ibrahim
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New Middle East, Old Scenarios
The conflict in Syria and the effects on the region; a late but better than never decision
Ibrahim Alsaafin
It's not the end, it's just the beginning.
The cornerstone was always Israel. After the six days war back in 1967, Israel occupied Golan Heights, besides Sinai peninsula, Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza Strip. But what really happened in Golan Heights still vague and unknown. The Syrian army withdrawal back then was brief and somehow planned, unlike the Egyptian army in Sinai which suffered heavy losses.
Three years later Hafez Al-Assad, the leader of Baath party and a member of Alawites minority, assumed power. Thereafter a major transformation in the body of the state took over. The Alawite minority started to control all the major joints of the state of Syria. And under the claims of preparing for liberation of the occupied lands, the emergency rule was forced. No reform was even thought of.
In 1973, Arabs started a war against Israel to retrieve their occupied land. Egypt eventually got Sinai back but the Syrians barely moved forward in Golan Heights. A ceasefire was declared and military actions on the front were frozen. Emergency rule remained effective, and the argument always was "Israel".
Clearly, many people in Syria, especially the Sunni majority, weren't happy under the ruling of Baath party and leadership of Hafiz Al-Assad. Muslim Brotherhood decided to start protesting against the state, even in violent means. The Assad reply was not merciful at all; the city of Hama was literally destroyed over the heads of its residents, using the same weapons allegedly prepared for the war against Israel. Afterwards, Al-Assad entertained an absolute power over Syria.
After the ground was stable under the feet of Baath party, Hafiz Al-Assad was working ambitiously to claim the country as his own heritage so he started preparing his eldest son, Bassel, to be the unannounced crown prince. Ambiguously Basil died in a car accident when the second born son was called back from UK –where he was studying Ophthalmology- to be prepared for his new role.
In the year 2000, the father died while Bashar was only 34 years old. Constitutionally he cannot run for presidency before he is 40, but in a banana republic like that a constitution is not an obstacle. Over night the constitution was amended and a referendum was called for where the son gets an easy 97% of the votes, against no opponent. The people somehow rejoiced the idea of a young president who promised the openness to the world and introducing the information technology to the country.
Eleven years later, except for the media controlled openness, nothing seemed different than the era of the father. The Alawite minority are completely controlling everything; the army, the government, the police forces and even the commerce. But the ghosts of Hama were floating around so no one can dare to say a thing. Then the Arab spring started in Tunisia.
Like dominoes, the dictatorships in the Arab world were falling; Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Everybody was trying to expect and predict the place of the torch that will burn down another regime in the region. I was secretly wishing it's not Syria. Not because the regime there is tolerant, but because it will definitely be a massacre. Such a regime have everything and not willing to let go, even for part of it. But it started anyway.
The Syrian people started protesting peacefully, asking for reform. For a whole six months, not a single bullet was fired by the protestors who were killed daily in tens. More than 40,000 casualties was a huge number but there was no hope it will stop there. The army soldiers who were ordered to kill the protestors were fleeing the army, because the other option was onsite execution. The army dissidents formed the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to defend the civilians. And then it was a civil war.
Gradually, the struggle concerned the region as Sunni-Shiite conflict, where the Alawite are considered a division of Shiite faith and the Syrian Ba'ath regime was totally supported by the Shiite Iran and Lebanese Hezbullah while the majority of Syrian population, and inherently the casualties were Sunnis. The polarization between the two major divisions of Islamic nations escalated to unprecedented level. Among the Arab world, a decisive battle became an urgent matter, but the governments were unconcerned by those opinions as they are concerned by the American orders, which never were positive. The Arabs intervention remained limited to the individuals who cross the borders to join Al-Nusra Front.
Meanwhile in the world, Politicians and world leaders were arguing and discussing an intervention in Syria. An intervention supposed to stop the bloodshed. But the conflict of interest stalled such a thing for about two years so far. At the time the Syrian regime was supplied by military logistics from Iran and Russia, and by militants from Iraq, Iran and Lebanon, Al-Nusra Front (a military group of non-Syrian fighters against Assad regime) was decided to be on terror list of the European Union. The FSA was left alone, supported by "hotel" opposition members gathered in Turkey to claim the voice of the nation.
Almost two years of short and long political statements with no one seems to do a thing. But all the sudden, Sunni clerics gathered in Cairo, Egypt to declare Jihad in the very same day the United States decides to arm the Syrian opposition because now, just now, they realized that Syrian regime crossed the red line. Is it the 100,000 deaths as per UN report that was the red line? Or is it the confirmation of the use of chemical weapons by the regime? I think it's neither this or that. It's just a scenario to be re-written.
In a similar fashion in the middle of the eighties, clerics called for jihad in Afghanistan, the united stated armed the mujahedeen, and we all know the end of the story in September 11, 2001. Or it was just another beginning?
Does the old version of war on terror exhausted its objectives and a new objectives to be set for the next decade? The world knows now that Al Qaeda is represented in Syria, then why repeating the same scenario all over again? The new middle east appears to be a process, a lengthy and painful but deliberate one. A new Middle East where Israel is a dominant power surrounded by weak overstrained states and lost people. The piece process in the middle east was meant to last over twenty years for a reason; gain more time to establish new facts on the ground, and there were them.
