Syria’s crisis is leading us to unlikely bedfellows
David Cameron and William Hague are at risk of over-simplifying a dangerous and complex situation.

Protesters in Egypt chant slogans calling for the expulsion of the Syrian ambassador Photo: AFP/GETTY
By Peter Oborne9:00PM GMT 18 Feb 201217 Comments
When two car bombings killed nearly 50 people in the heart of the Syrian capital of Damascus just before Christmas, we in the West were quick to challenge claims made on state TV that the atrocities had been carried out by al-Qaeda. We were inclined to award more credibility to the Syrian rebels, who denied that the terror group was involved at all, and insisted that the attacks had been cynically staged by the government, perhaps as a bid for international sympathy.
However, all doubt ended last week when James Clapper, director of US national intelligence, informed the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Damascus bombings “had all the earmarks of an al-Qaeda attack”. Mr Clapper added that “we believe al-Qaeda in Iraq is extending its reach into Syria”. So, it’s official. Al-Qaeda is acknowledged as an ally of Britain and America in our desire to overturn the Syrian government.
Think about it. Ten years ago, in the wake of the destruction of the Twin Towers, we invaded Afghanistan to eliminate al-Qaeda. Now the world’s most notorious terror organisation wants to join a new “coalition of the willing” in Syria (not just al-Qaeda: yesterday the Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir staged a march through west London in support of their Syrian brothers and the establishment of the Khilafah state).
This may be the most profound turnaround in global politics since the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939 converted Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany from bitter enemies into allies – and it is important to understand that the affinity of interests between al-Qaeda and the West extends far beyond Syria. Britain, the United States and al-Qaeda also have a deep, structural hostility to President Assad’s biggest sponsor, Iran.
Like al-Qaeda, we are interested in undermining Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in the Lebanon. In Libya, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy threw their weight behind the destruction of Gaddafi’s government and its replacement by a new regime which reportedly embraces al-Qaeda-connected figures. We and the terror group have come to share the same hostility to the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, and for very much the same reason: we both agree that he takes his orders from Tehran.
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Of course, it remains the case that we have different methods and contrasting ideals. But we share unnervingly similar short-term objectives. Although it is unlikely that Britain and America have significant direct dealings with al-Qaeda, it may be that some of our allies do.
Let’s consider for a moment one of the most glaring hypocrisies of American foreign policy: the differential treatment between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Washington never ceases to complain about the connection between the Pakistani intelligence services and the Taliban. But we never hear a whisper of concerns about the connection between Saudi intelligence and Salafi movements across the Middle East, of which al-Qaeda is the best known offshoot.
For months, the region has been alive with rumours that al-Qaeda and other Sunni fighters have been sneaking into Syria through Lebanon and Turkey. Many of these extremist Sunni infiltrators fought with al-Qaeda in Iraq before being driven out and taking refuge in the Lebanon. It is likely that they are backed with money and arms by Saudi interests, and inconceivable that they could act without the knowledge, and perhaps the assistance, of Saudi intelligence.
So what has brought al-Qaeda in from the cold? The answer lies in the Arab Spring. Certainly the revolutions in Libya, Tunisia and elsewhere started out as popular uprisings; many of the rebels in Syria continue to fight, and often die, for human rights and democracy. But, as time has gone by, other agendas are coming into play, and other interests have sought to assert themselves. The statecraft of Saudi Arabia demonstrates how complex the situation has become. The gerontocracy which governs that desert kingdom will never countenance internal opposition. Indeed, Saudi troops marched into Bahrain to suppress the democracy movement there. On the other hand, the Saudis backed the Libyan rebels and are reportedly active in the destabilisation of President Assad.
This deeply reactionary monarchy remains Britain and America’s closest ally in the Middle East. As the Arab Spring has unfolded, we have encouraged the Saudis to develop a makeshift alliance that embraces Qatar, Jordan, the Israelis, al-Qaeda and, it would seem, elements of the Muslim Brotherhood, who have very strong historical reasons for wishing to dislodge the Assad regime, in the light of its brutal crushing of the Brotherhood-inspired revolt in Hama 30 years ago. All members of this alliance would agree that they want the Shiite-Allawi regime in Syria to be replaced by some form of majority Sunni rule. Britain and America hope this would be democratic; doubtless al-Qaeda and its Saudi allies have something else in mind. Ranged on the other side are Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iraq’s al-Maliki government. In Iraq, many of the Awakening Councils (the militia set up by the US six years ago to defeat al-Qaeda) now feel betrayed and are said to have joined forces again with their Sunni brethren.
The situation could hardly be more dangerous or more complex. Yet, in recent public pronouncements David Cameron has repeatedly spoken of the conflict in Syria as a struggle between an illegal and autocratic regime at war with what he likes to call “the people”. Either he is poorly briefed, or he is coming dangerously close to a calculated deception of the British public. For the situation is far more complicated than he has admitted. It is far from obvious, for example, even that a majority of Syrians are opposed to the Assad regime. Russia calculates that perhaps two thirds of Syrians are still broadly supportive, and it is worth recalling that Russia was a more accurate source of information in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq than either Britain or the US.
Foreign policy is perhaps the area where David Cameron’s Government has copied New Labour most closely. Mr Cameron shares much of Tony Blair’s slavish adherence to American foreign policy aims, especially in the Middle East. Like Mr Blair, he wilfully simplifies intractable foreign policy decisions and has shown a fondness for overseas adventures. In Syria, British rhetoric may raise expectations among the opposition which we can never satisfy.
Meanwhile, in Libya there are menacing signs that last year’s Anglo-French intervention is starting to go wrong. The toppling of the Gaddafi regime has not brought an end to the killing. If anything, the fighting appears to be getting worse, as the country breaks into hostile armed fractions – a fertile hunting ground for al-Qaeda, our latest collaborator in the war on terror. I hope that the Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary, William Hague, know what they are doing as they allow Britain to be dragged closer towards further intervention in the Middle East. But judging from their public remarks they may be playing a game whose rules they do not fully understand.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9090324/Syrias-crisis-is-leading-us-to-unlikely-bedfellows.html

