UPDATE France Leads
Neocolonial Carve-up of Syria
This is a lucid explanation of the Arab Spring's mysterious angle: what are the reasons for the conservative Saudis to support radicals abroad. To my knowledge, nobody yet explained it as clearly as Dr Omar Kassem, an Egyptian scholar residing in London: Israel Shamir The Syrian Puzzle and the future of the Middle East Omar
Kassem The
Arab Spring, for all its meanderings, is a harbinger of
the end of the post-colonial era in the Arab world. If
America and Britain are finally going to be leaving the
area to its own devices with a rump military presence no
bigger or larger than anywhere else in the world, it
isn’t without having tried in an expensive and
delusional millennial moment to upgrade from post-colonialism
to empire. In an example of the delusion, nine years ago
Paul Bremer was accepting Israeli bids to run the Iraq
electricity grid. American
and British failure in the area was down to their actions
always hurting their friends more than their enemies.
This was the policy of seriously flawed leaders who were
not checked by the democratic systems in their countries.
Once begun, the lunacy continued. Now forced to leave (or
not to leave, that is the question!) Afghanistan in
disarray, there is apparently a new desire to get
involved in Syria. That’s not all, for America and
Britain are now also in the position of having to condemn
Assad’s regime in Syria, support al-Thani’s
régime in Bahrain, and keep a straight face, all at the
same time. Having
hurt Saudi Arabia with their lunatic gallivanting about
the Middle-East, America and Britain are now having to
make amends. This is not of course out of any contrition,
for Anglo-Saxon moral certitude is unbending, but because
they need Saudi Arabia to help them with the task of
containing Iran, a long-time enemy, since it was
unintentionally propelled by their policies into suddenly
becoming the most powerful country in the region. If oil
sanctions on Iran are to work, then Saudi help is vital. In
October 2009 King Abdulla of Saudi Arabia visited Bashar
al-Assad to have him relinquish his Iranian alliance and
to act more ‘within the Arab fold’. If Baghdad
was lost, then perhaps Damascus could be regained. But
the trip was a failure. Not only didn’t Assad budge,
but he unwisely reminded Abdulla that the Iranians had so
far been the Palestinian cause’s best chance. Little
did Assad know it, but he was setting himself up then for
the situation he finds himself in today. The best example
I can give of the new direct enmity between Riyadh and
Damascus is the almost contemporaneous attacks on each
other’s intelligence headquarters in July 2012. Of
course, in giving the Saudis and Qataris strong support
in the Syrian situation, without being drawn into what
would become possibly the ultimate military quagmire, the
Americans and the British are, in another example of self-contradictory
policies in the Middle-East, supporting the rise of a
traditionally and absolutely anti-colonial regional
movement: that of the Muslim Brothers. This movement is
at the epicentre of a broad shift in politics in the
Middle-East, and Egypt is at its core. Turkey
is often seen as the source of a new politics for the
region; as in Russia, religion there has made a comeback,
junking the drab meaningless secular fascism of the past.
The AKP’s Islamic idea has been trumpeted as the
model for a troublesome area. But that’s not how the
Muslim Brothers see it. Of course it is good thing that
the people of Turkey have re-engaged with their
traditional normative philosophy of life, one which
furthermore extends into the political sphere. But while
the Arabs and the Turks have found friendship, Turks
cannot offer the Arabs a model of Islam of the future.
Memories are long, and scholars are deeply conscious of
the fact that it was Ottoman ‘State Islam’
which undermined the true nature of the faith. Wahhabism
was only one of a long series of revivalist movements
that sought to overturn it. Furthermore, the latinisation
of the Turkish language, as well as the abolition of the
caliphate, continue to cause offense. The Turks know all
this despite their Ottoman instincts. Thus
the problem isn’t about religion as such, it is
about identity. Despite reports to the contrary, and some
fraying at the fringes, Egypt is a deeply homogeneous
nation. This homogeneity is both racial and ideational.
The latter factor is based on a conception of the 19th
century Egyptian reformers – at their head Mu?ammad
‘Abduh – who, in reaction to the overwhelming
dominance of western culture then, defined Islamic
civilisation in opposition to it. It in fact was the
beginning of the ‘clash of civilisations’ idea,
and changed the nature of the religion from a normative
philosophy into a mark of the self. Egypt exported this
idea to the rest of the Muslim world, and it is an idea
which unites apparently secular to apparently religious,
and apparently Muslim to apparently Christian. The
creation of Israel and its insistence on being a
‘Jewish state’ in the midst of the Arab world
subsequently provided this idea its cause célèbre. The
Muslim Brothers vision is still couched in the absolute
need to return this identity to Egypt and the Arab world,
but it is one that still needs to face the constant tests
of democracy lest it become dogmatic. The
democratic battle after the January 25th 2011
uprising was bitterly fought, but it was principally
vested interests – ironically beneficiaries of state
sinecures and of crony capitalism both fighting a
retrograde battle - who opposed the Islamic parties.