The conflict in Syria and the effects on the region; a late but better than never decision
Ibrahim Alsaafin
It's not the end, it's just the beginning.
The cornerstone was always Israel. After the six days war back in 1967, Israel occupied Golan Heights, besides Sinai peninsula, Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza Strip. But what really happened in Golan Heights still vague and unknown. The Syrian army withdrawal back then was brief and somehow planned, unlike the Egyptian army in Sinai which suffered heavy losses.
Three years later Hafez Al-Assad, the leader of Baath party and a member of Alawites minority, assumed power. Thereafter a major transformation in the body of the state took over. The Alawite minority started to control all the major joints of the state of Syria. And under the claims of preparing for liberation of the occupied lands, the emergency rule was forced. No reform was even thought of.
In 1973, Arabs started a war against Israel to retrieve their occupied land. Egypt eventually got Sinai back but the Syrians barely moved forward in Golan Heights. A ceasefire was declared and military actions on the front were frozen. Emergency rule remained effective, and the argument always was "Israel".
Clearly, many people in Syria, especially the Sunni majority, weren't happy under the ruling of Baath party and leadership of Hafiz Al-Assad. Muslim Brotherhood decided to start protesting against the state, even in violent means. The Assad reply was not merciful at all; the city of Hama was literally destroyed over the heads of its residents, using the same weapons allegedly prepared for the war against Israel. Afterwards, Al-Assad entertained an absolute power over Syria.
After the ground was stable under the feet of Baath party, Hafiz Al-Assad was working ambitiously to claim the country as his own heritage so he started preparing his eldest son, Bassel, to be the unannounced crown prince. Ambiguously Basil died in a car accident when the second born son was called back from UK –where he was studying Ophthalmology- to be prepared for his new role.
In the year 2000, the father died while Bashar was only 34 years old. Constitutionally he cannot run for presidency before he is 40, but in a banana republic like that a constitution is not an obstacle. Over night the constitution was amended and a referendum was called for where the son gets an easy 97% of the votes, against no opponent. The people somehow rejoiced the idea of a young president who promised the openness to the world and introducing the information technology to the country.
Eleven years later, except for the media controlled openness, nothing seemed different than the era of the father. The Alawite minority are completely controlling everything; the army, the government, the police forces and even the commerce. But the ghosts of Hama were floating around so no one can dare to say a thing. Then the Arab spring started in Tunisia.
Like dominoes, the dictatorships in the Arab world were falling; Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Everybody was trying to expect and predict the place of the torch that will burn down another regime in the region. I was secretly wishing it's not Syria. Not because the regime there is tolerant, but because it will definitely be a massacre. Such a regime have everything and not willing to let go, even for part of it. But it started anyway.
The Syrian people started protesting peacefully, asking for reform. For a whole six months, not a single bullet was fired by the protestors who were killed daily in tens. More than 40,000 casualties was a huge number but there was no hope it will stop there. The army soldiers who were ordered to kill the protestors were fleeing the army, because the other option was onsite execution. The army dissidents formed the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to defend the civilians. And then it was a civil war.
Gradually, the struggle concerned the region as Sunni-Shiite conflict, where the Alawite are considered a division of Shiite faith and the Syrian Ba'ath regime was totally supported by the Shiite Iran and Lebanese Hezbullah while the majority of Syrian population, and inherently the casualties were Sunnis. The polarization between the two major divisions of Islamic nations escalated to unprecedented level. Among the Arab world, a decisive battle became an urgent matter, but the governments were unconcerned by those opinions as they are concerned by the American orders, which never were positive. The Arabs intervention remained limited to the individuals who cross the borders to join Al-Nusra Front.
Meanwhile in the world, Politicians and world leaders were arguing and discussing an intervention in Syria. An intervention supposed to stop the bloodshed. But the conflict of interest stalled such a thing for about two years so far. At the time the Syrian regime was supplied by military logistics from Iran and Russia, and by militants from Iraq, Iran and Lebanon, Al-Nusra Front (a military group of non-Syrian fighters against Assad regime) was decided to be on terror list of the European Union. The FSA was left alone, supported by "hotel" opposition members gathered in Turkey to claim the voice of the nation.
Almost two years of short and long political statements with no one seems to do a thing. But all the sudden, Sunni clerics gathered in Cairo, Egypt to declare Jihad in the very same day the United States decides to arm the Syrian opposition because now, just now, they realized that Syrian regime crossed the red line. Is it the 100,000 deaths as per UN report that was the red line? Or is it the confirmation of the use of chemical weapons by the regime? I think it's neither this or that. It's just a scenario to be re-written.
In a similar fashion in the middle of the eighties, clerics called for jihad in Afghanistan, the united stated armed the mujahedeen, and we all know the end of the story in September 11, 2001. Or it was just another beginning?
Does the old version of war on terror exhausted its objectives and a new objectives to be set for the next decade? The world knows now that Al Qaeda is represented in Syria, then why repeating the same scenario all over again? The new middle east appears to be a process, a lengthy and painful but deliberate one. A new Middle East where Israel is a dominant power surrounded by weak overstrained states and lost people. The piece process in the middle east was meant to last over twenty years for a reason; gain more time to establish new facts on the ground, and there were them.
