by Jim Lobe
Paul Pillar has a blog up at the National Interest on the possibility that Saudi Arabia and Iran are moving toward some form of rapprochement. The latest development, as Paul points out, is the long-awaited invitation this week by Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal to his Iranian counter part Mohammad [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe
Paul Pillar has a blog up at the National Interest on the possibility that Saudi Arabia and Iran are moving toward some form of rapprochement. The latest development, as Paul points out, is the long-awaited invitation this week by Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal to his Iranian counter part Mohammad Javad Zarif.
The Saudi-Iranian relationship is, of course, critical to any prospect of stabilizing the region, particularly the Levant, as Riyadh and Tehran have been the principal external supporters of the main protagonists in Syria’s catastrophic civil war. As noted by Paul, the Saudis’ decision to return their ambassador to Beirut offers another signal that they are interested in preventing the conflict next door from further destabilizing Lebanon, and perhaps a broader willingness to reduce Sunni-Shia tensions across the region.
Tom Lippman has been following the evolution of Saudi policy on this blog since last Fall when former and then-serving senior officials, including former Saudi ambassadors to Washington, Princes Bandar and Turki, were denouncing Obama’s failure to take strong military action against Syria after chemical weapons killed hundreds of people in a Damascus suburb last August. Beginning with Riyadh’s refusal to take its seat on the UN Security Council, you can find Tom’s analyses over the succeeding months here, here, and here.
At the end of March, however, Obama tacked on to his tour of Europe a stop in Riyadh for a meeting with King Abdullah, and while the press coverage of the visit maintained that things had gone poorly — Obama was greeted by lower-level officials and didn’t even get dinner — subsequent events suggest that there may indeed have been a certain meeting of the minds.
Thus, within a couple of weeks, Prince Bandar, reportedly much disliked by the Obama administration, was relieved of his post as the country’s intelligence chief — in which position he had been directing Saudi efforts to support the Syrian insurgency — while Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, a favorite of Washington’s who had already replaced Bandar on Syria, appeared to have further boosted his position among the top policy-makers. Around the same time, the Obama administration announced that it was going through with the transfer of ten Apache helicopters to Egypt despite the military-backed regime’s deplorable human rights performance. Washington’s previous suspension of certain kinds of military assistance and cooperation with Cairo after the military coup that ousted the elected president, Mohammed Morsi, had infuriated Riyadh, which became and remains the regime’s most important financial backer and cheerleader.
Other U.S. gestures that may be meant to appease Saudi Arabia and put it in a more cooperative frame of mind include permitting the first-time delivery of advanced anti-tank, anti-armor TOW missiles (probably from Saudi Arabia’s own stocks, I am told) to allegedly carefully CIA-vetted “moderate” Syrian rebels, the upgrading of the Syrian Opposition Coalition’s (SOC) offices here to quasi-diplomatic status, and the reception of its president, Ahmad Jarba, here in Washington. Although he didn’t get the surface-to-air “MANPADs” he was seeking, Jarba did get a personal meeting with Obama, another sign of the kind of increased U.S. support — even if mainly symbolic — that Riyadh has been urging for months and months.
Moreover, we haven’t heard very many public complaints about U.S. policy in the region from Saudi princes since Obama’s visit. Meanwhile, Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel is in Jeddah for the first meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) “joint defense council” where he is no doubt assuring his hosts that Washington is not about to sell them out and will continue plying them with lots of very expensive and sophisticated weapons systems, as well as guarding their borders and sea lanes with U.S. firepower for the indefinite future.
As noted by Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the GCC meeting was made somewhat more confusing by a major shake-up in Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry that, among other things, saw the departure of Prince Bandar’s half-brother, Deputy Defense Minister Prince Salman bin Sultan, who, according to Henderson, was Bandar’s “perceived alter ego”, particularly with respect to Riyadh’s Syrian operations. Henderson speculates that all of this may have to do with the continuing maneuvering around the succession of King Abdullah, but its coincidence with the invitation to Zarif “suggest that Saudi Arabia may be reconsidering its regional strategy.” He places the emphasis on the “may” in that sentence, arguing “…it is almost certainly too early to say that the kingdom is softening its tough approach to Iran, especially after its unprecedented April 29 parade display of Chinese-supplied missiles capable of hitting Tehran — a gesture that followed the largest military exercise in Saudi history, involving 130,000 men.” On the other hand, I would add, one always wants to go into negotiations after a show of strength.
Although Paul doesn’t mention these latest events, they form a larger context in which to understand his argument. And, if, as Paul suggests, we are seeing an Iranian-Saudi rapprochement on the horizon, it’s pertinent to recall Obama’s own words about his ambitions for the region when he spoke with the New Yorker’s David Remnick earlier this year:
“It would be profoundly in the interest of citizens throughout the region if Sunnis and Shias weren’t intent on killing each other,” he told me. “And although it would not solve the entire problem, if we were able to get Iran to operate in a responsible fashion—not funding terrorist organizations, not trying to stir up sectarian discontent in other countries, and not developing a nuclear weapon—you could see an equilibrium developing between Sunni, or predominantly Sunni, Gulf states and Iran in which there’s competition, perhaps suspicion, but not an active or proxy warfare.
In any event, here’s Paul’s post.
Photo: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani shakes hands with Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Tehran, Abdul Rahman Bin Garman Al Shahri on March 3, 2014. Credit: ISNA/Hamid Forootan
]]>by Aurélie Daher
As the Syrian uprising against the Baathist regime enters its fourth year, it is clear, given the changing balance of power on the ground, that predictions about the imminent collapse of the Assad dynasty, which constituted conventional wisdom from 2011-12, are far from the mark. Once derided [...]]]>
by Aurélie Daher
As the Syrian uprising against the Baathist regime enters its fourth year, it is clear, given the changing balance of power on the ground, that predictions about the imminent collapse of the Assad dynasty, which constituted conventional wisdom from 2011-12, are far from the mark. Once derided by its neighbours for the obsolescence of its equipment and what was perceived as the cluelessness of its soldiers, the Syrian army has retaken from opposition fighters several strategic positions, including the latest, Yabroud, which, according to all major actors, is of pre-eminent importance. The same observers also agreed that recent victories by the regime are in reality less those of the Syrian security forces than of Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon, both in terms of the manpower they provided and the strategic advice they offered their Syrian counterparts.
Hezbollah’s open intervention in its neighbour’s civil war has from the outset posed many questions and provoked not a little anxiety. What exactly are Hezbollah’s aims in Syria? In light of the reprisals that have been conducted by its Syrian foes and their sympathizers in areas sympathetic to the group or under its control, doesn’t it have more to lose than to gain? Finally, and in particular, does Hezbollah risk losing its popular base and its pre-eminence on the national level in Lebanon?
Flashback to an intervention outside national borders
If Hezbollah’s leaders have supported — and from the beginning — the Lebanese government’s policy of non-intervention in the Syrian crisis, that has not prevented them from taking a clear position in favor of Assad’s regime, even while calling for a negotiated settlement between the belligerents. It must not be forgotten that cooperation between the Baathist regime in Damascus and Hezbollah began in the early 1990s and their strategic alliance has consisted essentially of Syria’s facilitating the transfer of arms from Iran to Hezbollah. In its various defeats of the Israeli army, the group became to a certain extent indebted to the Assad dynasty, which explains why, despite Damascus’s decades-long abandonment of any armed challenge to Tel Aviv, Hezbollah still considers the Syrian leadership to be a “regime of resistance against Israel.”
This arrangement would probably not survive in the event that the Free Syrian Army (FSA) or the Sunni jihadi groups actually took power. The Syrian opposition factions didn’t wait for Hezbollah fighters to actually cross the border before declaring their hostility for — and issuing threats against — the party. In December 2011, for example, Burhan Ghalioun, who then headed the Syrian National Council (SNC), declared that if indeed the Assad regime was defeated, “the new authorities would drastically review their relations with Iran and Hezbollah” (Al-Arabiya, 12/2/11). The following month, FSA spokesman, Col. Ammar al-Wawi, warned that Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, will be “held accountable for his actions before revolutionary courts after the victory of the Syrian revolution” (L’Orient-Le Jour, 2/1/12). Then, in the fall of 2012, the head of al-Qaeda in Syria (as it was then known), Majid al-Majid, issued a specific threat against Hezbollah, announcing his plans to conduct attacks against tourist sites in Lebanon if the government in Beirut continued to support the party (Al-Joumhouriya, 9/3/12). Similarly, the FSA’s leadership promised to bring the war into the heart of southern Beirut (a Hezbollah stronghold) if the party “didn’t end its support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad” (L’Orient-Le Jour, 10/9/12). The rhetoric became if anything more virulent and increasingly characterized by a sectarian, anti-Shiite hostility as the Sunni jihadi groups, which made clear that the conflict went far beyond any ideological or economic differences, gained ascendance among the opposition forces.
