Film backlash is a Syrian revolution spoiler

Reuters photo of a young Syrian refugee on the Turkish-Syrian border

Syria’s allies -- chiefly Iran and its Lebanese offshoot Hezbollah -- are still whipping up a global Muslim outcry against the U.S.-made amateur film insulting Islam.

The obscure movie that ridicules Prophet Muhammad (see No one’s innocent in the film ‘Innocence of Muslims’) has no Syria links. But the September 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and the resulting outbreak of anti-American protests in the Muslim world shored up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s political survival prospects.

Western media have since been parroting the Assad line that he is mostly facing al-Qaeda and Jihadists. The implication is they are staunchly anti-West in general and anti-American in particular.

K.P. Nayar, filing from Washington this week for Calcutta’s Telegraph, reports: “At a hurriedly arranged media teleconference by the U.S. State Department which wanted to put across its version of the events in Benghazi, the very first question was: ‘…I know Secretary (Hillary) Clinton said that this would not affect how the U.S. dealt with the Libyans, and that you would move forward. But certainly, it must make you start to think about any precipitous rush to support groups in any other countries such as Syria or the like because of the uncertainty of who is on the ground.’

“Three State Department officials participated in the teleconference, the ground rules for which prohibited reporters from identifying them. None of the three officials came forward to answer that question because the anti-U.S. backlash in Libya has added a new dimension to what will happen in Syria now.”

John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who is tipped to be the next secretary of state if Barack Obama is reelected in November, said the violence in Libya “will certainly give pause, or should give pause, to people who are pressing for a kind of involvement (in Syria)...”

All this is music to the ears of Russia.

In a recent Web article quoted by Russia Today, the chair of the Russian parliamentary committee for foreign affairs, Aleksey Pushkov, wrote that such a scenario would be almost certain to take place if Assad were ousted: “Instead of the secular rational state we had in Syria under Assad, where all ethnic and religious groups lived in peace and accord, we will get a second Iraq.”

The Russian politician went on to argue that Russia had repeatedly warned Western states, who are blinded by “the narrowness of their minds” and political calculations, and are incapable of heeding such warnings.

There are no guarantees that whoever replaced Assad would not immediately turn their guns against the United States, even though Washington is actively aiding rebel forces, Pushkov said. He cited the current situation in Libya as an example, claiming Libyans showed no gratitude for America’s role in the overthrow of the Muammar Gaddafi regime.

Alarabiya TV news channel supremo Abdel Rahman al-Rashed notes today that Russia is clapping with glee after the Benghazi attack let out of the bottle “the genie of al-Qaeda in Libya, jihadists in Sinai and Salafists in Tunisia.” But he hopes press reports of Obama consequently reappraising U.S. policy vis-à-vis the Syrian revolution are unfounded.

In his think piece for the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, Rashed writes, “It’s obviously difficult for me to explain briefly the importance of winning the great powers’ support for the Syrian people and their revolution – actually, for any revolution. Without great powers’ support, Syrian revolutionary organizations could be branded terrorist. They could be banned in Turkey and Jordan. It would be impossible for them to raise funds and arms in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In practice, they would end up like the armed Kurdish movements that have existed for decades, but remain outlawed and under siege.”

Rashed continues:

I concede, the Syrian revolution has no fewer problems than Libya’s. Future risks after regime change in Syria can’t be overlooked. But it would be ill-considered if Western states looked at Syria through the prism of their fears of radical fundamentalism.

Syria is not Egypt and Assad is not Hosni Mubarak. Failure of the Syrian revolution is more hazardous than its success because armed Islamist radicals would mushroom since they feed on government failures and chaos. Overpowered and demoralized insurgents would rally around them.

In a year of armed conflict, the opposition has broken the back of the regime and its institutions.

To re-establish his authority, Assad would have to come down harder on citizens, the neighboring countries and Western interests. Western states would ultimately have to revisit Syria and take him on. We had a precedent in Iraq, where allies broke the Saddam regime’s back in the 1991 war to liberate Kuwait then left Saddam wounded but standing. The allies had to return in 2003 to finish him off. The outcome is the chaos we have today as we watch the Iraqi regime being eaten alive by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Furthermore, bringing down Assad’s regime is more important for Syria, the region and most of the world than toppling Saddam or Gaddafi.

The Syrian regime is Iran’s cat’s-paw in the Arab region. It has been sponsoring terrorist groups in regional and Western states for 40 years.

