Tell me lies about Syria

We're told that the Syrian civil war is just a proxy conflict between various powers: Bashar al-Assad is the face of an axis of resistance forged by Iran and Russia, while the US and its allies are backing the Islamist rebels as they try to takeover Syria bit by bit. This wrongheaded narrative has become incredibly powerful. The Syrian revolution has been subsumed into a geopolitical analysis of regional players.

The agency of armed groups in Syria has been supplanted for the flows of arms from the Gulf states and the US, the role of Turkey, the militias organised by Iran and the air campaign of Russian fighter jets. The context of the Arab Spring is completely lost, and the left-nationalist character of the uprising is concealed from public view. Instead, the Syrian civil war is just another senseless event, or the proxy struggle between the West and its anti-imperialist foes.

Through this narrow lens the use of poison gas in Khan Sheikhoun is either a false flag operation or just the symptom of the spiralling chaos of war. It looks like the Assad regime and its Russian patrons have resorted to poison gas out of exhaustion. The target is primarily civilian because the basis of the revolution were the elected councils fostered in rebel-held territory. This democratic alternative had to be snuffed out.

At the same time, the Western powers - the US, Britain and France, in particular - have not done much at all to support the Syrian opposition and the cause of a democratic Syria. The political support for the rebels only meant limited supplies of arms and funds, while the US has been happy to collaborate with Russia in bombing Syria. France and Britain have too taken to bombing the country. Yet the West has failed to provide air drops of food aid and take responsibility for the humanitarian fallout.

Although I oppose the West bombing Syria, don't mistake me for a fool who thinks Assad is worth defending. The Syrian regime is responsible for the bulk of deaths and suffering in the country, and it has a long record of collusion with the United States. The Assads sided with the US against Iraq in 1991 and the 'rendition programme' of torturing terror suspects after 2003. There's a reason the Blair government considered bestowing an honorary knighthood on Bashar al-Assad.

Don't tell me the Syrian Ba'ath regime is "anti-imperialist". Hafez al-Assad seized power from Salah Jadid in late 1970 after dragging his heels over the Syrian intervention on the side of the PLO in Jordan. At the time, the PLO was fighting to bring down the Hashemite monarchy and takeover the country. Perhaps fearing a rival Arab nationalist regional power, Assad was not eager to support Yasser Arafat. This is also why Syria would invade and occupy Lebanon in 1976.

The Assad regime sought to clip the wings of the PLO and prevent the Lebanese Left from taking over Lebanon. The Syrian occupation would converge with American and Israeli interests in keeping the Christian Maronites in power and expelling the PLO from Lebanon. Later, Syria would support the US military response to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. This would help bring the Lebanese civil war to an end, as the Iraqi regime would withdraw support for its allies in the war.

The Syrian Ba'ath regime was no more "anti-imperialist" than its rival in Iraq. Both Saddam Hussein and Hafez al-Assad were Soviet clients for many years, before defecting to the American camp. Iraq invaded Iran with full US approval, whereas Syria was more than happy to side with the US when Iraq went off the reservation. Meanwhile Syria has not challenged Israel since it lost the Golan Heights in the Six Day War and failed to recapture the territory in the 1973 war.

As for the claim that the Ba'ath regime is a secular socialist government, Hafez al-Assad rewrote the Syrian constitution to ensure that the president would always be a Muslim and constructed an alliance between the Alawite military leadership and the Sunni capitalist class. The state acted as a means of economic organisation and established a patronage network to sustain itself. This may have meant that the Syrian regime was willing to nationalise industry, but it was also willing to privatise these assets later on.

People continue to claim that the mixed nature of the Assad dynasty means that the state is the only non-sectarian alternative to Islamist barbarism. This fails to take into account the extent of violence and discrimination by the state against the Sunni working-class. Not only has the economy depended upon the exclusion of the Sunni urban and rural poor, the state has routinely repressed non-violent protest and tortured activists. The armed uprising was made inevitable by the regime because the Syrian security forces thought they could win easily.

When faced with an armed resistance the Syrian regime opened its prisons and released thousands of Islamists. Saddam Hussein did the same when faced with the US invasion. The Islamists have played a dual role: providing a strong front line for the rebels, but also acting as a counter-revolutionary agent. These militants may have been the toughest fighters, however, their actions have undermined the support for the revolution. This is all true even without taking into account ISIS and its monstrous actions.

