Obama's “red line” changes to “white flag”

Kerry and Lavrov: Gimme five!

U.S. President Barack Obama’s “red line” for Syria has transmuted into a “white flag,” according to Abdelbari Atwan, publisher/editor of the London-based pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi.

And most political analysts in today’s Arab press seem to be of the same opinion.

The reaction is to last Tuesday’s announcement in Moscow of a U.S.-Russian agreement to convene an international conference to find a political solution on Syria.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said they would encourage both Damascus and the opposition to negotiate.

The deal came after Kerry's talks in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Kerry and Lavrov announced they would try to organize the international conference before the end of May if possible.

The forum will try to convince both the Syrian government and opposition to accept a solution based on the core elements of the final communiqué issued on 30 June 2012 after the UN-backed Action Group for Syria meeting in Geneva (see my post of the same date, “Syria Action Group leaves open Assad Question”).

The Geneva communiqué called for the formation of a fully empowered transitional government. But there was no understanding on the future role of President Bashar al-Assad and his inner circle.

The opposition and Washington were insisting he should stand down before any negotiations.

Now Washington seems to have softened its position to the extent of leaving Assad's future up to the outcome of negotiations and whatever the Syrians themselves decide, which has long been Moscow’s position.

Atwan, in his editorial comment for al-Quds al-Arabi, says: “Clearly, the U.S. administration made the bigger concession in Moscow by embracing the Russian position.

“After drawing red lines, saying it was reviewing its previous cautions policy and positions on the Syria crisis, and considering the supply of lethal weapons to the Syrian opposition, we see Washington totally surrendering to Russia’s conditions and calling for a peace conference that recognizes the Syrian regime’s legitimacy.”

The administration has suddenly clammed up on Assad having to step down before any negotiations, on evidence of his using chemical weapons against his people, and on his days being numbered.

Atwan says, “There are two winners from the American-Russian political move.

“The first is President Bashar al-Assad, albeit for the time being.

“The second is Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

“Assad has recouped his international legitimacy because he and his regime will now make a strong comeback to the international arena – with the kind of U.S. blessings he had long been hunting for.

“Lakhdar Brahimi will shelve for six months his plans to resign and go into retirement and oblivion. He will bask again in all the glory of returning to the political and media spotlight, which he must be missing.

“America does not want a war in Syria or Iran and wants to avoid them by all ways and means. The Russians share its apprehension.

“The only war the two sides want to wage independently or in tandem is against Islamic Jihadist groups in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Thus, be prepared for American and Russian ‘revivals’ that are now in the making.

“Whether the planned international conference succeeds or fails, stifling Jabhat al-Nusra and its sisters is the headline of the new Russian-American entente.”

Assad

Whether by design or coincidence, three media outlets that speak for Assad say, “The Syrian leadership is glad to see the world redirect its center of attention to the threat posed by Muslim extremists and Takfiris.”

The quote comes from a news report penned by Elie Chalhoub, co-founder and managing editor of al-Akhbar daily, Assad’s mouthpiece in Lebanon

The report -- which is published simultaneously by Al-Akhbar, Syria’s state-run Champress and Hezbollah’s al-Manar news portal for emphasis -- quotes unnamed Assad aides as saying, “Several factors worked very much in our favor, including Israel’s airstrike, al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra, the Qatari-Saudi rivalry, Turkey’s Ottoman-style approach and the opposition’s splintering. All this proved to all and sundry that there is no substitute to the Syrian state.”

Chalhoub quotes Assad personally as telling visitors, “We could have easily responded to Israel’s airstrike in Damascus by firing a few missiles at Israel…

“That would have been a tactical response. We prefer a strategic reaction by opening the door to the Resistance and turning the whole of Syria into a resistance country…

“We have full confidence in Hezbollah and are extremely grateful for its good judgment, loyalty and steadfastness. That’s why we decided to give them everything. For the first time, we both felt we shared the same circumstance. We are not only allies and paired…

“(We in Syria) decided to get closer and become a resistance state akin to Hezbollah for the sake of Syria and (its) future generations.”

