Oman as Iran’s Trojan Horse in the GCC

Prince Turki al-Faisal addressing the Manama Dialogue

Oman is emerging as Iran’s Trojan Horse trying to destroy the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) from within.

Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the monarch of Oman since 1970, reportedly played a key role in facilitating the secret U.S.-Iran talks leading up to the November 24 “historic” nuclear deal, according to The Associated Press.

Oman is isolated from much of the rest of the Arabian Peninsula by a formidable mountain range, while Iran is just across the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for global oil shipments that has at times raised tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

As early as 2009, according to Wikileaks, the sultanate offered to arrange talks between the U.S. and Iran – which hadn’t had diplomatic relations for 30 years – on condition that they were kept quiet. But it was reportedly the hostage crisis of three American “hikers” that brought him into a mediating role between the two sides and helped win the release of the three Americans, who were arrested and accused of spying while hiking along the Iran-Iraq border.

With that success in his pocket, Sultan Qaboos offered to facilitate a U.S.-Iran rapprochement, the AP reports. In March, U.S. and Iranian officials met in Oman, Secretary of State John Kerry followed up in May, and the talks took on a momentum of their own after Hassan Rouhani replaced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran’s June elections.

Sultan Qaboos wasn’t in front of the cameras in Geneva, but a news report in the Saudi daily al-Hayat this morning speaks of “fears within the GCC of Iranian-Omani efforts to break up” the six-member club grouping Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Oman and Saudi Arabia bickered publicly over the GCC’s future last week at the three-day Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, a forum on Middle East security.

A much-anticipated Gulf union is inevitable and will happen because people in the region are keen on it, Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s former Intelligence Chief who also served as ambassador in both the United States and United Kingdom, told the conference.

He was commenting on remarks made Saturday by Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, the Omani foreign minister, who said his country rejected the Gulf union and would pull out of the club if the union were approved.

“Everyone has the right to express their opinions,” Prince Turki retorted. “However, this will not prevent the union from happening. Oman can join it then or later, or not at all,” he said.

On the nuclear talks in Geneva last month between the 5+1 world powers and Iran, Prince Turki said they lacked a “very important factor” – namely, the participation of Iran’s Gulf neighbors.

“I don’t know the reasons for that… because eventually we are the ones that will be affected by anything -- a military event or a nuclear leak or any earthquake that may hit the [nuclear] sites in Iran,” he remarked.

“No doubt we are now facing a big smile from the Iranian leadership in the way they are dealing with the Gulf.”

Prince Turki added: “Iran must take concrete measures before we can judge whether it is going forward with a smile, or simply showing its teeth.”

Prince Turki said television and radio stations in Iran are targeting the Gulf Arabs with inflammatory broadcasts tackling “sensitive issues in our Arab world.”

Addressing Iran, he said: “Why don’t you close them down and show us your good intentions? Show us you are serious about this real, wide smile you are showing us.”

The six GCC partners hold their annual year-end summit in Kuwait, tomorrow, Tuesday.

Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of al-Hayat, has this word today to tell tomorrow’s summiteers:

The region is unlike the one that existed three years ago.

Governments are confused. Armies are anxious. Borders are violated or about to be…

Iraq’s disintegration is an undeniable fact. The dismemberment of Yemen is flagrant. What looked like a Syrian intifada turned out to be a sectarian war feeding tension into the neighbors’ arteries.

Lebanon’s institutions are in a coma and its doors are open to refugees and fire. Libya, which spent four decades under one leader, today terrorizes its people, neighbors and the world. From Yemen to Tunisia, al-Qaeda and its ilk are omnipresent…

Today’s world is much more dangerous than the world that witnessed the birth of the GCC in 1981.

Bar Israel, four key regional states will play a dominant role in this difficult phase depending on their respective internal stability, resources and alliances.

They are Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and Turkey.

GCC leaders who meet in Kuwait tomorrow are aware of the magnitude of the threats to stability and roles. They know the importance of adapting to change.

Oman’s attitude clearly unveiled that the Gulf union’s journey won’t be trouble-free.

But sensitivities should not forestall attempts to reconcile views of the various GCC member states on how to handle this phase of containing risks and assigning roles.  

Obama, president of Lebanon?

"No winner and no loser" image from www.aljazeera.net

The White House readout of U.S. President Barack Obama’s call with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia:

President Obama spoke by phone today (July 12) with King Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia.

