12 nuns for 1,000 Syrian women prisoners?

Mother Pelegia Sayyaf

Syrian opposition forces are offering to swap some 12 Orthodox nuns they are holding in the Qalamoun Mountains range for 1,000 women prisoners detained by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

News of the proposed exchange makes today’s front-page lead of the respectable Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat.

The paper’s correspondent in Antakya quotes an “Ahrar al-Qalamoun Brigade” spokesperson as saying the nuns abducted earlier this month from the predominantly Christian village of Maaloula “are now in a safe place. They won’t be released before a number of conditions are met – chiefly, the release of 1,000 Syrian women prisoners languishing in Syrian regime lockups.”

An Ahrar al-Qalamoun Brigade spokesperson, AKA Muhammad Abul-Feda, tells Asharq Alawsat, “Our demands were relayed to the Syrian regime via the Vatican following a satphone call by Mother Pelegia Sayyaf to Rome.”

Mother Pelegia Sayyaf is the abbess of St. Thekla (a disciple of St. Paul who faced a heroic and miraculous martyrdom) in Maaloula (which means “entrance” in Aramaic).

Some of Maaloula’s residents still speak a version of Aramaic, a biblical language spoken by Jesus.

Abul-Feda tells Asharq Alawsat the rebel demands were jointly set by Ahrar al-Qalamoun Brigade and Jabhat al-Nusra, adding:

“The Vatican had asked my brigade to move the sisters to a Christian family’s home in the nearby town of Yabroud. The request was turned down pending approval of our terms that have been passed on to the regime.”

Abul-Feda said the nuns are now in a safe hideaway and protected jointly by Ahrar al-Qalamoun Brigade and Jabhat al-Nusra.

The Saudi daily quotes other unnamed sources as saying Jabhat al-Nusra also wants the regime to lift its blockade on food and other supplies in Ghouta near Damascus.

Mohammed el-Zahouri, a Syrian journalist embedded with opposition forces in Maaloula, says he saw the nuns and their valet, Elias, “but their number is not 12 as the Vatican is claiming.”

Zahouri tells Asharq Alawsat, “The Syrian regime is trying to kill the nuns and blame the armed opposition for their killing. A few days ago, they escaped certain death when their St. Thekla convent in Maaloula was hit by a government ground missile and a round of mortar shells.”

But he is adamant the nuns “are now out of Maaloula and out of Yabroud as well.”

Separately, opposition activists again accused Assad forces of using poison gas in Syria’s civil war yesterday, and said victims had been discovered with swollen limbs and foaming at the mouth.

The activists told Reuters two shells loaded with gas hit a rebel-held area in the town of Nabak on a major highway in the Qalamoun region. They reported seven casualties.

Iran-Iraq pushing for Syria's balkanization

Barzani and Maliki (top) and a Balkanized Syria map

The specter of Syria’s balkanization has yet to pass from sight.

Tehran has now given the thumbs up for a “provisional civil administration” in Syria’s Kurdish areas and agreed to help clear out Qaeda-linked extremists there.

Fresh from talks in Tehran, Salih Muslim, head of the Syrian Kurds’ Democratic Union Party (PYD), an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), says Iran gave the go-ahead for a “transitional civil administration” planned by the “Western Kurdistan Council.”

Western Kurdistan refers to the Kurdish areas in northern and northeastern Syria bordering Turkey.

Muslim also tells pan-Arab al-Hayat today agreement was reached with the Iranian side “to fight our common enemy,” chiefly Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Muslim said he met with high-ranking foreign ministry and Revolutionary Guards officials during his August 7-8 stay in Tehran at the invitation of the foreign ministry.

“Iran is an important country. It is the only one in the region to have the ear of the [Syrian] regime,” he said.

Barzani

On August 10, Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, posted a statement on the KRG’s official website saying:

For a while now, the print media and a number of political and media centers have been saying terrorists in Western Kurdistan have mobilized against Kurdish citizens and that Qaeda-linked terrorists are attacking innocent civilians and massacring Kurdish women and children.

To verify such news, I am calling for a special inquiry commission to travel to Western Kurdistan and investigate. If it finds that innocent Kurdish citizens, women and children are under threat of death and terrorism, the Iraqi Kurdistan Region will make use of all its capabilities to defend innocent Kurdish women, children and citizens in Western Kurdistan.

Barzani's statement referred to Kurdish areas in Syria as “Western Kurdistan.”

Spread over large, adjoining tracts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran, the Kurdish people are often described as the largest ethnic group without their own state.

