Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis
April13, 2012 Friday
The Syrian Situation
A Jihadist, Anti-Western Agenda is Being Forced on Syria
The international community has been blindly following a
jihadist-driven agenda for Syria; a solution the majority of Syrians
reject, but which Turkey and Qatar have been driving. It begs the
question: why are analysts in Washington ” or Paris or London ” not
digging more deeply into what is really happening, given that the
solution they have endorsed is so profoundly anti-Western?
Analysis.
By Yossef Bodansky, Senior Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs. The
key test of the Annan plan and ceasefire to help end the widespread
violence in Syria came on Friday, April 13, 2012, in the aftermath
of the Friday Sermons across Syria, when agitated and incited masses
came out of the mosques, ready to challenge anew the legitimacy of a
non-Sunni-Islamist Government in Damascus.
The sensitive element was the thin line between vocal and virulent
protests against Pres. Bashar al-Assad and attempts by armed elements
in the ranks of the demonstrators to capitalize on the mass of unarmed
humanity in order to break through the lines of the security forces,
instigate clashes and seize buildings of tactical significance. In
Hama, such a provocation evolved into a major clash as government
troops attempted to break up the demonstration and fell into a rebel
ambush. At least two soldiers were killed in this clash.
There were also a few major efforts at violating the ceasefire.
Overnight, a large armed group attempted to cross from Turkey into
Syria near the village of Khirbet al-Joz in Idlib Province. The group
was engaged by Syrian security forces and pushed back across the
border after a lengthy firefight. This is an area heavily patrolled by
the Turkish security forces so that it is highly unlikely that the
Turkish Government and Armed Forces would not have been aware of the
infiltration attempt. Near Aleppo, rebel forces ambushed a military
bus, killing two officers and wounding 24 soldiers. Altogether, some
15 fatalities were recorded in the first 24 hours of the cease- fire.
In Damascus, government media warned that the anti-government armed
groups were intensifying criminal operations in an attempt to
destabilize Syria and torpedo the [An- nan] plan. Meanwhile, the
Islamist media continued to urge people to demonstrate and riot in the
streets under the rallying cry A revolution for all Syrians!
Moreover, foreign leaders, led by US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and her Turkish counterpart Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto lu
continued to issue demands unacceptable to the Assad Administration in
the context of implementing the Annan plan. Washington, Ankara, and
Doha lead the chorus demanding that the Syrian Armed Forces
unconditionally withdraw from the entire inhabited and urban areas of
Syria and surrender them to the rebel forces. They consider the
reported withdrawals of Syrian Government troops from major cities
insufficient because the mere presence of these forces around the
cities constituted, in their view, undue pressure on the population in
those areas. This withdrawal must be total and comprehensive.
Withdrawing from the cities but keeping the pressure on them doesnt
mean a real withdrawal. This withdrawal must be from all cities and
towns to barracks and people must be assured they will not face
another attack, Davuto lu stated.
These demands were made, even though the Syrian armed forces won the
fight with the active support from key segments of the local
population. Moreover, the majority of the urban population in Syria
supports the Assad Administration (or, at the least, has demonstrated
that it preferred them to the Islamist-dominated opposition). Thus,
the issue at hand was not whether the Assad Administrations security
forces moved a few tanks and other armored vehicles a few more yards,
but rather a challenge to the very existence of an Alawite-led
nationalist Administration in Damascus. French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy
dismissed the entire effort out of hand. I do not believe in Bashar
al-Assads sincerity, nor unfortunately in the ceasefire, he told
French I-Tele TV.
Barring the commencement of viable negotiations involving the real
protagonists inside Syria, the fighting in Syria seemed, by April 13,
2012, set inevitably to resume after a brief interlude and even
escalate as the weather improved. The Annan plan should be expected to
keep faltering even though Annan himself declared that he was
encouraged by reports that the situation in Syria is relatively calm
and that the cessation of hostilities appears to be holding.
