Conflicts Forum

Aisling Byrne
Article posted on Asia Times Online on 05 January 2012 and republished by Counterpunch in the USA.

“War with Iran is already here,” wrote a leading Israeli commentator recently, describing “the combination of covert warfare and international pressure” being applied to Iran.

Although not mentioned, the “strategic prize” of the first stage of this war on Iran is Syria; the first campaign in a much wider sectarian power-bid. “Other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself,” Saudi King Abdullah was reported to have said last summer, “nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria.” [1]

By December, senior United States officials were explicit about their regime change agenda for Syria: Tom Donilon, the US National Security Adviser, explained that the “end of the [President Bashar al-]Assad regime would constitute Iran’s greatest setback in the region yet - a strategic blow that will further shift the balance of power in the region against Iran.”

Shortly before, a key official in terms of operationalizing this policy, Under Secretary of State for the Near East Jeffrey Feltman, had stated at a congressional hearing that the US would “relentlessly pursue our two-track strategy of supporting the opposition and diplomatically and financially strangling the [Syrian] regime until that outcome is achieved”. [2]

What we are seeing in Syria is a deliberate and calculated campaign to bring down the Assad government so as to replace it with a regime “more compatible” with US interests in the region.

The blueprint for this project is essentially a report produced by the neo-conservative Brookings Institute for regime change in Iran in 2009. The report - “Which Path to Persia?” [3] - continues to be the generic strategic approach for US-led regime change in the region.

A rereading of it, together with the more recent “Towards a Post-Assad Syria” [4] (which adopts the same language and perspective, but focuses on Syria, and was recently produced by two US neo-conservative think-tanks) illustrates how developments in Syria have been shaped according to the step-by-step approach detailed in the “Paths to Persia” report with the same key objective: regime change.

The authors of these reports include, among others, John Hannah and Martin Indyk, both former senior neo-conservative officials from the George W Bush/Dick Cheney administration, and both advocates for regime change in Syria. [5] Not for the first time are we seeing a close alliance between US/British neo-cons with Islamists (including, reports show [6], some with links to al-Qaeda) working together to bring about regime change in an “enemy” state. Continue reading… »

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Written by Seyed Mohammad Marandi, University of Tehran, exclusively for Conflicts Forum.

Almost a year ago, in a well-remembered Friday prayer sermon delivered on February 4, 2011, Ayatollah Khamenei spoke at length, in Arabic, about the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. At the time, the Egyptian people were on the streets attempting to topple the Western-backed dictator, Hosni Mubarak. In his sermon, after praising the Tunisian people, Ayatollah Khamenei spoke of how Mubarak had humiliated Egypt by becoming an American pawn and an ally of Israel. He also recalled the sharp pain that Egyptians felt when Mubarak helped implement the Western-imposed, inhuman siege of Gaza and when his regime worked in partnership with Israel and the United States during the 22-day onslaught against women, men, and children there in late 2008.

Ayatollah Khamenei went on to speak about the history and intellectual traditions that have given Egypt its unparalleled importance in the Arab world. In this context, he described the movement unfolding in Egypt as both Islamic and freedom-seeking, with its potential for significant impact on the Middle East. Noting that the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt had parallels to Iran’s revolution more than three decades ago, he also underscored that the situations are not all identical; each is unique, in accordance with different geographical, historical, political, and cultural conditions. Claims that Iran is seeking to export its ideology or model of government to Egypt, he said, were dishonest attempts to keep the peoples of the region divided. He went on to warn that the United States has recognized it cannot keep its pawns in power, so it will attempt to “move its pawns around” to preserve its hegemony and should not be trusted.

Follow this link to download the full version of ‘An Iranian optic on the Middle East and its prospects’.

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Ibrahim al-Amin
Article posted on Al-Akhbar English, 01 November 2011

Syria today is approaching a new crossroads … These fears are not based on a general reading of the situation, but on concrete evidence reaching several regional capitals about the course that the US, Europe, and their Arab clients have decided to take on Syria. These countries are acting, of course, in collaboration with various parts of the Syrian opposition. Most prominent of these is the group that is now part and parcel of Western plans and has a controlling majority in the Syrian National Council (SNC)… Either way, it is their ideas and slogans that will be turned into a plan of action based on the concept of replicating the Libyan experience in Syria — without, of course, considering the dangers or the consequences.

Some, of course, have been quick to argue that the West is not interested in attacking Syria because it does not have Libya’s oil or money. This is an attempt to pull wool over our eyes by pretending that Arab oil states are not themselves deeply involved in this scheme. … In terms of regional politics, and in other respects, Syria is a strategic prize that makes it infinitely more valuable than the riches that some oil kingdoms and emirates may possess.

The experience of Lebanon is far more applicable to Syria than the experiences of Egypt or Tunisia, or even Libya or Yemen. This is due to the country’s sectarian divisions, political alignments, and regional role, as well as the nature of foreign interests involved. Any intervention – in whatever form – by the US-European Western alliance in league with the Gulf states and Turkey must be utterly condemned and rejected. Any equivocation on the issue of foreign intervention amounts to tacit acceptance of it. All current forms of foreign-sponsored sabotage in Syria (weapons, money, incitement, etc.) should also be resolutely opposed.

Some Arab players are actively attempting to prepare for military intervention in Syria on behalf of the West. This role, the worst-kept diplomatic secret in the region, should no longer be shrugged off or covered up. We should firmly oppose the siege to which Syria is being subjected, including economic and political sanctions. We should also be more discriminating and wary of being misled. This applies to the tales about militarization being told by various opposition groups and anti-Syrian Arab media.

