Israel Matzav

Civil War coming in Syria?

Jonathan Spyer argues that the irresistible force of the Syrian uprising is meeting the immovable object that is Bashar al-Assad and his Alawite cohorts, making an ethnic civil war all but inevitable.

Alawi military units and Alawi militias (the Shabiha) are the instruments remaining to the Assads. Sectarian revenge killings of Shabiha men by Sunni Syrians in Homs earlier this month may presage the opening of a new, uglier chapter.

The key issue remains whether the security forces will stay united. There are persistent, hard to verify reports of desertions in considerable numbers. An army colonel, Riad al-Asaad, has emerged in the last days, claiming to be the leader of a “Syrian Free Army,” on the country’s border with Turkey. It will soon become clear if there is anything to this claim.

But with neither side willing to back down, increased violence may well be the only logical direction for events to take. Assad has gathered the core of his Alawi regime around him, for a fight to the end. There are increasing numbers among the rebels, especially after the latest events in Hama, who will be determined to meet him head-on. The result: Syria today stands on the threshold of a slide into sectarian civil war.

But in an appalling piece in Asia Times, former Indian diplomat M K Bhadrakumar accuses Israel of stoking the fires in Syria due to Shimon Peres' call for regime change in that country. Now watch this one carefully because you're going to need a scorecard to keep track of all the players.

Israel, after all, knows only too well that a regime change anywhere in the Arab world in today's conditions can only work against its interests. Egypt is a typical case where if and when the interim rulers hand over power to an elected government, it will have to factor in the strong popular wish for a foreign policy that distances the country from the United States and Israel.

A big majority of Egyptians will demand that their government should back off from any form of close cooperation with Israel on economic and security issues. Israel is watching with trepidation the prospect of a thaw in Egypt-Iran ties. Israel's military intelligence chief Major General Aviv Kochavi made a stunning statement recently that Iran was secretly funding Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. In short, Israel cannot afford to be sanguine about the outcome of regime change in Syria.

Peres apparently had other calculations. What emerges is that Israel has made a cold-blooded assessment that regime change in Damascus is not in the cards. Patrick Seal, well-known author and Arabist, summed up last week: "The situation has not reached a critical mass. Damascus hasn't risen, the security services haven't split yet, the economy hasn't collapsed. The regime looks weak and the opposition looks weaker. The more blood is spilt the more difficult it is to find a solution. There has to be a negotiated solution of sorts. If there is no solution there will be a civil war."

It is likely correct that as things currently stand, Assad will survive, albeit at an enormous cost in human lives. And while what Bhadrakumar writes about Egypt is correct, Egypt is a country with which Israel has a peace treaty. That has never been the case with Syria. The relative quiet on Israel's borders has been a result of the practical conclusion that Syria cannot win a war with Israel. That calculation will not change if Assad is deposed. The Syrian tanks would look a lot different fighting the IDF than they look fighting unarmed civilians.

But Bhadrakumar's agenda becomes clear when he suddenly blames Israel for Syria's tensions with Turkey and for Turkey's problems with its Kurdish minority.

But, Ankara carefully weighed the advantages of becoming the instigator of regime change in Damascus and seems to have arrived at the conclusion that the dangers to its own territorial integrity far outweigh whatever geopolitical advantages Washington promises. Simply put, it doesn't suit Turkey to be seen holding the Israeli hand right now. Thus, Israeli hopes of breaking out of regional isolation by reinventing an axis with Turkey over Syria are dissipating.

The clincher for Ankara is that the Syrian developments are taking a dangerous turn toward a full-fledged, no-holds-barred, Lebanon-like religious war in the 1980s, which will be a dreadful thing to happen in its backyard.

The sequence of events triggered by the gruesome killing of three families from the Alawi tribe by Salafi extremists in the city of Homs close to the Turkish border testifies to the grave consequences of the danger of derailment of the democracy movement in Syria, which Ankara has been sponsoring in recent months.

