Nine out of ten Egyptian conspiracy theories are utter bullshit. But only five out of ten are based on bullshit observations. Many are concocted to address very real contradictions that seem to have no logical explanation. One such theory has been formulated to address why Israel and the US see the Assad regime as a bigger danger than the ISIL state at the borders of Israel. And the theory goes like this: ISIL is a creature of the CIA designed to invite foreign intervention, its limits are set, and its parameters are known. However Assad, specifically in alliance with Iran and Russia poses a strategic danger to Israel and the United States and thus must be eliminated.
I believe this theory to be utter and complete crap. I understand why it has gained a lot of traction in Egypt, because people see Israel and the US acting counter to any sense, and thus there must be something sinister cooking. But the fault of Egyptians is that they have never, and probably will never, understand that sometimes the US just acts plain dumb. People can't fathom that the behemoth of the US can have a foreign policy so inane and destructive. They think that ineptitude, bad ideas, and horrible execution are the domain of Arab governments; but not the US. The US must act out of planning, out of strategy, out of long term well considered goals. The US has quantum computers simulating all scenarios, it has nefarious aims, it is a puppet master.
The reality is of course very different. Arabs in general have a problem understanding that US foreign policy is a series of fuck ups of varying magnitude, seldom interrupted by stories of success. Vietnam and Afghanistan are simple fuck ups. The destruction of Iraq and the rise of ISIL are mega fucks. It's that simple, and that's fairly obvious to most Americans. But Arabs find it very hard to digest.
Therefore people have to explain the position of the US regarding the Syrian civil war through this prism. I understand that the theory is incorrect. But I don't understand the thought process and the mindset through which the US finds itself supporting proto-ISIL for years against Assad only to be shocked that he will be replaced by a murderous genocidal medieval Islamist state. Don't get me wrong, I get the technical aspects of how the common wisdom in Washington came to be that Obama should simply have overthrown Assad earlier, despite the patent inanity of the argument.
I understand that Washington's foreign policy is controlled in a bipartisan manner by neocons and liberal ultra-interventionists who lobby any administration into supporting "Moderate Islamist" takeovers of Arab countries. I understand that this romanticised view of "democracy" is what initiated America's support for the "Arab Spring" long before the mass demos in Tunisia and Egypt. But I don't understand how such think tanks could be so resistant to facts, counter evidence, and major time failures of their experiments on the ground.
I understand that the theory of the Arab Spring is that the US should handover control of the region to "moderates", the MB in reality to cut a long story short. And that these "moderate Islamists" are who the people of the region popularly want to be ruled by. In return, the Arab countries will localise Muslim "rage" and thus the West will be free from terrorism. But evidence on the ground seems to indicate otherwise. In Egypt for example, when the MB came to power, they accumulated around them a shell of Islamists that ran the spectrum from ISIL affiliates to televangelists. The "moderates" did not turn out to be so moderate. And when they went for a power grab, the US showed absolutely no opposition.
In Syria, the think tank theory is that Assad is the main problem. If Assad just abdicates or is killed, all will be solved. How did that work out in Libya? Did everything turn out great when Ghadafi was killed? Or did the country devolve into a warlord state? Why should Syria, divided as it is, be any better than Libya which is basically composed of one sect and one ethnic group?
The narrative is that Syria started out when children wrote slogans on the walls and Assad just went ahead and murdered them, and then people went out to the streets to protest. That the revolution in Syria started out secular and peaceful. But that is not true. Ask any Syrian, but really ask them, as in ask them followups about how the "revolution" started and you will find out that it was always from day one a sectarian war. It was always a Sunni and Kurd bid to breakaway, it was never a popular revolution. After all, Syria is a synthetic construct, held together only by Baathist's ardent secularism and pan-Arabism.
The argument then is, even if we assume the Syrian "revolution" is sectarian, don't Sunnis have the right to choose who they want to be ruled by. But they want to be ruled by ISIL! And they don't want elections to determine this. In area after are "liberated" from Baathist control, the rebels established Sharia courts to rule. Dress codes, floggings, crossings, and public executions were commonplace in rebel held areas long before ISIL started to consolidate power in Syria. Syria is 40% non-Sunni. Can I really ask the 40% to just accept that the 60% want to rule them through a system where Christians will be deported and Yazidis will be enslaved?
But Assad killed 200,000 people!! Did he? Yes, 200,000 people died in the Syrian civil war so far. But less than 10% of them are civilians. That's to say the majority of the dead are combatants. And about half of the dead are from Assad's side of the conflict. Which begs a question, why would a hundred thousand Syrians give their lives and continue to fight for Assad? Because they are not fighting for Assad. They are Shiites and Christians and Ismailis and Druze who are fighting for survival. Are they required to just surrender to ethnic cleansing? So if Assad is killed will that end the civil war? It will end it only if it means that the non-Sunni part of the Syrian population will fall into disarray and be mass murdered. Sure, that's one form of a solution. A final solution if you will. But more likely, a new leadership will from down the line will fill Assad's role and the area between Damascus and the Alawite mountains will continue to fight for survival.