It bears repeating that all of this preceded Hezbollah’s intervention, which in fact took place in two stages. The first real appearance of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon (IRL), Hezbollah’s paramiltary, mother organization, dates in all likelihood to the latter half of 2012 (the IRL is normally presented as the military wing of Hezbollah. In reality, it preceded Hezbollah and originally helped create it. The relationship is thus the opposite: Hezbollah is the civil extension of the IRL). It didn’t involve sending combatants to fight alongside regime forces. Rather, the first units were members of local self-defense forces that formed spontaneously in the increasingly conflicted zone along the border. Having never been precisely demarcated, the border between northeast Lebanon and Syria constitutes a large area that is home to some 30 villages actually inhabited by Lebanese — mainly Shiite — citizens, all of whom, however, are subject to Syrian sovereignty. Given their sectarian character, these villages were targeted early on by Sunni jihadi groups linked to the opposition. Small groups of local youth — all Lebanese — thus took up arms to defend their families and homes against those attacks. Some among them were members of Hezbollah and the IRL whose initial purpose was thus simple self-defense.
The second stage of Hezbollah’s intervention on Syrian territory came with the battle of Quseir in the spring of 2013, when IRL combatants fought side by side with regular Syrian army forces. This more extended intervention resulted from the confluence of the interests of both the regime and Hezbollah, a confluence that is readily apparent from a glance at Syrian geography. The IRL hasn’t fought in the central, southern or eastern part of the country and does not (yet) appear to be committed to helping Assad re-conquer his country. Rather, its zone of intervention has been confined to the swath of territory around the Aleppo-Homs-Damascus axis, stretching roughly from the northwest coast of Syria (immediately north of Lebanon) along the border down to the Lebanese Shiite region of Baalbeck al-Hermel. The northwest coast is largely Alawite (Shiite) and Christian; that is, the two sectarian constituencies most closely allied with the regime. The regime, with IRL’s help, has been focused on clearing the major transportation routes that link the capital, Damascus, to the northwest, and making it more difficult for Syrian rebels to gain access to Sunni sympathisers in the Bekaa who have provided them with safe haven and, above all, a base for resupply.
But IRL’s intervention in Syria is motivated primarily by the defense of its own interests, reflecting less an attempt to save the Syrian regime than a proactive effort to anticipate the potential impact of Assad’s fall on its ability to act in Syria. Hezbollah and IRL don’t need to be welcome throughout Syria; if Syria breaks up into various zones of influitence as has already more or less taken place, a stable and protected sanctuary is sufficient for their purposes; that is, to ensure that key supply routes remain intact. It is thus not by chance that IRL fighters have focused their intervention in this area.
Bad for Assad, good for March 14?
Lebanon’s political scene has been split since 2005 between the March 14 Alliance — an essentially Sunni and Christian coalition of parties and individuals opposed to the Syrian regime and consisting mainly of the Sunni “Future Current” (FC) of Saad Hariri and the Lebanese Forces of Samir Geagea — and the March 8 Coalition, which has favoured maintaining close ties with Damascus and is led by Hezbollah with the support of the “Free Patriotic Current” of Michel Aoun.
It has been assumed by the March 14 movement — and some of its western supporters — that Assad’s ouster and the advent of real democracy in Syria would result almost automatically in Lebanon in a decisive victory for its forces over March 8, and thus the marginalization of Hezbollah. In this view, the changing balance of power between the Syrian regime in Damascus and its opposition would logically and necessarily replicate itself in Lebanon between the two coalitions there. In reality, however, the belief in such a direct relationship between the politics of the two countries ignores the nature of the leverage exerted by Hezbollah on the political stage in Lebanon, just as it wrongfully assumes that any successor to the Assad dynasty will necessarily act in favor of anti-Syrian Lebanese forces. Contrary to the popular adage, the ramifications in Lebanon of what happens in Syria demonstrates that the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.
Indeed, the major role played by the radical Islamic groups in the Syrian opposition hardly strengthens the March 14 movement; on the contrary, it simultaneously weakens both of the major sectarian factions within it: Christian and Sunni.
Lebanese Christians of all political persuasions are not happy with the growing role played by the Sunni jihadists at the heart of the anti-Assad networks. Shocked by what their Iraqi co-religionists have suffered in recent years and what has begun to happen to their counterparts in Syria — the treatment of the nuns in Maaloula offers one recent example — Lebanese Christians see their worst nightmare as the arrival in Lebanon of a similar regime of repression, abuse and ultimately forced exile.
Within the Lebanese Christian community, two main political factions have vied for popular support. While Geagea, the leader of the Christian faction within the March 14 movement, depends on the moderate and Western-allied Sunni (FC), Aoun, who heads the opposing camp, is wary of Hariri’s close links with Saudi Arabia and pushes for an alliance with a Hezbollah whose behaviour regarding Islamo-Christian relations has for years been seen as exemplary. Thus, its media, which diligently covers all abuses committed against Christians by Sunni jihadi groups throughout the region, takes every opportunity to highlight Hezbollah’s strong ties with Christians.
They recall, for example, the joint project announced by the Maronite Patriarch and Hezbollah to promote the concept of a “civil State of believers,” in January 2011; Hezbollah’s reception of Pope Benedict’s September 2012 visit to Lebanon (on his arrival at the Beirut airport, it sent a welcome escort consisting of hundreds of the party’s Scouts sporting berets adorned with the Vatican’s coat of arms); the construction work of Jihad al-Binaa, a Hezbollah organ which, after the 2006 war with Israel, repaired at its own expense churches damaged by Israeli bombs and artillery shells during the month-long conflict; Hezbollah’s support for the so-called “orthodox” electoral law that had long been a pet project of Christian conservatives, the majority of whom belong to the March 14 movement; and the November 2012 invitation to Hezbollah’s leadership by the Maronite Patriarch, Monsignor Bechara al-Rahi, to send its own delegation to accompany him for his formal installation as cardinal at the Vatican.
Thus, Christians who are already favourable to Hezbollah have no reason to change their position. All the more so in light of the embarrassing position in which their March 14 co-religionists find themselves in given the rise of jihadi groups in the Syrian opposition. Indeed, Geagea, who had argued for months after the outbreak of the insurrection in Syria that an Islamist regime in Syria would not prove harmful to Christians, abruptly abandoned that claim by the end of 2012. At the same time, the Gemayel family, the second political grouping within March 14’s Christian constituency, never endorsed Geagea’s initially enthusiastic embrace of the rebellion and has preferred instead to support the government’s position of not taking sides.
The destabilization of the anti-Assad line resulting from the disarray among the March 14 Christians is enhanced by the weakening of the Sunnis’ position in Lebanon. Syria’s turmoil has effectively accelerated the shattering of Sunni unity, which was already under stress in recent years due to a series of setbacks suffered by the FC and its leader, Saad Hariri, as well as by the emergence of pockets of radical Islamists, particularly in the northern part of the country around Tripoli.
Faced with the militarization of the conflict next door, the temptation to provide reinforcements and logistical support to the insurgents there became too strong for the FC to resist. Despite some initial official denials, Hariri himself opted for silence in November 2012 when pressed about the mounting evidence implicating his associates regarding the supply of arms and funding for the rebels. This direct involvement in the Syrian conflict, which occurred before Hezbollah’s intervention, as well as the clear support for the rebels provided by the FC’s external sponsor, Saudi Arabia — not to mention the overt support voiced by several FC members of parliament in 2012 and 2013 for the radical Sunni cleric Ahmad al-Assir — fatally undermined the efforts by Hariri’s faction to present itself as an effective firewall against extremist groups.