Virtually every gunman these days is being portrayed as an army defector, presumably to convey the impression of a split in the military in order to encourage one in real life. Similarly, while reports have started to indicate that around half the people being killed are members of the army or security forces, the headlines remain the same: “20 Killed in Syria,” the implication being that the regime killed them.

Syria’s enemies have been furiously making the case for economic and financial sanctions as though this were a Syrian popular demand, while trying to delude public opinion that these sanctions would only target the regime, its institutions, and leaders… sanctions in fact target the population, and especially the merchant class, in order to turn them against the regime.

Turkey and the Gulf states are clearly seeking to establish powerful footholds inside Syria – as they did in Libya – so as to be able to influence the country’s future and undermine its regional influence. It is no coincidence that the US, Europe, and their Arab clients want Israel to maintain a low profile so that its involvement does not discredit the regime’s enemies. We saw the same spectacle in Lebanon after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. The West and the Arabs tell Israel to keep quiet, “We’re doing the job you want done.” But the same problem could recur. If the combination of opposition and external military, security, and economic pressure fails to bring down the regime, Israel will be revisited and asked to revert to its preferred war-waging role. For Syria, quite simply, is a central pillar of support for the resistance against Israel.

It takes no great effort to appreciate that Syria is going through the hardest of times at present. What happens there now has consequences for everyone in neighboring countries. There may be some in Syria who have grown weary and who will rely on the devil to get rid of the regime. We can never accept that, for we know what it means.

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A Monograph written by Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, an independent Lebanese academic and political analyst.

Although Hizbullah does indeed depend on the Asad regime for its arms’ flow, this consideration alone does not adequately grasp the other motives behind its controversial stance, nor does it sufficiently explain the sturdiness of its alliance with Syria. Reducing Hizbullah’s close alliance with the Asad regime to logistics misses a host of other factors and considerations which sustain the relationship.

Hizbullah’s staunch defense of the Asad regime at the most inopportune of times must be viewed against the backdrop of the regional struggle between the “nationalist and resistance project” led by Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas, otherwise known as the “jabhit al mumana’a” (“resistance axis” as it is dubbed in the West) and the “US project” pursued by the US’ Arab allies who comprise the so-called “moderate axis”. Viewed within this broader regional context, Syria’s strategic value does not merely lie in its arms’ supply role, but derives from its status as the Arab linchpin of the resistance front, or to borrow Nasrallah’s words, “the only resistance regime in the region”.

On balance, “the Syrian leadership can be credited with the preservation and maintenance of the Palestinian cause,” for Hizbullah. So indispensable was the Asad regime to Palestine that Nasrallah boldly declares: “the continuation of this Syrian position” (and by implication, the preservation of the regime), is “the precondition to the continuation of the Palestinian cause.” Accordingly, any threat to the regime’s security and survival is a “danger” not only to Syria, but to Palestine and — considering its role in ending the Lebanese civil war — to Lebanon as well.

The protests in Syria are branded a form of “collusion” with outside powers who seek to replace Asad’s rule with “another regime similar to the moderate Arab regimes that are ready to sign any capitulation agreement with Israel.” Thus, rather than strive to institute reforms or democracy in Syria, Washington’s latest policy essentially aimed at instituting subservience: “if President Bashar al-Asad were to go now to the Americans and surrender, the problem would be resolved.”

Aside from the strategic factors behind Hizbullah’s continued support for the Asad regime, the movement’s position is also grounded in theoretical considerations. Hizbullah’s revolutionary prescriptions rest on two concurrent criteria: first, “this regime’s relationship with and position towards the American-Israeli project in the region” and second, the potential for reforms. The Asad regime’s mumana’ist position and role in the region, coupled with its openness to reform and dialogue means that the Syrian uprising has failed to meet either of these requirements, and hence, Hizbullah cannot “support the downfall of a resistant, mumani’i regime which has begun reforms”.

Hizbullah’s understanding of freedom as a positive freedom to control one’s destiny and to achieve self-determination, both digresses from and surpasses the liberal preoccupation with the negative freedom from external constraints and hindrances. To be free is not to be left alone but to continually struggle for justice. It is for this reason that Hizbullah is inherently antagonistic to liberal uprisings like Syria’s which focus their efforts on freeing themselves from state control at the expense of the struggle against US and Israeli colonialism.

Follow this link to download the full Monograph.

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Alastair Crooke
Article posted on Asia Times Online, 22 October 2011

This summer, a senior Saudi official told John Hannah [1], former United States vice president Dick Cheney’s former chief-of-staff, that from the outset of the Syrian upheaval in March, the king has believed that regime change in Syria would be highly beneficial to Saudi interests: “The king knows that other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself, nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria,” said the official. Continue reading… »

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A Policy Paper written by Faisal Devji, University Reader in History and Fellow of St Antony’s College at the University of Oxford, exclusively for Conflicts Forum.

Released by the Pentagon following the American assassination of Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad, an already “iconic” image showing Al-Qaeda’s frail leader watching footage of himself on an antiquated television set inadvertently reveals some truths about the War on Terror. For one thing it is difficult to imagine this setting as part of a command centre for global terrorism. And for another the international reaction to Bin Laden’s assassination casts doubt on the US narrative of war and victory on a global scale. Crucial about this reaction, after all, has been the fact that people around the world seemed interested in the event primarily because of the extraordinarily pugnacious public response it generated in the US, and not for any reason of their own. Thus even in countries like Britain and Spain, which not so long ago had themselves been the victims of Al-Qaeda’s militancy, there was little if any public demonstration of satisfaction at Bin Laden’s death, though it continued to be the subject of massive media coverage precisely as an element in American politics.

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