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 peace 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.
published on Debate Politics forum on 14 Jun 2013
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