Tweet
Syria: A Multi-Sided Chess game
http://dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com/
Dispatches From The Edge
March 31, 2013
In some ways the Syrian civil war resembles a proxy chess match
between supporters of the Bashar al-Assad regime - Iran, Iraq, Russia
and China - and its opponents - Turkey, the oil monarchies, the U.S.,
Britain and France. But the current conflict only resembles chess if
the game is played with multiple sides, backstabbing allies, and
conflicting agendas.
Take the past few weeks of rollercoaster politics.
The blockbuster was the U.S.-engineered rapprochement between Israel
and Turkey, two Washington allies that have been at loggerheads since
Israeli commandos attacked a humanitarian flotilla bound for Gaza and
killed eight Turks and one Turkish-American. When Tel Aviv refused to
apologize for the 2010 assault, or pay compensation to families of the
slain, Ankara froze relations and blocked efforts at any NATO-Israeli
cooperation.
Under the prodding of President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu phoned his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and
buried the hatchet. The apology `was offered the way we wanted,'
Erdogan said, and added `We are at the beginning of a process of
elevating Turkey to a position so that it will again have a say,
initiative and power, as it did in the past.'
The détente will align both countries with much of Washington's agenda
in the region, which includes overthrowing the Assad government, and
isolating Iran. Coupled with a Turkish push to resolve the long
simmering war between Ankara and its Kurdish minority, it was a
`Fantastic week for Erdogan,' remarked former European Union policy
chief Javier Solana.
It was also a slam dunk moment for the Israelis, whose intransigence
over the 2010 incident and continued occupation of Palestinian and
Syrian lands has left the country more internationally isolated than
it has been in its 65 year history.
Israel's apology might lay the groundwork for direct intervention in
Syria by NATO and Israel. In recent testimony before Congress, Admiral
James Stavridis, the head of U.S. European Command and NATO's top
commander, said that a more aggressive posture by the Obama
administration vis-à-vis Syria `would be helpful in breaking the
deadlock and bringing down the regime.'
According to the Guardian (UK), Netanyahu raised the possibility of
joint U.S.-Israeli air strikes against Syria, which Israel accuses of
shifting weapons to its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. There is no
evidence that Syria has actually done that, and logic would suggest
that the Assad regime is unlikely to export weapons when it is
fighting for its life and struggling to overcome an arms embargo
imposed on it by the EU and the UN. But Tel Aviv is spoiling for a
re-match with Hezbollah, the organization that fought it to a
standstill in 2006. `What I hear over and over again from Israeli
generals is that another war with Hezbollah is inevitable,' a former
U.S. diplomat told the Guardian.
There is some talk among Israelis about establishing a `buffer zone'
inside Syria to prevent Islamic groups becoming a presence on the
border. A similar buffer zone established after Israel's 1982 invasion
of Lebanon turned into a strategic disaster for Tel Aviv.
Admiral Stavridis's suggested that a more aggressive posture would
almost certainly not include using U.S. ground troops. According to
former Indian diplomat M. K. Bhadrakumar, a more likely scenario would
be for NATO air power to smash Assad's air force and armor - as it did
Mummer Khadafy's in Libya - and `if ground forces need to be deployed
inside Syria at some stage, Turkey can undertake that mission, being a
Muslim country belonging to NATO.'
The Gulf monarchies - specifically Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan - have
increased arms shipments to the anti-Assad insurgents, and France and
Britain are considering breaking the embargo and arming the Free
Syrian Army. If this were a normal chess game, it would look like
checkmate for Assad, Hezbollah, and Iran. But this game is
three-dimensional, with multiple players sometimes pursuing different
goals.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia are pouring what one American official called
`a cataract of weaponry' into Syria, but the former apparently
double-crossed the latter in a recent leadership fight in the Syrian
National Coalition (SNC), the umbrella organization for the various
groups fighting against the Damascus government. Qatar derailed Saudi
Arabia's candidate for the SNC's prime minister and slipped its own
man into the post, causing the organization's president, Ahmed Moaz
al-Khatib, to resign. While most the western media reported Khatib
resigned because SNC was not getting enough outside help, according to
As-Safir, the leading Arabic language newspaper in Lebanon, it was
over the two big oil monarchies trying to impose their candidates on
the Syrians.