It's hard to see how the civil war could end on just terms. As long as the Assad regime stands its ground, the hope of democracy and freedom in Syria is blighted and the reasons why the uprising happened go unchanged. In many ways, the Syrian opposition has more reason to keep on fighting than to settle in negotiations. The immense suffering in the country is down to the Syrian regime and its allies Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. For this reason, I suspect and fear that the war may continue to rage for years to come.

Interview: Col. Lawrence Wilkerson

Last week, the United States and Iran signed a long-awaited deal on the latter’s nuclear programme. The agreement will set limits on the Iranian nuclear programme, including a strict inspection regime, and massive reductions to the uranium stockpile for the next 15 years. In exchange for this Iran will be freed from the economic sanctions imposed against it. This deal raises new hopes and fears around the world. It also raises many questions, so we decided to contact Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson on the subject.

Lawrence Wilkerson was Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff in the second Bush administration. He was also Associate Director of the State Department’s policy planning staff under Ambassador Richard Haass. Prior to this Wilkerson served for over 30 years in the US armed forces. He is also a veteran of the Vietnam war. During the First Gulf War he worked closely with General Colin Powell in the first Bush administration. Today Lawrence Wilkerson teaches at the College of William & Mary on Government and Public Policy.

White: By some observers at least the nuclear deal has been welcomed as a break with the tensions of the recent past. Does this new deal represent a bold shift in US-Iranian relations?

Wilkerson: It has the potential to be so. There is no guarantee that it will shift relations dramatically—particularly if certain members of Congress continue to try to foul the deal. But if the basic requirements of the deal are adhered to by both sides, over time some trust will return to the relationship. At the same time, if other overlapping and even common interests, such as the defeat of ISIS and a political solution to the Syrian civil war, are achieved by common effort, the relationship could prosper and evolve more positively. Moreover, if an improved Iranian economy causes more democracy in Iran, that too could help the relationship become fuller and warmer. It is long overdue for the U.S. to mellow its support for dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia and to develop a more nuanced and balanced approach to the Persian Gulf region. An improving US-Iran relationship could be a big part of such a change.

White: In many ways the Obama years resemble an extension of the second Bush term. This deal may be an exception. Why do you think the Obama administration has pursued this deal?

Wilkerson: Primarily for the same reason that it pursued better relations with Cuba: the time is long past for talking to potential enemies rather than attacking them, overtly in war or covertly in secret CIA operations. But specifically with regard to Iran, there is no answer to several huge challenges in the Persian Gulf region and in southwest Asia in general without Iran. Iraq, Syria, nor Afghanistan will find any stability without Iran’s assistance. Likewise, the situation of Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt will be problematic without ultimate Iranian acquiescence. At the end of the day, Israel’s security cannot be reasonably guaranteed either without tacit Iranian buy-in. Washington understood all these realities when Iran was the US proxy in the region, under the Shah from 1953 to 1979. Nothing has changed since then with regard to Iran’s power in the region; so, to ignore this reality today is truly unwise.

White: In 2010 Turkey and Brazil tried to broker a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme and the US government vetoed it. Does the new deal suit the US because of the strict inspection regime?

Wilkerson: That potential deal in 2010 was a good one and Washington was unwise to turn it down. Doing so delayed a good deal for five years. But now that we have a good deal, we should pursue it with vigor. The current deal allows the most intrusive inspection regime in the history of the NPT. Frankly, I am surprised that Iran is allowing so much. Cheating on any deal is possible, of course; but cheating within the parameters of this deal will be very difficult—and, more importantly, I have every confidence that we would detect such cheating in time to take appropriate action.

White: We’ve seen the Republicans come out in vocal opposition. Likewise, there have been signs of conservative scepticism within Iran. To what extent do you think the new deal is threatened by right-wing forces on both sides?