The President relayed his warm wishes to the King on the occasion of Ramadan.

The leaders reaffirmed the strong and enduring partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia and discussed regional issues of mutual interest.

The President and the King shared their perspectives on the situation in Syria and expressed their strong concerns about the impact of the conflict on the region.

The President emphasized the United States’ continued commitment to provide support to the Syrian Opposition Coalition and the Supreme Military Council to strengthen the opposition.

The President and King also exchanged views on recent developments in Egypt.

They agreed that the United States and Saudi Arabia have a shared interest in supporting Egypt’s stability.

The President expressed his serious concern about the violence in Egypt and underscored the urgent need for an inclusive political process that will enable an early return to a democratically elected civilian government in Egypt. 

The leaders pledged to continue close consultations between their two governments.

Separately, Tariq Alhomayed, the former editor-in-chief of Saudi Arabia’s leading daily Asharq Alawsat, writes today of Obama seeming like a president of Lebanon:

A watcher of the U.S. president’s approach to our regional files does not perceive Barack Obama as leader of the world’s most powerful nation, but as the president of Lebanon, where the mantra is “no winner and no loser.”

In Egypt, the Obama Administration is still at a loss whether to describe the June 30 “corrective movement” as a military coup or a response to popular demands, despite saying Mohamed Morsi’s government “wasn’t a democratic rule.”

While confirming plans to send four shiny F-16 fighter jets to Egypt’s military, the Obama Administration formally puts U.S. aid to Cairo under review. It urges the Muslim Brotherhood to renounce violence and at the same time warns the interim leadership against Brotherhood arrests.

Worse still, the Obama Administration calls for Morsi’s release just as the White House says, “We’re not taking sides in Egypt.”

Can you imagine a worse muddle?

As concerns Syria, the fumbles are greater, more serious and profound.

Obama had asked all sides to wait for his reelection campaign to end, but nothing changed thereafter.

He did zilch despite Bashar al-Assad forces killing more than 100,000 Syrians and disregarding his “game-changer” threat that moving or using chemical weapons would cross a “red line” and “change my calculus.”

When Iran and Hezbollah intervened in Syria to defend Assad, Obama remained passive.

And after he undertook to arm Syrian rebels, he failed to deliver.

His administration cites broad-based concerns the weapons could fall into wrong hands of hardline Islamists. Strangely, the administration has no such concerns about Egypt’s hardline Islamists, despite the Egyptian Army being targeted in Sinai by terrorists loyal to the Brotherhood.

The Obama Administration’s fumbling and dithering is countless.

The president’s rash exit from Iraq turned it into an Iranian springboard to attack Syrians and defend Assad through the Baghdad government and armed Shiite groups.

Also we’re now into the fallouts from the planned U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, not to mention American heedlessness to Libya.

President Obama doesn’t want to do anything anywhere, despite all the security threats, risks to U.S. political interests and the violations of laws and principles such as in Syria.

The Obama Administration has also disconcerted other regions. European countries are demanding that Washington immediately stop its eavesdropping on European Union officials and diplomats.

There too, Obama is trying to circumvent the issue à la Libanaise – “no winner and no loser.”

Obama has the earmarks of a president of Lebanon, instead of the president of the most powerful nation on earth.

Six reasons why Syria’s rebellion is into Year 3

“With respect to Syria,” President Barack Obama said yesterday at his joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, “the United States continues to work with allies and friends and the Syrian opposition to hasten the end of Assad’s rule, to stop the violence against the Syrian people, and begin the transition towards a new government that respects the rights of all its people. Assad has lost his legitimacy to lead by attacking the Syrian people with almost every conventional weapon in his arsenal, including Scud missiles…”

Mauritania's Muhammad bin Mukhtar al-Shinqiti

But with the start this week of Syria’s third year of rebellion, the question remains: Why is ending Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s rule taking so long?

The overriding reasons are six, according to an outstanding scholar, analyst and author from Mauritania, Muhammad bin Mukhtar al-Shinqiti, writing for the “Viewpoint” section of Aljazeera.net.

Shinqiti has a bachelor's degree in Sharia law, a master’s in business administration from Columbia Southern University in Orange Beach, Alabama, and a PhD in the history of religions from the University of Texas at Austin.