All the more since, when the radical Sunni groups challenged the state’s authority and even, at times, confronted it with violence, FC MPs from Tripoli defended their actions without any public rebuke from the leadership. Thus, Hariri’s pledges of moderation have consistently proved difficult to uphold, as he showed himself either unwilling or unable to rein in these groups.
Indeed, this fragmentation among the Sunnis poses a serious threat to Hezbollah because of the risk that their actions could spark a sectarian civil war in Lebanon. On the other hand, while Sunnis across the political spectrum have long been hostile toward Hezbollah — including well before its intervention in Syria — it appears that the majority of the community still values the civil peace — however tenuous — that has reigned in Lebanon for the past two decades sufficiently to avoid letting themselves be dragged into war against the party.
The community that would logically appear most susceptible to change its political allegiance in light of the Syrian crisis remains the Shia themselves. Indeed, IRL’s intervention on the side of the loyalist forces across the border has reverberated strongly in Lebanon, especially with respect to security. Reprisals by the Syrian opposition have already taken the form of several car or suicide bombings in two Shiite strongholds — Beirut’s southern suburbs and the northeastern Bekaa. While it is undeniable that these incidents have spread unease and fear among the Shiites, any thought that they could trigger a massive desertion by the community would seem deluded.
Why Lebanese Shia don’t support Assad’s fall
The Shiites of Lebanon have three reasons for not supporting the fall of Assad’s regime. The first relates to the bipolarity of the political scene. The two camps and their followers hold highly defined views regarding their political, factional, regional, and international allegiances. On the one hand, March 8 is allied to Syria and Iran and looks positively at Russia. On the other, March 14 followers have no problem dealing with Israel, are friendly to Saudi Arabia, and, at the international level, consider France and the US their natural protectors. Thus, without necessarily retaining any admiration for the Damascus regime — let alone any endorsement of its policies and behavior — the strong majority of the Shia “naturally” prefer it as the lesser evil compared to one which would upset the regional equilibrium.
It is for the same reason that the Shiite community disapproved of March 14’s adherence in 2005 to an American neoconservative policy aimed at upending the existing regional balance of power. Asked to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea, Lebanon’s Shiites feel more at home and comfortable — and secure — under the Syrian-Iranian umbrella than being subject to US-European (and Saudi) adventures in the Middle East — particularly in the wake of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Over the past 20 years, the community has also developed a very special, very strong and very sophisticated relationship with Hezbollah. The party’s successive victories over the Israeli occupation and its social and political achievements on the domestic front have built a solid confidence in its strategic acuity. Those accomplishments have also sparked a revival of communal identity, based on a new “Shiite pride,” the promotion of a collective self-image. In so doing, the party has permitted the community to rid itself of inferiority complexes that it has suffered for decades, if not centuries, thus inspiring a strong, durable feeling of gratitude towards Hezbollah and, accordingly, cementing an enduring political bond between the party and the community.
The last reason why the majority of Shiites are unlikely to desert Hezbollah is their strong hostility towards the Sunni jihadist groups in the Syrian opposition. Christians are not the only religious group anxious about their growing importance. Shiites feel much the same fear because they know that the hatred directed by these groups at them is based more on religious than on political differences; that is, they are hated for what they are, rather than for what they think. In a country whose state lacks the resources to assure its citizens’ security, Hezbollah appears — as paradoxical as it may seem — as the only group capable of defending the nation — and its community.
In other words, the Syrian crisis has not changed the basic political configuration of Lebanon. Hezbollah’s critics still criticise it; those who support it also continue to do so. Those feelings have perhaps become more polarized as a result of Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria, but no consequential political defection is in view — from one side or the other.
Photo: The Syrian flag is seen as people watch Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah speaking to supporters via live broadcast during a May 25 2013 event in Bekaa Valley, Resistance and Liberation Day, which marks the anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon. Credit: Sharif Karim
]]>by Thomas Lippman
For the United States, Saudi Arabia, other supporters of the rebels in Syria, and for the rebels themselves, this has been a month of fast-paced, intense diplomatic and political activity. It is tempting after so much time and so many deaths to dismiss all the events [...]]]>
by Thomas Lippman
For the United States, Saudi Arabia, other supporters of the rebels in Syria, and for the rebels themselves, this has been a month of fast-paced, intense diplomatic and political activity. It is tempting after so much time and so many deaths to dismiss all the events since mid-January as the inconclusive comings and goings of people who simply don’t know what to do about the intractable conflict, but it’s also possible to add it all up and see the possibility of an emerging new energy, cohesion, and perhaps more effective action.
At the very least, the events and consultations since mid-January seem to have put the United States and Saudi Arabia back on the same page.
A useful point to begin this review is the visit to Washington in mid-January of Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia’s minister of interior and the most powerful man in the country other than the king. Nayef, who is respected in Washington for his leadership of Saudi Arabia’s struggle against an al-Qaeda uprising a decade ago, saw everyone in the U.S. national security establishment, plus key members of Congress. Not much was said publicly about the outcome, but within a couple of weeks events began to unfold rapidly.
On Feb. 3, a few days before Prince Muhammad left for Washington, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia issued a royal decree making it a crime, punishable by prison time, for any Saudi citizen to fight in a foreign conflict. This reflected Riyadh’s concern about the hundreds of young Saudis who have joined extremist rebel groups in Syria and could some day return to make trouble at home. It also was aimed at deflecting criticism from Washington, where some officials have said Riyadh was not doing enough to cut off the flow of fighters.
That same day, Feb. 3, the White House confirmed reports that Obama will visit Saudi Arabia in late March. This has been a difficult year for U.S.-Saudi relations due to disagreements over Iran’s nuclear program and policy toward Egypt, as well as over Syria. Obama’s planned visit is clearly intended to smooth over some of these differences; the conversations would have been more difficult still if the issue of Saudis going to Syria to fight with the jihadi extremists were still on the table.
On Feb. 12, according to the Saudi embassy, Prince Muhammad met with Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and with Under Secretary Wendy Sherman. She holds the administration’s Iran nuclear portfolio and has strongly defended its interim agreement with Tehran, a deal that caused heartburn in Riyadh. While in Washington, Muhammad also met with CIA officials and with the intelligence chiefs of Turkey, Qatar, Jordan and other supporters of the rebels, according to press reports.
Then the pace of events accelerated.
On Feb. 12, King Abdullah II of Jordan, whose country is straining under the burden of supporting Syrian refugees, met with Vice President Joe Biden to discuss “ongoing efforts to bring about a political transition and an end to the conflict in Syria,” the White House said. Two days later, Abdullah conferred with Obama.
On Feb. 15, the UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva ended, predictably, in failure. Secretary of State John Kerry put the blame squarely on the Assad regime’s intransigence, but regardless of who was responsible, that avenue now appears to have come to a dead end.
The next day, the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army — that is, the non-extremist rebels whom Washington and presumably Riyadh support — announced that Gen. Salam Idriss, the overall military commander who had been increasingly criticized as ineffective, was being replaced. His successor, backed by the Saudis, is Brig. Gen. Abdul-Illah Bashir al-Noeimi. It is too early to know whether he will be able to enlist the support of all the often-divided rebel factions, who are battling extremist forces aligned with al-Qaeda as well as the Syrian army.
Back in Washington, the White House announced on Feb. 18 that Robert Malley, a veteran Middle East hand from the Clinton administration, would return to the National Security Council. His assignment is to manage relations with the often-fractious allies of the Arab Gulf states, a group that includes Saudi Arabia.
A day later, Feb. 19, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Prince Muhammad bin Nayef had taken over as boss of the kingdom’s effort to arm and strengthen the Free Syrian Army and other non-extremist groups. The Post’s Karen de Young reported the next day that the intelligence chiefs, at their Washington gathering a week earlier, had agreed on how to define which rebel groups were eligible for new aid, and on new arms shipments to them. Muhammad, a firm if low-key operative, replaced the mercurial Prince Bandar bin Sultan, whose personal charisma had evidently not impressed the rebels.