The northern Iraqi region of Kurdistan, which has its own government and armed forces, is pursuing increasingly independent energy and foreign policies, infuriating Baghdad.

Iraqi Kurds have sent fuel, food and medical aid to their ethnic kin over the border in Syria, extending Barzani’s influence, but Saturday’s statement appeared to be the first time that he had suggested intervention.

In Syria, where they make up nearly 10 percent of the population, Kurds have been widely discriminated against under Bashar al-Assad and his late father before him, who stripped more than 100,000 of their citizenship.

For Syrian Kurds, the insurrection against Assad presents an opportunity to win the kind of rights enjoyed by their neighbors in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Maliki

Quoting from Kuwait’s al-Seyassah newspaper, Baghdad’s Shafaq News reported August 9,  “Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki notified KRG President Masoud Barzani that the Assad regime is not against Peshmerga forces entering northern Syria to defend Syrian Kurds against attacks by al-Qaeda.

“A highly-placed Kurdish source in Baghdad said Iranian leaders, together with the Iraqi premier, are putting pressure on Barzani to stop supporting the Syrian revolution and back Assad’s regime… especially that al-Qaeda poses a threat to both Irbil and Baghdad.”

All this highlights the potential for Peshmerga, Syrian Kurd, Iranian and Iraqi forces banding together to help Assad win his presumed war on Takfiris, Jihadists and al-Qaeda -- at least in Western Kurdistan.

Israel

Separately, Lazar Berman wonders in his think piece for The Times of Israel this week: “Is a free Kurdistan, and a new Israeli ally, upon us?”

In his opinion, Syria’s Kurds are bent on carving out an autonomous enclave in northeastern Syria.

The PYD “has been taking advantage of the power vacuum caused by the two-year-old conflict to push out rival opposition fighters and move closer to autonomy…

“According to Kurdistan expert Ofra Bengio of Tel Aviv University, independence is not on the Syrian Kurds’ agenda any time in the near future. ‘The PYD is not talking about independence now and will be reluctant to use such terminology in order not to antagonize any of the governments or the international community. Autonomy is the safer goal now,’ she said.”

Berman says “Israel has long developed alliances with non-Arab countries on the periphery of the Middle East. Today, that policy rests on partnerships with Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, and Caucasian and central Asian countries. Kurdistan fits perfectly into that framework…

“With few friends in the region, the Kurds will likely look to Israel to help them gain security and closer relations with the United States. As Arab governments in the Middle East totter and fall, and Islamists look to exploit the chaos, the alliance is one that both countries may find beneficial to pursue.”

Kissinger

This reminds me of the presentation former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made at the Ford School in New York City last June, when he said a Balkanized Syria is the best outcome to emerge of its current Assad-controlled unity.

“There are three possible outcomes. An Assad victory, a Sunni victory, or an outcome in which the various nationalities agree to co-exist together but in more or less autonomous regions, so that they can’t oppress each other. That’s the outcome I would prefer to see. But that’s not the popular view,” he said.

Are Assad’s allies heeding Kissinger’s counsel and pushing Barzani and Syria’s Kurds to go down that route?

The Syrian Kurdish leader’s whodunit killer

Clockwise from top: The late Isa Huso, his car and flower draped casket

Yesterday’s assassination of Isa Huso, a prominent Syrian Kurdish politician, in Syria’s northeastern town of Qamishli falls into a category police call whodunits-murders.

They are called such because they are notoriously tough to solve, there is more than one potential suspect, with each having a distinct motive.

In Isa Huso’s case, the two prime suspects are:

(1) The Syrian regime, which imprisoned him under President Bashar al-Assad after the 2004-2005 Qamishli uprising by Syrian Kurds and during the rule of Assad's late father Hafez for campaigning for human rights

(2) Al-Qaeda-linked militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and Jabhat al-Nusra, who are trying to rest control of Syria’s oil-rich Kurdish areas near the border with Turkey.

In a way, the two potential suspects are connected.

The al-Qaeda-linked organizations were a creation of the Damascus government, designed to discredit those who oppose Assad and to hide the regime's own brutal tactics.

This reminds me of the notorious “قناص” -- Arabic for “sniper” -- in the years of Lebanon’s civil war.

Between 1975 and 1990, the Syrian army often planted a sniper on a Beirut rooftop to shoot at one side in the conflict, then the other, to keep them fighting.

Isa Huso, 60, was a member of the Higher Kurdish Council, aimed at bringing together Syrian Kurdish groups, and an opponent of Assad.