In his think piece for Aljazeera, Shinqiti explains the six impediments to ending Assad’s rule at a gallop:

One:

Unlike in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, the makeup of the army in Syria is sectarian. Ninety percent of its commanding officers and key battalions are Alawite. Breaking its cohesion is time-consuming and costly.

Giving added strength to Assad’s regime is the mobilization for its defense of the region’s Shiite infrastructure – all the way from Lebanon to Iran. The enlistment takes in most Arab Shiite elites in the region.

Two:

The second impediment is Russia’s support of Assad’s savagery, a stand that can be explained culturally and strategically.

Culturally, French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville envisaged in the 19^th century two great nations – America and Russia – advancing toward world supremacy in the 20^th century.

“All other peoples seem to have nearly reached their natural limits and to need nothing but to preserve them; but these two are growing,” he wrote, adding:

“The American fights against natural obstacles; the Russian is at grips with men. The former combats the wilderness and barbarism; the latter, civilization with all its arms. America’s conquests are made with the plowshare, Russia’s with the sword. To attain their aims, the former relies on personal interest and gives free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of individuals. The latter in a sense concentrates the whole power of society in one man. One has freedom as the principal means of action; the other has servitude.”

You can blame Moscow’s stance vis-à-vis the Syrian revolution on the culture of “servitude” that is still prevailing in Russia. The largest country in Europe continues to be ruled by a KGB officer, Vladimir Putin, whose administration frowns at the Syrian revolution’s victory prospects for fear of its template resurfacing elsewhere.

Strategically, the Putin administration’s politics on Mediterranean shores are a Cold War throwback.

The culture of “servitude” is equally dominant in China, a single-party state.

Three:

Halfhearted backing from Arab governments is the third factor taxing the Syrian people’s rebellion. Libya and Qatar have been the only two Arab states to stand solidly behind the Syrian revolution. Most of the others sufficed with lukewarm diplomatic support. Some stand by Assad either openly or covertly. Algerian army generals oppose any serious step against the regime lest the Arab Spring reaches their country’s borders. Iraq backs Assad to the hilt for shocking sectarian reasons. Lebanon is two sectarian halves.

There is no better indicator of the Arab state’s halfhearted backing of the Syrian people than their choice of two Arab envoys to Syria – namely, Sudan’s Gen. Mohammed al-Dabi and Algeria’s Lakhdar Brahimi. Both Sudan and Algeria are ruled by the military that simply abhor the Arab Spring.

Compare such official Arab apathy with Iran’s unwavering support of Assad financially, politically and militarily at a time when Iran’s defeat in Syria is now a key Arab strategic priority.

Four:

The fourth hurdle is Turkey’s hesitancy in arming the Syrian rebels. Turkey made available to the Syrian people two lung transplants, one for humanitarian aid and the other for political breathing. Without them, the Syrian people’s suffering would have been intolerable and the chances of their revolution’s success little.

As a strategic bridge between East and West, Turkey is a regional heavyweight, except that it seems unwilling to take strategic risks and remains committed to the West’s ban on arming Syrian rebels.

Short of this changing, Syria will remain an open wound on Turkish borders and Turkey will likely loose its sympathetic Arab street as well as prospective strategic interests in Arab Spring countries.

Five:

The fifth hurdle standing in the way of a dash to victory in Syria is the duplicity of America and Europe’s political elites. They are deliberately starving the Syrian revolution of weapons in order to pooh-pooh and lay siege to the Arab Spring.

Despite the deep chasm between the American and Russian positions on the revolt, for instance, both sides agree on wrecking Syria. America wants Syria destroyed to see Assad out while Russia wants Syria destroyed to keep Assad in.

The West’s embargo on arming the Syrian people is nothing more than a license to the regime to keep killing. It is a replay of the West imposing the embargo on arming Bosnian Muslims once it ascertained the Serbs had secured arms supply lines from Russia.

Six:

The sixth cause of the stalemate after two years is the Israeli position and the weight the position carries in American and European decision-making circles.  

A (May 2011 Tel Aviv-datelined) report in the Christian Science Monitor said Assad’s downfall would remove a key player in the Iran-led alliance threatening the Jewish state, but Assad’s Syria has been a stable neighbor and maintained a regional balance that Israeli officials and analysts fear could crumble.