Qatar ally Ghassan Hitto, a Syrian-American was anointed prime
minister, causing a dozen SNC members to resign. The Free Syrian Army,
too, says it will not recognize Hitto.
Khatib also objected to the Qatari move to form a Syrian government
because it torpedoed last June's Geneva agreement that would allow
Assad to stay on until a transitional government is formed. The Qatari
move was essentially a statement that the Gulf monarchy would accept
nothing less than an outright military victory.
Qatar is close to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, while Saudi Arabia
favors the more extremist Islamic groups, some with close links to
al-Qaida, that the U.S. and the European Union have designated as
`terrorist.' Tension between extremist and more moderate insurgents
broke into an open firefight Mar. 24 in the northern border city of
Tal Abyad. The secular Farouq Battalions, which favors elections and a
civil government, were attacked by the Jabhat al-Nusra, or Nusra
Front, that wants to impose Sharia Law and establish an Islamic
emirate. Four people were killed, and the leader of the Farouq
Battalions was severely wounded.
The Nusra Front has also tangled with Kurdish groups in Syria's
northwest, and its militias currently control much of the southern
border with Iraq, Jordan, and the Golan Heights that borders Israel.
It was the Nusra Front that recently kidnapped UN peacekeepers for
several days and attacked Iraqi soldiers escorting members of the
Syrian military who had fled across the border. There have also been
clashes between secular and Islamic forces in the Syrian cities of
Shadadeh and Deir el Zour.
The Turkish government backing of the Syrian insurgency is not popular
among most Turks, and that has to concern Erdogan, because he is
trying to alter the Turkey's constitution to make it more
executive-centered and to himself become the next president. Although
he is currently riding a wave of popularity over the Kurdish
ceasefire, that could erode if the Syria war drags on.
And without direct NATO-Israeli intervention there does not appear to
be any quick end to the civil war in sight. Assad still has support
from his minority ethnic group, the Alawites, as well as among
Christian denominations and many business groups. All fear an Islamic
takeover. `If the rebels come to this city,' one wealthy Damascus
businessman told Der Spiegel, `they'll eat us alive.'
The longer the war goes on, the more the region destabilizes.
Fighting has broken out between Shiites and Sunnis in northern
Lebanon, a Sunni-extremist fueled bombing campaign is polarizing Iraq,
and Jordan is rent by an internal opposition that poses a serious
threat to the Hashemite monarchy. Even Saudi Arabia has problems. A
low-level but persistent movement for democracy in the country's
eastern provinces is resisting a brutal crackdown by Saudi
authorities. As National Public Radio and GlobalPost reporter Reese
Erlich discovered, some of those regime opponents are being given a
choice between prison and fighting the Assad government, a strategy
that the Saudi government may come to regret. It was jihadists sent to
oppose the Soviets in Afghanistan who eventually returned to
destabilize countries in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, and
who currently form the backbone of al-Qaida associated groups like the
Nusra Front .
Aaron Zelin, Middle East expert and Fellow at the Washington Institute
told Erlich that fighters from Saudi Arabia, Libya, Tunisia, and
Jordan are being funneled into Syria.
Chess with multiple players can get tricky.
Turkey wants regional influence and Assad out, but it does not want a
neighbor dominated by the Gulf monarchies. It may also find that
talking about Turkish `power' doesn't go down well in the Middle East.
Arab countries had quite enough of that during the Ottoman Empire.
The Gulf monarchies want to overthrow the secular Assad regime,
isolate regional rival Iran, and insure Sunni supremacy over Shites in
the region. But they don't agree on what variety of Islam they want,
nor are they the slightest bit interested in democracy and freedom,
concepts that they have done their best to suppress at home.
