Dismembering the Arab World
by Makram Khoury-Machool
Friday, August 3rd, 2012
Dr Makram Khoury-Machool is a Palestinian scholar, based in Cambridge, UK
The
behaviour of the NATO-aligned, anti-Syrian bloc is now blatant enough
for us to better understand what is happening in Syria. On the one hand,
we find political operators such the ad-hoc group ‘Friends of Syria’,
and on the other, two Arab personalities, both ministers of two Gulf
sheikhdoms.
The first group includes NATO-led heads of states, with a barely
disguised Israeli master-plan conceived by the likes of Bernard-Henri
Lévy. Rather than being the friends of Syria, these personalities are
arguably working to secure their own financial interests in, around, and
via Syria. The two Arab politicians are the two foreign ministers of
Saudi Arabia and Qatar. They have declared that those forces acting
violently against the Syrian state should be armed and financially
supported. In short, these conventions of the so-called ‘Friends of
Syria’ are probably no more than a ‘modern’ version of those meetings
conducted by Viceroy Lord Curzon, who, in 1903, addressed the ‘Chiefs of
the Arab Coast’ on HMS Argonaut in Sharjah (UAE).
The Qataris and Saudis give financial support to the ‘rebels’ for
weapons, payments to fighters and mercenaries, and logistical oversight
of attacks on Syria. All of this is in addition to their support with
telecommunication services, combat tactics, and strategic military
advice. Unsurprisingly, the Western military advisors, who operate for
the armed groups behind the scenes, do not feature in any media outlets.
Neighbouring states also provide geographical assistance to the armed
groups, with Jordan providing a passage for mercenaries from Libya, and
Turkey acting as the northern military base for operations.
Turkey is involved because of its wish to align itself with the
Saudi-Sunni, NATO-backed line and also its fear that a dismembered Syria
would lead to the promotion of Kurdish autonomy. In their eyes, this
could bring about the eventual union of the Kurds with Iraqi and Syrian
Kurds and then lead to civil war with Turkey and the eventual separation
of Kurdistan from Turkey and the creation of a Kurdish state.
For its part, Israel has for decades planned, as part of its strategy
to dominate the Middle East and the Mediterranean, to weaken Syria in
order to continue its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights and to
dominate water sources. Essentially, Israel wants to be the main
economic and military power in the region and indeed, Israel may well
emerge from the weakening of Syria as the main winner, if only in the
short-term.
Through its orchestrated media campaigns transmitted over the decades
to its own public, Israel has constructed a concept of Syria as the
major threat to its existence in the Arab world. Arguably, the
governmental vacuum that might be created in Syria could be filled by
al-Qaeda-like groups giving sufficient justification for Israel’s
actions (against Syria and/or Iran) and would also promote the idea of a
conflict between ‘civilized-democratic’ Israel and ‘savage’ Islamists.
Despite huge differences between Syria and Libya, Syria’s fate could
be similar to that of Libya in terms of direct foreign intervention,
were not Russia and China firmly opposed such actions at the UN, where
there has been consistent cooperation between the two. Although the
origins of Sino-Soviet relations go back to the early days of the 1917
Communist Revolution, it seems that, even two decades after the
dismantlement of the Eastern Bloc, the Russian Federation and the
Republic of China are, more than ever, following what Mao Tse-tung
advised in his ‘Be a True Revolutionary’ address on 23 June 1950. Here,
Tse-tung said that ‘in the international sphere we must firmly unite
with the Soviet Union’ (see Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, vol. V. p.
39). Shared ideology, world vision, economic interests, and objectives
in the field of energy have brought Russia and China ever closer
together over the Syrian conflict.