The report quoted Giora Eilan, a former national security adviser under former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, as saying Sharon once slammed an Israeli who suggested that regime change in Syria. “Sharon said, ‘Are you crazy?’” he recalls. “The best for the time being, is having a Bashar Assad who is fighting for his legitimacy.’”

End of the Arab Spring… but no turning back

Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist and author now heading Al Arab News Channel, penned this think piece in Arabic  for today’s al-Hayat

Photo by totallycoolpix.com

Bashar confidently says his army has regained the initiative on the ground. His wife is reportedly pregnant.

Signs are multiplying regional states have grown weary of the Syria saga and the opposition stands alone.

Egypt is burning. Her opinion-shapers take note, bicker on all Egyptian and Arab TV channels and then make -- one after the other -- submissions to President Mohamed Morsi.

Meanwhile, TV subscreens show youths hurling out of windows the furniture of government offices or torching an army vehicle.

No one bothers to utter the magical sentence, “Guys, go home. We’ve lost control of the revolution.” The maximum you would hear from someone with a modicum of responsibility is a condemnation of violence “by all sides.” It’s as if that person got a whiff of victory and of Morsi’s exit, meaning he could maybe replace him.

The said person would then call for renewed protests Friday-week, knowing a few more youths would be killed that day aimlessly, save for piling token pressure on the regime.

Morsi himself has lost control. The curfew he ordered went unheeded.

Assassinations in Libya, suicide bombings in Yemen, rows over forming a new government in Tunisia… I seemingly listed Tunisia in this context, but it’s paradise compared to the rest.

So did the Arab Spring end?

Indeed, its warmth and romanticism have evaporated.

The Arab Spring has given way to the “World of Reality” with all the bitterness of economic meltdowns and of crumbling government agencies inherited by the new regimes.

Clearly, not one Egyptian is convinced when the incumbent transport minister blames the former regime for the high number of train accidents and fatalities, saying 85 percent of Egypt’s railway carriages need replacement.

Angry Egyptians don’t focus on the Mubarak regime anymore. For them, the responsibility falls on the incumbent minister, as well as on Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. They would surely clamor for his resignation at the next train crash.

The fact a juvenile political environment lying in wait to capitalize on any mistake is pitted against a government catapulted to power short of experience and vision is bound to exacerbate the face-off.

The Arab Spring has ended, but the Arab Revolt keeps going in its ceaseless furies, retributions and swings.

On seeing an Egyptian repaint a Tahrir Square sidewalk, or a Libyan in tears hugging his brother, the optimistic analyst said Arabs would forge ahead with their newfound renaissance since they had taken stock of the mistakes of previous revolutions.

The cheerful analyst believed collective human experience was cumulative and Arab citizens and politicians are politically aware of past facts and events.

The pessimistic analyst, who chose to duck in the heydays of the Arab Spring, for fear of being branded a “leftover,” can now relax and pontificate about revolutions having lives of their own and evolving independently of revolutionary idealists and dreamers.

The cynical analyst would also say Egypt – the Arab Spring’s coveted prize – would need at least a decade to stabilize. He would also recount to his audience the French Revolution’s history – how it took a decade to settle and several other decades of mutations before culminating in a potent democracy.

I believe both analysts would agree there’s no turning back.

Morsi might fall or have to call for early presidential elections (a smart move, I dare say, by the Brotherhood).

But certainly:

(a) The Mubarak regime won’t be making anything akin to a comeback

(b) Even if the army assumed power, the move would be short-lived, pending a reordering of the democratic scene

(c) The Muslim Brothers won’t melt away and no one would be able to ban them

(d) Likewise, the liberal forces won’t pass from sight once they disband the Salvation Front they set up to bring down the Brotherhood regime.

Egyptians and all other Spring Arabs will twist and turn till they find a governance formula acceptable to all sides, especially the liberals who had difficulty digesting the rise of marginalized forces.

Political life could be deactivated for a year or two, but there is no escape from returning to the ballot box once political life resumes.

A handsome Egyptian military officer can no more rule or orate or pledge or dissolve political parties and set up a “national council” in the name of the “legitimacy of the revolution.”

The Egyptians have gone through all that before.

There is no place either for new “Socialist Unions” even in the name of religion.

The force of history is on the side of freedom and democracy.