The French and British want a replay of Libya, but Syria is not a
marginal country on the periphery of the Middle East, but a dauntingly
complex nation in the heart of the region that might well atomize into
ethnic-religious enclaves run by warlords. That is not an outcome that
sits well with other European nations and explains their hesitation
about joining the jihad against Assad.
Even the Israeli goal of breaking out of its isolation, destroying
Hezbollah, and strangling Iran may be a pipe dream. Regardless of
Turkish-Israeli detente, the barriers that keep Palestinians out of
Israel also wall off Tel Aviv off from the rest of the Middle East,
and that will not change until there is an Israeli government willing
to remove most of the settlements and share Jerusalem.
As for Hezbollah, contrary to its portrayal in the western media as a
cat's paw for Teheran, the Shite group is a grassroots organization
based in Lebanon's largest ethnic group. It is also being careful not
to give the Israelis an excuse to attack it. In any case, any Israeli
invasion of Lebanon would automatically rally international sentiment
and Arab public opinion - Shite, Sunni, Alawite, etc. - against it.
If Assad falls, Iran would lose an ally, but Teheran's closest friend
in the Middle East is Baghdad, not Damascus. And despite strong
American objections, Teheran recently scored a major coup by inking an
agreement with Pakistan's government to build a $7.5 billion gas
pipeline to tap Iran's South Pars field. The pact will not only blow a
hole in western sanctions against Iran, it will play well in the May
11 Pakistani elections. `The Pakistani government wants to show it is
willing to take foreign policy decisions that defy the U.S.,' says
Anthony Skinner of the British-based Maplecroft risk consultants. `The
pipeline not only caters to Pakistan's energy needs but also logged
brownie points with the many critics of the U.S. among the
electorate.'
In the end, the effort to knock Syria off the board may succeed,
although the butcher bill will be considerably higher than the current
body count of 70,000. But establishing a pro-western government in
Damascus and inflicting damage on Iran is mostly illusion.
`Victory' - particularly a military one - is more likely to end in chaos
and instability, and a whole lot more dead chess pieces.
From: Baghdasarian
http://dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com/
Dispatches From The Edge
March 31, 2013
In some ways the Syrian civil war resembles a proxy chess match
between supporters of the Bashar al-Assad regime - Iran, Iraq, Russia
and China - and its opponents - Turkey, the oil monarchies, the U.S.,
Britain and France. But the current conflict only resembles chess if
the game is played with multiple sides, backstabbing allies, and
conflicting agendas.
Take the past few weeks of rollercoaster politics.
The blockbuster was the U.S.-engineered rapprochement between Israel
and Turkey, two Washington allies that have been at loggerheads since
Israeli commandos attacked a humanitarian flotilla bound for Gaza and
killed eight Turks and one Turkish-American. When Tel Aviv refused to
apologize for the 2010 assault, or pay compensation to families of the
slain, Ankara froze relations and blocked efforts at any NATO-Israeli
cooperation.
Under the prodding of President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu phoned his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and
buried the hatchet. The apology `was offered the way we wanted,'
Erdogan said, and added `We are at the beginning of a process of
elevating Turkey to a position so that it will again have a say,
initiative and power, as it did in the past.'
The détente will align both countries with much of Washington's agenda
in the region, which includes overthrowing the Assad government, and
isolating Iran. Coupled with a Turkish push to resolve the long
simmering war between Ankara and its Kurdish minority, it was a
`Fantastic week for Erdogan,' remarked former European Union policy
chief Javier Solana.
It was also a slam dunk moment for the Israelis, whose intransigence
over the 2010 incident and continued occupation of Palestinian and
Syrian lands has left the country more internationally isolated than
it has been in its 65 year history.
Israel's apology might lay the groundwork for direct intervention in
Syria by NATO and Israel. In recent testimony before Congress, Admiral
James Stavridis, the head of U.S. European Command and NATO's top
commander, said that a more aggressive posture by the Obama
administration vis-à-vis Syria `would be helpful in breaking the
deadlock and bringing down the regime.'
