Syria puts al-Qaeda and west on same side
Between now and Easter, the landscape – parched and arid in the hot summers – Syria becomes a riot of poppies, primroses, gentians, and fritillaries. There’s an abundance of spectacular rocky escarpments, strewn from time to time with old stone towns and evidence of an extraordinary past.
The Romans built the vast complex at Palmyra. The Crusaders built the impregnable Crac des Chevaliers – a huge moated castle close to the Mediterranean. Its great stone cities of Damascus and Aleppo are amongst the best preserved in the Middle East. At Easter time Aleppo clatters to the sound of wooden crosses being dragged across the cobbled streets and chanting priests celebrating their risen Christ.
Today Syria is at war with itself. The regime has been an oppressive, intolerant rock amid the bloodshed that has convulsed neighbouring Lebanon and Iraq. That “rock” has been secured at terrible cost – tens of thousands killed, many more tortured and incarcerated. But its “stability” ultimately suited the world.
Read more: Amid the power politics the Syrian people suffer
So today, the Arab League, the British, and many other Western governments and, as of yesterday, al-Qaeda, are now committed to the overthrow of the dynasty that has ruled Syria by force for nearly half a century, and which is now rocketing and shelling its own people. Did I say al-Qaeda? We are in terrifying times. There are forces in play in this new Syrian landscape, of armed civil war, that represent perhaps one of the most dangerous and explosive scenarios seen in modern history.
Little more than a decade after 9/11, al-Qaeda and the west, are somehow together in the march on Damascus. Some of AQ’s leader, Ayman al Zawahri’s words yesterday were at times interchangeable with those of the Arab League and the Western discourse on the floor of the United Nations. This is a version of the ‘Great Game’ that even our cyber age may find impossible to replicate. At its heart though is the eternal struggle between Sunni and Shia Islam in which the West has never yet managed to play a successful hand.
Our times have seen external intervention in Libya and Iraq with hard lessons in each. We have seen too, spontaneous local expression in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, and more – there has been spontaneity in Libya and Syria too. But Syria is both geographically and politically a long way from Libya. It is geographically and politically very close to Iran and Saudi Arabia.
These are highly dangerous times in which there are almost no obvious options.
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There are 7 comments on this post
Syria at war with itself.. what a vacuous notion , but they are demonically playing it out; not even war games ;children , women and babies slaughtered on the streets and their own houses.
The subject is sickening , but the contrast between bright abundant nature and this stupid situation emphasises the idiocy and extent ‘peoples’ go to in the name of power.
Good writing Jon
Oh what a tangled web we weave ,when we practice to deceive.Words with a lot of meaning in the context of the Middle East,
The removal of Saddam by Blair and Bush,has created mayhem and carnage in Iraqa’s as various factions seek control,via violence not by democratic means.I am sure it has sown the seeds of potential freedom from oppression,from despotic control.That in itself is good, but unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any united opposition to fill the vacuum that is created,only a struggle for power.We are seeing it in Egypt,Libya and when eventually Assad falls we will see it in Syria.It could spread to the rest of the gulf,even Iran where dissident groups see their opportunity.
It is a very dangerous situation,for which much of the blame can be heaped on the shoulders of Blair,Bush and even Cameron.We would do well to keep out of the politics of other countries.That goes for Afghanistan too.No good will come of it, certainly not for these isles.
Jon,
This is the first C4 News effort I have seen to even attempt a rationale of the civil war in Syria. It is nowhere near deep enough but I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies. At least you have avoided the appalling neocon propagandist nonsense manufactured by messrs Rugman and Miller – sadly, Lindsey Hilsum also began to fall into the same lock-step.
I hope you will now attempt to identify the indigent political and sectarian factions involved. I hope too you will identify the West’s disgusting incitement “on the ground.” As for the Arab League, nobody with any sense is going to take that gang of puppet despots seriously.
What is REALLY at stake here is an independent Syria: this is not wanted by the West, the Arab League, Israel, or so-called “Al Qaeda,” still less an alliance with independent Iran. Western spooks will work accordingly, hence the bombings in Aleppo and the assassination of Iranian scientists.
All war is organised murder by both sides. You people in the media have the example of Western mass murder of innocents in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. You ran out of excuses years ago. It is time to stop lying by omission of facts.
Imported fuel, in particular oil, is crucial for the survival of western economies, ergo of the west itself. Therefore western politicians and spooks will seek to exploit any “situation” in fuel-exporting states to their own countries’ advantage.
It’s all very well adopting a pious isolationist stance, or tut-tutting, or raging, but pragmatism is the name of this game. What good all the hair-tearing when the lights go out and the cars are parked – for good?
I’m afraid I’ll have to misquote Cameron here: “We’re all (in the west) in this together”
Keep our noses out. Stop pretending we have some god-given right to interfere in the affairs of other countries. Play a constructive part in UN discussions seeking to find a way out of this mess. But stop thinking we can play a significant role. We can’t & the lessons of the last 50 years show that only in unusual circumstances are we able to do so. In the Middle East, such circumstances don’t exist. And stop using words that are only intended for domestic political purposes as they imply other things to everyone else & increase our reputation for duplicity & feebleness.
We’ve been co-operating with al-Qaeda before.
You may have overlooked the fact that al-Qaeda is a Sunni derived organisation, and widely credited as nowadays financed mostly by some Sunnis in Saudi Arabia.[But, to be fair, the Saudi Government wants rid of them]. The Assad government is mainly Shia: hence the risk of a bitter civil war.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that the USA supplied military equipment to the Taliban and to al-Qaeda, via Pakistan and during Afghanistan’s war with the Soviet ‘Red Army’ in the early ’80s. Defeat of that so-called ‘invincible’ Red Army preceded the defiance & uprisings of the Soviet’s occupied territories in central & Eastern Europe.
All of which repeats the observation that civil wars usually give leadership to aggressive leaders (such as al-Qaeda) who’re unsuited to peacetime governance.
Global military politics varies between countries, social values and economics. I read somewhere “One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter”. It is therefore unsurprising to find that at times our foreign policy viewed in a set of different political parameters becomes contradictory to other areas in the East. The overarching doctrines of Western imperialism were all originally economically motivated in terms of exploitation of the assets each country offered. Now in the eyes of global media, the ‘digital village’ and the new culture of mass activism (via the Occupy movement etc) a new way of understanding political and military muscle must be understood. Much of western military activity of the last ten years has been conducted under the veil of intervention to ‘save’ countries from oppressive regimes however the underlying motivations have always been economic in terms of strategic positioning etc. The thing about Western intervention in Syria alongside the Arab League and Al Quaeda is that there is no doubt this is for the greater good of that nation. It should however be noted that the Arab League and Syrian’s are best placed to make any strategic decisions.