FEBRUARY 17-19, 2012
23
CounterPunch Diary
Hypocrisy and Syria
by ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Few spectacles have been more surreal than senior US officials – starting with the President, the Secretary of State and the US ambassador to the UN – solemnly lecturing Assad and his beleaguered Syrian government on the need to accommodate rebel forces whose GCC sponsors are intent on slaughtering the ruling Alawite minority or driving them into the sea.

At one grimly hilarious moment last Friday, these worthy sermons were buttressed by a message from Ayman al-Zwahiri, the head of al-Qaeda, therefore presumably the number one target on President Obama’s hit list, similarly praising the ‘Lions of Syria’ for rising up against the Assad regime. Al-Qaeda and the White House in sync!

The last time the United States faced serious internal dissent was in the 1960s and early 1970s, from war resisters and black and Native American movements. The government responded instantly with a methodical program of violent repression, including a well-documented agenda of assassination.

In 1993, the first year of the Clinton administration, federal agents launched an armed assault on a religious group in a compound outside Waco, Texas. The Feds deemed the compound and the Branch Davidians therein, headed by David Koresh, an affront to their authority. After seven weeks, Attorney General Janet Reno concluded that negotiation with the besieged Christian fundamentalists was useless and ordered an assault. Seventy-six Branch Davidians were burned alive. Autopsies showed that five children were among those shot to death by federal agents. The outcome was widely endorsed by the national press and Attorney General Reno commended for her resolve.

No one could doubt that determined separatist activity or armed challenges to the government of the United States are always met with immediate, overwhelming and lethal ferocity. For further historical illustration I recommend an interview with any moderately informed American Indian or black.