That same day, Feb. 19, Deputy Secretary Burns delivered a speech that was widely depicted as a preview of what Obama will say to King Abdullah next month: the United States is committed to its strategic partnership with the Arab Gulf states, and will not be bamboozled into a permanent agreement with Iran that would leave Tehran with any path to nuclear weapons. Telling the Saudis what they want to hear, Burns said that in Syria, “the simple truth is that there can be no stability and no resolution to the crisis without a transition to a new leadership.” That is, Bashar al-Assad must go, as the Saudis and Obama himself have long demanded, and Riyadh should not interpret the agreement by which Syria is due to give up its chemical weapons as U.S. acquiescence in Assad’s legitimacy.
Meanwhile, of course, Syrians are dying by the thousands as the government continues to bomb civilian areas, and there is no end in sight. Even if Assad steps down, Burns said, the United States has “no illusions” about “the very difficult day after — or, more likely, the very difficult years after.”
Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah are still supporting Assad. It is possible that he could survive to preside over some rump state. But it does appear that the working program of those who want to get rid of him is, at least, less messy and disorganized than it was a month ago.
*This post was revised on Feb. 25 to make an adjustment to the sequence of events.
Photo: Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud (left) with Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdul Azi
]]>by Robert E. Hunter
With the collapse of the latest round of negotiations over Syria’s future, the tragedy of its people — of all ethnic and religious backgrounds — continues into its third year. Military forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are doing better than was expected a few months ago. The [...]]]>
by Robert E. Hunter
With the collapse of the latest round of negotiations over Syria’s future, the tragedy of its people — of all ethnic and religious backgrounds — continues into its third year. Military forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are doing better than was expected a few months ago. The opposition, a heterogeneous group directing their disparate energies to the common goal of ending Assad’s rule, is increasingly dominated by Islamist extremists. Meanwhile no outside country has been prepared to act to bring the conflict to a halt and take responsibility for what comes next.
The phrase “outside country” is assumed to mean the United States, ignoring the fact that Europe is far closer and, as hundreds of thousands of refugees flee Syria, many will find their way to that continent rather than America. But the European Union is in dis-union over economics, uncertain of its foreign policy future — though it has now succeeded in Ukraine where the US failed — and still expects Washington to look after shared Western interests in the Middle East.
For the US to take the lead and pursue effective diplomacy, it must decide what final outcome to Syrian fighting will best suit American interests and values — begging the question of whether the US or anyone else can determine results. Washington has still not made this decision. If and when it does, it must also convince its friends and allies in the region to follow suit and, in the case of some of them, to stop poisoning the well. As of now, that course is unlikely, as each regional country pursues its own interests, heedless of the best interests of the Syrian people as a whole.
Much of what has been happening in Syria stems from the political, cultural, economic, and — to a degree — religious earthquake that began in Tunisia in December 2010, and spread to Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain, sweeping up Syria in the process. But what is happening in Syria has proved to be more complicated and perhaps more consequential than what has been happening in the other “Arab Spring” countries. Unlike Libya, Syria is not remote from the rest of the region; unlike Bahrain, its struggles are already spilling over onto other countries; and Syria’s turmoil is impacting other US foreign policy concerns, including negotiations with Iran and those between Israel and the Palestinians.
To begin with, the Syrian civil war has become part of the age-old struggle between the descendants of the Prophet — Sunni vs. Shia. The latest round began when the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq toppled a Sunni minority government that had for centuries dominated its Shia majority. For Sunni states, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and to a degree Turkey, Syria is payback time. That means doing all they can, both directly and with whatever support they can muster from the US and Europe, to depose Assad and, with his departure, the political dominance of the minority Alawites (a Shia sect).
Syria has also become a surrogate struggle for preeminence in the region, pitting Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arabs against Iran and perhaps also Turkey. To top it off, rich Sunnis in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE have been providing inspiration, cash, and thus access to arms to al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations to operate in Syria, just as they have been operating in Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, in the last-named country killing Americans and other troops in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The Saudi government has not been directly involved, but it has not stopped the heinous practice, while the US has turned a blind eye.
Further, at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Israel, the US has blocked Iran’s participation in the Geneva talks on Syria, a sine qua non for success that might give Iran some incentive to reduce its own destructive role in Syria as well as Lebanon, a role motivated in part to show that Iran cannot be excluded from planning over the region’s future.
Unfortunately, by proclaiming two years ago that “Assad must go,” President Barack Obama fell into a trap and made himself and the United States handmaidens to Sunni and Saudi-led political objectives. The premise of diplomacy has thus been “transition” beyond the Assad regime, rather than just searching for an end to the conflict, even if Assad were left in place. But given that he is not likely to negotiate his own demise (figuratively and perhaps also literally); and given that the Alawites have little confidence about their own survival in the chaos that would likely follow Assad’s departure, it is no wonder that diplomacy has led nowhere.
Further, Obama and his team have not been willing to say “we got it wrong” in calling for Assad to step down, rather than viewing that as a possible, if desirable, result down the road. Few leaders have the courage to admit being wrong, and the President would be hammered in the media and on Capitol Hill if he did. Nor has the United States done more than make vague declarations of hope to show the Alawites that they would not risk life and limb if Assad did go — perhaps as the result of a coup d’état by disaffected Alawite military leaders. So, “negotiating the transition” remains the (untenable) premise of diplomacy.
No one has yet done the hard work of fashioning a process whereby all the different sects in Syria would have a reasonable chance of security, equality and fair political representation. “Holding free elections” is a nice slogan; it is not a policy or on its own a serious process for getting from here to there. And if anyone doubts the difficulty, he or she should take a look next door at Lebanon — to an extent Syria in microcosm — which for decades has tried and failed to find a workable recipe for governance.
This throws outsiders back on second best, which is to try providing humanitarian relief in Syria, as well as relief to the millions of refugees who have fled Syria. It means the US, Europeans, and Russia need finally to devise a diplomacy that has a chance to work for all Syrians, including the Alawites, whatever the outcome for Assad. It also ratchets up the need for the US and other Western states to lean heavily on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arabs to stop using Syria for their own sectarian and geopolitical ends. This includes bringing Iran into the Syria negotiations and then impressing on Tehran that its future in the outside world requires it to limit its regional ambitions.
The Saudi government recently announced that any Saudi citizen fighting in Syria will go to jail when he gets back home. But this is a “day late and a riyal short” and is no doubt linked to Obama’s scheduled visit to Riyadh next month, ostensibly to reassure the Saudis and other friendly regional states that the US will not compromise their interests in diplomacy regarding Syria or with Iran. Between now and then, however, the Saudis should be required to demonstrate their bona fides. The US president must not go to a country that is just throwing gasoline on the fire.
The point should be made in even broader terms: why is the United States rushing to reassure regional countries that it will not sell out their interests either in Syria or with Iran? For decades, the US has moved heaven and earth in an attempt to make the Middle East safe for all our friends and allies, with little or no thanks for doing so and often uncooperative behavior. But with the radical reduction of US dependence on the region’s oil, the balance of advantage has swung radically: friendly local states across the Middle East now depend a lot more on the US than we do on them.
President Obama should use his trip to Saudi Arabia to make that point clearly, while US diplomats fan out to underscore that our patience has run out with rivalries among countries ostensibly on our side, that we will not tolerate efforts to sabotage the talks with Iran, and that if we are expected to help stop the Syrian conflict, we will do so to advance the cause of humanity in Syria and US interests in a region with a chance for peace — not to be a cat’s paw to others’ ambitions.
The US also needs to finally start seeing everything that happens in the Middle East as related to everything else and design policies based on that fact. That involves filling the senior levels of the administration, the State Department, and the National Security Council Staff with people who truly understand the region and can think strategically. If he does this, President Obama can actually start putting the US on the right track to a viable way out of the Syrian tragedy and to fashioning a coherent approach to the Middle East as a whole.
]]>by Emile Nakhleh
The horrific scenes of starving Syrians and falling barrel bombs and missiles on Homs, Aleppo, and Deraa offer evidence of Bashar al-Assad’s determination to destroy his country and massacre his people in order to stay in power.
No other Arab dictator in recent memory, including Saddam Hussein, has committed [...]]]>
by Emile Nakhleh
The horrific scenes of starving Syrians and falling barrel bombs and missiles on Homs, Aleppo, and Deraa offer evidence of Bashar al-Assad’s determination to destroy his country and massacre his people in order to stay in power.