Ultimately it was the instigators of the uprising, the
youth movement and the April 6th movement, who,
as the swing vote, saw the need to give the Islamic
parties their head. They were repaid by Morsi the new
civilian President hailing from the Muslim Brothers, with
his relatively quick domestication of the military,
although obviously a considerable amount still remains to
be done constitutionally (if not economically!). But
the story of the Muslim Brothers cannot be seen from a
purely Egyptian angle, for it is a regional movement. Al-Jazeera
satellite TV channel, with al-Arabiyya TV in its wake,
owned and run as they are by Gulf monarchs, broadcast
continuous live footage of the Arab Spring, essentially
facilitating the uprisings and fomenting revolution. So
how did Gulf monarchs ever come to promote revolution
– one may ask – with the Emir of Qatar at their
head? The Emir of Qatar clearly has the support of
important elements of the Saudi state. Qatar in fact has
been at the forefront of fulfilling the Saudi policy of
Arabisation of the Palestinian cause, competing with Iran
for the rebuilding of Hezbollah’s infrastructure
after the pointless 2006 Israeli demolition of it, and
now also planning a major reconstruction of poor Gaza.
The answer is that these developments are rooted in the
history of the Muslim Brothers in Saudi Arabia ever since
the 1950’s. The
Muslim Brothers as the strongest political contenders
after the Egyptian revolution of 1952 were forcibly
crushed by Gamal Abdel Nasser’s military régime.
They sought sanctuary in Saudi Arabia and were granted it
by the Wahhabi establishment in exchange for their help
in fighting the spread of secularism and nationalism
across the Arab world. While Nasser was the gravest
threat, there were also the Ba‘ath parties in Syria
and Iraq to contend with. Arriving in Saudi Arabia, the
Muslim Brothers were wholly unlike the Wahhabi religious
establishment. This last was a traditional doctrinal
culture, unprepared for the social and economic upheavals
that were to come in the wake of the oil boom. The Muslim
Brothers on the other hand had run schools and hospitals
for the poor in Egypt, and fostered an education
surrounding an understanding of imperialism and
colonialism, all of which would eventually help shape and
run the new institutions of the Saudi state. In
alliance with the Wahhabi establishment, the Muslim
Brothers came to criticise some of the policies of
modernisation carried out by the Saudi royal family when
too much western influence was permitted. Eventually
however their shrill response to rising levels of poverty,
high unemployment and economic stagnation in the Kingdom,
became its primary source of dissent, and caused
consternation. Subsequently divisions between the new
revivalism and the gradually ossifying Wahhabi
establishment opened up in the course of a series of
crises: first in the seizure of Mecca’s sacred
mosque and the call to overthrow al-Saud in November 1979,
then in Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, and
also after al-Qaeda’s 11 September 2001 attacks. On
each occasion, under pressure from all quarters, the
royal family sought the support of the Wahhabi
establishment, and survived thanks to it. But each
resolution and accommodation as it arose was met with
general unpopularity and criticism. The régime became
embattled and the Wahhabi establishment came to be seen
as out of touch. From this state of affairs arose the
policy of support for the Muslim Brothers in Egypt,
Tunisia, Libya and Syria as an attempt to export their
relentless energy and relieve tensions internally, while
creating client states in the Arab world dependent on the
Gulf nations for funding and support. The
rest is history as they say, but we are left with the
Syrian morass. If that domino is to fall, and Syria is
‘return to the Arab fold’ in a new and
democratic way, the best way forward is to starve the
rebels of funds for arms, and make all help conditional
on peaceful mass protests, at once. Thus ending the
violence and leaving Assad, now no longer embattled and
needing support, in the clutches of his people, to be
held to account by them, will result in democracy. The
Iranian régime will not prop him up if a democratic
process truly gets under way, because they will want to
deal with a legitimate government, and are quite capable
of negotiating with one that is either Sunni or Alawi
dominated or one that is a mixture of both. Don’t be
fooled into thinking that there are any kinds of
religious obstacles to such an outcome. But if the force
of arms is permitted to have its way, then, given current
circumstances, the rise of the Muslim brothers in Syria
will not be as benign as it should be, confessional
polarisation and potentially endless unnecessary
suffering will ensue. As we saw in Egypt in Ta?rir Square,
we need to see Muslims and Christians in Syria holding
