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Iraq: Playing the Sectarian Crisis Card
January 2, 2013 | 3 comments
At Large
A Sectarian Issue
As Gaddafi’s regime crumbles, sectarian violence engulfs Syria. Pundits looking for “the next Iraq” should start here.
As Gaddafi’s regime crumbles, speculation has started to arise over whether the Syrian opposition will now be emboldened in their struggle against Assad. Naturally, this raises the question of precisely what course the unrest in Syria will take. Is it a general uprising against the repressive Baathist regime, or is it really a sectarian affair, pitting minority Shi’a Alawites against a Sunni majority, while Christians generally side with the former and Kurds with the latter?
Rather than assessing anecdotal evidence from within Syria, it might be more instructive to look at how the country’s neighbors view the instability. Indeed, it is particularly striking that division of opinion about Syria is based on entirely sectarian grounds.
Start off with the case of Iraq. It is of course in Iraq’s interests to see the Assad regime embroiled in turmoil, for not only has Assad facilitated the infiltration of foreign Sunni insurgents into the country until the unrest, but Syria has also been a destination of choice for many Iraqi refugees — particularly Christians who comprise 5 percent of Iraq’s population but 40 percent of refugees — fleeing from violence within their homeland since the 2003 invasion.
With the onset of the protests in Syria, Iraqi refugees have begun returning home, a development that is vital if Iraq is not going to suffer from problems of “brain drain” that could severely impede the nation’s economic development.
However, Iraq’s political elite does not view the Syrian unrest in these terms. Instead, we witness the Shi’a politicians standing with Assad, while the Sunni and Kurdish parliamentarians openly back the opposition. For example, in light of events in Syria, the Shi’ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has warned that “Zionism and Israel” are poised to take advantage of the instability caused by the protests to bring about the “disintegration and internal erosion of the Arab countries.”
Since his gaining a second term in power last December, al-Maliki has cultivated close economic and diplomatic ties with Assad, as the latter was eventually persuaded by Iran to back al-Maliki rather than Ayad Allawi for the premier. Meanwhile, the radical Shi’ite cleric and key “ally” of al-Maliki — Muqtada al-Sadr — called Assad a “brother” for opposing the United States, and said that events in Syria are very different from the “popular revolutions” in Tunisia and Egypt.
As for the Sunnis, a clear case in point is Osama al-Nujaifi, a prominent member from Mosul of Allawi’s Sunni-dominated al-Iraqiya bloc and speaker for the Iraqi parliament. He strongly denounced the repression of protests by Assad, and called on him to “stop the bleeding” for the sake of the Syrian people.
Likewise, in Lebanon it is noteworthy how the traditionally pro-Syrian factions have divided between Christians and Shi’a on the one hand as opposed to the Sunnis on the other. While as-Safir newspaper — a publication affiliated with pro-Syrian Sunnis — calls on the Syrian regime to cease using force against demonstrators, Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah backs Assad (although his deputy Na’im Qassem, in a rather mild tone, advised the regime to exercise restraint in utilizing violence against the protestors), as does Michel Aoun of the pro-Syrian Maronite faction known as the “Free Patriotic Movement.”
We further have the example of George Saliba, the Syriac Orthodox bishop of Lebanon. Although unaffiliated with a political party, his interview with ad-Dunya TV last month had the Syrian unrest in mind when he characterized protests across the region as part of a Jewish conspiracy.
Besides reflecting his own anti-Semitism, the fact that he should believe there is a conspiracy at all is clearly tied to his belief that the Assad regime serves as the protector of Syrian Christians.
In a somewhat similar vein, the Melkite Greek patriarch Gregory III Laham, based in Damascus, has repeatedly warned that the demonstrations against Assad are being hijacked by “armed criminals” and other unidentified sinister forces.
Finally, we turn to the “resistance” bloc more generally. In July, I had wondered whether Turkey could abandon the bloc in light of intensifying tensions with Iran over what to do about Syria. In fact, Turkey could well establish a buffer zone inside Syria soon to prevent a refugee crisis along its southern border.
Nevertheless, as Barry Rubin correctly explained to me, the issue is not that Turkey is “leaving” the resistance bloc, but simply joining the Sunni side of it, together with Hamas, which has also condemned Assad’s repression of the protests and has consequently lost at least a significant proportion of financial support from Iran.
All this evidence therefore suggests that the conflict in Syria is indeed a sectarian issue. After all, what do we know about events inside Syria that the country’s neighbors don’t? The implications of such a conclusion do not bode well for Syria’s future. Many pundits have recently wondered whether Libya could be “another Iraq.” Yet it is highly unlikely that Libya, sparsely populated and vast as it is, could ever witness anything like the bloody sectarian fighting my relatives lived through in the Baghdad civil war in 2006. They should really be asking such questions of Syria.
About the Author
Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a student at Brasenose College, Oxford University. His website is http://www.aymennjawad.org.
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Bob K.| 9.7.11 @ 7:14AM
Gaddafi's regime has crumbled and it looks like he is moving towards a guerilla war. Will that be Syria's fate?
C Smith| 9.7.11 @ 9:47AM
Monday, March 28, 2011
The Gadhafi Precedent
“No,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bluntly stated when asked on “Face the Nation” if the U.S. would intervene in Syrian unrest as in Libya. She defended her position by saying that the situations in Syria and Libya are respectively "unique." Yes, each are unique, but not for reasons mentioned:
Syria's human rights record is among the worst according to Human Rights Watch. Syrian secret police detain, torture, and are suspect in the disappearance of an estimated 17,000 political prisoners. Libya, by comparison, is not even in the ball park.