No other Arab dictator in recent memory, including Saddam Hussein, has committed such systematic and callous brutality as Bashar al-Assad of Syria. It’s time that President Barack Obama and other Western leaders respond to Assad’s atrocities and force his ouster.
NATO acted, with Washington’s support, to save Benghazi. Homs is no different. Syria burns while Washington watches. When will Homs become the tipping point for immediate action?
Almost two years ago, several experts argued, including on this Blog, for arming the rebels in order to level the playing field. Had that happened, the regime would have fallen and the Syrian people would have been spared much of this misery.
According to media reports at the time, debate raged within the White House and the US Department of State on this issue, with Secretary of State John Kerry favoring a military solution but without putting boots on the ground. Those who argued against arming the rebels, however, prevailed.
Three reasons underpinned the non-military approach. First, arming and training the rebels would ultimately lead to “mission creep” and direct military involvement. Second, the arms, especially anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons, could fall into the hands of militants and terrorist groups, including Jabhat al-Nusra. Third, the American people, including many Democrats in Congress, were opposed to another possible war in the Mid-East.
In the final analysis, what drove President Obama’s objection to a military solution was his visceral opposition to starting new wars and strong support for ending them.
Unfortunately for Syria, not arming the opposition resulted in thousands being killed and an emboldened Assad. The moderate opposition became much weaker, and radical Salafi groups, including the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS), became the face of the opposition.
A Syrian Christian family that just got out of Syria told me of the paralyzing fear that is constantly being inflicted on innocent civilians — women, children, and the elderly — as bombs and missiles rain down on their homes and shelters. One of them said they are forced to accept the horrific reality that the death of a neighbor or a relative has become ordinary and banal.
Many of these Christians, who initially supported Assad, now see his legacy as one of destruction with no remorse or care for the country or its people. They are demanding justice from this war criminal.
Geneva II is failing. In fact, it was doomed from the start because Assad, his foreign minister, and their Russian benefactors have used the meetings to buy time. Assad has no intentions to negotiate his exit from power. Anyone who thinks otherwise is naïve or complicit.
Russian President Vladimir Putin used Geneva as a convenient crutch because a forceful international action on Syria could muddy his Winter Olympics. He wanted the world to focus on Sochi, not Homs. Starving Syrians should not sully his Olympian dreams; unfortunately, the world went along.
The op-ed President Obama and the French President Francois Hollande wrote in the Washington Post Feb. 10 barely addressed the constant, heart-wrenching suffering of the Syrian people. The two leaders called on the international community to “step up its efforts to care for the Syrian people, strengthen the moderate Syrian opposition, and work the Geneva II process toward a political transition that delivers the Syrian people from dictatorship and terrorism.”
This rhetoric will not move Assad to abdicate and turn the reins of power to an interim government. Geneva II is already stalled, but Assad continues to use it as a fig leaf to cover his atrocities. He is pounding his country to smithereens while world leaders watch.
Whenever civilians flee their towns to places on the Lebanese border, such as Arsan, regime planes and missiles follow them and wreak havoc regardless of which side of the border they are on.
The “international community” will not act on its own without American leadership and resources. The United States, therefore, in concert with its NATO allies must take several steps immediately.
First, declare a no-fly zone over all of Syria as a warning to Assad to stop the regime’s aerial bombardment and the killing of innocent civilians. If missile attacks do not cease within 24 hours, NATO should bomb missile sites.
A Syrian Christian told me, “Assad owns the skies over Syria and unless that changes, he will not stop his butchery.”
Second, arm the Free Syrian Army and other rebel groups with adequate weapons, including anti-tank and anti aircraft rockets. Recent conflicts such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us that some of the weapons that are provided to legitimate rebel forces sometime fall in the hands of radical jihadis and Salafis. We should expect a similar possibility in Syria. As the disparate rebel groups unify, however, they would become more effective on the battlefield and a more formidable fighting force. This in turn would weaken the radicals.
Third, through private channels, perhaps from Jordan and Saudi Arabia, inform radical groups, including Jabhat al-Nusra, that ISIS and other terrorist groups would not be tolerated, currently or in a post-Assad Syria.
Mainstream rebel groups should ostracize and reject ISIS as part of the opposition or as a potential player in a post-Assad Syria. Opposition leaders within Syria and outside it should collect information on ISIS activists and mark them for arrest and deportation once Assad falls. If Jabhat al-Nusra will not reject ISIS or terrorism, it too should be targeted for arrest and deportation.
Fourth, organize an immediate, massive, multi-state humanitarian aid effort to bring food, medicine, water, blankets, and other necessities to Syrians trapped in cities and towns across the country. If Assad prevents supplies from reaching the needy, he should be told in no uncertain terms that force would be used to protect aid deliveries.
Fifth, declare Assad and his closest associates as international war criminals and initiate indictment proceedings at The Hague. Assad’s foreign minister Waid al-Muallem should be told privately that he too could be indicted as a war criminal if he does not defect from the regime. The message should be equally conveyed to other senior members of the regime, both civilian leaders and military.
Sixth, the UN Secretary General should direct Lakhdar Brahimi to begin working with the opposition on a post-Assad constitution, electoral law, and a representative governmental structure that would be put in place once the Assad regime collapses. The charade of Geneva II should end.
The draft constitution, which must be approved by a popular referendum openly and freely, should be based on the principles of inclusion, tolerance, freedoms of speech and assembly, and human rights, especially for women and minorities. No single party, including the Ba’th Party, should be allowed to dominate the political landscape.
Let us be clear: Arming the rebels does not mean direct US involvement in the Syrian civil war. Regardless of the expected public opposition to the proposed steps, President Obama cannot possible continue to exalt America’s values and moral standing while Syria burns.
Photo: Beirut, Lebanon, February 11 (UNHCR) — More than 1,100 civilians have taken advantage of a three-day “humanitarian pause” this weekend to flee the besieged Old City of Homs in western Syria. Credit: SARC/B.AlHafez
]]>Looking back over the past year, Moscow appears to have good reason to congratulate itself on the success of its foreign policy toward Iran and Syria in particular, and toward the Middle East in general. Indeed, while they did not necessarily do so at Moscow’s behest, several actors that play an [...]]]>
Looking back over the past year, Moscow appears to have good reason to congratulate itself on the success of its foreign policy toward Iran and Syria in particular, and toward the Middle East in general. Indeed, while they did not necessarily do so at Moscow’s behest, several actors that play an important role in the Middle East have come around to adopting policy approaches that Russian leaders have been urging on them.
The Russian position on the Iranian nuclear issue has long been that while Moscow does not want Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons, it does not want America and its allies to pursue this goal either through the use force or further ratcheting up of economic sanctions against Iran. Moscow has long called for a negotiated settlement to this issue involving Tehran taking steps to reassure the international community that it is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for a relaxation of the international sanctions regime.
In the past few months, this is exactly what has happened. Secret Iranian-American negotiations led to an interim agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue, and to subsequent negotiations for a permanent settlement. The prospects for armed conflict over the nuclear issue, which Moscow has sought to prevent, have definitely receded.
Since the inception of the Arab Spring conflict in Syria, Putin and his associates have claimed that the Assad regime, despite its problems, is better than the opposition forces seeking to replace it, which Moscow has characterized as consisting largely of radical Sunni Islamists whose victory would threaten Western interests as much as Russian ones. While not outwardly agreeing with Moscow on Assad, several other governments that have called for him to step aside have grown increasingly nervous about the nature of the Syrian opposition.
Further, three governments in particular have made policy changes that support the Russian goal of keeping Assad in power. In Egypt, the ouster of the elected Islamist President, Mohamed Morsi, by Egypt’s secular military also resulted in Cairo moving from being sympathetic to unsympathetic toward the Syrian opposition.
After the Assad regime used chemical weapons against its opponents in August 2013, the Obama administration first threatened the use of force against it but then accepted the Russian proposal for an internationally sanctioned effort to remove chemical weapons from Syria. Since this process depended heavily on the cooperation of the Assad regime, the Obama administration’s support for it resulted in tacit American acceptance of its continuation in power — something that the Syrian opposition and their supporters in the Gulf resented bitterly.
