Syrian Civil War Grounded To A Stalemate

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

FSA_Fighter

[An FSA fighter in engaged in a firefight in Aleppo | Credit: Wikimedia Commons]

 

By Zachary Fillingham* | Geopoliticalmonitor.com

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

TORONTO (IDN) – Opposition troops in Syria have largely come to be referred to as the Free Syria Army (FSA), but this title belies the fact that the anti-Assad side of the civil war equation is composed of several disparate groups, all with conflicting visions for a post-Assad Syria. In reality, the FSA was born out of a group of largely Sunni Syrian Army deserters led by Riyad al-Assad, and that is likely more or less the composition that remains to this day.

The FSA claims to have now assembled a force of 40,000 men, but analysts have pegged the number at closer to 10,000. The more generous estimate that the FSA touts might include Islamist foreign fighters that are active in the Syrian theatre, a group that shares the FSA’s short-term goals without falling under its immediate command structures. This disconcerting mix of ‘wholesome’ army deserters and ‘unwholesome’ Islamists has kept Western aid taps firmly shut so far.

The West’s apparent unease over supplying the FSA does not mean that weapon shipments are not flooding into Syria. Quite the contrary, the rebels are said to receive ‘daily’ shipments via Lebanon and Turkey, which are likely financed and organized by Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The FSA has carved out a territorial stronghold for itself in the north of Syria in the area adjacent to the Turkish border, primarily in the regions surrounding Idlib and to the north of Aleppo. There are other large pockets of FSA resistance to the north and south of Homs. However, given the guerrilla tactics being favoured by the FSA, the map is in a constant state of flux. The FSA is at a material disadvantage against government forces, so FSA commanders will often choose to melt into the countryside rather than stand and fight.

In the past, the FSA has had success encircling large government deployments in Idlib and Aleppo, and although reports from the north are as unreliable as they are sparse, the FSA is said to be fielding increasingly sophisticated weaponry in the past six months.

Damascus has also reported heavy fighting recently, and some sources have attributed it to a rebel push out of strongholds in Ghouta, a region to the east of the capital. Although it’s possible that the FSA has expanded its operational capacity from its base in the north, the more likely explanation is that these attacks, some of which have included suicide bombings, are actually the work of the ‘unwholesome’ branch of the Syrian insurgency.

Poised to push rebel forces out

On the other side of the military equation, the Syrian Army shows no signs of being beaten into submission. Quite the contrary, if anything it seems poised to push rebel forces out of a few strategic cities. While real news is sparse and government information must be taken with a grain of salt, several facts can still be gleaned in regards to the Syrian Army.

First off, the wave of desertions that originally swelled the ranks of the FSA seems to have receded, and the troops that remain are likely committed to seeing the conflict through to the end. Second, the Syrian Army has the manpower and material means to hold on to the major cities in Syria. Currently, there is no major urban center that has totally fallen to rebel forces ala Benghazi during the Libyan conflict. And finally, the Syrian Army will maintain its lifeline of foreign assistance, at least in some form, via arms shipments from Russia, a government that claims to have taken no sides in the conflict while simultaneously filling out ‘previously agreed-upon’ arms contracts for the Assad regime.

The sum of these parts is a civil war with a government side that is committed, well-supplied, and convinced all the way down to the individual foot soldier that its very existence is at stake. On the other side, there is a guerilla force that is decentralized, multifaceted, trans-border, and increasingly materially and logistically competent. Both sides enjoy a long bench of foreign backers ready to fight for their cause.

This all points to the indisputable fact that the Syrian civil war has ground to a stalemate and there is no end in sight.

There are a few scenarios that can arise moving forward, the first of which being a military stalemate much like the one we are currently witnessing. The Syrian Army will continue to hold on to cities, maintaining a firm grip on Damascus and a more tenuous one on the northern cities of Aleppo and Idlib, and the FSA will continue to recruit, resupply, and regroup in the countryside. Civilian casualties will continue to mount and refugee camps will grow in the neighbouring countries of Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, and the north of Iraq. As more and more time passes, a de facto territorial division may begin to appear in Syria. Under this scenario, the war’s victor will be determined by attrition and exhaustion.

Barriers to a negotiated solution

The second possibility is a compromise, which would be ideal in terms of mitigating the loss of life. However, several barriers to a negotiated solution currently exist, the biggest of which being that both sides still believe they can win. Fruitful negotiations are also frustrated by the fact that the Syrian opposition doesn’t speak with one voice, which is forgivable on the battlefield because everyone knows who the enemy is.

The same can’t be said for politics: The National Coalition for Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the Syrian National Council, the National Co-ordination Committee, seculars and Islamists, locals and the diaspora – all of these actors give rise to a cacophony of disparate interests that defy direct talks. For proof, one needs look no further than Moaz al-Khatib’s call for government negotiations on Februray 6.