Syria, according to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), supports the following terrorist organizations: Hezbollah, the Iraqi insurgency, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Libya of course is culpable for Lockerbie, but even here Gaddafi personal sanction on the matter is debatable.
Iran and Syria maintain a mutual defense agreement, while Iran and Libya are enemies with the former encouraging the West to arm their anarchist allies.
Syria possesses weapons of mass destruction (chemical and biological) and the capability to deliver them according to U.S.defense and intelligence reports. However, a September 2007 Israeli air strike is generally credited with putting Syria's nuclear program on hold. Libya, in stark contrast, has complied with the "world community," and what was her reward, "decimation":
"On December 19, 2003, Libya announced it would dismantle its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile programs. Since then, U.S., British, and international officials have inspected and removed or destroyed key components of those programs, and Libya has provided valuable information, particularly about foreign suppliers. Libya’s WMD disarmament is a critical step towards reintegration into the world community.... " (Sharon A. Squassoni and Andrew Feickert (Specialists in National Defense Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division), CRS Report for Congress, Disarming Libya: Weapons of Mass Destruction, September 22, 2006).
Clinton's unsubstantiated preference of Syria over Libya is not an error in judgment, but rather something more sinister:
Frank Gaffney, a columnist for the Washington Times, recently made the obvious connection in an analysis titled “The Gadhafi Precedent.” Gaffney indicates that the hostilities initiated against Libya might soon be used to “justify and threaten the use of U.S. military forces against an American ally: Israel.” Actually, Gaffney was too restrained in his analysis. The coalition's assault on Libya was a test run or perhaps a dress rehearsal of the "Expedient for Jerusalem":
Palestinian preparations for the opportune moment to initiate anarchy in Israel are complete, pending Secretary Clinton's affirmation of the "Gadhafi Precedent." However, the situations in Libya and Israel are respectively "unique". Secretary Clinton and her coalition are unaware "the LORD hath chosen" Israel (cf. Deuteronomy 14:2), has "chosen Jerusalem" (cf. 2 Chronicles 6:6) and unto Abraham promised: "... all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever" (Genesis 13:15).
Secretary Clinton and her coalition are also unaware the LORD doesn't settles His accounts on Friday, but has chosen one DAY in all eternity to judge the earth. Yet as that DAY draws ever nearer "the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us" (Psalms 2:2-3). And as Secretary Clinton and her coalition covertly prepare ambush for Israel, the LORD bates the pit: "... I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people... and in that day will... make Jerusalem a burdensome stone... And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem" (Zechariah 12:2-9).
http://theisraelofgod.blogspot.....salem.html
saleboter| 9.7.11 @ 10:14AM
Our golfer-in-chief helped break Libya and now he owns it and the results.
John786| 9.7.11 @ 10:19AM
I don't disagree that sectarianism is not an issue. Just that its not the overriding one. Syrians on the whole are a pretty sensible lot who get on with each other. The liberation of Iraq was designed to be sectarian. The alawis in syria get nothing from the assads. All syrians will gain from a free syria. For the alwis its a choice of a slow death with the assads or chance of life in a new free Syria. The state of isreal runs on a sectarian basis. I hope the demonstrations there will end in a revolution.
cicero| 9.7.11 @ 1:09PM
As sad as it may be, the Arab world, and the Middle East in general is still subject to sectarian rule. Only time, and enlightenment can change this. For the West in general, and America in particular to think that they can instill liberal democracy there is sheer folly, if not hubris.
The only excuse for the West to be involved is because there is a lot of oil there. But, we are now learning that there is a lot of oil everywhere. Once we determine to drill our own, and encourage the exploitation of the resource elsewhere, the Middle East and north Africa become marginal.
They will have to settle their own affairs. The drain caused to the rest of the world will cease. If the Russians or the Chinese want to get involved with them, so much the better.
JP| 9.7.11 @ 4:35PM
I think what most Westerners fail to understand about the Arabs in the Middle East had thier "reformation". It began in 1979 in Iran. But its genesis was in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. Wannabists and radical Shia clerics are the Lutherans and Calvanists of the Muslim Reformation. "Western" styled Muslims represent decadence and apostasy in the eyes of many of today's Muslims. The Muslim Brotherhood is just another subset of the Muslim Reformation. Lybia, Syria, and Iraq will go the way of Iran, Afghanistan, and Somalia.
POST American| 9.8.11 @ 3:14AM
----------------BOTTOMLESS LINE--------------------
---Great piece.
MEANWHILE, due north, in the crumbling
heart of Christendom, public figures
are obediently stepping forward to call for an
end of ALLLLL national sovereignty, in order
to further hand power over to the private
USURY cartel for further management,
standardization and 'A---MAL--GAME---ation'.
(SEE Bloomberg News)
All in the name of 'SSS--US--STAIN--A--BILL--IT--HE'
and 'STABLE--IT--HE'.
Even 'CON-serving' RIIA front man David
Cameron's making the call.
"We ARE using MASSIVE third world
immigration to DESTROY British culture
beyond repair, once and for all ---FOREVER."
-Fmr PM TONY BLAIR
(Daily Mail interview)
"-----Did you just hear me? ---THIS IS TREASON."
-ALEX JONES
------------HUAC meets NUREMBERG----NOW!