Winner and loser

The United States has for years listed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

Saudi Arabia’s most eminent journalist, Abdurrahman al-Rashed, who heads Alarabiya TV news channel, makes no mention of the group in his column today for the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat.

But he says, “Regrettably, the Americans are going along with Lavrov’s plan…

 “What we can tell Secretary Kelly is not to trust the Russian-Iranian offer, which manipulates American fears to dictate a political solution aimed at getting rid of Jihadist organizations.

“In practice, the offer can only widen the conflict and empower the terrorist groups. The latter will surely exploit the wrath of the majority as it is coerced to go along with a solution it does not want, coming as it is at the price of 100,000 deaths, five million refugees and a country biting the dust.

“The solution should take the opposite route, one that sees the international community empower the majority to win its political rights with Assad shown the door immediately and not in a year’s time.”

The Russians, Rashed adds, are capitalizing on the Americans’ alarm at getting Jihadists the day after Assad.

It is two years now since chaos and terror blighted Syria. Subduing the revolting majority at this point will make it impossible to restore any semblance of stability. “For the first time in the region’s history terrorist groups like al-Qaeda will be able to amass loads of partners.”

Washington-based political analyst Hisham Melhem, writing today for the independent Lebanese an-Nahar, opines on “Winners and losers.”

Unlike regular warfare, he says, civil wars are fierce and emotive. Each side is familiar with the other, perceives the fight as existential and anticipates a loser and a winner rather than a compromise.

“Countries where civil wars ended with a loser and a winner – America and Spain, for instance – had a better chance to rebuild and lay sound statehood foundations after a difficult transition, chiefly for the loser.

“Countries where civil wars ended in compromises, specially under international auspices – Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Iraq – remained fragmented and prone to renewed internecine strife.”

The Syria war is unlikely to end with a negotiated political solution and the U.S.-Russian blueprint as it stands is no more than a pipe dream.  

Syrian opposition chief stands in the line of fire

Moaz al-Khatib

Moaz al-Khatib is today facing calls to step down as head of the Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces over his “unilateral offer” to negotiate with representatives of President Bashar al-Assad.

The resignation calls come after the Syrian National Council (SNC), a key component of the National Coalition, openly challenged Khatib’s conditional proposal.

The overt controversy broke out soon after Khatib posted Tuesday a statement on his personal Facebook page saying he would “sit face to face with Syrian regime representatives in Cairo or Tunis or Istanbul.”

He made the talks offer conditional on the Damascus government first releasing 160,000 detainees and renewing or extending for two years all Syrian exiles’ passports. (See last night’s post, “War of words breaks out in Syrian opposition ranks.”)

“Speaking in a personal capacity does not change the fact Khatib heads the National Coalition,” says Anas al-Abdah, a member of the SNC and chairman of the Movement for Justice and Development in Syria.

He tells today’s edition of Saudi Arabia’s leading daily Asharq Alawsat, “[Khatib] should have resigned before broaching such a sensitive issue. As head of the National Coalition, he should have consulted its members first.

“By failing to do so as Coalition leader, he proved to be short of political and leadership maturity and lacking political experience…

“I urge him to reconsider his position as Coalition leader.”

The SNC’s Ibrahim Merei, whose London-based Barada TV has been focusing on issues of democracy, human rights, youth activism and civil society empowerment since April 2009, tells Asharq Alawsat:

“I stand by the revolutionary forces… Whoever represents them should preclude direct or indirect talks with the regime...

“Khatib’s remarks are a betrayal of the blood of people killed in Syria. I urge him to retract... If he is coming under international pressure, he can simply pull out.”

A third reaction comes from Obeida Faris, head of the Arab Foundation for Development and Citizenship (AFDC).