World oil production is headed by Saudi Arabia, with Russia second,
the USA third, Iran fourth and China fifth. In terms of oil reserves, we
find that the top ten states are: 1) Venezuela, 2) Saudi Arabia, 3)
Canada, 4) Iran, 5) Iraq, 6) Kuwait, 7) UAE, 8) Russia, 9) Kazakhstan
and 10) Libya. Russia is the largest gas producer in the world, with
Europe dependent on its gas sourcing. In world gas production, if,
because of their geographical distance, we exclude the USA and Canada,
Iran comes second and Qatar third. In terms of gas reserves, Russia is
number one, with Iran and Qatar in fourth place and Saudi Arabia in
sixth. With neighbouring Saudi Arabia as one of the ten leading
producers of gas in the world, it is clear why the export interests of
Qatar and Saudi Arabia are particularly important and this ranking
should give us a clear idea of the alliances that have formed in light
of the Syrian conflict.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar (which in different circumstances could have
been one state and might yet experience a geographical reshuffle) are
both Arab-Muslim-Sunni and both have economic interests. Qatar’s greedy
pursuit of marketing contracts for Libyan gas and oil supplies explains
its agreement with NATO to attack Libya, its symbolic participation in
the air strikes and its support for the rebels to establish a media
capability.
Qatar’s aim is to export its gas toEurope, compete with the Russians
and gain important political bargaining chips. In order for the export
of Qatari gas to Europe to be feasible and competitive, a gas pipe must
be laid through Syria. As Russia’s long-standing ally and with the
precedents of numerous joint deals dating back to the USSR era, Syria is
unlikely to allow anything to threaten the destabilization of Russia’s
interests in their last strategic stronghold in the Arab world. This is
the main reason why Qatar and Saudi Arabia are supporting the
opposition’s struggle to topple the Syrian government.
Syria is fast becoming a Pandora’s box from which all the historical
crises of the last 120 years are re-emerging. These begin with the
Russo-Turkish war in 1877-8, the Russo-Japanese war in 1904, WWI and
WWII and the Cold War. Normally, it takes a superpower 2-3 decades to
emerge. It took the USA nearly 25 years to emerge as a superpower from
1890 to the end of WWI. After the death of Lenin in 1924, the USSR was
the sick man of Europe. In 1945, after WWII and under Stalin, it emerged
as a superpower. After Gorbachev, Russia ceased to be a superpower and
seemingly, the Cold War ended. In just over two decades, Putin has ended
the unipolar system and a new bipolar world is emerging – as if the
Cold War had never ended.
Close examination of the Syrian political system reveals that Syrian
president Bashar al-Assad is, indeed, a reformist. However, in Syria, as
in any other state, factions are intertwined in power-struggles and
these and the necessary processes of socialization will take some time
to work through. Whilst, as Assad said, it takes just a couple of
minutes to sign a new law, it takes much longer to educate people to
absorb and participate in the implementation of the new values those
laws enshrine. Western ruling elites’ portrayal of these new norms as
seemingly growing on trees is an act of disutility and definitely
immoral.
Syria was the last secular, socially-cohesive Arab state based on a
top-down secular ideology. Despite its volatile, geopolitical
surroundings (Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Jordan and Iraq), Syrian citizens
lived securely under this Arab secularism. Syria encompasses a
particular type of pluralism and multiculturalism, embedded with
religious tolerance and a pluralist existence. This is demonstrated by
the toleration of a church, a mosque, a bar and the equal coexistence of
both secular and veiled women. In fact, the reform process begun in
Syria is more advanced than any similar process in any other Arab state.
It includes the removal of emergency laws, the implementation of party
laws, election laws, a key media law, and the approval of a new
constitution including the removal of the article on the sole leadership
of the al-Ba’ath party. Such reforms are part of a genuine political
process that will take time. However, this reform process has been
totally and intentionally undermined by forces, including Western
governments acting against the Syrian state. In the last decades, and
particularly since 9/11, the West has continually propagated the notion
that Islamist terrorists have been threatening the secular way of life.
However, Sunnis, technically the religious majority in Syria, contain
large segments, and are no less secular than any other Western society.
So, despite Syrians’ clear right to defend the secularity of their
way of life, the aim of the West is to dismantle the Syrian state, alter
the power structure, and create new demo-geographic entities such as a
confederation of the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds, which at present, is
Turkey’s nightmare. Specific areas might also be depopulated, which
might then be used, as has been done with the Druze, to repopulate with
Syrian Christians and perhaps with Christians from Lebanon. Other
Christians would leave the Levant altogether. The Alawites would then
have another state, linked perhaps, with Iran.