In addition, while the Turkish government has previously been strongly supportive of Syrian opposition efforts to oust Assad, recently Ankara launched military strikes against jihadist forces inside Syria — thus signaling it may be coming round to accepting the Russian view that the Assad regime is better than that which seeks to replace it.
Regarding both Iran and Syria, then, policy changes by others have recently become more supportive of Russian foreign policy preferences. There is no guarantee, however, that this will remain the case going forward.
The US Government has recently expressed concern that the Assad regime is dragging its feet on the chemical weapons agreement. If this continues, Russian interests could be hurt. If the US Government comes to believe that Moscow is supportive of the Assad regime’s lack of cooperation in this matter, a decidedly negative image of Russian intentions is likely to re-emerge in Washington. Under these circumstances, the Obama administration might well be unable to resist the likely rise of demands in Congress and by some US allies to seek retaliatory measures against Moscow for having duplicitously led Obama to believe that Assad would cooperate on the chemical accord. But even if Moscow were not blamed for the Syrian government’s recalcitrance, Washington would still come to see Putin as unable to deliver Assad on the chemical issue (as had been previously believed) — and thus there would be no point in further coordinating with Moscow on this issue.
While a deterioration of the situation regarding Syria could serve to marginalize Russia, an improvement of the situation regarding Iran could do so too. If indeed real progress is made in resolving the nuclear issue, then economic sanctions against Iran will be lifted either in whole or in part and Iranian cooperation with the West will increase. To the extent that Iranian relations with the West (especially the U.S.) improves, the less need Iran will have for relying on Russia — with which it has had a prickly relationship up to now despite their common animosity toward the U.S.
Furthermore, reduced economic sanctions on Iran could well result in Tehran producing and exporting far more oil than it does now, thus depressing oil prices and reducing the income of other oil exporters, including Russia. The desire to avoid this may have motivated Moscow to enter negotiations with Tehran over a bilateral exchange agreement worth $1.5 billion per month whereby Russia would reportedly buy up to 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil per day in exchange for Russian goods. But even if such a Russian-Iranian agreement comes into force, Tehran is hardly likely to forego the opportunity to increase oil exports to the rest of the world if the sanctions regime is relaxed.
So while Russian foreign policy toward Iran and Syria has benefited from recent events going Moscow’s way, its success is highly fragile as it could easily be damaged by the situation in Syria further deteriorating or by the situation regarding Iran improving.
]]>by Tyler Cullis
On Jan. 22, 2014, the long-promised Geneva II conference will begin, with close to 30 countries sending delegations in a last-ditch bid to end the violence in Syria. The talks, which will include both the Assad regime and parts of the opposition, hope to win support for a [...]]]>
by Tyler Cullis
On Jan. 22, 2014, the long-promised Geneva II conference will begin, with close to 30 countries sending delegations in a last-ditch bid to end the violence in Syria. The talks, which will include both the Assad regime and parts of the opposition, hope to win support for a mutual ceasefire and to forge a political settlement to nearly three years of civil war. Nevertheless, optimism is in short order. Below are critical questions the Geneva II conference will need to answer and address if peace is to prove possible.
Who does the Syrian opposition represent?
Syria’s opposition is split on attending the talks. The Syrian National Council has voiced its opposition to any negotiations with the Assad regime, threatening to leave the larger Syrian National Coalition should talks move forward under their aegis. Major parts of the opposition — including the Islamic Front and al-Qaeda-linked groups — have publicly stated that they will not be bound to any agreement reached during the conference. Thus, whether opposition representatives can uphold their end of any bargain reached in Geneva is an increasingly dim prospect.
That makes negotiation all the more difficult. Without a strong, unified opposition capable of binding all parties to an agreement, it is highly unlikely that the Assad regime will commit to a ceasefire — the obvious first step to a political resolution. In this way, a problem that has plagued Syria’s rebels all along — lack of cohesion — threatens to undermine the talks before they even begin.
Will Iran attend the talks in Geneva?
As of this posting Iran has yet to be formally invited to the Geneva II conference. According to the United Nations-Arab League envoy to Syria, Lashkar Brahimi, the UN welcomes Iran’s participation in Geneva, but the United States has blocked efforts to extend an invitation. Talks are said to continue on this matter, up to and until Jan. 22, but it is looking less and less likely that Iran will be permitted to formally attend the negotiations.
Nonetheless, Iran has proven a resilient partner to the Syrian government in the face of regional and international disapprobation, so it is highly unlikely that the Assad regime would consider any deal at Geneva without Iran’s direct input. Moreover, Brahimi has noted that he has a direct line of contact with Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif. Even if not formal, then, Iran’s presence in Geneva will nevertheless be felt by conference participants.
What kind of political resolution is being considered?
A product of the Action Group on Syria, the Jun. 30, 2012 Geneva Communique, is ostensibly the basis for the Geneva II negotiations. The Communique, which assumes the continued “national unity and territorial integrity” of Syria, recognizes the need for a mutual ceasefire and for the establishment of a transitional governing body, which would be inclusive of all parties to the conflict. This body would then consider constitutional reforms.
However, the Geneva Communique is not the only available solution. In fact, viable alternatives are being widely discussed.
For instance, the Taif Agreement, which ended Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, is being considered as an alternative model. Just as the Taif Agreement ended the privileged status of the Christian Maronites and heralded an era of (unsteady) co-existence between the various Lebanese sects, so too must a political resolution to the Syrian conflict bring to a close the privileges of the Alawites and forge a power-sharing agreement between the contending parties. A political resolution à la Taif would be full of bumps in the road, as Lebanon can attest to, but would at least provide a mechanism to peacefully resolve political disputes when and as they arise.
What is the cost of failure?
Since the civil war intensified in the summer of 2012, tens of thousands of Syrians have died and millions more have been uprooted from their homes. This is the status quo, which will remain intact so long as the parties refuse a political compromise.
For the United States, there will be big questions in need of answers including how long it can endure a conflict that is proving fertile ground for al-Qaeda and its affiliates. Already, as Ryan Crocker’s recent remarks highlight, some U.S. policymakers are seriously considering a future with Assad and thus are urging the White House to open up a line of communication. U.S. policy might thus be forced to undergo a turnabout in the months ahead if no settlement is found.
The worst outcome of failure, however, is that the civil war will render permanent the disintegration of Syria, as the Assad regime, its opposition and the Kurds fight to a stalemate and exercise political autonomy within their respective territorial spheres of control. If this is the case, the United States, its European partners and the Middle East region might have a bigger problem on its hands than it ever have imagined.
]]>by Wayne White
The reverberations of the desperate war inside Syria have increasingly radiated outward. In addition to the massive Syrian refugee exodus, Lebanon and Iraq in particular have been impacted adversely by heightened instability and violence. Yet actions associated with both have only increased their vulnerability. By contrast, the Turks [...]]]>
by Wayne White
The reverberations of the desperate war inside Syria have increasingly radiated outward. In addition to the massive Syrian refugee exodus, Lebanon and Iraq in particular have been impacted adversely by heightened instability and violence. Yet actions associated with both have only increased their vulnerability. By contrast, the Turks and Iraq’s northern Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) have boldly ramped up their mutual cooperation, in part to form a common front to counter an unwelcome rival Kurdish alliance taking shape inside Syria.
Despite rising violence in Lebanon, so far Iraq has been the most heavily affected overall of Syria’s neighbors. In addition to the almost daily backdrop of horrific bombings and attacks by gunmen on Shi’a and government-related targets (like those of Dec. 16 killing 65), there has been a surge in execution-style killings and beheadings, with bodies dumped in various locales (characteristic of the dark days of the 2006-2008 sectarian violence). Recently, Iranian workers on a gas pipeline in north central Iraq were also the objects of a massacre. Al-Qaeda associated elements have been the prime culprits, but Shi’a militias have become more active as well.
With more than 8,000 Iraqis already dead this year from extremist violence, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari warned earlier this month of more danger from a jihadist “Islamic emirate” that could take hold in much of Syria. Yet, the Baghdad government’s own marginalization and persecution of Iraq’s Sunni Arab community under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has been the leading cause for the powerful revival of Sunni Arab extremism in Iraq and its close linkage to the parallel phenomenon in Syria.
