A REQUIEM FOR SYRIA

America and its allies are not afraid of Russian and Chinese (or the United Nations’) opposition to any frontal intervention. Not at all. Moscow and Beijing protested all they could in the case of Libya; yet America and her allies went in, and today Gaddafi is dead. The same Moscow and Beijing – and the […]

America and its allies are not afraid of Russian and Chinese (or the United Nations’) opposition to any frontal intervention. Not at all. Moscow and Beijing protested all they could in the case of Libya; yet America and her allies went in, and today Gaddafi is dead. The same Moscow and Beijing – and the whole world with them, including the United Nations – also earlier opposed the attack on Iraq, but America and its allies did go in, today the rest is history, and Saddam Hussein is now long dead. Even though Saudi America (that American regime based in Riyadh) promised to bankroll any attack on Syria, the Americans held back. For Israel.
But all of a sudden, the West is finally sabre-rattling and plans are afoot to attack Syria. The West, which had been an onlooker in the country’s civil war, is waking up to Syria. Why? They say ‘chemical weapons’ have been brought into the mix (chemicals which, we continue to argue, could have emanated from Assad, the freedom fighters or, indeed, from Israel next door). Now the West, led by America, is poised to act to prevent these same ‘chemical weapons’ (assuming they did not originate from Israel) from falling into the hands of the Freedom Fighters who hate Israel more than Assad does.
The American Congress is being sensitised (though hawkish McCain was busy playing poker during the hearing – Google that); the British Parliament has thrown some spanners in Cameron’s war effort; the French are eager to replace Britain as America’s lapdog; and the Russians, those unreliable friends who did not save Gaddafi or Saddam before him, are saying ‘give us facts and we join you’. In essence, the Russians are saying Assad is on his own.
We had argued before here, and we argue again, that the earlier lack of robust Western intervention in Syria for such a long time (compared to, say, Libya) may seem quite confusing to many who are not in the know of the regional geographical permutations playing out. Western commentators, and many non-Western ones, from the mundane to the outright ridiculous, refuse to tell their readers the actual truth about the position of Syria in the region. Some claim that the lack of intervention is because Syria, unlike Libya, has no oil. No. Some claim it is because Syria is so far away from the West compared, again, to Libya. No. Some claim it is because the Russians and the Chinese are opposed to such intervention. No. It is about Israel.
Yes, Assad is on his own as far as the West is concerned. In fact, the Syrian Freedom Fighters (rebels to many) were on their own until this chemical phase. Now, everyone knows that this is going be Israel’s proxy war. If there are chemical weapons, the West reasons, Israel is in more danger than from Assad! But the West and its commentators do NOT discuss the centrality of Israel in all these. Arab commentators too much parrot Western commentators to think and say anything different. But Israel is the reason for the United Nations, the US Congress, the British Parliament and the G20 are discussing attack on Syria.
But we have to admit this: President Bashar al Assad (and his father Hafez before him), did well for the socio-economic wellbeing of the Syrian people, if one considers that this is an abject poor country with no resources, no oil and no gas, compared to many of its Arab neighbours. Yet Syrians do not want for food, electricity and other basic necessities of life. Meaning, had Syria had oil and gas like Iraq of even tiny Qatar, Syrians would perhaps have been among the most comfortable of Arabs.
But the ruling Ba’athist Party in Syria is the most anti-Islamic group in the whole Muslim world; the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein also belonged to it. It is good to remember that, despite the fact that Assad is intrinsically opposed to Israel, he is opposed to Israel based on historical socialist opposition to anything Western; and Israel is everything Western. Syria, to wit, hosts the so-called Israel Boycott Office (an Arab undertaking to ensure Israel is economically boycotted). Syria also hosts various anti-Israel revolutionaries from Palestinian HAMAS to Lebanese Hezbollah. (You have to give that to Syria.) But Israel and America are more comfortable with that. Reason being that a secular Assad is much more amenable than any Islamic-inclined regime that may take over.
The Syrian opposition has historically been Islamic. According to many sources, from 1976 until the 1982 Hama Massacre, the Muslim Brotherhood led an armed insurgency against the Syrian government. In response to the uprising, in February 1982 the Hafez Assad government crushed the Islamic opposition centred in the city of Hama, levelling most of the city with artillery fire and leaving almost one hundred thousand people dead, mostly civilians, including women and children. Older Assad’s actions at Hama have been described, as quoted on Wikipedia, as possibly “the single deadliest act by any Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East.” This should explain why it has been like father like son: Bashar continues to massacre his people with the artillery his father Hafez used in Hama in 1982.
For Muslims, Syria is very significant. It has been the cradle of prophethood, and of commerce. In fact, Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace, visited Syria at least twice on commerce before he became a Prophet; once as a child accompanying his uncle Abu Talib, and then in his adulthood as agent of the rich Makkan businesswoman Khadija (may Allah be pleased with her), whom he was later to marry. On that trip, widely reported in books of Islamic history, Muhammad was accompanied by Khadija’s other agent, Maisara.
Let us also remember another strategic reason: Seventy percent of all the water of Israel comes from occupied Arab territory; Syria’s Golan Heights and Palestine. According to Ambassador Yoram Ettinger, an Israeli diplomat, in an article titled ‘The Golan Heights, Syria and Water’ (see think-israel.org/ettinger.golanheightswater.html): “70% of Israel’s water resources will not be under its control if it withdraws from the Golan (30%), Judea and Samaria [Palestinian West Bank] (40%). There is no precedent for a country giving away water sources.”
It will be apt to remember that ONLY those leaders who are opposed to the West get killed when they are toppled – Saddam and Gaddafi. Those leaders who are friendly to the West get toppled, but not killed. Mubarak is still alive, so is Tunisia’s Ben Ali, and so is the former Marxist Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh. He so cozied up to America in his final days that, when he was wounded in an assassination attempt, it was to America he went for treatment, and the Revolution had to wait for his return. That Yemeni turncoat had given the Americans freehand to use drones to murder his citizens.
This page opposes any attack by the West on Syria. For as we have seen in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, all Western intervention is fraught with dangers for Muslim lands. And the rumour that Russia may attack Saudi Arabia if the West attacks Syria? How many would wish it were not a rumour: A Requiem for ale-Saud would just be apt!