Meanwhile, the United States, Turkey, and Qatar would continue urging
a Bosnia- and Libya-style NATO intervention in support of legitimate
representatives who had, in fact, already been rejected by the Syrian
people and in the name of protecting civilians who had never asked for
such intervention.
Thus, the primary explosive threat of the Syrian conflict was the
growing dichotomy between the situation inside Syria and the
relentless efforts by a myriad of external forces to exploit the
conflict in pursuit of their regional and global interests.
This writer has discussed before, [in Defense & Foreign Affairs
Strategic Policy 2-2012, for example; see footnotes for hyperlink]
that the traditional key to ruling Syria has always been an alliance
between the security and economic lites. The security lite has been
dominated by the main minorities ” the Alawites, Druze and Kurds ”
which remain staunchly loyal to the Assad Administration.
The economic elite has been dominated by Sunni urban families, as well
as Armenian and Christian Orthodox families, in the main cities of
western Syria; a strip between Damascus and Aleppo. Initially, the
economic lite elected to stay out of the crisis and war, but it was
increasingly siding with the Assad Administration: some by choice and
some for lack of a better option.
By the first half of April 2012, the Assad Administration was close to
restoring this alliance between the two most important foci of power.
The Syrian Armed Forces had consolidated control over the
economic-strategic Damascus-Aleppo belt. Moreover, the growing threat
of jihadist terrorism as demonstrated in Aleppo left the
urban-economic lite little choice but to cast their lot with the Assad
Administration. The only impediment is the lingering insurrection in
Homs and Hama which the ceasefire might help contain. The growing
threat of foreign intervention was pushing Damascus to complete the
pacification of Homs and Hama, albeit while markedly raising the level
of violence and the ruthlessness of the crackdown
This trend was also reflected in the popular support for the
Government to the extent that reliable polling is possible. In the
second half of December 2011, YouGov conducted a major poll
commissioned by the Qatar Foundation throughout the Arab World. The
key question was whether Bashar al-Assad should resign. The poll found
that 55 percent of Syrians did not want Bashar al-Assad to resign as
President; that is, 55 percent of Syrians wanted him to remain as
President. Significantly, in a poll conducted in December 2010, that
is, just before the outbreak of the current crisis, only 46 percent of
Syrians considered Bashar a good president for Syria. The YouGov poll
also found that 68 percent of Syrians disapproved of the Arab League
sanctions. In contrast, the YouGov poll showed that outside Syria 81
percent of Arabs want President Assad to step down. They based their
opinion on the coverage of Syrian events on Arab satellite TV news
channels.
In other words, Arab satellite news ” such as Qatar-based al-Jazeera ”
has had a profound impact on non-Syrian regional public opinion,
shaping it in favor of opposition to Assad, while domestic public
opinion is actually more in favor of Assad. Moreover, to reiterate:
the US and West have allowed themselves to claim a moral imperative
for intervention in Syria in support of non-Syrian objectives, and
particularly objectives desired by Sunni radicals answerable to the
Turkish and Qatari governments.
The lingering problem is the Syrian deep interior. From a pure
military point of view, the Governments task is manageable. Violence
and stability in the interior have a negligible effect on the
functioning of the Syrian state, because this depends on the minority
zones and the economic belt, both of which are under the effective
control of the Assad Administration. The primary tasks of Damascus are
reducing the level of Islamist-jihadist insurrection in the area,
slowing down the flow of jihadist volunteers, weapons, and funds
across the porous borders.
Initially, Assads strategy was based on holding onto some of the key
cities in the interior and let everything else burn. To fight the
jihadists, Damascus relies heavily on special operations in order to
entrap and manipulate both the Syrian and Qatar-sponsored foreign
jihadist elements. Ultimately, this strategy saves Damascus the need
for massive use and widespread deployment of regular military forces
Syria doesnt have without sacrificing the Administrations success.