But Assad used chemical weapons and barrel bombs against civilians! Well, the moderate opposition has blown up truckloads of suicide bombings in market area killing hundreds of civilians.
But Assad is using foreign fighters from Hezbollah and his forces are being trained by Iran!! Yes, he used hundreds of Hezbollah fighters against the tens of thousands of foreign fighters in ISIL, Al-Nusra and Ahrar Al-Sham. And yes, he's being trained by Iranians, just like the opposition is being trained by Turks and Americans. He is also being supported by Russia, but any support he receives fades against the endless flow of cash money from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to the Sunni militias.
But Bashar is killing his own people!! But it's not "his people" anymore. That's what you are not getting. What you call "his people", the Sunnis, are killing Assad's real people, the Shiites and the Christians. It's a civil war, it's a de facto divided country. Both sides are killers, no side is good, both sides have their reasons, none of the reasons are good enough.
So then, why is the US insisting that one side is right? I am not wondering why the US is not supporting Assad. I think it shouldn't. Baathists are inherently anti-Egyptian, and I will never forget how the Assads have always worked to undermine Egypt's security and interests. But that doesn't mean that we should blindly support whoever opposes Assad. We should take a look at who it is that's opposing him first. If there is one lesson everyone should learn from the Arab Spring it's that it's more important who would replace the old regime, before helping push it out. And please set questions of legitimacy aside, because as we established above, a liberal democracy based concept of legitimacy is not even under consideration in the Middle East. People are talking survival here.
So why is Israel more interested in seeing Assad go than it is in not seeing ISIL on its borders. Why are US think tanks convinced that Al-Nusra and Ahrar Al-Sham are moderates and that Assad should be bombed in tandem with ISIL so that these "moderates" can fill the vacuum? My theory is that it's just sheer and utter stupidity. It's also probably petty vengeance. Syria's consistent counter-western stance is not something that the US can easily forget, and Israel simply will not digest that Hezbollah pushed it out of Southern Lebanon. But why isn't Israel thinking about the endless conflicts it will have to face if Hezbollah is replaced by ISIL? Why is the US not considering that Ghaddafi never attacked the consulate in Benghazi with rocket propelled grenades, it was MB affiliated Ansar. Why doesn't the US consider that it is Iran they are having nuclear talks with now, that it is Assad who was convinced to destroy his chemical weapons, and that it was Saddam who turned out to have complied with WMD destruction protocols. These are all intelligent agents, they are not awesome people, but they are people you can talk to.
If ISIL has Sarin and a shared border with Israel, what kind of diplomatic pressure does Obama think he can exert then?
I believe this theory to be utter and complete crap. I understand why it has gained a lot of traction in Egypt, because people see Israel and the US acting counter to any sense, and thus there must be something sinister cooking. But the fault of Egyptians is that they have never, and probably will never, understand that sometimes the US just acts plain dumb. People can't fathom that the behemoth of the US can have a foreign policy so inane and destructive. They think that ineptitude, bad ideas, and horrible execution are the domain of Arab governments; but not the US. The US must act out of planning, out of strategy, out of long term well considered goals. The US has quantum computers simulating all scenarios, it has nefarious aims, it is a puppet master.
The reality is of course very different. Arabs in general have a problem understanding that US foreign policy is a series of fuck ups of varying magnitude, seldom interrupted by stories of success. Vietnam and Afghanistan are simple fuck ups. The destruction of Iraq and the rise of ISIL are mega fucks. It's that simple, and that's fairly obvious to most Americans. But Arabs find it very hard to digest.
Therefore people have to explain the position of the US regarding the Syrian civil war through this prism. I understand that the theory is incorrect. But I don't understand the thought process and the mindset through which the US finds itself supporting proto-ISIL for years against Assad only to be shocked that he will be replaced by a murderous genocidal medieval Islamist state. Don't get me wrong, I get the technical aspects of how the common wisdom in Washington came to be that Obama should simply have overthrown Assad earlier, despite the patent inanity of the argument.
I understand that Washington's foreign policy is controlled in a bipartisan manner by neocons and liberal ultra-interventionists who lobby any administration into supporting "Moderate Islamist" takeovers of Arab countries. I understand that this romanticised view of "democracy" is what initiated America's support for the "Arab Spring" long before the mass demos in Tunisia and Egypt. But I don't understand how such think tanks could be so resistant to facts, counter evidence, and major time failures of their experiments on the ground.
I understand that the theory of the Arab Spring is that the US should handover control of the region to "moderates", the MB in reality to cut a long story short. And that these "moderate Islamists" are who the people of the region popularly want to be ruled by. In return, the Arab countries will localise Muslim "rage" and thus the West will be free from terrorism. But evidence on the ground seems to indicate otherwise. In Egypt for example, when the MB came to power, they accumulated around them a shell of Islamists that ran the spectrum from ISIL affiliates to televangelists. The "moderates" did not turn out to be so moderate. And when they went for a power grab, the US showed absolutely no opposition.
