The League, Turkey and Syria’s Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse illustration from Wikipedia

By Abdul Rahman al-Rashed  *

Many people’s hopes the Arab League is the doorway to a Syria solution were shattered over the past four months. The League, knowingly or stupidly, aborted solitary international initiatives, purposefully shut out Turkey and dragged out management of the crisis for months. Lastly, it gave the Assad regime an exoneration report on the Arab observer mission blaming violence on the dead and their families. How and why?

Though puzzling, the League’s contradictory positions revealed two camps in its ranks on the Syria issue.

The League’s position was originally proactive. Eight months into the crackdown, it stood ready to adopt the strongest sanction against the Syrian regime. Expulsion is the most potent measure the League could take against any of its member-states.

On November 12, the Council of Arab League Foreign Ministers decided to suspend membership of the regime if it did not end its crackdown within a fortnight. Eighteen states voted in favor of the suspension and only two against. (Syria) answered: the League is the West’s pawn… Syria’s ambassador followed up with vulgar language against the League and most of its members, eliciting requests for his expulsion.

We wondered: if the League leadership is unable to even boot out an insolent ambassador, how can it handle a vicious regime?

We did not expel the ambassador and we did not suspend Syria’s membership. We then discovered Assadists had infiltrated the League when the latter’s attitudes, positions and language faltered…

The calamity is the new secretary-general’s leaning toward Damascus. Is it Nabil Elaraby’s inclination or that of official Egypt, which historically formulated the secretary-general’s standpoints? And why would post-revolution Egypt endorse the most hideous and brutal Arab regime? In truth, we found no proof confirming that.

Doubts then hovered around Elaraby’s affinities, since his positions parallel the views of Mohamed Hassanein Heikal who believes events in Libya, and now Syria, are part of a Western conspiracy… This does not make sense either for, even if Elaraby believed in the silly conspiracy theory, he wouldn’t stand behind a doomed regime. But notwithstanding his opinion, Elaraby’s words and his actions have aggrieved and infuriated the Arab street.

Then came the ridiculous idea of deploying Arab monitors to Syria under the command of an intelligence officer from the Sudanese regime of Omar al-Bashir, an ally of Assad. So instead of being the “favorite stallion” to save the Syrian people, the Arab League became Assad’s “Trojan Horse.”

The farce of monitors transpired when the Sudanese head of the observer mission wrote a progress report blaming the violence on the regime and its victims. The Russian used his report to veto the UN Security Council draft resolution on Syria.

Had the League done nothing, the outcome would have been more fitting.

The League has been used to block a European move (on Syria) and to plot against Turkey at the (November 15) League meeting in Rabat, when an “Arab solution” – read that excludes Turkey -- was the option chosen.  The Turks were incensed, saying bluntly, “We leave the matter to you then.” They are aware no nation-state can stand up to the Syrian regime except Turkey.

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* The author is head of Alarabiya TV network. He wrote this think piece in Arabic for today’s edition of the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat

Russia's Syria policy seen "sitting at a bar"

Funeral for fallen Syrian soldiers (Photo from www.tishreen.info)

Save for Syria, the hodgepodge of news and views I came across this morning while going through the Arab media includes Qatar’s trailblazing diplomacy, which knows no bounds.

Qatari Crown Prince Sheikh Hamad Bin Tamim al-Thani yesterday succeeded in brokering ice-breaking talks in Amman between Jordan’s King Abdullah and Khaled Meshaal, political leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

It was the latter’s first visit to Jordan since he was expelled from the country in 1999.

Meshaal, who has since been based in Damascus, flew in to Amman on the Qatari crown prince’s private jet from Doha.

On Syria, rhubarbs have now broken out among news reporters about the state of play in Damascus.

Saudi Arabia’s leading daily speaks of:

• “Battles coming nearer to Damascus and reinforcements being placed around the presidential palace”
• “The Damascus suburbs flaming and the regime engaging the Republican Guard,” and
• “Rumors sweeping Damascus after closure of the airport road.”

BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen writes from Syria, “I had no idea before I saw them with my own eyes that the Free Syria Army was so active in and around Damascus.”

Syria’s printed media, however, are “astounded by the flood of rumors and lies triggered by the army’s surgical operation in the surrounds of Damascus.”

Among other news, they highlight a mass funeral for 23 army and “public order” men killed by “treacherous terrorist hands,” the assassination by “armed gangs” of Homs-based agriculture engineer Ms Amal Issa, the theft of 17 government vehicles from a garage in Idlib, and the quasi-licensing by the interior ministry of two new political parties.

Editorially, Lebanese political analyst Iyad Abou-Shakra says the Syrian regime, realizing violence against its opponents is leading nowhere, “is pondering other options. Regrettably, when fascist forces face a dead-end, but remain bent on maintaining their hegemony, they opt for partition. Faced with a lack of ability to rule all the lands of Syria, the regime will fall back on its emergency ‘reserve option.’ It has been building the latter’s infrastructure for some time.”

Wondering how best to save Syria, Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, Saudi boss of Alarabiya TV, says: “A political stand by the Arab League forsaking the regime would entice everyone to pounce on it. An assortment of forces would embrace the main Syrian opposition as the legitimate representative.

“What the Arab League is doing today is cover up the regime’s ugly crimes. As several Syrian opposition figures demanded, the Arab League needs to take off the hand it clasped around the Syrian people’s throat.

“Such solution does not need a plan, or the deployment of forces, or pleas to the Security Council. This will cost the Syrians less pain and blood than providing the regime with an airbag to cushion the effects of collision.”

Emad Adeeb, a leading Egyptian political analyst and the Middle East’s pioneer talk show host, pictures Russian foreign “policy sitting at a bar.”

He believes Russia is so far clinging to five strategic assets in Syria because:

1. Syria remains the most important buyer of Russian arms.
2. Russian arms are paid for either in Syrian cash or Iranian oil.
3. Syria’s Tartus naval base gives the Russian Navy a strategic foothold on the Mediterranean coast.
4. Syria’s Intelligence tentacles in the region feed the Russian spying services.
5. Private Russian oil companies expect Syrian pressure on Beirut to win them Lebanese government contracts to explore for oil and gas off the Lebanese coastline.

“This is not to say the Arab League should not be knocking at Moscow’s door to win Russian support for the UN Syria resolution.” Russia is eager to jump to bed with Washington and the Arab world, but only if the Syria price is right.

A former Soviet diplomat once told me USSR foreign policy was akin to “a bar hostess waiting for the client bidding top price for her tainted drink.”