaches the walls of Damascus.
Further away to the West, the no-less sectarian
Hezbollah is already fighting inside Syrian close to Lebanon’s northern
borders.
Those borders were demarcated by the 1916 Sykes-Picot
Agreement, which tailored Lebanon’s froniers to the correct size of its
sects. The borders were meant to geographically apportion predominantly Sunnite
villages to Syria, ultimately serving as a buffer between Lebanon and the Alawite
mountains.
Therein lies Plan B – an Alawite state that Bashar
al-Assad would set up for his Alawite community.
Hezbollah is accordingly out to secure a supply line
to the would-be statelet. Hence its offensive in the Qusayr region, such as the
Serbs did in Bosnia.
Hezbollah’s drive to create a supply route to the
rump Alawite state entails ethnic cleansing in an area stretching from northern
Lebanon to Qusayr and all the way to the west of Homs.
However, should Syria remain whole in the hands of
nationalist forces, the noose would tighten around Hezbollah’s neck. It would
be cut down to size and turned into a political force on par with others in
Lebanon.
Ensuring the viability of an Alawite state envisaged by
the faltering regime also calls for a parallel ethnic cleansing campaign along
Syria’s chiefly Sunnite coastline.
A gloomy sectarian scenario is unfolding. Denying it
is wrong. Not so speaking about it.
