Pulverized for Being Independent
Syria Not Worth a Crisis With Russia
Recently
by Eric Margolis: The
Arab ‘Che Guevera’ Is Dead But His Ideas Live On
The vicious
Syrian civil war has put the world’s two biggest nuclear powers
on a collision course over a small Levantine nation of no strategic
interest to Washington. This cannot be allowed to go on.
News that the
US and Russia will hold a Syrian peace conference this month is
most welcome and long overdue.
As Benjamin
Franklin so wisely noted: “there is no good war, and no bad
peace.”
Moscow has
been calling for such a conference for two years. But Washington
rejected the idea in hope the Syrian rebels it was backing would
prevail. However, now that the Syrian war is in stalemate, the US
has opted, albeit reluctantly, for a diplomatic effort to end its
war before the whole region goes up in flames.
Syria is the
latest example of Henry Kissinger’s famous quip, “being a US
ally is often more dangerous than being its enemy.”
The Assad government
in Damascus was for decades a tacit Western ally that suppressed
militant Islamists, kept its border with Israel quiet, and interrogated
prisoners for US intelligence services. Damascus even muted claims
to its Golan Heights, illegally annexed by Israel after the 1967
Arab-Israeli War.
But good behavior
and cooperation did not help Syria when the US, Britain, France
and Israel decided to go after Iran, Syria’s leading ally. When
Syria’s President Bashar Assad refused to join the US-led alliance
of western powers and conservative Arab states against Iran, his
nation’s fate was sealed.
“The road
to Tehran runs through Damascus,” went up the cry. Syria was
marked for Iraq-style destruction.
In Syria, Washington
encouraged growing animosity between Sunni and Shia Muslims which
it had found so useful in breaking Sunni resistance in Iraq. Theological
differences were turned into bitter political rivalry as Iran also
continued inflame the Sunni-Shia dispute across the Muslim world.
What began
in Syria as a small, non-violent protest against the Assad regime
was met by typical brutal repression and quickly grew into a national
rebellion. Recalling the western-engineered uprising that overthrew
Libya’s Muammar Gadaffi, the West and its Arab allies quickly armed,
financed and directed Syria’s insurgents. As in Libya, the cutting
edge of the rebellion were militant Islamists.
France, Syria’s
former colonial ruler, played a quiet but important role, supplying
the rebels communications gear and anti-tank weapons. France seems
intent in reasserting its former colonial influence in West Africa,
the Sahel, Lebanon and Syria.
The US stayed
in the background, providing finance, advanced equipment and political
support, letting ally Turkey do most of the work.
But after two
years of vicious fighting, the Syrian civil war appears stalemated.
The cautious US President Obama seems reluctant to get US forces
involved in a Mideast ground war – and for good reason. The US military
is dangerously stretched across the globe and the US Treasury runs
on money borrowed from China and Japan. But Obama is under intense
political pressure from warlike Republicans, the religious far right,
and partisans of Israel to crush Syria, then Iran.
As a result,
Obama has been dithering while Syria bleeds and its war threatens
to spread to Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. Last week, Israel launched
heavy air strikes against Syrian military targets, a clear act of
war, killing some 80 Syrian soldiers.
It was unclear
if Israel was indeed trying to destroy shipments of long-ranged
artillery rockets being sent from Iran to Lebanese ally Hezbollah,
as it claimed, or launching a campaign to defeat the Assad government
by destroying its air and armored forces.
According
to reports, Israel did not give the US prior warning of its air
strikes against Syria. Here in Washington, many security officials
are now wondering if Israel might drag the US into a war with Iran
in a similar fashion.
What is clear:
Syria is being ground up and pulverized. Like Iraq, it is being
severely punished for a defiant, independent policy and refusing
to comply with western plans for the Mideast. Syria is also serving
as a whipping boy in the place of Iran – a graphic message to Tehran
of what can happen if its nuclear program is not switched off.
May
11, 2013
Eric
Margolis [send
him mail] is the author of War
at the Top of the World and the new book, American
Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the
West and the Muslim World. See his
website.
Copyright
© 2013 Eric Margolis