The plan is to destroy the modern Arab state of Syria that emerged
after WWI and in the 1940s, and, where possible, to establish new
religious states (similar to the Jewish state of Israel). In this way,
Arab power and along with it, the Pan-Arab ideology of Michel Aflaq and
Antun Sa’ade (both Arab Christians) and Nasser of Egypt, would
disappear. This process began when, in 1978-9 under Sadat, Egypt signed
its peace treaty with Israel, and was followed by the destruction of
Lebanon in 1982, the second Intifada in 1987, and the economic takeover
of Iraq in 2003. It was then followed in Libya with the seizing of oil
and gas in 2011. Therefore, in order to keep the US-Rael (US-Israel)
hegemony, the West needs to align states along sectarian lines
(Sunni-Shiite) rather than on Pan-Arabism. Indeed, this process was
boosted after the occupation of Iraq and the toppling of the Ba’ath
party.
In practice, what is now happening in the Arab world is a
‘correction’ of the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, when the main colonial
powers, Britain and France, carved out the boundaries of the current
Arab states and installed their own Arab agents. These ongoing,
neo-colonial plans include provision for any two or more Arab parties to
fight the Syrian regime and to keep them fighting until such time as
each state is dismembered and fractured into 2-3 states, based on
sectarian lines. Then colonial elites can continue to scoop up the
wealth because, after all, the imperial mentality has hardly changed.
Since Western powers cannot achieve this on their own, they need
agents such as Qatar in Libya and Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others in
Syria. These agents, preferably self-serving, undemocratic
Arab-Muslim-Sunni monarchies, will use Sunni-Islam to promote fanaticism
against other Arabs, Muslims and non-Muslims (e.g., Arab Christians,
Shiites and Druze). Those Arabs with access to the (economic) global
elite (for example, the Royal Saudi family and the Qataris with the
Americans and other European elites) are, by and large, the ruling
elites in the Arab Gulf or their protégés. It is they who are driving a
wedge between the various sects and magnifying and exploiting the
playing of the Sunni card with non-Arab Muslim Sunni Turkey against
Syria. It would hardly be a surprise either if they were in cahoots with
Israel-serving Western powers. Otherwise, it would remain fairly
difficult to explain why the most authoritarian regime on earth, Saudi
Arabia, is acting against Syria and trying to teach it lessons in
democracy, something that Saudi Arabia is not very keen to know much
about.
The negative, orientalist, propaganda campaigns conducted against
Syria in the past year with the financial backing of some Gulf countries
have intentionally obscured elements within Syria, such as Syria’s
secularism – something with which Western societies would naturally
identify. So, the importance of Syria’s largely secular Ba’ath Party
ideology, which guaranteed at least private liberties, has been kept
hidden. This is for example in addition to the fact that Daoud Rajhah,
the assassinated Syrian Minister of Defence, was a Christian, as was Dr
Nabil Zughaib, the recently assassinated (along with his family) head of
the Syrian missile programme.
The above examples of a deliberate elimination of facts are arguably
due to Syria’s alliance with Russia, which is the ‘wrong’ camp. This
close relationship between Syria and Russia has lasted for over five
decades. Furthermore, Syria is the soft (Alawaite/Shiite-secular)
underbelly between NATO refusnik (Shiite) Iran and Shiite HizboAllah in
Lebanon. Whilst in Israel’s short-term eyes, the main opposition to its
domination is Iran (as well as HizboAllah, Syria, and formerly, Hamas),
Syria is now, therefore, the target. As such, Syria is now taking the
punishment, so that the whole metaphorical body will eventually be
dismembered.
But what is the relevance of Hamas here? Until it democratically won
the elections in 2006 (nearly two years after the assassination of
Yasser Arafat), and then a year later staged a coup against the
Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip, Hamas was a
resistance movement supported by Iran, Damascus, and HizboAllah. If Iran
is the metaphorical ‘head’ and HizboAllah and Hamas the two legs, Syria
has been the ‘belly’ or the ‘heart’ and ‘lungs’ of this ‘body’ of
resistance. But since Hamas has run the Gaza Strip, it has largely
ceased to be a resistance movement and has become institutionalized.