Wilkerson: I believe the Republicans in particular but some Democrats as well—Democrats who get a great deal of their political funding from Jewish Americans—will try to derail the deal. I feel the President has the votes to veto any adverse legislation or resolutions by the Republican congress and not have his veto overridden. But such moves would weaken the deal by showing less than solid support for it. I am hoping that the national interest—which is well-served by this deal—will override political gain with enough members of Congress to keep this from happening, but I am not certain my hope is going to be fulfilled. From my position as chief of staff to Secretary of State Powell in 2002, I saw how the Congress sabotaged the deal with north Korea, the so-called Agreed Framework. I know they can do it again. I just hope they don’t. I will be working to ensure that, as much as possible, the American people don’t let them do it. As for the Iranians, there are certainly groups that harbor people opposed to the deal as well—groups such as the IRGC, the al-Quds Force, and certain radical mullahs around the Ayatollah. But Ayatollah Khamenei has given President Rouhani the lead on this deal and if the economic picture is to be improved, he must continue to do so. I believe that is sufficient incentive for him to keep these oppositional elements in check.

White: The Israeli government and the Saudi royal family seem to be united in opposition to the nuclear deal. Does the split in the US political class represent a clash over regional interests?

Wilkerson: I’m not sure how the two thoughts in your question are related—except to interpret the question as meaning, do regional splits produce U.S. political splits? Not as much as some pundits try to insinuate. Most of the opposition to the deal—from my party, the Republicans—is simply political opportunism. My party has both houses of Congress and is salivating over the White House in 2016—or, rather, was. With Trump taking the early lead in the polls and with this very successful deal with Iran, my party has been set back a bit. So, its opposition to the deal has more politics in its fabric than substantive security concerns. They want the President to look bad and will do almost anything to achieve that purpose. That said, yes, the fact that this strange alliance between Tel Aviv and Riyadh has developed and that the Gulf Cooperation Council is buying billions of dollars of LockheedMartin’s BMD, and that Iran is on the “other side of this equation”, does cause political line-ups here in the US. So you have Republicans lined up supporting dictators with oil, Israel doing the same, and arguably the most democratic country in southwest Asia, Iran, being cast as their common enemy. Politics does make for strange bedfellows….

White: The US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter remarked that the “military option” remains on the table. What did you make of this remark?

Wilkerson: Just what he said. If the deal falls apart—specifically, if Iran cheats, breaks out and heads for a nuclear weapon—the military option is not foreclosed. Frankly, I believe saying it outright is stupid; but then this administration has not been the brightest bulb on the block when it comes to its rhetoric.

White: As a longstanding ally of Assad in Syria, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran has been demonised by the West. Yet Iran stands as the only state with an interest in actively combating Islamic State. How valuable would Iran be as an ally?

Wilkerson: I think “ally”, formal or informal, is a step too far at the present moment—even though, as I said, Iran was our formal ally for over a quarter century. Gaining Iran’s assistance in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in ending the brutal war in Syria, with the defeat of ISIS, and with a number of other problematic situations in the region, would be a real plus, and not just for the US but, more importantly, for this very troubled region. As I said before, these situations will not be managed in a positive way without some assistance from Tehran. It’s that basic. The reality of this US-Iran deal may be more vital in this respect than in its more immediate nuclear aspect.

This interview was conducted in July 2015.

Catastroika: What's Syria in Russian?

In realpolitik minds, Vladimir Putin casts the shadow of a shrewd player on the world stage. He opposes ‘humanitarian interventions’, while he aggressively defends Russia’s national sovereignty. Even still, it’s true Putin understands power as well as he wields it. Putin’s primary interest is in the consolidation of the state and the maintenance of its power.

As recent events in Ukraine, and less recently in Georgia, demonstrate, Putin wants to secure the body national above all else. So why is there a Russian military presence in Syria?

For decades, the Assad regime maintained itself as a wedge between the Sunni elite and the Alawite military leadership. When the uprising began it had a popular, secular and democratic character (though these elements still exist) which was comprised by a diverse base. It was during the crackdown that it spiraled into a cycle of violence, into which hordes of Sunni Islamists flooded. As the uprising descended into a bloodbath, Putin may have began counting the miles between Syria and Chechnya.

