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

Is the Arab League's Nabil Elaraby a quisling?

Elaraby meeting with Assad (photo via allvoices.com)

The gutsy question referring to the head of the Arab League is raised in the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat by non-other than its chief editor, Tariq Alhomayed.

In his editorial today, Alhomayed starts by explaining his reasons for casting doubts on the job performance of Nabil Elaraby before passing his judgment. Here in essence is what he wrote in Arabic this morning:

On July 17, 2011, and in the wake of Elaraby's trip to Syria and the remarks he made after meeting with Bashar al-Assad, I wrote an article saying: "The Syrians were very quick to build on the remarks made by the new Arab League secretary-general, Nabil Elaraby, whose statements could not have been made by someone seasoned in politics."

The 10-month old Syrian revolution has so far claimed some 7,000 lives. Thousands more are either detained or gone missing. But we’re back discussing Nabil Elaraby and his positions on Syria.

Mr. Elaraby defended Assad when he met with him in Damascus last July. He is fully aware nothing changed in the Syrian regime’s behavior since. Yet he persists in making odd and ambiguous decisions seemingly defending Assad.

Even at his last press conference in Cairo, Elaraby did not sound convincing on the new Arab peace initiative. It was Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim who spoke rationally and plainly.

Elaraby continues to sing out of tune. He chose Khaled Meshaal to relay a message to Assad, and Gen. al-Dabi to lead the Arab observer mission. He is now lobbying Egypt’s Mohamed ElBaradei to be his Syria envoy only because Assad could be more amenable to the appointment. That’s because of ElBaradei’s stands on the (2007) raid on Syria’s nuclear facility and on Iran’s nuclear program and his criticisms of the West and the Americans then. Is that a joke or a fact?

With all due respect to ElBaradei, what would he do in Syria? Would he pull out as he did in Egypt (when he dropped his presidency bid)? Would he pass from sight when Syrian demonstrators come under fire as he stayed away from Tahrir Square, presumably not to steal the limelight from the youths there?

All this is puzzling and warrants a legitimate query: So long as Elaraby chose Meshaal and al-Dabi and is now lining up ElBaradei, should we expect him to co-opt Azmi Bishara and Mohamed Hassanein Heikal next?

To answer the question in the headline, Elaraby does not seem to be a quisling. But he is far from understanding the region and its variables. A quisling needs to be smarter for sure.

Saudi Arabia talks tough on Syria & Arab League

Syria has dismissed -- as an infringement on its sovereignty -- a peace roadmap hammered out by the Arab League foreign ministers while Saudi Arabia suggests the plan is stillborn and the League itself is incurable.

Saudi Arabia pulled out of the League's Syria observer mission, whose mandate was renewed for another month on Sunday, saying Damascus had broken promises on the earlier Arab peace protocol.

The new League proposal, to be presented to the United Nations Security Council for endorsement, mirrors the Gulf plan on Yemen that saw President Ali Abdullah Saleh agree to leave office. It calls on President Bashar al-Assad to delegate power to his vice-president to engage in proper dialogue with the opposition within two weeks, and form a national unity government in two months, followed by presidential and parliamentary elections.

Tariq Alhomayed, chief editor of the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, which reflects and articulates official Saudi thinking, wonders if there are other Arab takers of the kingdom’s position on Syria.

He writes this Monday morning:

Saudi Arabia has shut out all procrastinators, dawdlers and conspirators against the Syrian people and their revolution. It has shut out all those trying to bail out the tyrant Assad when its foreign minister announced the withdrawal of Saudi monitors from Syria and appealed to the international, Arab and Islamic communities to exert all efforts possible to spare Syrian blood.

Foreign Minister Saud al-Feisal went further. He received a Syrian opposition delegation led by Burhan Ghalioun while the Arab League’s ministerial panel on Syria was in conference. This means he sought to bring down the curtain on dilly-dallying in the Arab League. He showed Saudi Arabia was determined to exercise its leadership role in the Arab and Moslem worlds in order to safeguard Syrian blood. His meeting with the Syrian opposition effectively tore up Gen. Mohammed al-Dabi’s progress report on the observer mission he headed in Syria.

Dabi’s report comes across as being submitted to Assad, confirming that the Arab League is irremediable. The Arab League’s role is bound to become worse when Nouri al-Maliki’s Iraq assumes the League’s rotating chairmanship. A lifeline would be thrown to Assad then, since Tehran is now openly declaring that Iraq is in Iran’s sphere of influence.

Having said that, the way forward is (1) to set up a regional alliance comprising Saudi Arabia and its Gulf partners, Turkey and other willing Arab and non-Arab states to take charge of the Syria file, and (2) for the five other members of the GCC to follow in Saudi Arabia’s footsteps and meet with Burhan Ghalioun and co-opt the Syrian opposition.