Here, Israel (and Sharon in particular) won a tactical victory. At
hardly any cost, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, while keeping it
under siege, attacking it at will and giving the keys to the prisoners
(Hamas) to run for them the largest open-air prison on earth. And all
this was done without Hamas even realizing what was going on. Perhaps
someone thought that the name could be beautified and, instead of
prison, it might turn into an EmiRison (Emirate and prison).
In the first half of 2012, Hamas’ leaders left Damascus, where their
headquarters were, and are now keeping publicly quiet and refraining
from supporting the Syrian government – a government, which has
supported them for more than two decades. With the victory of the Muslim
Brotherhood in Tunisia and Egypt, and their rise in Libya, Hamas now
seems to have new and powerful patrons, and in countries where it can
operate from a much more powerful position. Hamas’ leadership (both in
the Diaspora and in the Gaza Strip) has been invited by the newly
elected Egyptian president, to join, the Muslim Brotherhood (their
mother organization) as equals. What seemed until yesterday to be a
resistance movement (though some may argue that they were never
revolutionary, unlike other leftist Palestinian factions, such as the
PFLP, DFLP, etc.), is now woven into the embroidery of a Sunni-Muslim
alliance which has started to act under the wing of NATO.
Western orientalists like to imagine what needs to happen for their
interests in the Orient to be served. They begin by labeling the Arab
world the ‘Middle East’, as if it were just a geographical marker placed
only in relation to where they themselves are. In order to secure their
planned thievery, they invent terms to obfuscate and justify their
covert or overt military actions. However, their security/intelligence
services always fail to predict developments in the Arab world such as
the Intifada of 1987 and the Hamas coup in 2007. Still, their
superficial and ignorant power-elites never cease to manufacture new
names and processes, the latest of which is the naming of whatever
started in Tunisia as the ‘Arab Spring’.
What is happening in some Arab states and in the Arab world is no
‘Spring’: it is a reactionary process which will bounce back, as the USA
experienced in Afghanistan, where the US both created and supported the
same jihadists they later fought against. So, the US-Israel has been
trying to cut deals with the Islamists in power so that they may control
the masses. Indeed, this is not the first time that political
strategists have tried to use religion to avoid chaos and defend their
economic interests. This is similar to what Machiavelli described (based
on the account of the Roman historian Titus Livius (Livy) Patavinus (59
BC-17 AD), who wrote Books from the Foundation of the City) and
referred to in Discourses on Livy, when he sub-headed a chapter as: ‘How
the Romans made religion serve to reorder the city and carry out their
enterprise to stop tumults’.
So, Western propaganda campaigns against Syria seek to convince the
public (the ‘plebs’) to fear religion rather than obey their current
Arab leaders. This is why, despite the censored protests in the three
Arab kingdoms (KSA, Morocco and Jordan), the world has hardly (because
of censorship, gate-keeping and lack of Western media attention) seen
any substantial protests compared to those in other Arab republics. One
of the reasons was that there was hardly anyone to promote any special
well-funded media campaigns and to pay the huge sums required. (This is
perhaps with the exception of Bahrain, and the possible influence of
Iran). However, there is no guarantee that a counter-hegemonic campaign
would still succeed in these Arab monarchies.
After defeating the rival al-Rashid clan in 1921, the al-Saud family
currently rules in most of the historical Arabian Peninsula. Its
regional prominence is also due to control of the holy sites of Mekka
and Medina and its alliance with, and use of, Wahabism as well as its
oil and mineral resources. These resources subsidize its related
cultural (media) industry. Nevertheless, religious and economic factors
are evidently complex, interwoven and involve a large social network.
This combination may be expressed in what I call ‘The Saudi ethic, the
spiritual buck’ - somewhat similar to Weber’s ‘Protestant Ethic
thesis’ which stood behind the accumulation of wealth in northernEurope.
Through the accumulation of capital in the Gulf states in the 1970s
(controlled by Anglo-American protection through treaties that brought
large numbers of Arabs to be either economically dependent (through
employment in the Gulf), or spiritually dependent through control of
Arab media), the oil boom created a new social stratification in the
Arab world. As a result, some Arab societies have been dependent on and
accepting of the authority of the ruling Saudi family and its clans.
