Syria -- Shiites versus Sunni. The US has allied itself to Saudi Arabia the Sunni stronghold; hence, in the civil unrest in the Middle East, the US sides with the Sunni Muslims. On the other hand, the Shiites are allied with Russia and China. Think of it this way: Iran is Shiite; Saudi Arabia is Sunni; the dictator of Syria is a secular Shiite (the Sunni in Saudi Arabia want to overthrow all secular Muslim governments in the name of religious purity and Sunni hegemony -- hence, of course the US is now committed to aiding the Sunni rebels and pouring gasoline on the fire for the benefit of the US military-industrial-complex. The Syrian civil war is setting off a contagious sectarian conflict beyond the country’s borders, reigniting long-simmering tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, and, experts fear, shaking the foundations of countries cobbled together after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The Syrian civil war’s fundamental reality is twofold. First, Syria is the main current battlefield in a worldwide, centuries-long struggle between Islam’s sects – Sunni (1.7billion) and Shia (100 million.) The Syrian battlefield is drawing fighters and funds from both sides’ resources around the world, much as the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 drew from Fascist and Communist sympathizers on four continents. By helping the Syrian rebels, the Obama Administration is enlisting the American people in a sectarian controversy the terms of which are as bizarre as they are irrelevant to us. When, as is inevitable, some of the supporters of the side that suffers casualties as a result of America’s intervention decide to kill Americans in retaliation, what comfort can the victims take in the cause of Sunni Islam that our country has now made its own? Second, the Syrian civil war is a struggle by Iran (and its ally Russia) for influence in the Mediterranean. Their main adversaries happen to be Sunni Arabs under the leadership of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf sheikdoms (principally Qatar). It is not in the United States’ interest that the Mediterranean be dominated by either. “Nothing has helped make the Sunni-Shia narrative stick on a popular level more than the images of Assad — with Iranian help — butchering Sunnis in Syria,” said Trita Parsi, a regional analyst and president of the National Iranian American Council, referring to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. “Iran and Assad may win the military battle, but only at the expense of cementing decades of ethnic discord.” With Sunni-led Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey backing the uprising against Mr. Assad, who is supported by Shiite Iran and Hezbollah, sectarian divisions simmering since the American invasion of Iraq are spreading through a region already upended by the Arab uprisings. The Syrian war fuels, and is fueled by, broader antagonisms that are primarily rooted not in sect but in clashing geopolitical and strategic interests: the regional power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran; Iran’s confrontation with the West over its nuclear program; and the alliance between Hezbollah and the secular Syrian government of Mr. Assad against American-backed Israel. But sectarian feeling has seeped in. Iraq has been especially vulnerable. With the Sunni majority in Syria battling to overthrow a government dominated by Mr. Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiism, some in Iraq’s Sunni minority grew emboldened by the prospect of overthrowing their own Shiite government. Today, many Iraqis feel they are on the road back to the dark days of 2006 and ’07, the peak of sectarian militia massacres by Shiites ascendant after years of oppression under Saddam Hussein, and by minority Sunnis disempowered by his fall. While the 2007 American troop surge helped to limit the bloodshed, random attacks against Shiites never stopped. What was different was that the Shiites, who finally felt firmly in control of the security forces, stopped retaliating. But that seems to be changing. Sunni militias have risen up to fight the army, and for the first time in years Sunni mosques and neighborhoods are being regularly targeted. The first notable attack was in April, at a cafe in the Sunni neighborhood of Amariya; it started late at night as young men played pool, and it left dozens of people dead. While it is unclear who is responsible for the new violence, many Sunnis blame the government, or Iranian-backed Shiite militias. In Lebanon, perennial clashes between Alawite and Sunni militias in Tripoli have reached their worst level in years as each side blames the other for carnage in Syria. In Syria, both the government and its opponents insist that their civil war is not a fight between religious sects. Rebel leaders say their only aim is to depose a dictator. Mr. Assad says he is fending off extremist terrorists, and he is careful not to frame the conflict as a fight against the country’s Sunni majority, which he praises for its moderation. The Syrian civil war also threatens Russia’s foothold in the Mediterranean. We are helping the rebels under the false assumption that Russia is somehow interested in ending the violence. But it is not. The Russians’ objective is to keep their naval base in Syria. For this they are willing to make any deal with anyone. Our interest is to prevent any such deal between Russia and anyone in the region. Nothing is quite so fatal to a country’s foreign policy like basing it on patently false assumptions and in the willful ignorance of one’s own interests.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:22:48 +0000
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