No Syrian will accept a consensual sectarian arrangement whereby Alawites are apportioned a specific quota in the security services and then share power with the other sects.

Neither Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s view that the opposition forecloses a political solution by insisting on Bashar’s exit, nor Iranian presidential hopeful Ali Akbar Velayati’s warning that Bashar is a red line, nor remarks that the absence of a bargain with the regime suggests Syria’s partition can sway the Syrian people.

Syrians will uphold the territorial integrity of their country and carry on with their revolution as long as necessary.

The Syrian revolution might last for years after turning into a militia war. The regime itself is a militia equipped with airpower, long-range missiles and chemical weapons.

Bashar won’t rule the whole of Syria again. Even if the “Friends of Syria” abandoned the Syrian Revolution, Bashar’s fall is inevitable.

The Syrians might squabble after his exit and Jabhat al-Nusra might declare an Islamic emirate in Aleppo. But in the end, their choice will be between the ballot box and chaos.

Tunisians will bicker during the countdown to their elections in the summer, and so will Yemenis in the buildup to their first free vote for a president in February 2014. Yemen’s “Southern Movement” will keep protesting and al-Qaeda will continue its suicide operations. But the ballot box will be last and sole recourse for Yemenis, Libyans and Tunisians.

The central problems is the Arab world’s largest country, Egypt, whose political elites refused to accept the ballot box results and chose life and dialogue in the studios of Egyptian satellite TV channels, instead of in parliament. 

Islamist movements keep seeking their own demise

From L. clockwise: King Abdulaziz, Saladin, Imadaddin Zengi and Abu Hamed al-Ghazali

This think piece was penned in Arabic for al-Hayat daily by Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist now heading Saudi billionaire Prince Walid bin Talal’s Arabic news channel Al Arab launching at year’s end:

Why do many present-day Islamist movements always seek their own demise?

Why do they consistently insist on “all or nothing”?

Salafist jihadism today matches India’s Deobandi movement.

Salafis today are not even one.

It was King Abdulaziz, founder of the Saudi state that celebrated its 82^nd National Day recently, who revived contemporary Salafism. He was a true Salafi, but he was also a politician who cajoled the big shots and cultivated the minnows but always came out on top.

Before the distortion of Salafism and jihad through abuse by ultraconservatives of these two noble traits of Muslims, every Muslim activist sought to reconcile Salafism, or faith advocacy, and jihad.

Salaheddin el-Ayyoubi, better known in the Western world as Saladin, and Imadaddin Zengi before him, were like that – Salafi jihadists. Both used beyond measure tactics of modern-day Islamist movements to mobilize the faithful for jihad.

They propagated jihad through preachers and orators -- not only in mosques on Fridays but at all times and on all occasions.

They built efficient local administrations in Damascus, Aleppo and Cairo. They were merciful to people and gracious in their sermons.

They were benign in their promotion of virtue and prevention of vice.

They were also ruthless when they needed to.

Imadaddin Zengi was hard-hearted when fighting local leaders.

Saladin was not, by today’s standards, a democrat or believer in freedom of opinion and expression. Once he prevailed in Egypt (after overthrowing the Shiite Fatamids), he restored Sunnite orthodoxy in the country and stamped out Shiite jurisprudence in al-Azhar. (That’s why Saladin is more of a hero in the Arab world than in Iran). His strategic move bore a resemblance to the Islamist movements of the day, particularly the line of theologian Abu Hamed al-Ghazali as expressed in his writings, specifically his book “The Revival of Religious Sciences.”

In the end, Imadeddin Zengi and Saladin succeeded in building two nation-states that outlived them by years.

They laid the foundations for an Islamic revival movement. In addition to introducing administrative reform, they handed down a plethora of schools, hospitals, markets, castles and public facilities that are still standing today. (Some of these are currently being pulverized by the Syrian regime’s tanks and warplanes).

In other words, Zengi and Saladin did not simply lead a fleeting protest movement such as al-Qaeda and the likes that always seek their own demise.

In modern history, Abdulaziz al-Saud emulated Zengi and Saladin.

He surrounded himself with local leaders who outmatched him in wealth, political maneuver and international connections.

He was fenced in by a Great Power when turning east, south, north or even west to look across the sea to Egypt.

He also had to put up with a group seeking it own demise. His valiant military commander Faisal al-Dwaish kept striving to challenge the British, who were then protectors of the Gulf, Iraq and Transjordan.