These elites are part of the ruling economic elites who own some of the
most valuable energy projects, valuable assets and properties in the
West, including Harrods, football teams, property on the Champs Élysées
and partnerships with Rupert Murdoch, to mention but a few.
The recent discovery that Arabs want their freedom is chiefly
promoted by some Arab and Western media institutions which are
themselves an extension of policy makers who have their own economic
objectives, strategies and tactics. The media campaigns that are being
conducted by neo-conservative capitalist, Zionists such as Bernard-Henri
Lévy, who aggressively serves Israel, and who has a strong affinity to
fundamentalist Judaism, aim only to separate Arabs from their wealth and
resources, whilst, at the same time, deceiving them.
This is done through the dual strategy of manufacturing a separate
narrative for two separate segments of the population. To the religious,
corruption is associated with faithlessness, while to the entire Arab
nation they sell the very appealing dream of freedom, justice, and
liberty. Naturally, each individual will interpret this according to his
or her own upbringing, socialization, politicization, norms and values.
So, whilst all might meet in the ‘square’, the Islamists will believe
Islamic scripts to be the solution, liberals will recall Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, the ‘separation of powers’ of Montesquieu and the French
Revolution, Marxists will think of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and
class struggle and the Maoists will think of the Cultural Revolution of
Mao Tse-Tung or Nasserism (after all, when a group of Egyptian army
officers conducted a coup and a revolution in 1952, Mao Tse-Tung
declared that ‘the struggle against corruption and waste is a major
issue which concerns the whole party’ (30 November, 1951) and it
therefore fits the bill of fighting corrupt Arab regimes). Meanwhile,
those who dream of Castro and Che Guevara will run to the ‘barricades’
in the squares in a stand off against the state security forces.
In fact, all of these values are just non-starters in the Arab world
and Zio-Liberals know this. The reality is that, because of social
control and the way Arab societies have been socialized in the last
century (including the impact of colonial heritage) and because of the
wealth Wahabi Islam (and modern Salafis) have enjoyed from oil revenues,
except for the Islamic faction, the other ideologies will make little
progress but rather will simply ensure the victory of the religious
movements.
True, the Arab world has been heterogeneous, though only mildly.
Religion has prevailed even in states like Jordan where, for decades,
Islamists controlled most school curricula. Thus, in every Arab state
that has had unrest, and particularly so in Egypt, there is a fierce
power struggle over the constitution. The Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis
won the majority of seats in the parliamentary elections, and the first
democratically elected president, Muhammad Mursi (elected only by
quarter of citizens), is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Major
powers are working towards promulgating a constitution based on a
relevant interpretation of Sharia laws. In his ‘Morphology of the
State’, Aristotle suggests that there is a need to ‘consider not only
which constitution is best, but also which is practicable and most
easily within reach’ (p. 103). In the eyes of the religious
fundamentalists, this can be the Sharia laws, whilst a solution for the
Western ruling elites is in place.
As they have secured their economic interests through religious-elite
controlled media institutions, they will in turn benefit from their
own social, economic and political centres of power, and a new niche of
businessmen will emerge from the circles/classes of the religious
elites. Religious groups will also increase their economic participation
alongside political participation. Since it will benefit their
political jihad, some will see this as halal whether inside or outside
the framework of Islamic banking. Social division will, however, remain
or widen and the only difference is that the names have changed. Instead
of a ‘Mubarak’, it will be someone else (but this time, someone with a
beard) and these apparent ‘changes’ will simply maintain political
control.
The affected populations are those defined as ‘minorities’ – mainly
Arab Christians (around 30 million of them in the Arab world), secular
(Sunni and Shiite) Muslims and others. In Egypt, Mohammad Zawahiri (the
brother of al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri) has already declared that
Egyptian Christians should pay a tax as Dhimmi’s (infidels) or else
leave Egypt. And if they refuse, he has suggested they be confronted and
coerced.