Sunday's Arab media newsreel

Headlines I selected from today’s Arab media:

Qatar’s Aljazeera

• “95 killed in gory day in Syria”
• “League set to extend observer mission, opposition primed for internationalization”
• “Islamists control Egyptian parliament”

Lebanese daily as-Safir

• “Tehran: Bringing down Damascus is an illusion and a mirage”

Lebanese daily an-Nahar

• “Islamists sweep Egyptian parliament; ‘Revolution Continues’ party trails at the bottom”
• “Yemen parliament approves immunity for Saleh, names Hadi as consensus candidate for president”
• Columnist Ali Hamadeh: “Zabadani [city in Syria] and the Syrian revolution’s militarization”

Lebanese al-Manar TV

• “Hamas: Leader Meshaal shunning re-election”

Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat

• “Free Syrian Army said controlling north and east Idlib after fierce clashes with regime forces”
• “Hezbollah elements manning Zabadani checkpoints -- activists”
• Chief editor Tariq Alhomayed: “Syria’s Benghazi”

Egyptian daily al-Ahram

• “Parliament: 127 list seats for Freedom and Justice, 96 for Nour, 36 for al-Wafd, 33 for Egyptian Bloc…”
• “Mubarak can only be tried by a special court; constitutionally, he remains president to this day -- chief defense lawyer Farid al-Deeb”

Saudi daily al-Hayat

• Columnist Hazem Saghiyeh: “Don’t execute him (Mubarak)”

Syrian daily Tishreen

• “Real estate transactions at a standstill”
• “Price of gas cylinder shoots up to 400 liras”
• “80 percent of housing applicants now opting for illegal construction sites”

Syria… Is this true?

Photo by m2sat.com

My English wording of Tariq Alhomayed’s editorial appearing today in Arabic in Saudi Asharq Alawsat:

I was privy to confusing and disturbing information concerning the Arab League and its perception and handling of the Syria File and its view of the Syrian opposition. It was passed on to me by unimpeachable and highly informed sources. I am publishing it here in the style of unprejudiced queries so as to give the Arab League the benefit of the doubt.

The information suggests that, in explaining conditions in Syria and how to handle them, a very senior League official told his visitor, “There are not more than 3,000 Syrian activists on the ground. They instigate the street protests. The regime of Bashar al-Assad is looking for them. The finale in Syria will come when the regime hunts them down and gets rid of them.”

The aforesaid official expects this to happen by February. He also questions the Syrian opposition’s commitment. He questions its sources of funding, saying: “It has oodles of cash… I wish I knew where from.”

Others at the League are tittle-tattling that a Gulf state supplied Assad’s regime with electronic surveillance technologies to intercept “Thuraya” satellite mobile phone sets (used by activists for satellite communication).  My authoritative source involved in this file says Assad’s regime was the first to spread the rumor, which has since been picked up by some Arabs. He says Intelligence data however shows it’s the Iranians who are supplying Assad’s regime with the electronic surveillance technologies. They used them to great effect to put down the Green Revolution protests at home.

The information does not stop here. It says deployment of Gulf members of the monitoring team was held up by the regime's attempt to bar entry to those hailing from Qatar. The other Gulfites stood by the Qataris, which embarrassed the Arab League and forced Assad’s regime to let them all in.

In the same vein, and according to my authoritative source, Assad’s regime did not sign the monitoring protocol before getting word from the Arab League that Sudanese Gen. M. al-Dabi will head the observer mission.

All the above raises concern over Arab League intentions vis-à-vis the Syrian revolution. Do we have here a case of breakdown and confusion or one of bad intentions aimed at buoying up Assad’s regime despite its crimes?

So, what’s happening in truth?

An open line to the Middle East

“Latakia Simmers, Homs Paralyzed, Outrage against Dabi.” That’s how today’s banner headline in Saudi Asharq Alawsat encapsulates news about Syria.

Gen. Mustafa al-Dabi is the tainted Sudanese head of the Arab League’s Syria observer mission.

Like all other Arab media outlets, Alawsat underscores the call made by Ali Salem al-Diqbassi, Kuwaiti speaker of the 88-member Arab Parliament, on the League to end its observer mission because of the ongoing crackdown on protests. Diqbassi said the observers had to leave “considering the ongoing killing of innocent civilians by the Syrian regime.”

He said there has been no letup in state violence against protesters since the observers started their mission in Syria, adding: “This has infuriated Arab peoples and undercut the fact-finding mission… thereby giving the Syrian regime an Arab cover to continue its inhumane practices under the nose of the Arab League.”

Jordanian columnist Raja Talab, writing for Amman’s al-Rai, says deaths in Syria are so well documented that they need not be verified by Dabi. He says the linchpin of a solution in Syria is not the observer mission but the November 2 Arab peace roadmap. The roadmap calls for the release of all detainees, the withdrawal of military forces from populated areas, free access to observers and Arab and international media people and League-sponsored negotiations between Damascus and the Syrian opposition.

Qatar’s Aljazeera quotes activists as saying 10 more civilians were gunned down across Syria on New Year’s Day, most of them in the cities of Homs and Hama. This takes to at least 300 the number of people killed since the monitors arrived in the country on December 27, according to the activists.

But Aljazeera also says “new observers from Tunisia, Sudan, Iraq and the GCC member states have arrived in Cairo to join their colleagues in Syria.”

Lebanese Hezbollah’s al-Manar today carries two Iran-related video clips on (1) Iran’s Navy test firing of an advanced surface-to-air missile during war games in international waters. It says, “the sea maneuvers will conclude with tactical drills to take control of, and close, the Strait of Hormuz” (2) The Islamic Republic’s successfully testing of its first locally produced nuclear fuel rod. “By so doing, Iran crosses the threshold of peaceful nuclear technology from the wide door.”