Syria's main Kurdish militia later issued a call to arms to all Kurds to fight jihadists operating in the north.

It follows weeks of intense fighting between jihadist groups and Kurds, who make up a little over 10% of the population and are largely concentrated in northeastern Syria, towards the Turkish border.

Huso was leaving his home in the border town of Qamishli when a bomb planted inside his car detonated.

He was a member of the foreign relations committee in the Higher Kurdish Council, an umbrella group for regional Kurdish factions.

"Huso sought to promote Kurdish rights within a united Syria free from the grip of the Assad regime," his former neighbor, Massoud Akko, told Reuters news agency.

“No-one knows who killed him but the fingers point to the militant Islamists. They are the only ones who are targeting Kurds as Kurds,” he added.

Responding to Huso's killing, Kurdish fighters known as the Popular Protection Units (YPG) issued a call to arms.

“(The YPG) called on all those fit to carry weapons to join their ranks, to protect areas under their control from attacks by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) fighters, al-Nusra Front and other battalions,” said a London-based Syria watchdog, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The YPG, which claims to have no political affiliations, was set up to counter offensives in majority Kurdish areas.

In recent months it has been battling to drive out rebels from the north, including the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra.

Areas near the Turkish border have seen some of the most intense fighting, with clashes reported between the strongest local Kurdish group, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and al-Nusra in the town of Ras al-Ain.

The PYD has said it aims to set up a local council to run Kurdish regions until Syria's war ends.

PYD leader Salih Muslim reassured Turkey last week that his group’s call for a local administration in Syria’s Kurdish regions does not mean it is looking to divide Syria.


Muslim, who flew to Ankara from Erbil, told the media he was in Turkey to allay Ankara’s concerns over Kurdish separatism, and to explain why Syria’s Kurdish regions needed a local administration.


"Kurds will need to have a status in the new order in Syria,” Muslim told Anatolian news agency. “But what's in question now is a provisional arrangement until we arrive at that phase. ”


Muslim told Turkish officials a local administration would include other ethnic groups such as Christians, Turkmen and non-Kurds who live in the Kurdish-majority areas of northeastern Syria.


Muslim’s visit appears to have eased suspicions between Syrian Kurds and Turkey.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters yesterday he acknowledged Syrian Kurds’ need to establish a “civilian administration” in their areas, just as other opposition groups have. He warned such provisional measures were possible provided the administration does not gain “permanent status.”

“Greater Syria: From Dagestan to Xinjiang”

Al-Qaeda offshoots are set to declare an Islamist state in Syria’s north on Eid al-Fitr (August 8), according to Saudi Arabia’s leading daily Asharq Alawsat quoting a Free Syrian Army (FSA) top dog.

The paper quotes him saying the al-Qaeda-linked groups hope by then to have wrested control from the FSA of the two border crossings into Turkey: Bab al-Hawa and Harem.

Bab al-Hawa links Turkish and Syrian highways between the cities of Iskenderun and Aleppo. The closest town to Bab al-Hawa on the Turkish side of the border is Reyhanli in Hatay province, and the nearest town on the Syrian side is al-Dana.

Harem is right by the Turkish frontier in Syria’s northern Idlib Province.

The FSA official speaking to Asharq Alawsat linked plans to declare an Islamic state in Syria’s north to recent killings by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant of two senior FSA officers – namely, Fadi al-Qish, a local FSA commander in the village of al-Dana and Kamal Hamami (aka Abu Baseer al-Ladkani), member of the FSA Supreme Military Council.

Asharq Alawsat’s FSA source said the FSA was deploying units and checkpoints in areas targeted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to prevent them falling into its fighters’ hands.

Tariq Alhomayed, Asharq Alawsat’s former editor-in-chief, writes in his daily column for the newspaper:

Irrespective of the accuracy of reports about armed clashes between al-Qaeda and the FSA, and the attempt to assassinate the latter’s overall commander Gen. Salim Idriss, this is what is in the cards, whether now or later on.

The confrontation between al-Qaeda and the Syrians is inevitable because al-Qaeda is the fleeting anomaly while Syrian moderation is the established rule.

The danger in the Syrian scene today is that the FSA is now facing Bashar al-Assad’s regime, fighters from Iran, (Lebanese) Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiite militias, and al-Qaeda...

The irony is that the FSA is still being deprived of qualitative arms and left to face this array of forces singlehanded.

Gen. Idriss has accused David Cameron of betrayal after the British Prime Minister abandoned plans to arm the Syrian opposition.