Meanwhile, hardline Grand Ayatollah Kazim al-Haeri (who has inspired Shi’a militias in Iraq for years) issued a fatwa on Dec. 15 pronouncing “fighting in Syria legitimate” and declaring those who die there “martyrs.” This fatwa probably will send many more Iraqi Shi’a into Syria to join over a thousand already believed to be fighting for the regime. But it also could intensify seething sectarian tensions within Iraq.
Other notable developments affecting Iraq, however, involve its northern Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). KRG President Masoud Barzani made his first visit to Turkey in any capacity since 1992 in mid-November. The obvious aim was to support Turkish President Erdogan’s peace efforts focused on the extremist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as well as to help Ergodan secure more Kurdish favor in Turkey’s March 2014 municipal elections.
Such high-profile assistance from Iraq’s Kurds would seem odd but for two other pressing matters. First, both Turkey and the KRG were alarmed by the declaration before Barzani’s visit by Kurdish militias in northeastern Syria of an interim administration for an autonomous Kurdish region there. Although repressed in the pre-civil war era, these militias are believed to have made their move with the approval of the Syrian government, and to have received aid from Assad’s allies, Iran and the Maliki government (relationships both Erdogan and Barzani oppose). Moreover, the Iraqi Kurds and the Turks fear the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), with links to the radical PKK, is behind the recent unity move.
For Damascus, any such agreement probably represents a cynical wartime concession of iffy standing simply to harness the bulk of Syria’s 2 million Kurds against anti-regime Sunni Arab rebels. Support from the regime probably also made possible the only UN airlift of winter relief supplies for any area outside government control into this predominantly Kurdish region. The only other airlifts to rebel areas associated with the Syrian regime have involved bombs.
Syrian Kurdish militias have been battling various rebels for over a year. On Dec. 13, cadres of the al-Qaeda linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) reportedly seized 120 Syrian Kurdish hostages near the Turkish border north of Aleppo, the latest of a number of such kidnappings. There has also been heavy skirmishing between the ISIL and extremist al-Nusra Front rebels and Syrian Kurdish militias along the edges of the Kurdish-controlled zone.
The second key driver in Barzani’s and Erdogan’s warming ties is oil. For years, Maliki’s government has been at odds with Barzani’s KRG over the KRG’s efforts to award its own contracts for large-scale oil and gas exports. KRG patience may have run out. In late November, Turkey and the KRG apparently came close to finalizing a comprehensive oil and gas deal — the latest move in Ankara’s cooperation with the KRG that has angered Baghdad.
Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz assured Iraqi officials on Dec. 1 that “any exports must be with the approval of the Iraqi government.” But with Iraq still balking over fears of greater KRG autonomy, the Turks and the KRG are keeping the pressure up; on Dec. 13, test flows of limited amounts of KRG crude were sent through a new pipeline already completed to carry Iraqi Kurdish exports Turkey sorely needs to diversify its energy dependence and secure oil and gas at a likely discount.
Lebanon has been paying ever more dearly for the ongoing sectarian violence just across its lengthy Syrian border and Hezbollah’s military intervention in Syria. Indeed, given Lebanon’s own complex sectarian mosaic, overspill was inevitable, with an ongoing litany of clashes, killings, threats, and squaring off otherwise among Sunni, Alawite and Shi’a communities radiating out from the border.
Tensions and sectarian violence, however, also have been rising in core areas of Lebanon. In the northern city of Tripoli, with a majority Sunni Arab community, a Lebanese soldier died and 7 others were wounded in a Dec. 5 clash with extremists sympathetic to the Syrian rebels. More than 100 have died in Tripoli so far this year in gun battles and a bombing pitting Sunni militants against the army, the police, Tripoli’s minority Alawite community, or Lebanese Shi’a elements. As a result, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, recently turned security there over to the army for 6 months.
Probably most damaging for Lebanon has been Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria, sending thousands of seasoned fighters to reinforce those of the Assad regime. Hundreds of its combatants have been killed in action, and heavily Shi’a-populated areas of Beirut in particular (home to many Hezbollah fighters) have not simply remained a quiet “home front” away from Hezbollah’s war across the border.
Bombings like the one against the Iranian Embassy in Beirut and nearby buildings on Nov. 19, which killed two dozen, have hammered Shi’a neighborhoods. On Dec. 4, a Hezbollah commander back from the Syrian front, Hassan al-Liqqis, was gunned down in front of his residence. Hezbollah blamed the Israelis, but it is more likely he was another victim of rising home-grown violence. Today, Hezbollah claims it thwarted an attempted car bombing believed to have been aimed at one of its bases in the largely Hezbollah-controlled Bekaa Valley 20 miles east of Beirut.
Many assumed through the 1st year of the Syrian conflict that refugees would comprise the main burden faced by Syria’s neighbors, but the savagery and destruction wrought by the Syrian regime especially magnified even that challenge far beyond early worse-case scenarios. The virtual explosion of the rebel al-Qaeda factor, Hezbollah’s robust intervention, and the anti-rebel stance taken — or forced upon — most of Syria’s Kurds was not foreseen. All this further complicates ongoing efforts to find some path out of the Hellish Syrian maelstrom, be they Western efforts to oust Assad & Co. or the recently revived international efforts to bring the parties together for talks in Geneva. All things considered, the prospects for an effective way forward out of this crisis remain grim.
]]>by Wayne White
With the boost from the chemical weapons deal now in the rear view mirror, the chilling picture of the brutal daily slugging match in Syria has remerged. The Assad regime’s offensive against rebel forces grinds on, but gains have been less of late, and the rebels have rebounded [...]]]>
by Wayne White
With the boost from the chemical weapons deal now in the rear view mirror, the chilling picture of the brutal daily slugging match in Syria has remerged. The Assad regime’s offensive against rebel forces grinds on, but gains have been less of late, and the rebels have rebounded here and there. Islamist rebels of one stripe or another inside the country continue to gain ground within the armed opposition, and neither the moderate rebels, nor the opposition in exile currently support talks unless they are aimed at removing President Bashar al-Assad.
Heavy fighting has been raging over the past week in various sectors of the country. Rebel forces led by the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front in eastern Syria on Nov. 23 seized the country’s largest source of oil and gas, the Omar Field. The government has been unable to export oil since 2011 because of its inability to hold the entire route to the coast, but it has been using this oilfield for domestic consumption. Now the regime’s access to domestic oil supplies also has been disrupted with fuel shortages already evident in Damascus.
Rebels reportedly also launched an offensive last week to break the government siege against the opposition-held Damascus suburb of Ghouta. Fatalities on both sides were unusually high over the weekend, according to the UK-based “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights”: 100 rebels and 60 regime cadres. Government shelling of rebel-dominated suburbs has surged along with rebel return fire falling on the regime-held core of the capital.
Although claims by both sides are difficult to verify, so far there is no indication the rebels broke through to Ghouta, but the affiliation of the casualties on both sides is telling with respect to the sectarian and extremist nature of the struggle on the ground. Rebel dead apparently come mainly from the al-Nusra Front and the equally al-Qaeda linked Islamic State in Syria and the Levant (ISIL). Government dead so far reportedly included 20 fighters from the “Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas Brigade,” an Iraqi Shi’a militia that took the field this year in order to face off with the many Iraqi Sunni combatants in al-Nusra and ISIL. The collision of such fanatical elements doubtless explains, in part, the high rate of loss in this particular round of fighting.
The Assad regime’s most recent offensive has been aimed at seizing a key road in the mountainous Qalamoun area of central Syria linking Damascus to the city of Homs. Government troops had made significant gains in the Qalamoun area until Nov. 20 when rebel suicide bombers pounded a key frontline government position in the town of al-Nabak and rebels fighters moved against a nearby regime-held town not previously contested. ISIL and al-Nusra reportedly have shifted hundreds of fighters from elsewhere in Syria into the battle trying to halt the government drive (once again showing their prominence where the fighting has been toughest).