For a while it looked as though Obama’s government was being swept into yet another intervention, ranging itself shoulder-to-shoulder with the GCC coalition, headed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, stoking the fires in Syria. That momentum was certainly checked by the Russian and Chinese veto of the US-backed resolution presented to the UN Security Council.

Maybe it’s fanciful, but perhaps enthusiasm for underwriting the destruction of the Syrian state was somewhat undermined by the late Anthony Shadid’s excellent report from Libya in the New York Times of February 9. Shadid (struck down by an asthma attack at the end of last week on the Syrian-Turkish border) described a dismembered country, rent by banditry, torture and summary executions.

Civil war in Syria would be of a brutality and level of bloodshed far beyond what is transpiring in Libya – as veterans of Lebanon’s civil war that lasted from 1975 to 1990, or of the sectarian bloodletting in Iraq in 2006-07, can attest.

There is no doubt that Assad’s police state is corrupt and brutal. There is every reason to press Assad towards reform. But it has become plain that negotiated reform is not on the agenda of the rebels. To the contrary, the bombs that killed 28 and wounded 235 in Aleppo, no doubt set by Sunni suicide bombers, probably operating through al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, were intended to elicit government repression, not to encourage negotiation.

The performance of the western press has been almost uniformly disgraceful. In the wake of the Aleppo atrocities, network journalists blandly quoted spokesmen for the Syrian rebels that the Syrian security forces had blown themselves up to discredit the rebels.

Aisling Byrne of Conflicts Forum recently described in considerable detail the propaganda machine that has provided a non-stop flow of mendacious bulletins eagerly seized upon by the western press.

As Byrne reported, “Of the three main sources for all data on numbers of protesters killed and numbers of people attending demonstrations – the pillars of the narrative – all are part of the ‘regime change’ alliance. The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, in particular, is reportedly funded through a Dubai-based fund with pooled (and therefore deniable) Western-Gulf money (Saudi Arabia alone has, according to Elliot Abrams allocated US$130 billion to ‘palliate the masses’ of the Arab Spring). What appears to be a nondescript British-based organization, the Observatory has been pivotal in sustaining the narrative of the mass killing of thousands of peaceful protesters using inflated figures, ‘facts’, and often exaggerated claims of ‘massacres’ and even recently ‘genocide’.”

But will the US really mount a covert supply effort to the Syrian rebels? The US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, may use the undiplomatic word “disgusting” to describe the Russian and Chinese vetoes, but perhaps these vetoes came as something of a relief, getting the US off the hook, in terms of action rather than rhetoric. An article in The Washington Post of 11 February was headlined: “As carnage builds, US sees ‘no good options’ on Syria”. In the story, the reporter wrote that the US government has “no appetite for a military intervention”.

Does Israel really crave Assad’s fall, a prolonged period of anarchy and the probable emergence of a Sunni regime eager to confront Israel? All in all, Syria under the Assad dynasty has been a relatively good neighbor. Turkey has its own Kurdish problems which Syria could exacerbate if it wanted to. The foreign minister of Saudi Arabia was careful to tell the New York Times that “international intervention had to be ruled out”.

Assad has been written off many times in recent months. Israel’s Ehud Barak said a while ago he would be gone in weeks. In December the US State Department described Assad as “a dead man walking”. But Syria is not Libya. Assad commands an army that has remained loyal. Large numbers of Syrians gaze into the abyss and decide that, all things considered, they don’t want to follow the fate of Lebanon, Iraq or of Libya. The obits for Assad’s regime have been premature. He could be with us for a while yet and it seems that behind the thunderous rhetoric the US government may be accommodating to that fact. On the other hand, Peter Lee in his excellent, very well informed report on this site this weekend, remarks, “My take on the situation is that the United States is willing to let the GCC chew up Syria as a consolation prize for not going all out on regime change against Iran.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/17/hypocrisy-and-syria/