He said the decision would "leave us alone to be killed" by Assad, and pave the way for al-Qaeda to dominate rebel ranks.

Gen. Idriss hit out in an interview with The Daily Telegraph after Downing Street confirmed Cameron had ruled out arming the opposition on advise from the British military. The government had previously hinted that it was strongly considering it, successfully lobbying two months ago for an end to the European Union arms embargo.

But military chiefs at Britain's National Security Council are understood to have warned Downing Street the conflict was now too advanced for basic weapons supplies to make much difference.

They said that could only be achieved by a much-larger scale intervention, involving jet strikes on regime air defenses and bases, which Britain has already ruled out.

Instead, Britain will draw up plans to train moderate rebel units and continue supplying "non-lethal" items like body armor and communications equipment.

Idriss greeted the British change of heart with fury. The FSA has spent much of the last two years trying to persuade the West to give it military backing.

"The West promises and promises. This is a joke now," Idriss said, the anger clear in his voice. "I have not had the opportunity to ask David Cameron personally if he will leave us alone to be killed. On behalf of all the Syrians, thank you very much."

"What are our friends in the West waiting for?" asked Idriss. "For Iran and Hezbollah to kill all the Syrian people?"

He also warned the West’s refusal to arm the more moderate elements of the insurgency would hand Syria's revolution to extremist groups, who already have better access to weapons.

"Soon there will be no FSA to arm," he said. "The Islamic groups will take control of everything, and this is not in the interests of Britain."

The British refusal will be seen as a particular blow to rebel morale given that recent signals suggested the government was planning the very opposite tack.

Only last month, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, insisted Britain "shouldn't rule any option out," claiming that concerns about arms earmarked for secular rebel groups falling into jihadist hands were exaggerated.

“Greater Syria: From Dagestan to Xinjiang” is the title of a related and enlightening think piece by veteran Lebanese political analyst Jihad el-Zein for today’s edition of the Beirut daily an-Nahar.

The gist of Zein’s opinion:

The Syria crisis is into a third “jihadist” phase, having already gone through “civil” then “militarized” chapters.

The “jihadist” phase currently underway elicits greater commitment by Russia and China because it touches on their home front concerns.

Earlier this month, for instance, Chinese state media blamed Syrians for unrest in Xinjiang, which is home to the minority Muslim Uighur population.

China has traditionally blamed violence in Xinjiang on Islamic separatists who want to establish an independent state of “East Turkestan.”

This time Beijing laid the blame squarely on terrorists in Syria, of which the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front is the most notorious, but the charge of a Syria connection still comports with a common government narrative of portraying Xinjiang’s violence as coming from other countries, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, rather than homegrown agitation.

While about 90 per cent of China is ethnic Han, more than 40 per cent of Xinjiang’s 22 million people are Uighurs.

The Global Times, a tabloid owned by the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily, said some members of the East Turkestan faction had moved from Turkey into Syria.

The rise of Salafist militancy in Syrian rebel groups is a tremendous concern for Russia too.

Moscow fears the numbers and efficacy of forces such as al-Nusra Front will one day turn their attention to oppressed Muslim regions in Russia such as Dagestan and Chechnya.

Dagestan, the region where the brothers who bombed this year's Boston Marathon once lived, borders on the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Chechnya and Georgia.

President Vladimir Putin has dismissed the leader of Dagestan, where an Islamist insurgency is raging. The region has taken over from neighboring Chechnya as Russia's most volatile province.

Salafist fighters, including some from al-Qaeda, fought in Chechnya in the 1990s; they may do so again. Syria and Chechnya are only five hundred miles apart.

If you looked at a map of Russia, you would see Dagestan’s seaports on the Caspian Sea can easily ferry arms and everything else to neighboring Iran and from there across the “Shiite Crescent” to Syria via Iraq.

The struggle for Syria is thus strategic, not tactical, for Russia and less so China. Both have a bigger stake now in the “jihadist” chapter of the Syria crisis as it impacts their respective home fronts.

That’s why the “Greater Syria” – i.e. an international and regional struggle with the following coordinates:

-- Longitude from Dagestan to Xinjiang via Peshawar, covering the Jihadist stretch

-- Latitude from South Lebanon’s Naqoura to Tehran, taking in the Shiite spread.

Riyadh let down by the U.S. or its foreign policy?