The fact that the Chechen cause of independence from Russian hegemony has drawn Islamists from the Arab world must be unsettling. The prospect of Islamic State emerging from the chaos in Syria has sent shockwaves throughout the region. It could well embolden Islamic militants in the Caucasus, as it has elsewhere. After all, jihadi groups in Libya have declared allegiance to Islamic State, just as Boko Haram and al-Shabaab have done. The Assad regime may pose a bulwark, in Putin’s view, to the tide of Islamism.

So the Syrian regime does fit into Putin’s domestic agenda. However, it’s also the case that Syria fits into Russia’s regional interests. It’s a major nexus of fuel pipelines, and it has strategic value. Syria sits on NATO’s doorstep, alongside Iraq and Iran. It has a coastline with the Mediterranean, home to the US Sixth Fleet. Russia has long looked for counterweights to US proxies in the region. Consequently, Russia has been a major supplier of arms to the Syrian regime long before the civil war broke out.

Recently, it has come out that the Russian government offered a deal, in which Assad would step down. In February 2012, Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari held talks with the envoys of the UN Security Council. The Russian representative, Vitaly Churkin, laid out a three-point plan, which included a proposal for Bashar al-Assad to cede power. This would be after peace talks between the regime and the opposition had started. The US, UK and France were convinced Assad was about to fall, so they rejected the Russian offer.

Ironically, the US continues to demand that Assad step down, and this prevents any serious negotiations. This demand helps to keep Assad in power. Otherwise it might be possible for the regime and the opposition to engage in peace talks. As Patrick Cockburn writes, serious negotiations could lead to power-sharing arrangements. It’s plausible that the Syrian regime would be willing to dump Assad to hold on. Yet, even when it was within reach the US did not jump at the opportunity. The Russian plan to drop Assad is not without precedent.

In February 2003, Putin dispatched his envoy Yevgeny Primakov to Baghdad to deliver a stern message to Saddam Hussein. By this point, Vladimir Putin had joined Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder in opposing the US invasion of Iraq. Putin told Saddam that if he would step down from his post as President, voluntarily, to allow democratic elections to take place, then he could stay in the country. It was a last ditch attempt to stop the war. Perhaps fearing a coup d’etat by his generals, Saddam Hussein quietly rejected the idea.

Alas, the failure to prevent the Iraq war has now engulfed Syria in flames. The rhizome of Islamic militancy embedded itself deep into Iraqi society before reaching into Syria in the midst of civil war. The rise of Islamic State partly comes out of Saudi-Qatari ambitions to promote fundamentalism and combat secular nationalism and republicanism. It also comes out of the Iraq war, the experience of US occupation and the sectarian rule of the Maliki government. The new fundamentalist hive took shape because all political alternatives have been snuffed out.

The region is home to over four million soldiers divided between the different states. Yet Islamic State has been left to take shape and seize huge swathes of territory. The problem is clear: you can’t defeat Islamic State without working with Assad, and you can’t defeat Assad without empowering Islamic State. How can you pretend you stand for liberal values and take sides in this fight? The West has a problem. The liberal apologists for ‘humanitarian intervention’ have an even bigger problem. But it’s not the only one.

It looks like there is no coherent strategy. The US faces a myriad set of competing interests, among its proxies, and its foes. Turkey wants Assad to fall, and it’s been willing to lend support to Islamic State. Especially as this threatens the aspirations of Kurdish nationalists. To Erdogan, ISIS are the anti-PKK. Meanwhile Iran and Hezbollah share a common interest in defending the Assad regime. In a bid to destroy the Ba’athist regime, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have funneled arms and treasure to the Salafi jihadists. So Israel is happy to watch the corpses pile up, but it fears Islamic State reaching its borders.

It’s would be much more viable for Russia to back the Syrian regime. The Russian government has longstanding connections to Iran, which in turn needs Syria to help arm and fund Hezbollah. Without this alliance, Israel might still be occupying southern Lebanon. The Iranian government also wants to keep Iraq as a sovereign and democratic country because it can easily be dominated by the Shi’a under those conditions. So it’s obvious who has the potential to forge a coherent strategy. But it would likely leave the Syrian regime (possibly not Assad) in power.