He tells the paper: “Syrians sacrificed over 60,000 martyrs, more than two million refugees and exiles as well as tens of thousands of detainees. This was not to win a loaf of bread or renew passports.

“Passports were denied to tens of thousands of Syrians for several decades. But that didn’t drive them to sit down with a bloodstained regime that committed more crimes than any other serial killer in history.

“I can understand the humanitarian pressure the National Coalition leader is coming under… But concessions need not exceed red lines set by the National Coalition.”

Faris was specifically referring to two provisions in the agreement that founded the National Coalition in Doha last November.

The two provisions are: “(1) The sides agree to bring down the regime and all its symbols and mainstays, to disband the regime’s security services and to call to account those responsible for crimes against Syrians, and (2) The Coalition commits not to engage in any dialogue or negotiation with the regime.” (See my November 11, 2012, post, “The Syrian opposition’s Doha agreement.”)

Editorially, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi, Abdelbari Atwan, today writes of “Khatib’s bombshell shattering the Syrian scene.”

Sheikh al-Khatib is neither ignorant nor naïve, says Atwan. He only aired his initiative after taking stock of information and facts gathered at two international conferences he attended this month. They are the January 9-10 meeting hosted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to galvanize international support for a Syrian-led transition to a stable democratic country and the January 28 “Friends of Syria” conference in Paris.

“He heard the opinions of both guests and hosts at the two venues. And the opinions simply dashed his hopes, chiefly as regards the supply of qualitative weapons to the opposition.”  

Atwan continues:

“Multiple reasons must have prompted Khatib to air his initiative, which could see him resign after coming in for a lot of shameless flak, or which could see a breakup of the Syrian opposition with the SNC choosing to opt out of the National Coalition.”

Atwan encapsulates the multiple reasons as follows:

1. The definitive rejection by the West -- chiefly the United States – of the idea of arming the Free Syrian Army and other rebel groups coupled with an explicit warning to the Gulf States not to fund or arm the rebels.

2. Barack Obama’s upbeat proclamation in his second inaugural speech earlier this month that “a decade of war is now ending.”

3.  The Syria crisis stagnating after the regime’s failure to overcome the armed opposition and the latter’s inability to bring down the regime by force.

4. A misreading by the opposition’s Arab and other backers of the regime’s resilience and Russia and Iran’s unbounded support of Assad.

5. A rise in the clout of Jihadists on the ground, especially in northern Syria, and their success in recruiting thousands of young Syrians and in offering social welfare services in areas under their control, which is what the Taliban did earlier in Afghanistan.

6. The acquiescence of most Arab countries supportive of the armed opposition that a peaceful transition is the way out of the crisis. The consequence is acceptance of the regime – albeit for a short period – and opening the door of dialogue with it.

7. Mothballing of the Syria file by the Arab League and its foreign ministers.

“Sheikh Moaz al-Khatib grasps all that,” Atwan writes. “But, above all,  he realizes that the international community has started to address the Syria crisis as an issue of refugees, rather than the cause of a people seeking reform, democratic change and the removal of a dictatorship.

“The just-concluded conference in Kuwait of international donors for Syria, where more than a billion dollars were pledged for Syrian refugees, is proof of the new turnaround.

“The focusing on humanitarian and apolitical aspects by Arab and foreign countries under the sponsorship of the United Nations and its secretary-general evokes memories of a similar approach 65 years ago to the Palestine Question. That’s when the ‘Question’ became one of refugees deserving relief aid in their host countries…”

Syria: Reading meticulously into Assad’s speech

Assad mobbed on stage by supporters at Damascus Opera House yesterday

For an insight into yesterday’s speech by Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, I fancied this think piece by Abdelbari Atwan, publisher and editor-in-chief of the London-based daily al-Quds al-Arabi. He wrote it in Arabic:

Five indicative developments are worth contemplating in checking over the Syrian scene:

1.   The wordy speech delivered by President Assad yesterday, in which he thrashed out his plan for a peaceful end to the Syria crisis and his vision of the country’s future.