File picture of King Abdullah and President Obama

Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York back on September 20, 2005, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told his audience:

“…If you allow for this—for a civil war to happen between the Shiites and the Sunnis, Iraq is finished forever. It will be dismembered. It will be not only dismembered, it will cause so many conflicts in the region that it will bring the whole region into a turmoil that will be hard to resolve. The Iranians would enter the conflict, because of the south, the Turks because of the Kurds, and the Arabs—because both these countries are going to enter—will be definitely dragged into the conflict. So work to unite these people and then you can look at the practical aspects of how to hold them together…

“We fought a war together to keep Iran from occupying Iraq after Iraq was driven out of Kuwait. Now we are handing the whole country over to Iran without reason…

“Now, [Iraq’s] south is pretty much pacified. There is no conflict in there, because those who could cause conflicts, whether they’re supporters of Iran or others, are happy with the situation that is happening. The Iranians now go in this pacified area that the American forces have pacified, and they go into every government of Iraq, pay money, install their own people, put their own—even establish police forces for them, arms and militias that are there and reinforce their presence in these areas. And the British and the American forces in the area are protecting them in doing this…”

Dr. Khalid al-Dakheel, a Saudi academic with a PhD from the University of California who teaches political sociology at King Saud University, uses these quotes to introduce his think piece today for the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat.

Wondering whether the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was let down by the United States or its own foreign policy, he writes:

Has anything changed in the eight years since Prince Saud al-Faisal’s 2005 remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations?

America is still likely to disappoint the Saudi foreign minister further.

Eight years on, the U.S. under a Democratic administration seems to be giving an indifferent shrug to the killings and ruinations in Syria.

President Barack Obama is busy with Jabhat al-Nusra -- not the daily death toll, or Iran’s intervention, or Russia’s sponsorship of the regime in Syria.

Significantly, the president is not too concerned about the fallouts on America’s friends in the region.

The fact Israel is contented with his handling of the Syria war on her doorstep is telling -- the two share a concerted Syria policy.

The implications are many.

One of them is that Saudi weight on American policy in the region seems lacking and incommensurate with the breadth of political, security and economic interests shared by the two allies.

For instance, Washington under the Bush Administration chose to jump into bed with Iran on Iraq.

The fact this did not change under Obama shows Washington does not allow its relations with allies to impede its freedom of action and choice, even when the ties do not coincide.

Prince Saud al-Faisal’s 2005 remarks prove Washington ignored Riyadh’s interests when it formulated its Iraq policy during the occupation.

It is doing the same thing now under the Obama Administration as concerns Syria.

Unlike Riyadh, Obama continues to dither on supporting the Syrian revolution. The two agree on excluding Assad from the new Syria but differ on the way -- and the time it would take -- to do it.

They equally don’t see eye to eye on post-Assad Syria or Iran’s role in all of this.

Is Saudi Arabia undermining its status and political interests to sustain this relationship more than it is getting in return?

Why is Washington paying no heed to Saudi, Gulf and Arab interests in determining the U.S. stand on the Syria war?

Iran is the only side holding on to Assad because his fall would wreck her regional ambitions.

Israel, which cohabitated with the Assads for 40 years, is happy with the devil it knows. It is also happy to see the Syrians continue exterminating one another.

But how can the man who entered the White House as the champion of justice, freedom and equality turn his back on the oppressed Syrian people?

Obama has three problems:

1. The hemming and hawing nature of his foreign policy and his inability to shake off the legacy of Bush’s wars or tell apart Iraq’s case from Syria’s.

2. His rock-solid dedication to Israel’s interests.

3. His twin committals to a political solution of the Syria crisis in partnership with Russia and to a political deal with Iran.

So what is the nature of his planned understanding with Iran? What are its borderlines? What does it aim to achieve? How will it affect the political situation in post-Assad Syria?

America’s Iraq policy since 2003 shows Washington is familiar with the sectarian schism in the region and wishes – since 9/11 – to take the edge off Sunni clout in the region. That’s why it handed power in Iraq back then to Iran’s Shiite allies in Baghdad.

Is the Obama administration’s stand vis-à-vis Syria a follow-on objective in another place, in different ways and under dissimilar pretexts?

Saudi Arabia’s interests as regards Syria are twofold: the regime’s fall and Iran’s exit.

America’s stance puts the kingdom on the spot after the abject frustration of its Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Arab-Israel foreign policies.

The kingdom’s Iraq policy ended with Iraq’s catastrophic invasion of Kuwait, followed by America’s invasion of Iraq and the divisions of the Iraq spoils between Washington and Tehran.