However, the reasons why the Syrian people rose up against Bashar al-Assad have not been resolved. Human rights are still a far away dream, let alone democracy. Hundreds of thousands of people have been slaughtered and millions have been displaced. It’s clear that the Putin government does not have the best interests of Syrians at heart. Peace and stability in West Asia really just chimes well with the status quo. If the global order is redefined and reconstituted, Putin could easily lose out.

This article was first published at Souciant.

Proxy Motivations.

The backbone of calls for intervention has long been Turkey. How may we make sense of this? The government of Erdogan has its own fantasies of neo-Ottoman glory and may want to reassert its authority and influence over the region it ran for so long. That goes hand-in-hand with the old aim of carving a Kurdish Republic out of the body of a nearby neighbour to answer the Kurdish question, conveniently, without handing over any pieces of Anatolia. That aim has almost been achieved in Iraq where the Kurdish province has become more and more independent of Baghdad through its oil arrangements with Turkey. The Kurds of Syria are under threat from certain rebel forces, leading to 40,000 of them fleeing to Iraq and now the bridge over the river Tigris has been closed. That doesn’t particularly worry the Turkish government. But Erdogan might like to see a conclusion of some kind hastened by force in order to cease the influx of refugees to camps on Turkish soil.

All the while the major support for the Syrian rebels comes from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Saudi royal family want to see the competing model of Ba’athism dead and has no scruples about sending swarms of Wahhabi fundamentalists into Syria to finish the job. In doing so the House of Saud hopes to see the life of the republican and secular nationalist rival snuffed out. No such thing as Arab unity when it comes to holding onto the oiliest dirt in the ‘Middle East’. The sectarianism of this war was triggered by factors not totally internal to Islam. In Syria there is a class basis for sectarianism as the military is dominated by Alawite Muslims and economic power rests in the hands of a Sunni Muslim elite. Perhaps the Saudi oligarchy hopes to see a new regime which relies on the Sunni elite in Syria and not on the military dominated by Alawites. It would be a convenient move to flood the country with arms to Islamist groups who wish to deal with the Alawite Muslim minority.

Not coincidentally the Syrian regime is the only Arab ally of Iran, an officially Shi’ite republic, to the extent of backing Khomeini in the fight with Saddam. The Iranian government is now returning the favour in pledging support to Assad and going as far as sending 4,000 troops to assist in quashing the rebellion. The Assad regime is the stable route of arms to pass from Iran to Shi’ite militia in Lebanon and Iraq. Both the Iranians and the Hezbollah are anxious at the possibility of greater isolation in a region vulnerable to the military adventures of Washington and its proxies. Hezbollah may have defeated Israel in 2000 and 2006 at a huge cost. Hassan Nasrallah will be more than aware that the Israelis are not going to forget about Lebanon any time soon. Significantly, Lebanon has refused to grant the US permission to utilise their airspace to launch the attack. The Jordanian and Iraqi governments have joined with Lebanon in this refusal. So that would effectively rule out an attack from the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and Diego Garcia. If there is to be a strike then it will have to be orchestrated from the Mediterranean.

Meanwhile the al-Maliki government would prefer not to see Syria bombed by the US for it may stir the sectarian impulses which are already pulsating within its own borders. Perhaps Nouri al-Maliki fears a Sunni rebellion. The Shi’ite militias of Iraq have already clashed with rebel forces in the defence of Assad’s regime and have threatened further action. Likewise the Hezbollah have threatened to take action should the US start flinging cruise missiles like pebbles. On the other side of Lebanon, the Israeli government wouldn’t mind if Assad disappeared but fear what might arise in Syria if he actually does fall. The possibility of an unencumbered fight between Israel’s enemies doesn’t appeal much, but neither would free elections. Note that the Israeli airstrikes against Syria were not stepped up to take out the Assad regime; instead it seemed to be more directed towards prolonging and exacerbating the conflict. So long as Hezbollah and Iran are left vulnerable it doesn’t matter how high the mountain of Arab corpses rises.

This article was originally written for The Third Estate on September 2nd 2013.

Syria's Islamic 'civil war'.

The Wrong brand of Islam.