2.     The advisory issued by Saudi grand mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Aal al-Shaykh to the kingdom’s mosque preachers. He directed them against inciting Saudi men to join the jihad in Syria, saying they should suffice with donations to Syrian insurgents through official Saudi channels.

3.     Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s pledge to erect a Golan fence to shut out global jihadists from Syria.

4.    Mounting complaints by Syria’s armed opposition led by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) that military and financial aid from Arab and foreign friends is tapering off.

5.     A meeting in Geneva later this month of Syrian opposition personas who support talks with the regime. Organizers say several European countries, including Germany, Switzerland and Sweden, back the gathering aimed at upholding Syria’s territorial integrity and demographic unity.

The five developments are interrelated and complementary. They foretell, in whole or in part, a reshaping of the Syrian scene.

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President Assad’s address disappointed his opponents. It didn’t sound like a speech by someone defeated and forced to go underground. His address was more forceful and eloquent than anything he delivered throughout the uprising.

And although he dwelt on and appreciated a political settlement, he delivered a preemptive blow to all political solutions currently on the table. That includes the Geneva initiative of the United States and Russia, which his regime had earlier accepted.

President Assad said clearly he wouldn’t negotiate with the overseas opposition, which he accused of being puppets of the West. He said if he wanted to talk, he would talk to their masters – or to the original copy, not the photocopy, as he put it.

He also reiterated he was staying put and won’t accept any request or hint to step down.

Judging from his address to the nation yesterday, here is a man who is determined to persist with his current approach to the tag end, regardless of the losses in human lives.

President Assad’s insistence on fighting jihadist groups – and Jabhat al-Nusra, which he deliberately avoided naming – was intended to (1) marginalize the external opposition and its internal offshoots (2) acknowledge the potency of jihadists on the ground, and (3) court Western countries, chiefly the United States, which had listed as terrorist some of the jihadist groups.

There are on the other hand three details in the speech that give away Assad’s state of self-denial:

1.     His offer of a political settlement featuring new elections, a new parliament, a new constitution and an all-embracing national dialogue is much the same as an acknowledgment that all his previous reform measures to try and appease the public convinced no one.

2.     His description of the Arab Spring as a soap bubble was overly simplistic. The Arab Spring, for instance, brought down an Egyptian regime that paralyzed the pan-Arab nation for 40 years… If it were not for the Arab Spring, President Assad would not have spoken of an all-embracing dialogue and new parliamentary elections or recognized the need to co-opt the internal opposition. It is also worth reminding that Assad, in the early days of the Arab Spring, incited people to revolt against regimes outside the so-called Axis of Resistance.

3.     His dismissal of the overseas opposition as a nonentity. The absence of an opposition in Syria is because the regime always kept its opponents in prisons and detention centers. Even internal opponents with whom he is willing to talk – such as Hassan Abdel-Azim, Aref Dalila and Luay Hussein – have all served time in jail and have been tortured either physically or morally before.

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President Assad is unlikely to fall without foreign military intervention. But such outside involvement is less likely, if not more doubtful, than ever before.

The U.S. administration fears the fallouts and can’t bear a humiliating outcome such as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Saudi grand mufti’s advisory, the Saudi foreign minister’s remarks yesterday (that the kingdom supports a peaceful solution in Syria, leaving the question of Assad’s exit to the Syrians to decide) and FSA grumbles about financial and military assistance drying out – all these are pointers that make the Syrian president less anxious about his fate than he has ever been.

Many predicted President Assad’s fall in 2012, either by the yearend or earlier. But with America playing it cool, with sectarian polarization rising and with mounting fears of Syria spillovers into neighboring countries such as Iraq, come about Israel’s Golan fence, the Saudi grand mufti’s advisory, Egypt’s indifference and instability in some Arab Spring countries.