A wave of anti-Salafi resentment is sweeping over the region among Shi'ites and Alawis. The backlash is rekindling dormant religious and sectarian passions. Ankara can sense that Salafi extremists, many of them al-Qaeda affiliates and battle-hardened veterans from the Iraq war, have infiltrated the demonstrations.

If a Lebanon-like civil war erupts in Syria, it will be a matter of time before Turkey too catches fire. The Shi'ites and Alawis in Turkey (who form close to 20% of the population) will instinctively get involved in the Syrian maelstrom. Alawi-Salafi tensions are lurking just below the surface in Turkish society.

The Alawi groups in Turkey have formed an umbrella organization known as the Alawi-Bektashi Foundation, which regularly brings out reports to sensitize the world community on the alleged "rights violations targeting Alawis on the basis of inequality and discrimination" and "hate crimes" by Salafi elements associated with the Fetullah Gulen community.

The latest Alawi report titled "The Alawis as Target of the Community" details that the Gulen community of Salafis in Turkey is waging "black propaganda against the Alawis" to the effect that Alawis have "taken over the judiciary and the military; in Turkey there is a sectarian secularism; an Alawi elite is allowed to rule the Sunni masses", et al.

In other words, Bhadrakumar is arguing that Israel is seeking to foment civil war in Syria in the hope that it will extend to Turkey. And then he brings the Kurds into the mix:

On the whole, Israel has rightly assessed that the Turks are beginning to get the Syrian message and are preparing to pipe down.

Ankara is winding down anti-Syria rhetoric and is gradually reviving its old platform of "zero problems" with its tough neighbors.

The irony is that Ankara is also compelled to revive the bonhomie with Iran and launch a concerted military offensive against Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq following the killing of 13 Turkish troops on July 14 in Diyarbakir province in eastern Turkey.

In a masterly move with impeccable timing, the Iranian army began operations on July 16 against Kurdish rebels in the Kandil mountains in northern Iraq. In a parallel move, the Turkish military also since began an operation in the Iraqi territory bordering Hakkari province in eastern Turkey.

Ankara is putting on a brave face and claiming that the Iranian and Turkish operations are not coordinated. That may be so in a formal sense. Tehran is not disputing the Turkish claim, either. But the Israelis are a smart lot and can sense perfectly well what is going on - that someone is jogging Turkey's memory that it still has an unfinished Kurdish problem of its own to prioritize, where it has a commonality of interests with Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Evidently, Israel has concluded that the Syrian-Iranian axis is very much intact despite the immense pressure from Saudi Arabia on Assad to break up with Tehran; the Syrian regime is nowhere near collapse despite the concerted pressure by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, France and the US; and, Qatar, which among all Persian Gulf Arab states is always quickest on the uptake, anticipates that an Arab Spring in Syria is going to be a tough call, far tougher than Libya, and Doha shouldn't aspire to punch so absurdly far above its light weight.

Incidentally, Qatar has shut down its embassy in Damascus and pulled out following the attacks on the American and French embassies and the al-Jazeera office in the Syrian capital. Most important, Israel estimates that Turkey has begun gradually backtracking from the path of interference in Syria.

All in all, the specter that haunts Israel is that if the turmoil in Syria abates, the attention of the international community will inevitably revert to the Palestine issue. Abbas is reiterating his intention to seek UN recognition for Palestine at the forthcoming general assembly session in New York in September.

Peres' stirring call is a clever attempt to stoke the fires in Syria. There would be nothing like it if a Lebanon-like civil war erupted in the golden triangle and Arabs, Kurds and Turks slaughtered one another.

At no point since the Arab Spring appeared on the Maghreb last December and took away the life of a street vendor in Tunis, could one have foreseen that the day would arrive when Israel became its standard-bearer in the Levant. The Middle East never ceases to throw up surprises.

Has anyone told Bhadrakumar that the position of President in Israel is ceremonial?

And to think that we Israelis don't consider Shimon Peres to be so clever at undermining governments other than his own. What could go wrong?

Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Kurdistan, Shimon Peres, Syrian uprising, Turkey

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:36 AM