Dwaish ultimately defied his leader and ended up dying in jail with history remembering his insubordination more than his military heroics.

I remembered King Abdulaziz when hearing the leader of Somalia’s al-Shabab pledge that his militiamen won’t stop their advance before reaching Nairobi and Addis Ababa, having overcome Ethiopian forces in their country in 2006.

Al-Shabab could have instead focused on building Somalia and sinking their roots deeper at home. Had they done that, they would probably have been ruling a stable and secure Somalia. The leader in question might have been negotiating with the Dubai Port Authority to build a port in Kismayo followed by a franchise fishing deal with a Japanese company.

Instead, he said last week his Islamist militants were abandoning their last major bastion, Kismayo.

This makes me wonder again: Why do many modern-day Islamist groups always seek their own demise?

They antagonize everyone far and near as soon as they score a victory.

In Libya, they trumped their opponents by joining the revolution. They then proceeded to desecrate graves at (Commonwealth) war cemeteries and attack the U.S. embassy.

By so doing they turned people against them, eventually losing their reputation, their weapons and their camps.

In Tunisia, they were released from jail, had a taste of freedom and enjoyed it, then abused it and decided that Tunisians, as apprentices in modernity, needed guidance. Those were the same Tunisians who a month earlier had voted into power a moderate Islamist party. They ended antagonizing Tunisians and their government who subsequently demanded their eradication.

In Yemen, they absented themselves from the transition process that removed the tyrant they were fighting. They failed to appreciate that the sea change taking place in the country presented them with an opportunity to end their cocooning. Instead, they want their jihad to last for all eternity. Their latest reaction was a suicide bombing in Abyan.

In Egypt, they stand out as first class debaters. They joined the constitution-drafting body (otherwise known as the Constituent Assembly). Instead of leaving their imprint on a historic legacy, they focused on such trivialities, as “girls can be married as soon as they reach puberty.” They will surely pay the price of their idiocy at the next elections.

I can go on recounting innumerable telltales from Mali, Afghanistan, Iraq and my own homeland Saudi Arabia. The self-interest of present-day Islamist movements invariably takes priority over the interests of the public.

In truth, these militant movements mandate acts of suicide in combat but take their own life in politics.

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.

Was Turkish jet lost in NATO spooks act?

As Western and Turkish military leaders prepare for a pipe ceremony at NATO headquarters in Brussels later today over the downing of a Turkish fighter jet by Syria, a Russian report blames the incident on a failed NATO spooks operation.

RT, the first Russian 24/7 English-language news channel that carries the Russian view on global news, writes this morning:

“The Turkish military jet’s incursion into Syria may have been a botched NATO operation on counterfeiting Syrian military aircraft ID in order to fool the country’s air defense. The necessary codes could have been ‘borrowed’ from the Syrian fighter that had been stolen by its defector pilot.

“This theory, explaining why the Turkish reconnaissance plane entered Syrian airspace before being taken down, was voiced by Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, which cited unnamed sources in the Syrian security forces.

“Syrians believe the Friday incident has its roots in last week’s defection of a Syrian pilot who escaped in his MiG-21 fighter jet to Jordan. Damascus branded the defector a traitor, while Jordanian authorities gave him asylum.

“The defection brings memories of a similar incident that took place in February 2011, when two Libyan pilots ‘delivered’ their military aircraft to Malta. NATO’s bombing campaign, which ended with the fall of the Muammar Gaddafi’s government, started just a month later.

“Military analysts note that, curiously, the Libyan air defense systems appeared to be helpless against NATO’s airstrikes. The explanation may lie in the friend-or-foe systems that the two stolen aircraft had onboard, the newspaper suggests. This system is used by the military in combat to distinguish their own aircraft.

“According to the newspaper, the Syrian military believe that NATO took a similar approach again, but failed to properly decipher the codes. This is evident by the fact that the defector pilot managed to send his family to Turkey before stealing the fighter jet, which means the act was probably not done out of a sudden emotional breakdown.

“NATO may have tasked Turkey to test how well the job was performed, and the result was disastrous, the report explains.

“This is only a theory and more trivial explanations cannot be ruled out – but the intrusion is more likely to have been part of a military operation rather than the mistake Turkey claims it to be, military experts say.”