An example of mobilizing the population through religion in the media
has been adopted by the Saudi monarch himself. During Ramadan 2012,
Abdallah of Saudi Arabia and his heir launched a fundraising campaign
supposedly in aid of the Syrian people – or so the slogan said. This
campaign was based on Islamic moral norms and sense of community,
especially those emphasized during the holy month of Ramadan. Whilst
selling his people messages of community and compassion, these campaigns
are used for both local and regional political purposes. A similar
campaign launched by Syria for the liberation of Saudi Arabian women,
and the need for them to drive, is unimaginable.
Besuited, Goebbels-like liberals who stand alongside those chiefs of
sheikhdoms, have so far, attempted to deceive part of Arab public
opinion and to manufacture a consensus against the Syrian government,
and so diverted from themselves the heat of their own ‘streets’. Whilst
they themselves adhere to the most archaic norms and beliefs regarding
freedom and democracy, they instigate mass deception against Syria that
is, in terms of its social norms, such as women’s freedoms, religious
minorities’ rights, equal opportunities and personal liberties, etc.,
much closer to liberal Western countries. In much the same way as the
Arab regimes would like to rally domestic public opinion in support of
Palestinians, Gulf regimes are using the false argument that they are
against the oppression of Syrians by their own government to rally their
‘streets’ against Syria. And this despite the fact that they themselves
are light years behind Syria in terms of freedom and democracy.
Western governments are no friends of liberal democracy in the Third
World. They inevitably deal with those governments with the worst
records of human rights and then only when it is of financial benefit to
them. Just as in July 2008, when Nicolas Sarkozy and current archenemy
of Syria, the Emir of Qatar, formed, with the Syrian leadership, the
‘Union of the Mediterranean’, some European governments think they also
might benefit financially from the crisis in the Arab world. This is
particularly so when they have the support of rich Gulf States and
believe they can somehow reduce the economic crises they are facing.
In some parts of Syria personal security has diminished since March
2011 and central government has not been always notable for its moral
conduct. However, as part of a strategic political campaign, the media
are intentionally lying about the situation in Syria. They instill fear
in the Syrian public and affect exaggerated concern for casualties and
loss of life. Thus, they construct a narrative, which facilitates and
justifies increased assistance to the armed groups, separatists,
terrorists, and mercenaries. The same media also portray the Syrian
government as solely responsible for the violence, when in fact, those
who recruit, pay and supply weapons to easily malleable, unemployed and
cash-hungry individuals are themselves really responsible.
There are two main culprits for the increase in casualties: lying and
the silencing of any opposing voice. With their Arab allies, NATO
switched off the signal for the satellite connection of the Syrian
al-Dunia satellite channel. Other acts of satellite ‘terror’ arguably
included the CIA’s hijacking of al-Dunia’s Twitter account, so as to
disseminate disinformation about the Syrian army’s false retreat. The
same Arab satellite that Syria helped found after the loss of the second
part of Palestine in 1967, is now being used against it by those
formerArab Gulf sheikhdoms.
This satellite is now being used in the conflict in Syria – but
against Syria – and includes disinformation chiefly by Gulf-owned
channels that promote fear and panic about economic instability in
Syria. The media are being used and manipulated as a cover for the
incitement of terrorist action by the Syrian opposition and also to
garner economic aid, and this same media then present the sanitized,
‘heroic’ achievements of the ‘rebels’ and, when necessary, depict any
losses they encounter as ‘massacres’.
By and large, Western and mainstream Arab media are left with nearly
only one option: to swallow disinformation from unreliable ‘spin’
bodies, which they then pump out to the public. Stories of massacres by
the Syrian government are, for propaganda purposes, broadcast to justify
foreign intervention, and the prevailing image is that of the noble
West coming to save an incapable, oppressed Third World nation from the
tyranny of a chauvinist male oppressor. This is exactly what happened in
Libya. Nonetheless, a minority of Arab media is opposing the master
plan and another minority are sitting on the fence. The Arab media are
mostly, either directly or indirectly, in the hands of Gulf States,
while any other journalists either operate discreetly on the payroll of
those forces or are totally deluded and find it impossible to grasp the
tragic ramifications of what is taking place in the Arab world. The
anti-war values of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage are most probably not
high on the agenda in some oil rich states, since they might expose the
dichotomy between religion and war economy even further.
© MKM