hands in protest. Dr Kassem’s bio: I'm Egyptian, aged 60, and I live in London most of the time at the moment. I'm married have 3 children, 2 grown up, 1 still in education. I'm a graduate of Cambridge in theoretical economics. I'm a postgrad of London Uni., School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Msc. in monetary theory. I'm a doctor (PhD) again of London Uni., School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), specialised in theory of justice (social choice theory) (1984), subsequently worked quite a lot on Kant and the Enlightenment and Islamic philosophers, finishing off a book on philosophy (in English first) available in early new year for peer review It is my belief that the 17th century
nation-state, which took over in Europe from the
catholic church when it collapsed, although it has now
spread to all countries of the world, is an outmoded
system of human governance which will take us to the
brink of destruction unless human beings reassert
control over it. An earlier letter From Omar Kassem re: (Turks and Syrians from Shamir) A
very interesting and knowledgeable explanation of the
Arab Spring: well done on a good article! there is however one thing which I disagree with you about and that is the Neocon plan for the middle east coming about if Assad falls. If Assad falls: if he falls the Muslim Brothers will take over Syria with Qatari money. Now I support the MB in Egypt because they have been the country's social conscience and its welfare system for 85 years. But in Egypt the MB have a particular place among all the other forces with which it is balanced in the context of a homogeneous population. In Syria there is no such thing, the MB is the tough guy in a heterogeneous population. As you rightly say the Christians will suffer, and the Christians of Iraq, who left Iraq for Syria will suffer twice over. Memories of the Armenian exodus will return etc... I've read a lot of your articles and I trust your judgment - so here goes: What
is actually happening in the Arab world few people
understand. If you remember the Wahhabis brought al-Saud
to power and al-Saud has underwritten the power of al-Sabah
in Kuwait and al-Khalifa in Bahrain. Al-Thani in Qatar
and al-Nahayan in Abu Dhabi are independent but being
small also have to cow-tow to al-Saud. The Wahhabi
ideology and 'priesthood' ruled all this in the early
days. But the Wahhabi movement has ossified, and in
becoming defenders of the Gulf regimes have lost status
to the MB. The MB came over to Saudi during the Nasser
expulsion of the 1950's and has taken root throughout the
gulf, becoming the premier social movement. The shiite
protests in the eastern provinces may fill our tv screens,
but what worries gulf states the most is the power of the
sunni MB. This is why they want to cut a deal with them
and give them Egypt and Syria in exchange for protection
(they will also give them Libya after a while - but that's
less important). At such time as Assad falls, the MB will
become the dominant power in the Middle East, and will
received unlimited funding from the Gulf rulers as payoff.
Hezbolla and Iran will cut deals with them, and they have
a lot to offer them in terms of military expertise. Iran don't
forget is what has caused all this to start with by
banging the Palestinian drum constantly since 1979
and embarrassing the Gulf rulers over their ineptitude
and treachery. This is what has led the Arab street to
back the MB over the Wahhabis over the years. The MB will
support radical Islam in Turkey, because they
despise how Turkey ditched the religion and annulled
the caliphate, and they despise Erdogan's 'half-baked'
Islam as 'not enough'. As far as the Neocons and Israel
are concerned, it will be the beginning of the end of
their dream. They will reap the whirlwind, and they will
sit and watch as what are now US-backed movements turn
around to bite them where it hurts most. From
Saif, re Turks and Syria Nice article, and while it praises the Islamic Ottoman empire and its current status, Turkey must be seen in the larger context of Sunni power, which causes Erdogan to support the Sunni Palestinians against the Jews, and the Sunni Syrians versus the minority Alawite dynasty of the Baathist party for the last 50 years. The Baathists are Communist dictators, with Alawite nepotism embedded in their ethos and ruling modus operandi, and working eventually for the Shi'ite crescent. Both Sunni and Shi'ism are powerful strains of Islam and they are united against the Israelis, but within Islam, ancient competitors for power. The Syrian Civil War is a just cause for Syrian Sunnis who constitute 80 percent of the Syrian population to have a say in their own governance, and it is a rightful demand that the Sunnis make, and the Alawites have massacred tens of thousands of Sunnis through their decades of rule through Oppression, while squandering the Golan Heights and their nascent Nuclear Power to Israel.
I fully support Erdogan in his Sunni support to the 90
percent Sunni Islamic World, and when the 80 percent of
Sunni Syrians will come to power, Turkey will reap
enormous Geo-political and strategic benefits. We don't
have to be psychic to see the outcome of the Syrian Civil
War. |