As Robert Fisk observes, the coverage of this conflict is mired in hypocrisy and mendacity. No Western power is serious about a ‘humanitarian intervention’ in this instance. The political class was relieved (though it won’t admit it) at the Sino-Russian veto which provoked such criticism in the West. Not that there is ever any such concern about the four decades that the US has spent blocking a peaceful settlement over Israel-Palestine. This is highly relevant as the Israelis want to see Syria fall into the hands of people who will betray the Lebanese resistance and sell-out on the Palestinian question. Interestingly, Hezbollah in Lebanon have gone completely quiet as its Shi'ite comrade Bashar al-Assad struggles to hold down a democratic opposition in his own country. Fisk notes "For 30 years, Hezbollah has defended the oppressed Shias of southern Lebanon against Israeli aggression. They have presented themselves as the defenders of Palestinian rights in the West Bank and Gaza. But faced with the slow collapse of their ruthless ally in Syria, they have lost their tongue."

In The Evening Standard Philipp Bobbitt comments “Various Iranian officials have depicted the Syrian civil war as a clash of outside powers, with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey serving as proxies for the US and the UK [which they most certainly are!], trying to weaken the alliance of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah [to further empower Israel].” Note that Bobbitt emphasises that this is the line of the Iranian regime, probably with the intention of muddying it in the minds of his readers. Yet it’s soon clear that Bobbitt is sympathetic to an “extensive bombing campaign, and air strikes” to undermine Syria’s air defences and lay the way for a power-sharing arrangement. He stresses that he isn’t for ‘Western ground troops’ (and no one is) but then stresses that we can rely on Turkey (and NATO) for that. Bobbitt goes on to frame all of this as a ‘civil war’ within Islam, between the Sunni and the Shia manifested in the competing orders of the Saudi Kingdom and the Iranian Republic.

Of course, it seems more like a conflict between Western influence in the region and the only current independent of American-Israeli edict. The problem is not Iran's human rights record, the real problem is that the Iranians will not take orders from Washington between hanging homosexuals. If there really is a ‘civil war’ within Islam then it’s a portion of the Sunni lot that’s on our side, in this view the Shi’ites are the enemy because they inhabit the oiliest land in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Iran poses a threat to the unnatural order that has oil profits being wired to New York and London. So naturally Iranian influence is highlighted as part of the problem in Syria. It seems more plausible that there’s a conflict over the natural resources of that region and it has multifarious belligerents. This is how to take the Sino-Russian opposition to any UN sanctions against Syria. It is also plausible that the objectives of the Western support for rebels go as far as the subversion of any democratic currents in Syria. But it isn't clear if this aim will be achieved.

The Saudi-Qatari ruling-class would love to create another bulwark to Iranian influence in it's tacit alliance with Israel. The Syrian regime has to be destroyed because it's a decrepit Ba'athist model rooted in the Alawite sect of Shi'ite Islam, which makes it a conveniently placed ally of Iran and Hezbollah. It is in the interests of the US and Israel to dethrone Assad and destroy the Ba'ath Party for this reason. This is where the interests of Wahhabi Islamists converge with the interests of Western power and the rebel groups fighting to bring down the Syrian regime. At the same time it has to be said that the popular movement to free Syria from this regime does not subscribe to any religious edicts coming out of Saudi Arabia. The sectarian Wahhabi Islamists are a minority within the struggle, as Richard Seymour has noted. It may be more plausible that the Turkish-backed Muslim Brotherhood will come to power at the ballot box, as seen in Egypt, but it's not a predestined conclusion.

The ideal outcome would take the most progressive aspects of the legacy of Arab nationalism further within a democratic framework to set the ground for a new politics. We should note, as Seymour does, that the Assad regime has sought to harden its position by paying agents to shout sectarian slogans. This is reminiscent of attempts by the Egyptian regime to stir inter-religious violence between Coptic Christians and Muslims. Instead the Coptics and the Muslims stood together in Tahrir Square, "We are one!" they shouted defiantly. Similar methods of whipping up anti-Semitic fervour among the crowds failed. This is a struggle for democracy in the region and it has yet to flower. It is vital that the Left stands behind the democratic opposition and resistance to Bashar al-Assad and the Ba'ath Party for the sake of a shift in paradigm. The opportunity to wrench Syria from all spheres of influence can't be missed. This isn't the same as saying that we should support the liberal interventionists and NATO apologists for bombing a sovereign country.