Riyadh’s Syria-Lebanon policy saw Syria fall in Iran’s lap, Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri assassinated and Hezbollah crowned as Lebanon’s kingmaker and Iran’s regional cat’s paw.

Why all this failure?

Because the kingdom’s foreign policy was primarily based on cajoling and mollycoddling others in order to win them over for lack of assertiveness and military muscle commensurate with the kingdom’s regional role and national interests.

Obama must act decisively on Syria – McCain

On the heels of his trip to Syria and stops in Jordan, Turkey and Yemen, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) yesterday delivered this address at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. on “U.S. policy in Syria and the broader Middle East”:

Senator John McCain at Brookings yesterday

Thank you, Martin (Indyk), for that kind introduction.  

It is always a pleasure to return to the Brookings Institution, this bastion of conservative thought. It is nice to see so many friends, as well as a few enemies, in the audience this afternoon. I would like to make a few opening remarks, and then I’d be happy to respond to any comments, or questions, or insults you may have.

As most of you know, I traveled last week to Yemen, Jordan, Turkey, and Syria. This was my twelfth separate trip to the region since the events known as the Arab Spring began in December 2011. And what I can say categorically today is that I am now more concerned than at any time since the darkest days of the war in Iraq that the Middle East is descending into sectarian conflict.  

The conflict in Syria is at the heart of this crisis. Last week, together with General Salim Idriss, the chief of staff of the Supreme Military Council, I met with more than a dozen senior Free Syrian Army commanders in southern Turkey and northern Syria. They came from cities across Syria, including Qusayr, Homs, Damascus, and Aleppo. Many of them were joined by their civilian counterparts. And all of them painted the same grave picture of the state of the conflict in Syria.

Assad has turned the tide of battle on the ground. His foreign allies have all doubled down on him. Iran is all in. Russia is all in. Shiite militants are flowing into the fight from Iraq. And Hezbollah fighters have invaded Syria by the thousands. They were decisive in retaking the critical city of Qusayr, and now they are leading the attacks on Homs and Aleppo. Assad is using every weapon in his arsenal, from tanks and artillery, to air power and ballistic missiles. And according to a recent U.N. report, there are, quote, “reasonable grounds” to believe that Assad’s forces have used chemical weapons. The President’s red-line appears to have been crossed, perhaps more than once, and it should come as no surprise that new claims of chemical weapons use by Assad are already surfacing, as I heard in Syria.

The result of this onslaught is that Syria as we know it is ceasing to exist. More than 80,000 people are dead. A quarter of all Syrians have been driven from their homes. The Syrian state is disintegrating in much of the country, leaving vast ungoverned spaces that are being filled by extremists, many aligned with al-Qaeda. Some now put the number of these extremists inside Syria in the thousands. They are the best armed, best funded, and most experienced fighters. And every day this conflict grinds on, these extremists are marginalizing moderate leaders like the commanders I met last week – Syrians who don’t want to trade Assad for al-Nusra.

The worsening conflict in Syria is now spilling outside of the country and stoking sectarian conflict across the region. Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey are each straining under the weight of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees. Indeed, ten percent of Jordan’s population is now Syrian refugees. This would be equivalent to the entire population of Texas suddenly crossing our own border. And that number is expected to double this year. Terrorist bombings have struck Turkey, and Syrian groups are firing rockets into Shiite areas of Lebanon in retaliation for Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria. Old sectarian wounds are being reopened in Lebanon.

The situation is even worse in Iraq. The conflict in Syria, together with Prime Minister Maliki’s unwillingness to share power, is radicalizing Iraq’s Sunni population. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is back and stepping up its attacks on Iraqi Shiites. In response, Shiite militias are remobilizing and retaliating against Iraqi Sunnis. More than 1,000 Iraqis were killed last month alone, the highest level of violence since 2007. Some experts now believe that one watershed event, similar to the bombing of the Golden Mosque in 2006, could tip Iraq back into full-scale sectarian conflict.

Extremist forces are also gathering momentum elsewhere in the region. The fall of governments across the region has opened up ungoverned spaces that now stretch from the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, across North Africa, all the way down into Mali and even northern Nigeria. Al-Qaeda affiliated extremist groups are now on the march throughout these vast ungoverned spaces. Iran is also seeking to exploit the present chaos. Indeed, every Yemeni and U.S. official I met last week in Sana’a said that Iran is a greater threat in Yemen today than Al-Qaeda.