All these are factors liable to extend the life of President Assad and his regime for another year, if not beyond.  God knows!

Will Obama sell Syria for a grand bargain with Iran?

The following Qs and As are from yesterday’s Daily Press Briefing by the State Department’s spokesperson Victoria Nuland:

QUESTION: Yeah, and my second question: There are a group of experts that are trying to tie the Iran nuclear issue with Syria as part of a grand bargain. You oppose that kind of connection, do you?

MS. NULAND: I’m not sure which group of experts you’re talking about or what their plan is, but obviously we deal with Iran on the Iran issues; we deal with Syria on the Syria issues. I’m not sure that we --

QUESTION: Right. But you don’t favor – by tying – when you talk to the Russians, because it all involves Russia, when you’re talking to the Russians, you don’t favor combining let’s say the nuclear issue of Iran with that of Syria or the departure of Bashar al-Assad?

MS. NULAND: I’m not even sure how one could package that except to say that we are concerned, as we’ve said all along, about increasingly nefarious activity by Iran in support of Assad inside Syria. But with regard to the nuclear file, that is a separate and distinct issue, and you know how we’re working on that.

QUESTION: The reason I ask this is because Mr. Levitte, the former French ambassador in this town [who last October joined the Brookings Institution as a distinguished fellow], basically suggested that any kind of deal with the Russians on Syria ought to include the issue of Iran. So – and he has a lot of cohorts in this town.

MS. NULAND: I haven’t seen what he has in mind. I have a lot of respect for Jean-David Levitte, but I haven’t seen his particular ideas.

Chances of a grand bargain were raised last November 30 after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- speaking at a gala dinner for American and Israeli officials, experts and diplomats at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy -- said Washington was ready for bilateral talks if Tehran is “ever ready.”

The grand bargain would for instance put on the table: Iran’s nuclear program, its support for Hezbollah and Hamas, its leverage in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and even Yemen, its ambition to resume the role of U.S.-backed policeman of the Gulf, and its hostility towards Israel.

In exchange, Iran would probably ask Washington for security guarantees, the full recognition of its legitimate interests, influence and status in the region, the lifting of investment, financial and trade sanctions, accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), and a promise never to push for regime change.

Raghida Dergham, senior diplomatic correspondent in Washington and New York for the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, today revives rumors of a great bargain in the making as President Barack Obama lines up his second-term dream team ahead of his second inauguration.

The guessing game ahead of the January 20 inauguration includes hush-hush discussions between the U.S. administration and Russia on a trade-off, she writes. “Tehran ‘freezes’ its nuclear program in exchange for giving Damascus a green light to scorch the earth wherever Syrian opposition forces have a foothold.”

Russia’s role, Dergham explains, is to “sponsor” the U.S. deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“Moscow would convince Tehran leaders to freeze their nuclear program in return for the U.S. recognizing Iran’s regional role, not only in Iraq but in, and via, Syria.

“The latest rumor says the Russians are trying to convince the Obama camp that all the U.S. president needs to do is ‘turn a blind eye’ or ‘look the other way’ until Damascus forces crush the armed opposition, eradicating the Jihadists in the process.

“Execution of such a ‘scorched earth’ policy requires regime forces to regroup and launch a qualitative blitzkrieg, using all their resources with the exception of chemical weapons.

“Russia is only asking the U.S. to get ‘sidetracked’ pending execution of the qualitative offensive. In Russia’s opinion it is a price the administration would need to pay to win an Iranian freeze on its nuclear program…”

According to Dergham, Russia believes it can “hit two birds with one stone: (1) Give Syrian President Assad and his regime the opportunity to crush the armed opposition and eradicate jihadists and (2) Spare Iran a military showdown with the United States and/or Israel.”

 She says, “Obama would be committing a costly strategic mistake if he approved such a bargain. He would be winning a tactical deferral of a nuclear-armed Iran but consenting to a pogrom in Syria that effectively boosts the Islamic Republic of Iran’s hegemony in the region.