However, there emerged a political imperative to reduce the level of
fratricidal violence all over the country, as well as move forward
toward a viable and legitimate negotiations process with grassroots
populace. Furthermore, because of family and tribal connections
between the rural population in the deep interior and the slum
dwellers in the western cities, as well as the tribal population in
the villages surrounding the western cities and in Aleppo itself,
Damascus cannot ignore completely the popular dynamics and awakening
in the interior. Thus, while this turmoil is incapable of threatening
the Assad Administration and its continued consolidation of victory,
it cannot be left completely unattended either.
The situation in Syrias interior is complex. The population is
overwhelmingly Sunni, tribal, and rural. The growing economic
hardships of the past three decades, particularly the failure of the
Soviet-style institutionalization of agriculture and the destruction
of water resources mainly due to experimentation with cotton growing,
led to grassroots alienation and rejection of the state system.
Instead, the population has increasingly rallied around tribal and
extended family frameworks in order to jointly survive the hardships.
When blood-relation frameworks failed to remedy the situation, the
youth abandoned the interior in quest for livelihood in either the
urban slums in western Syria or in the ranks of the security forces
that largely deployed near Syrias borders and away from the interior.
Hence, the population which has endured the hardships and remained
stable in the Syrian interior is socially conservative and
inward-looking; that is, committed to the empowerment of tribe and
extended family at the expense of the centralized state.
This unique posture is the key to the tumultuous and largely hostile
relationship between the majority of Syrians and the internationally
recognized opposition, the Syrian National Council (SNC). Simply put,
the Syrian grassroots dread, and are hostile to, any centralized
regime and/or form of governance which attempts to interfere in their
daily lives, be it the Assad Administration in Damascus and its
efforts to impose Baathism, or the Islamist Ikhwan -affiliated SNC
which is committed to a centralized Sunni Islamic government in
Damascus.
Meanwhile, as chaos has spread throughout Syria and as the Government
virtually stopped functioning, it became evident to the grassroots in
the interior that they could not stay aloof and isolated from the
overall dynamic. The traditional population, their tribal and extended
family leaders, started gravitating toward the Syrian Liberation Army
(SLA), a loose coalition of like-minded localized forces and
mini-groups. The SLA was formed in secrecy in March 2011 by
representatives of local coordination committees. As wider circles of
tribal and extended family leaders sought a framework for jointly
resisting and enduring the crisis, they started coordinating and
cooperating with the SLA. The SLA has relied on these grassroots
components to organize regional forces to defend their people. In
March-April 2012, the SLA leaders reported having more than 32,000
fighters, mostly part-time local defense units spread over most of
Syria. In addition, some 71,000 youth were ready to join but could not
because of lack of weapons and ammunition. The tribes and rural
population affiliated with the SLA have been predominant in some 20
percent of the Syrian territory, mostly in the deep interior. SLA
leaders reported having clandestine cells and armed networks across 80
percent of Syria.
Until this point, SLA military capabilities have been abysmal, despite
widespread grassroots support. SLA forces are starved for everything,
from weapons and ammunition to funds and supplies. However, even
massive deliveries of weapons, funds, and supplies should not be
expected to alter the diffuse and locally-focused character of the
population which makes up the SLA. Nevertheless, for as long as the
Bashar al-Assad Administration refuses to negotiate, it has been seen
as imperative for the international community to assist and build the
SLA as the genuine grassroots force capable of exerting real pressure
and compelling negotiations to end the conflict. Meanwhile, the SLA
has demonstrated its presence and relevance through the per- iodic
explosion of car- bombs near Syrian security buildings in Aleppo and
Damascus; detonations which have been mostly perpetrated and claimed
by the loosely-affiliated Al- Nusrah Front.
Thus, the Assad Administration has been winning at the national
strategic level and there has been nothing the SLA, or any other
opposition entity, could presently do to reverse this trend. However,
Assads Damascus cannot ignore the ascent of the SLA because Damascus
will ultimately have to demonstrate the cessation of armed opposition
and establish control over the interior. It would be far more logical
and expedient for Assads Damascus to do so in the context of
negotiations and power- sharing, than to achieve this through bloody,
prolonged and exhausting mop-up operations all over the Syrian vast
interior.