Put simply, the space for moderate politics is collapsing as the Middle East descends deeper into extremism and conflict. A sectarian battle-line is being drawn through the heart of the region – with Sunni extremists, many allied with al-Qaeda, dominant on one side, and Iranian-backed proxy forces dominant on the other.  

What is more disturbing, however, is how little most Americans seem to care. Most are weary of war and eager to focus on domestic issues. But some hold a more cynical view: They see the Middle East as a hopeless quagmire of ancient hatreds and a huge distraction from worthier priorities, whether it is rebalancing toward Asia or nation-building at home. For those of us who believe otherwise, and who believe the United States must lead more actively in the region, we have to answer a fundamental question: Why should we care about the Middle East?

One reason is that we have enduring national interests in the Middle East that will not be diminished – not by our fatigue with the region and its challenges, not by our desire to focus on domestic issues, not by the growing importance of other parts of the world, and not even by the prospect of American energy independence. The Middle East has always been more important than oil. It still is.  

The United States has friends and allies in the Middle East who depend on us for their security, and who contribute more to the defense and well-being of our nation than most Americans will ever know. But believe me, Americans will know it very quickly if global trade and energy flows, not to mention U.S. warships, can no longer transit the Suez Canal, through which approximately 8 percent of the world’s seaborne trade passes. They will know it if we lose key Arab partners, such as the Kingdom of Jordan, along with their vital military, intelligence, and counterterrorism cooperation. And they will absolutely know it if Israel becomes beset on all sides by even more hostile governments and more violent extremists.

In short, if the Middle East descends into extremism, and war, and despair, no one should think America would be able to pivot away from those threats. Our national security interests will suffer. That is an inescapable reality. It is the lesson of September 11, 2001. And to believe otherwise is not only naïve; it is dangerous.  

The Middle East also matters because much of the rest of the world views it, rightly, as a test of American credibility and resolve. For decades, Presidents of both parties have said the United States will deter our enemies and support our friends in the Middle East. They have said we would not allow Iran to get a nuclear weapons capability. And they have said, as this President has said about Syria, that we would not tolerate the use or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. If the United States now signals that it is unwilling or unable to meet its own stated commitments and enforce its own declared red-lines, that message will be heard loud and clear, far beyond the Middle East. It will demoralize our friends, embolden our enemies, and make our world a far more dangerous place for us.

But ultimately, there is a more positive reason why we have to care about the Middle East. This region is now experiencing a period of upheaval unlike any time since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Over the past three years, we have seen millions and millions of ordinary men and women rise up peacefully, and lift their voices, and risk everything on behalf of the same values we hold dear: freedom and democracy, equal justice and rule of law, human rights and dignity. They are doing so against impossible odds and, at times, in the face of merciless oppression and violence. These brave men and women are taking a chance on themselves, many for the first time. And they are asking us to take a chance on them – not after they have succeeded in their struggles, but now, when they need it most, when their fate hangs in the balance, and when American leadership can still be decisive.

I know some of our initial hopes for the Arab Spring have dimmed quite a bit – in part because of a lack of U.S. leadership.  But these hopes have not gone out. And so long as men and women across the Middle East still harbor hopes for a future of peace, and freedom, and prosperity, the Arab Spring will remain the greatest repudiation of everything that al-Qaeda stands for. Ultimately, this is how our long fight against global terrorist groups will be won. This is how conditions of lasting peace will finally be secured across the Middle East. Not through drone strikes and night raids alone, but by helping people across the region lift up democratic governments and growing economies that offer hope.

The entire Middle East is now up for grabs, and our enemies are fully committed to winning. Moderate forces and aspiring democrats are fighting for their futures and their very lives. The only power that is not fully committed in this struggle is us. And as a result, leaders and people across the region who share our interests and many of our values are losing ground to violent extremists.  

Our friends and allies in the Middle East are crying out for American leadership, as I heard again last week. We must answer this call. We must lead. We need an alternative strategy that creates space for moderate leaders to marginalize extremists and for people to resolve their differences peacefully, politically.  

An alternative strategy must begin with a credible Syria policy. I want a negotiated end to this conflict. But anyone who thinks that Assad and his allies will ever make peace when they are winning on the battlefield is delusional. I know that the situation in Syria is hugely complicated, and that there are no easy or ideal options. But we have to be realistic: This conflict will grind on with all of its worsening consequences until the balance of power shifts against Assad and his allies. And the longer we wait to take action, the more action we will have to take.