To counter the increased strength of al-Nusra and ISIL after these al-Qaeda affiliates wrested from other Islamists the town of Atma on the Turkish border through which many arms flow into Syria for the opposition, a group of relatively more moderate Islamist combatant groups last week united to form a new “Islamic Front.” Various more obscure Islamist groups like the “Suqour al-Sham Brigades,” “Ahrar al-Sham,” “Liwa al-Haq,” the “Islamic Army,” plus the better known “Tawheed Brigades” (in the forefront of the fighting in the large northern city of Aleppo), have banded together. The Islamic Front affiliates also seek a Sunni Islamic state in Syria, but they apparently have exhibited more tolerance than al-Nusra and ISIL.
Underscoring the disunity within rebel ranks, the Islamic Front’s reason for combining is not just to create a viable alternative to al-Qaeda associated rebel groups. Left unsaid, but rather obvious, is the Front’s determination also to confront al-Nusra and the ISIL when necessary. In fact, the Islamic Front has alleged ISIL colluded with the pro-Western and more secular “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) to take Atma from the “Suqour al-Sham Brigade.”
So, whereas the formation of the Islamic Front could weaken al-Nusra and ISIL, it also appears hostile to the FSA. And just as senior UN officials and UN Security Council members have revived efforts to cajole the Syrian National Council (SNC), the opposition’s exile leadership, into attending a second round of Geneva talks aimed at a peaceful transition, the FSA’s influence on the ground inside Syria (as well as the SNC, which is linked to the FSA) has further declined. All Islamist groups, now so dominant on Syrian battlefields, oppose SNC attendance at any conference that would not remove Bashar al-Assad (a notion again dismissed yesterday by the Damascus regime).
After failing to coax the SNC into attending a conference planned for last month, UN and Arab League Special Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the Western powers, and Russia yesterday postponed the “Geneva II” conclave until Jan. 22 (with a preparatory meeting on Dec. 20). Ban met with SNC representatives on the 24th who seemed to agree to attend, but Ban stipulated that SNC participation would have to be “credible and as representative as possible.”
Making such meaningful opposition attendance less likely, however, was push back today on the part of the SNC: Bashar al-Assad cannot be part of any transitional government, and the international community should “prove its seriousness” by establishing humanitarian corridors to besieged rebel-held areas (something attempted — in vain — for months). Worse still, the head of the FSA, General Salim Idriss, declared that rebels loyal to him would neither join the Jan. 22 conclave nor cease fighting during the conference. Probably trying to shore up the FSA’s waning status among rebels in Syria, Idriss emphasized that “what concerns us is getting needed weapons for our fighters.”
Given the iffy prospects that the SNC could fulfill Ban’s conditions (or the international community those of the SNC), it probably is appropriate that Ban has characterized the renewed effort to convene a conference as a “mission of hope.”
Photo: An FSA fighter has to look out on many fronts now. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS.
]]>by Wayne White
Most international attention remains focused on locating, inspecting and destroying Syria’s chemical weapons (CW) arsenal, but the bloody conventional civil war rages on. The process of getting rid of Syria’s CW probably will take at least until mid-2014, giving the international community an implicit stake in the Assad [...]]]>
by Wayne White
Most international attention remains focused on locating, inspecting and destroying Syria’s chemical weapons (CW) arsenal, but the bloody conventional civil war rages on. The process of getting rid of Syria’s CW probably will take at least until mid-2014, giving the international community an implicit stake in the Assad regime’s survival for quite some time despite the latter’s brutal effort to crush his opposition. The issue of getting military aid to the rebels seems partly adrift, and extremist rebels have been sparring with Syria’s Kurds in addition to ongoing efforts against regime forces and moderate opposition combatants. Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation worsens, and the prospects for peace talks in Geneva next month look iffy at best.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced on Oct. 27 that Syria had met the deadline for submission of an initial declaration covering its entire CW program and a proposed plan for destruction. There was concern that the regime might drag its heels (still a possibility as events play out) to prolong the process of keeping major outside players vested in the regime as long as possible. Syrian ally Russia, which also wants all CW out of Syria to prevent any from falling into jihadist hands, probably warned Damascus to cooperate expeditiously. Still, a process that some hoped could be finished within about six months already has been extended by the OPCW through the end of June 2014.
The CW elimination process has had, of course, little effect on the continuing bloodletting between the Syrian regime and the armed opposition. Just last week, government forces succeeded in cutting off a key rebel-held suburb of Damascus from resupply, placing it under siege. After heavy fighting between extremist rebels and government forces over a Christian town in the north adjacent to the vital north-south highway, the regime prevailed yesterday. Amidst other fighting, the regime claims to have killed dozens of rebels and a major militant combatant leader. Rebel militants also have been fighting along the Turkish border with elements of a Syrian Kurdish militia charged with keeping the civil war out of Kurdish areas.
Regime air strikes and heavy artillery fire remain the leading causes of destruction and civilian casualties, especially in the Damascus suburbs (one of which has held out despite a government siege of nearly a year). And for every report of a human rights violation by one side or the other, there doubtless are many more that go unreported. In fact, despite occasional focus on incidents involving executions, the government’s indiscriminate shelling and bombing of cities and towns results in a continuous stream of such violations (most all of which go unreported in any specificity).
Making the plight of civilians trying to survive amidst this ugly maelstrom worse, neither the government nor many of the rebels have welcomed humanitarian aid. Valerie Amos, UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, told the Security Council on the 25th that the UN appeal to all warring parties to permit the free flow of such aid three weeks ago largely has been rebuffed. The Assad regime wants besieged rebel-held areas to suffer in order to wear down resistance, and many rebel groups (mostly the extremists) mistrust humanitarian workers particularly because they fear such personnel might collect intelligence inside rebel-held areas.
An estimated 2.5 million civilians currently remain in besieged or otherwise largely cut off areas, many already in great distress. The onset of winter will render their situation critical in many cases, resulting in a rise in deaths from exposure, malnutrition, and lack of medical attention. A jarring development reported by the World Health Organization is an outbreak of polio in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor — the first such outbreak in Syria since 1999. This highly contagious disease will be far more difficult to address because of heavy fighting in that area, reduced access to basic hygiene, and crowding.
In terms of munitions, it is unclear how well relatively moderate or extreme rebel factions have been supplied of late. Government troops reportedly uncovered a large cache of rebel arms near Damascus last week, but the reliability of the claim — as well as the question of which rebel groups have such stocks and which do not — is difficult to sort out. One thing does seem clear: on the whole, extremist combatants are far better armed than their moderate counterparts (even attracting secular recruits simply because extremists have the weaponry needed to counter the regime). So, despite reverses at the hands of the regime, their dominance of the rebel combatant movement has been expanding.
Despite promises made to “vetted” moderate fighting groups, US policy remains conflicted by the fear of arms falling into jihadist hands. Still more potential disruption to already sputtering military assistance to such rebels could result from Saudi Arabia’s recent tantrum over American actions across the Middle East (including those concerning Syria), which included a purported Saudi threat to end or reduce Riyadh’s cooperation with Washington on aiding “vetted” rebel groups.
Circumstances prevailing now hold little promise for the US-Russian sponsored peace talks involving the regime and opposition leaders originally set for late November (which may have to be postponed). The opposition’s Syrian National Coalition (SNC) leadership in exile has not yet agreed to attend. Aware of militant opposition, Secretary of State John Kerry has encouraged the SNC’s moderate component “to make up its own mind.” Yet, if the SNC as a whole (or in part) opted to attend, that would damage already strained ties between the coalition and many rebel combatant groups doing the actual fighting inside Syria.
Meanwhile, UN Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi (who just arrived in Damascus) has called for Iranian participation, which he deemed “natural and necessary.” The US, however, stipulated in early October that in order to attend Tehran would have to accept the 2012 Geneva conference’s call for a transitional government to rule Syria (at least partially supplanting the Assad regime). Should this condition stand, not only the Iranians, but perhaps also the Syrian government could decide to stay away.
Finally, even if all parties could be badgered into attending, the achievement of the principal objective (a peace deal) remains highly elusive. The regime now holds the military upper hand, and surely would not cede power or agree to push aside key leaders like Bashar al-Assad. And the opposition (although difficult to capture in one word given its deep divisions) is loath to make concessions that would allow the cabal it so despises to maintain any power.
Photo: Civilians near the Syrian village of Ma’arrat al-Numan. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS
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