Meanwhile, the West, led by the US, Turkey, and Qatar, is striving to
repeat in Syria the legacy of the interventions in Bosnia and Libya,
irrespective of the realities on the ground or the desires of the
local population. To justify such an intervention, the US leads a
media campaign to portray the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the
Free Syrian Army (FSA) as westernized and democratic when Arab
governments and the Arab media know that this is simply untrue.
The Syrian National Council has always been a front of the more
militant- jihadist wing of the Muslim Brothers [MB: the Ikhwan ]. Once
SNC leaders resolved to seek Western help and recognition, special
effort was made by the MB leadership to conceal this relationship and
pretend that the movement was led by westernized intellectuals, as
symbolized by SNC leader, the ostensibly secular dissident, Burhan
Ghalioun. However, Syrian MB leader Ali Sadr al-Din Bayanouni admitted
in internal fora that the MB had nominated Ghalioun as the SNC leader
merely as a front because he would be palatable to the West. We did
not want the Syrian regime to take advantage of the fact that
Islamists are leading the SNC, Bayanouni said. For his part, before
becoming SNC leader, Ghalioun openly associated with the most
conservative Islamist leaders and intellectuals of the MB and
particularly MBs spiritual leader Sheikh Yussuf al-Qaradawi whom
Ghalioun called my inspiration.
The Free Syrian Army (FSA) ” which is associated with the SNC, as
opposed to the SLA, which is an interior- and tribally-based coalition
of fighters ” has never amounted to much of a force beyond the media
claims of its Turkey-based leader, Col. Riad al-Asaad. Moreover, in
order to guarantee recognition by, and support of, the Gulf States and
the Arab satellite TV news channels which the Gulf states own, the FSA
stressed its relations with jihadist elements. Indeed, the Arab media
is full of ceremonies in which various jihadist elements such as the
God is Great Brigade are shown swearing allegiance to the FSA and
joining their jihad . In Arabic, the FSAs war is a jihad for the
establishment of an Islamist state rather than merely topple Pres.
Bashar al-Assad. To our fellow revolutionaries, dont be afraid to
declare jihad in the path of God. Seek victory from the One God. God
is the greatest champion, this Brigades commander declared while
joining the FSA. Instead of fighting for a faction, fight for your
Nation, and instead of fighting for your [Syrian] nation, fight for
God. Moreover, Qatar tightly controls the funds of, and weapon
supplies for, the FSA. Doha ensures that these go to Islamist-jihadist
elements affiliated with, and controlled by, the key commanders of
Qatars jihadist Foreign Legion [discussed in Defense & Foreign Affairs
Strategic Policy, 1-2012].
As well, the US-led interventionist policy leads to the needless
aggravation and alienation of Russia, presently, a crucial supporter
of the Assad Administration. Moscows basic strategy in the Middle East
focused on restoring stability and permitting Russia to bide its time
as chaos reigned. In Syria, as in all other Arab states and Iran,
Russia is looking out for its own interests and has no commitment to
any specific government or ruler. Yevgeny Satanovsky, the president of
the Middle East Studies Institute and one of the Kremlins leading
Middle East experts, stressed this point. Russias options regarding
the situation around Syria are limited. … Moscows current strategy
enables Russia to save face and bide time in its own interests. The
Kremlin is apprehensive about foreign military interventions because
of the unpredictable nature of their strategic outcome and not the
fate of the government of the attacked countries. A strike on Iran or
Syria, if it ever happens, will weaken those who launch it. And
whether or not there are more regime changes in the Middle East is not
Russias problem, Satanov- sky explained.
However, the US Barack Obama Administration insisted that there would
be a new government in Damascus, rising as a result of a regime
change. Thus, any US-sponsored new government in Syria would not be
beholden to any agreement signed by either the Hafez or Bashar
al-Assad administrations, including, specifically, the agreement of
Syria with Russia on military installations in the ports of Tartus and
Latakiya.