According to the Guardian (UK), Netanyahu raised the possibility of
joint U.S.-Israeli air strikes against Syria, which Israel accuses of
shifting weapons to its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. There is no
evidence that Syria has actually done that, and logic would suggest
that the Assad regime is unlikely to export weapons when it is
fighting for its life and struggling to overcome an arms embargo
imposed on it by the EU and the UN. But Tel Aviv is spoiling for a
re-match with Hezbollah, the organization that fought it to a
standstill in 2006. `What I hear over and over again from Israeli
generals is that another war with Hezbollah is inevitable,' a former
U.S. diplomat told the Guardian.
There is some talk among Israelis about establishing a `buffer zone'
inside Syria to prevent Islamic groups becoming a presence on the
border. A similar buffer zone established after Israel's 1982 invasion
of Lebanon turned into a strategic disaster for Tel Aviv.
Admiral Stavridis's suggested that a more aggressive posture would
almost certainly not include using U.S. ground troops. According to
former Indian diplomat M. K. Bhadrakumar, a more likely scenario would
be for NATO air power to smash Assad's air force and armor - as it did
Mummer Khadafy's in Libya - and `if ground forces need to be deployed
inside Syria at some stage, Turkey can undertake that mission, being a
Muslim country belonging to NATO.'
The Gulf monarchies - specifically Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan - have
increased arms shipments to the anti-Assad insurgents, and France and
Britain are considering breaking the embargo and arming the Free
Syrian Army. If this were a normal chess game, it would look like
checkmate for Assad, Hezbollah, and Iran. But this game is
three-dimensional, with multiple players sometimes pursuing different
goals.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia are pouring what one American official called
`a cataract of weaponry' into Syria, but the former apparently
double-crossed the latter in a recent leadership fight in the Syrian
National Coalition (SNC), the umbrella organization for the various
groups fighting against the Damascus government. Qatar derailed Saudi
Arabia's candidate for the SNC's prime minister and slipped its own
man into the post, causing the organization's president, Ahmed Moaz
al-Khatib, to resign. While most the western media reported Khatib
resigned because SNC was not getting enough outside help, according to
As-Safir, the leading Arabic language newspaper in Lebanon, it was
over the two big oil monarchies trying to impose their candidates on
the Syrians.
Qatar ally Ghassan Hitto, a Syrian-American was anointed prime
minister, causing a dozen SNC members to resign. The Free Syrian Army,
too, says it will not recognize Hitto.
Khatib also objected to the Qatari move to form a Syrian government
because it torpedoed last June's Geneva agreement that would allow
Assad to stay on until a transitional government is formed. The Qatari
move was essentially a statement that the Gulf monarchy would accept
nothing less than an outright military victory.
Qatar is close to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, while Saudi Arabia
favors the more extremist Islamic groups, some with close links to
al-Qaida, that the U.S. and the European Union have designated as
`terrorist.' Tension between extremist and more moderate insurgents
broke into an open firefight Mar. 24 in the northern border city of
Tal Abyad. The secular Farouq Battalions, which favors elections and a
civil government, were attacked by the Jabhat al-Nusra, or Nusra
Front, that wants to impose Sharia Law and establish an Islamic
emirate. Four people were killed, and the leader of the Farouq
Battalions was severely wounded.
The Nusra Front has also tangled with Kurdish groups in Syria's
northwest, and its militias currently control much of the southern
border with Iraq, Jordan, and the Golan Heights that borders Israel.
It was the Nusra Front that recently kidnapped UN peacekeepers for
several days and attacked Iraqi soldiers escorting members of the
Syrian military who had fled across the border. There have also been
clashes between secular and Islamic forces in the Syrian cities of
Shadadeh and Deir el Zour.
The Turkish government backing of the Syrian insurgency is not popular
among most Turks, and that has to concern Erdogan, because he is
trying to alter the Turkey's constitution to make it more
executive-centered and to himself become the next president. Although
he is currently riding a wave of popularity over the Kurdish
ceasefire, that could erode if the Syria war drags on.