No one should think that we have to destroy every air defense system or put thousands of boots on the ground to make a difference in Syria. We have limited options. We could use our stand-off weapons, such as cruise missiles, to target Assad’s aircraft and ballistic missile launchers on the ground. We could enable a provisional government to establish itself in a safe zone in Syria that we could help to protect with Patriot missiles. And we could organize a full-scale operation to train and equip Syrian opposition forces. After all, Assad is getting weapons. Al-Nusra is getting weapons. The only forces in Syria that are not getting weapons are moderate commanders like those I met last week, who said their units desperately need ammunition and weapons to counter Assad’s tanks, artillery, and air power.

Would any of this immediately end the conflict? Probably not. But could it save innocent lives in Syria? Could it give the moderate opposition a better chance to succeed? And could it help to turn the conflict in Syria into a strategic disaster for Iran and Hezbollah? To me, the answer to all of these questions is yes.  

More decisive action in Syria could create new leverage to defuse sectarian tensions and counter Iran’s ambition of regional hegemony. In the Gulf, this would mean making the military threat more credible and apparent as Iran continues its pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability. And in Lebanon, this would mean making the strategic defeat of Hezbollah in Syria the centerpiece of a wider campaign to target its finances, cut its supply lines, delegitimize its leaders, and support internal opposition to its role as an armed force in Lebanese politics.  

An alternative Middle East strategy must also include a greatly enhanced effort to build the capacity of security forces across the region, especially in North African. Egypt needs a new police force. Tunisia needs help with border security. Libya is trying to build new national security forces from scratch. Mali basically needs a whole new army. One bright spot is actually Yemen, which is engaged in a promising restructuring of its armed forces and internal security units. These governments, and others like them, don’t want al-Qaeda affiliates exploiting their countries any more than we do. They have a lot of will to resist these groups. They just need help with the means. The U.S. military can play this role better than any force in the world. And it is in our interest to do so far more than we are currently.

More broadly, we must renew our leadership on behalf of human rights and democracy in the Middle East. This will take different forms in different countries. In Yemen, for example, where a managed transition is proving more successful thus far than many could have expected, we must continue to provide assistance as requested. In Jordan, Morocco, and the Gulf states, we must shore up the stability of these vital partners while also urging them to continue responding to their peoples’ desires for change, including through greater political reform.  

And then there is Egypt, where the high hopes that many of us, and many Egyptians, had back in January 2011 are being deeply disappointed. I am a friend of Egypt and a long-standing supporter of our assistance relationship. But after this week’s conviction of 43 NGO workers, Congress must reevaluate our assistance to Egypt. Our foreign aid budget is shrinking while the demands on it are growing. As a result, Egypt must show that it is a good investment of our scarce resources – that the return on this investment will be a freer, more democratic, more tolerant Egypt. If not, Congress will spend this money elsewhere. That is just a fact.

At the same time, we must make it clear that the United States does not align itself with any one ruler or group in Egypt. Rather, we stand for the principles and practices of democracy, for the freedoms of civil society, and for the basic rights of all Egyptians. We must not simply exchange a Mubarak policy for a Morsi policy. We need to have, at long last, an Egypt policy.  

Finally, any strategy to bolster moderates in the Middle East must include an effort to seek peace between Palestinians and Israelis. As always, such an effort must be weighed against its opportunity costs. With so many urgent priorities now demanding high-level attention in the region, especially Syria, I hope the President and his new national security team are carefully considering these trade-offs.

Each of the steps I have described today is necessary if we are to have a more effective strategy to advance our interests and values in the Middle East. But none of these steps will be sufficient without one additional factor: the sustained, outspoken, and determined leadership of the President of the United States.

Only the President can explain to the American people how high the stakes are in the Middle East. Only the President can change public opinion and rally the American people behind him. Only the President can push our government to be bolder, and more imaginative, and more decisive than it is inclined to be. Only the President can pull our friends and allies together and shape their individual efforts into decisive, unified international action. Only the President can do these things. And that is what we need from him now more than ever. We need him to lead.

That is also what our friends and allies in the Middle East want from our President. They want him to lead, and they want America to lead. That is what I heard last week in Jordan. That is what I heard in Yemen. That is what I heard in Turkey. And that is absolutely what I heard in Syria. That is what people and leaders tell me again and again as I travel throughout the region. They tell me they want America to lead because they are confident that America can still be decisive in shaping the future of the Middle East. In short, our friends and allies still believe in America. What they want to know is whether we still believe in ourselves.

Renewing American leadership in the Middle East should be a Republican goal. It should be a Democratic goal. And if the President makes it his goal, he will have my full support.