Whatever the importance to post- Cold War US national security of
Russian presence on the shores of the Mediterranean, the mere
unilateral assertion of this objective by the Obama White House has
transformed the Russian involvement in Syria from that of bystander to
a determined effort to save its military presence and installations
from a regime change. The Kremlin is fighting to protect and secure
the Russian access to the Syrian ports and not to support the Assad
Administration, but the outcome is one and the same, and the results
are showing in the military achievements of Assads forces as well as
the deterring of NATO intervention.
Neither the complexities of the inner-Syrian struggle and the
awakening of the deep interior, nor the travesty of the foreign
intervention advocated by Washington, Ankara, and Doha should distract
from the overall historic context of the crisis. At the core is the
confrontation between resurgent Sunni Arab Islam- ism and the regions
aspirant non- Arab Islamist hegemonic powers: Mahdivist Iran and
neo-Ottoman Turkey.
The Fertile Crescent of Minorities ” from east to west
counter-clockwise: Ahwazi Arabs, Kurds, Alawites, Druze, Maronites,
Jews and Circassians ” serves as the buffer, preventing a cataclysmic
eruption.
Only a viable Fertile Crescent of Minorities ” of which the Alawites
and Druze of Syria are presently the most beleaguered elements ” can
thus prevent the simmering Arab Middle East from conjoining with the
Islamist ascent of Turkey and Iran and jointly creating an explosive
critical mass.
Hence, the main challenge in resolving the Syria crisis is preventing
the replacement of an Alawite-Druze dominated Government by an
Islamist- jihadist one. No less important is the imperative to restore
and preserve a viable Syrian state via meaningful political reforms,
as well as economic recovery and modernization of the entire region.
If a moderate, stable outcome was desired, then negotiations between
the Syrian Liberation Army and the Assad Administration would need to
be launched on the establishment of a nationalist government in
Damascus, with emphasis on regionalization and diffusion of power
which would ensure the rights of the Sunni Arab tribes, extended
families and urban lite, as well as the nations minorities. The
transformation of power through negotiations would ensure that all
pertinent international agreements to which Syria was beholden would
remain valid.
Ultimately, the restoration of Syria as a key to the Fertile Crescent
of Minorities remains the real vital interest of the West.
Thus, in addressing the turmoil in Syria, special attention would have
to be paid so as not to throw out the baby [Alawite-Druze
pre-eminence) with the bathwater (ending the fratricidal violence).
Democratic reforms would need to acknowledge the countrys Sunni
majority and diversity of character and interests, but not at the
expense of the pre-eminence of the Alawite- Druze in official
Damascus. The marginalization and destruction of the Syrian section of
the Fertile Crescent of Minorities, even if in the name of democracy,
not only would not elevate the Sunni majority but would cause
cataclysmic upheaval throughout the greater Middle East.
There are no instant-gratification panacea solutions to the Syrian
crisis. The Arab Middle East, of which Syria is a crucial component,
is currently experiencing a peak in an historic convulsion spanning a
quarter of a millennium.
Ultimately, the Arab Middle East will have to find its own solution
for its own problem. Western intervention might be able to help
alleviate the immediate crisis, but Western intervention might also
spark a cataclysmic eruption that will set the region aflame.
Internalize what Albert Einstein said: If I had one hour to save the
world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and only five
minutes finding the solution.
Footnotes:
1. The United Nations General Assembly and the Arab League in February
2012 appointed former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the UN and
Arab League Special Envoy on the Syrian crisis. See also, Bodansky,
Yossef: Syrias Multi-Layered Wars, in Defense & Foreign Affairs
Strategic Policy, 2-2012 [Published in GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs
Special Analysis on February 17, 2012, as The Multi-Layered Wars of
Syria: Why Assad is Gaining Strength, and Why the Greater Conflict is
More Complex Than the Western Media Has Grasped.]; and Bodansky,
Yossef: The Release of Abu-Musab al-Suri, in Defense & Foreign Affairs
Strategic Policy, 1-2012 [Published in GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs
Special Analysis on February 6, 2012, The Release of Abu-Musab
al-Suri].