In Syria, the think tank theory is that Assad is the main problem. If Assad just abdicates or is killed, all will be solved. How did that work out in Libya? Did everything turn out great when Ghadafi was killed? Or did the country devolve into a warlord state? Why should Syria, divided as it is, be any better than Libya which is basically composed of one sect and one ethnic group?
The narrative is that Syria started out when children wrote slogans on the walls and Assad just went ahead and murdered them, and then people went out to the streets to protest. That the revolution in Syria started out secular and peaceful. But that is not true. Ask any Syrian, but really ask them, as in ask them followups about how the "revolution" started and you will find out that it was always from day one a sectarian war. It was always a Sunni and Kurd bid to breakaway, it was never a popular revolution. After all, Syria is a synthetic construct, held together only by Baathist's ardent secularism and pan-Arabism.
The argument then is, even if we assume the Syrian "revolution" is sectarian, don't Sunnis have the right to choose who they want to be ruled by. But they want to be ruled by ISIL! And they don't want elections to determine this. In area after are "liberated" from Baathist control, the rebels established Sharia courts to rule. Dress codes, floggings, crossings, and public executions were commonplace in rebel held areas long before ISIL started to consolidate power in Syria. Syria is 40% non-Sunni. Can I really ask the 40% to just accept that the 60% want to rule them through a system where Christians will be deported and Yazidis will be enslaved?
But Assad killed 200,000 people!! Did he? Yes, 200,000 people died in the Syrian civil war so far. But less than 10% of them are civilians. That's to say the majority of the dead are combatants. And about half of the dead are from Assad's side of the conflict. Which begs a question, why would a hundred thousand Syrians give their lives and continue to fight for Assad? Because they are not fighting for Assad. They are Shiites and Christians and Ismailis and Druze who are fighting for survival. Are they required to just surrender to ethnic cleansing? So if Assad is killed will that end the civil war? It will end it only if it means that the non-Sunni part of the Syrian population will fall into disarray and be mass murdered. Sure, that's one form of a solution. A final solution if you will. But more likely, a new leadership will from down the line will fill Assad's role and the area between Damascus and the Alawite mountains will continue to fight for survival.
But Assad used chemical weapons and barrel bombs against civilians! Well, the moderate opposition has blown up truckloads of suicide bombings in market area killing hundreds of civilians.
But Assad is using foreign fighters from Hezbollah and his forces are being trained by Iran!! Yes, he used hundreds of Hezbollah fighters against the tens of thousands of foreign fighters in ISIL, Al-Nusra and Ahrar Al-Sham. And yes, he's being trained by Iranians, just like the opposition is being trained by Turks and Americans. He is also being supported by Russia, but any support he receives fades against the endless flow of cash money from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to the Sunni militias.
But Bashar is killing his own people!! But it's not "his people" anymore. That's what you are not getting. What you call "his people", the Sunnis, are killing Assad's real people, the Shiites and the Christians. It's a civil war, it's a de facto divided country. Both sides are killers, no side is good, both sides have their reasons, none of the reasons are good enough.
So then, why is the US insisting that one side is right? I am not wondering why the US is not supporting Assad. I think it shouldn't. Baathists are inherently anti-Egyptian, and I will never forget how the Assads have always worked to undermine Egypt's security and interests. But that doesn't mean that we should blindly support whoever opposes Assad. We should take a look at who it is that's opposing him first. If there is one lesson everyone should learn from the Arab Spring it's that it's more important who would replace the old regime, before helping push it out. And please set questions of legitimacy aside, because as we established above, a liberal democracy based concept of legitimacy is not even under consideration in the Middle East. People are talking survival here.
So why is Israel more interested in seeing Assad go than it is in not seeing ISIL on its borders. Why are US think tanks convinced that Al-Nusra and Ahrar Al-Sham are moderates and that Assad should be bombed in tandem with ISIL so that these "moderates" can fill the vacuum? My theory is that it's just sheer and utter stupidity. It's also probably petty vengeance. Syria's consistent counter-western stance is not something that the US can easily forget, and Israel simply will not digest that Hezbollah pushed it out of Southern Lebanon. But why isn't Israel thinking about the endless conflicts it will have to face if Hezbollah is replaced by ISIL? Why is the US not considering that Ghaddafi never attacked the consulate in Benghazi with rocket propelled grenades, it was MB affiliated Ansar. Why doesn't the US consider that it is Iran they are having nuclear talks with now, that it is Assad who was convinced to destroy his chemical weapons, and that it was Saddam who turned out to have complied with WMD destruction protocols. These are all intelligent agents, they are not awesome people, but they are people you can talk to.
If ISIL has Sarin and a shared border with Israel, what kind of diplomatic pressure does Obama think he can exert then?
No comments:
Post a Comment