“President George W. Bush’s Iraq invasion handed Iraq to Iran on a silver platter…

“The Syria war could become Obama’s if he were to endorse the supposed bargain, handing Syria to the Islamic Republic on a second silver platter. Should that happen, Obama would go down in history as having allowed Iran to become a nuclear state with legitimate regional hegemony…”

But perhaps, Dergham concludes, “all this chit-chat about bargains in the making is meant to cover the realities of added isolation and sanctions on Iran, of Russia’s declining influence in the region and on the United States, and of the fast approaching collapse of the regime in Damascus.”

Egypt said staring down the barrel of a gun

Two Egyptians – one a media superstar, the other a seasoned diplomat – believe their country is trending towards disaster.

Egyptian media superstar and talk show host Imad Adeeb, writing for the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, gives his reasons as follows:

This time, the rules of play in Egypt will be totally different than in the past.

This time, the president is duly elected, civilian and legitimate.

This time, if the army is called upon, it will answer the call only if it receives written guarantees that it won’t be ordered back to barracks.

This time, police won’t have rules of engagement and police chiefs don’t wish to stand trial again for killing protesters.

This time, not all the “street” is against the regime. There is a sharp divide between a street of loyalist demonstrators and a street of opposition protesters.

This time, political funding from abroad is a sign of frightening external links.

This time, there are 15 million firearms smuggled in from Libya and Sudan. More are turned out by local workshops.

This time, the stockpiling of firearms by numerous political groups is mushrooming.

This time, the Copts genuinely fear for their personal safety.

This time, there is a lack of interest among the protagonists in dialogue, negotiation or a settlement.

This time, the Judiciary is not an independent branch of power. It is party to the dispute.

This time, the president feels through his inner circle that many forces target him. He thus senses a conspiratorial and menacing atmosphere.

This time, the youths won’t hurl stones in the streets, but Molotov cocktails instead. They might even resort to primitive or automatic firearms.

This time, the famished, the paupers and the slum dwellers will come out, not to protest in Tahrir Square, but to appropriate anything or everything on Egyptian soil.

This time, American or regional intervention won’t ward off the disaster.

This time, only prayer will help.

Talking anonymously, the seasoned diplomat tells political analyst Sarkis Naoum, writing for the independent Beirut daily an-Nahar:

1. Egypt has a president, but he is inexperienced.

2. Egypt has innumerable problems that need to be addressed. They include the remnants of the Mubarak regime’s now-defunct National Party. They are the enforcers the party created and used before mutating into a quasi-independent force-for-hire.

3. Egypt has tens of millions of its citizens living either on the poverty threshold or under the poverty line.

4. Egypt has Islamists, chiefly Muslim Brothers, and Salafists.

5. Egypt is in transition. Apart from issues like Sharia jurisprudence and religion being the sole source for legislation, Arabs outside Egypt know little about Egypt’s constitutional impasse. What they don’t know is alarming, such as reducing the marriageable age for girls down to nine years.

6. The problem of sexual harassment on Egyptian streets is getting out of control. Females wearing a headscarf, veil or full hijab are being targeted now.

7. President Mohamed Morsi got rid of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and its tutelage. Who gave him internal or external cover for the move, the United States?

8. Morsi sent troops to Sinai to confront extremist Jihadists and Salafis after they attacked Egyptian security forces there. Israel helped him secure Sinai with intelligence aid, but he never said so publicly.

9. Did the election of Muslim Brother Morsi give the nod to the entire Muslim Brotherhood to rule Egypt, its people and its resources?

10. Whether Morsi reached the helm alone or with all the Muslim Brothers, they have to address Egypt’s problems and build the state, its economy, its security and its tourism, considering that tourism without “sex” does not exist in the world. They have to tackle the problems of terrorists, Salafists, democrats and thugs.

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.