There is abounding evidence linking al-Qaeda to both the Syrian and Iranian regimes. The former was an accomplice in most terrorist attacks mounted in Iraq over the past eight years. And I suspect it might eventually emerge that Assad’s regime, or its allies, orchestrated the attack by al-Qaeda and the like on the American consulate in Benghazi – especially that the outrage was timed to coincide with 9/11 in order to intimidate the U.S.

Lastly, I don’t know of any cause paralleling Palestine’s over the past half-century other than Syria’s. The scope and intensity of sympathy in the Arab street for the Syrian people is immeasurable because of the untold crimes committed against them.

This is what turned most Arabs against Iran and Russia. Arabs are also angry that the West continues to sit on the fence.

Reading the 1st anniversary of the Syria crisis

Illustration from sky.com

By Ghassan Charbel, editor of pan-Arab daily al-Hayat

The horrific scenes coming out of Syria should not obscure the view. And condemnation and denunciation expressions need not blur reading.

Imagine a journalist spending a week contacting officials on countries neighboring Syria, and then supplementing his findings with interviews with concerned parties.

The tour helps draw this Syria crisis end-of-year “profit and loss statement”:

-- The Syria crisis is deep, multifaceted and complex. In its first facet, it is an Arab Spring station-stop, i.e. a protest movement against one-party rule that is protected by an iron-fisted grip on security. In its second facet, it is a battle over Syria’s location in the region, with some tackling Syria as the frontline of Iran’s open-ended offensive. In its third facet, it is an international tug-of-war in which Russia tries to regain its regional status and block the Arab Spring from creeping to its backyard.

-- The Syria crisis dealt a body blow to the regime, hurting it badly. A year ago Syria was a key regional player buttressed by a sternly stable home front and by “cards” it could play beyond its borders. Today, it is a pitch for bitter infighting, thus prone to be wheedled. Its Arab League seat is vacant. Holes have been blown in the clout of its (military and security) services. Its ability to recover its firm stability is very much in doubt.

-- In the two weeks after the (mid-March 2011) spark in Deraa, the Syria regime missed the opportunity to scrap Article 8 (of the constitution), set up a national unity government under a consensus prime minister outside of the ruling (Baath) party, and deaden the crave of the security services. Had this been done, protests demanding reform of the regime would not have turned into demonstrations to bring it down.

-- Had it not been for the Russian – not Iranian -- lifeboat, the regime would have gone under. Moscow, for strategic reasons, risked standing up to the Arab-Western camp and won the master key to the solution. This does not mean Moscow and Damascus will necessarily remain on the same wavelength. Moreover, the regime that has already cashed in on its alliance with Iran is now paying the tax due on the partnership.

-- The regime miscalculated the Arab Spring fallouts. It also underestimated the implications of the region’s Sunnite-Shiite strains.

-- The regime succeeded in preventing the emergence of a Syrian Benghazi and in massing “million-strong” rallies. But its violent repression of protests lost it the television war as well as Arab, Muslim and Western public opinion.

-- The regime succeeded in convincing nation states, organizations and minority groups that its fall by way of foreign intervention would expose Syria to Iraqi-zation, Afghani-zation, or Somali-zation -- meaning blood-soaked chaos in the heart of the Arab world and on the fringes of Israel.

-- The regime was able to retain a degree of popular support massed around a very cohesive military and security machine despite defections that got nowhere near its backbone.

-- The regime was able to deal devastating blows to a number of cities, neighborhoods and areas, but failed to quash the protests or table a credible blueprint for ending the crisis. The way out can only be through the redistribution of power together with “command and control” of the components. Some suggest a Syrian “Taif Agreement” such as Lebanon’s.

-- The opposition failed over the year to topple the regime while the latter could not stifle the opposition’s resolve to protest amidst the rubble. The opposition succeeded in mustering wide Arab and international backing, but the lack of appetite for military intervention crippled the roles of external players and some neighbors, chiefly Turkey. The opposition proved it could wage an attrition war to burden the regime but was unable to formulate a unified outlook to reassure fretful sides at home and abroad. The regime in turn proved it could sustain a long struggle in spite of international pressure and a quickening economic meltdown.

This “profit and loss statement” for the year probably explains the five ground rules agreed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Arab League foreign ministers. The P&L statement might make clear the power balance undoubtedly affecting Kofi Annan’s mission: an opposition unable so far to topple the regime and a regime unable as yet to root out the opposition and a regime that can’t rescind its actions and an opposition that can’t renounce its sacrifices.

The picture on the eve of the first anniversary of the Syria crisis is of an internal deadlock, a severe regional test and an international tug. This is unlike any of the previous Arab Spring trials and tribulations.