And without direct NATO-Israeli intervention there does not appear to
be any quick end to the civil war in sight. Assad still has support
from his minority ethnic group, the Alawites, as well as among
Christian denominations and many business groups. All fear an Islamic
takeover. `If the rebels come to this city,' one wealthy Damascus
businessman told Der Spiegel, `they'll eat us alive.'
The longer the war goes on, the more the region destabilizes.
Fighting has broken out between Shiites and Sunnis in northern
Lebanon, a Sunni-extremist fueled bombing campaign is polarizing Iraq,
and Jordan is rent by an internal opposition that poses a serious
threat to the Hashemite monarchy. Even Saudi Arabia has problems. A
low-level but persistent movement for democracy in the country's
eastern provinces is resisting a brutal crackdown by Saudi
authorities. As National Public Radio and GlobalPost reporter Reese
Erlich discovered, some of those regime opponents are being given a
choice between prison and fighting the Assad government, a strategy
that the Saudi government may come to regret. It was jihadists sent to
oppose the Soviets in Afghanistan who eventually returned to
destabilize countries in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, and
who currently form the backbone of al-Qaida associated groups like the
Nusra Front .
Aaron Zelin, Middle East expert and Fellow at the Washington Institute
told Erlich that fighters from Saudi Arabia, Libya, Tunisia, and
Jordan are being funneled into Syria.
Chess with multiple players can get tricky.
Turkey wants regional influence and Assad out, but it does not want a
neighbor dominated by the Gulf monarchies. It may also find that
talking about Turkish `power' doesn't go down well in the Middle East.
Arab countries had quite enough of that during the Ottoman Empire.
The Gulf monarchies want to overthrow the secular Assad regime,
isolate regional rival Iran, and insure Sunni supremacy over Shites in
the region. But they don't agree on what variety of Islam they want,
nor are they the slightest bit interested in democracy and freedom,
concepts that they have done their best to suppress at home.
The French and British want a replay of Libya, but Syria is not a
marginal country on the periphery of the Middle East, but a dauntingly
complex nation in the heart of the region that might well atomize into
ethnic-religious enclaves run by warlords. That is not an outcome that
sits well with other European nations and explains their hesitation
about joining the jihad against Assad.
Even the Israeli goal of breaking out of its isolation, destroying
Hezbollah, and strangling Iran may be a pipe dream. Regardless of
Turkish-Israeli detente, the barriers that keep Palestinians out of
Israel also wall off Tel Aviv off from the rest of the Middle East,
and that will not change until there is an Israeli government willing
to remove most of the settlements and share Jerusalem.
As for Hezbollah, contrary to its portrayal in the western media as a
cat's paw for Teheran, the Shite group is a grassroots organization
based in Lebanon's largest ethnic group. It is also being careful not
to give the Israelis an excuse to attack it. In any case, any Israeli
invasion of Lebanon would automatically rally international sentiment
and Arab public opinion - Shite, Sunni, Alawite, etc. - against it.
If Assad falls, Iran would lose an ally, but Teheran's closest friend
in the Middle East is Baghdad, not Damascus. And despite strong
American objections, Teheran recently scored a major coup by inking an
agreement with Pakistan's government to build a $7.5 billion gas
pipeline to tap Iran's South Pars field. The pact will not only blow a
hole in western sanctions against Iran, it will play well in the May
11 Pakistani elections. `The Pakistani government wants to show it is
willing to take foreign policy decisions that defy the U.S.,' says
Anthony Skinner of the British-based Maplecroft risk consultants. `The
pipeline not only caters to Pakistan's energy needs but also logged
brownie points with the many critics of the U.S. among the
electorate.'
In the end, the effort to knock Syria off the board may succeed,
although the butcher bill will be considerably higher than the current
body count of 70,000. But establishing a pro-western government in
Damascus and inflicting damage on Iran is mostly illusion.
`Victory' - particularly a military one - is more likely to end in chaos
and instability, and a whole lot more dead chess pieces.
From: Baghdasarian