Al-Khatib, the leader of the National Coalition, called for the talks in light of the worsening humanitarian situation across the country. His comments drew immediate criticism from the Syrian National Council, who accused him of betraying the cause of Assad’s removal. And this is merely scraping the surface of the byzantine web of Syrian opposition groups.

The third scenario is a game-changing foreign intervention. This is the hardest to predict because of the huge number of variables involved. It is also potentially the most dangerous. Much has been written about the possibility of the Syrian civil war spilling its borders and triggering a regional sectarian conflict, and that it has yet to do so is a testament to the restraint of foreign backers on both sides. But this won’t necessarily be the case for the entire duration of the conflict.

Israel’s recent airstrike on Syria is a good example of a potential catalyst. Should the Assad government want to start beating the war drum against Tel Aviv, Iran could get involved and the result would be a regional war. Similarly, Iran may choose to vent its recent economic frustrations by increasing its involvement in the Syrian conflict, which could draw Western countries into the conflict, and once more, the result is a regional war.

In addition to these state-initiated political scenarios, there is also the sectarian element to be considered. Syria is surrounded by Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish populations that could conceivably be drawn into the conflict under certain macro circumstances.

Only time will tell how the civil war is resolved; likely a whole lot of it.

*Zachary Fillingham holds a BA in International Relations from York University in Toronto, Canada and an MA in Chinese Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, England. This article is being re-published by arrangement with Geopoliticalmonitor.com which carried it on February 11, 2013.

Original: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/syrian-civil-war-the-view-from-the-ground-4780/

2013 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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Photo: An FSA fighter in engaged in a firefight in Aleppo | Credit: Wikimedia Commons


Filed Under: Conflict, Featured, Insurgency, Middle East Tagged With: , ,

Obama Administration Reveals Deep Divisions on Syria Policy

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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A resident of Aleppo in the midst of buildings damaged by an airstrike from President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. Credit: Zak Brophy/IPS

By Samer Araabi

WASHINGTON, Feb 14 (IPS) – Though President Barack Obama has been reticent to involve his administration too deeply in the Syrian uprising, revelations over the past week have shown near-unanimous agreement among the president’s top national security advisors for greater military intervention.A New York Times story last week uncovered a strategy by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CIA Director David Petraeus to directly involve the U.S. in arming and supporting the Syrian rebels, in order to have a more direct influence on the course of events in the war-torn country.

The following week, during congressional testimony on the Benghazi embassy attacks, former Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey both professed similar support for the idea of arming Syrian rebels. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is also said to have backed the plan.

The revelations paint a very different picture from the official narrative of the Obama administration, which has remained publicly sceptical of the idea of providing weapons to unknown militant groups operating in Syria.[pullquote]3[/pullquote]

“The U.S. long ago accepted the strategy of supporting insurgents as a way to counter the Assad regime or at least to appear to be doing something about Syria,” Leila Hilal, director of the Middle East Task Force for the New America Foundation, told IPS.

“Even if full-scale military support was not mobilised earlier, steps were taken to allow others to arm rebels. The indirect approach failed to turn the conflict and undermined the revolution.”

Foreign policy analysts have jumped to widely different conclusions about the disparate opinions of the president on one hand, his senior national security staff – the secretary of state, the secretary of defence, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and director of the CIA – on the other.

Writing for the Council on Foreign Relations, Elliott Abrams refers to the president’s decision as “tragically wrong", and states that “one cannot escape the conclusion that electoral politics played a role” in ignoring the advice of his national security team.

Joshua Landis, associate professor at the University of Oklahoma and proprietor of the widely-read blog Syria Comment, disagrees.

“Obama doesn’t seem to agree with the prevailing interests in Washington, and the way they want to formulate our Middle East policy,” he told IPS.

Landis claims that instead of being influenced by the cabinet’s push for more involvement, “that’s a driver for him for staying out of Syria, because he knows powerful interests will quickly weigh in if we get involved there. He doesn’t seem to trust our Middle East policy-making apparatus.”

Pressed further on the question, General Dempsey clarified later in the week that he supported arming the Syrian opposition “conceptually", noting that “there were enormous complexities involved that we still haven’t resolved.”

The interventionists’ plan was further undermined by a study within the CIA itself, where a team of intelligence analysts concluded that the influx of U.S. arms would not “materially” affect the situation on the ground.

Landis also cautioned that “the proposals put in front of (Obama) don’t have a plan about how to get out, or if things don’t go according to plan. They don’t outline in any way how America is going to win, or achieve its goals.”

Little is known about the current state of U.S. involvement in the two-year Syrian uprising, which may have claimed the lives of over 60,000 Syrians. Senior White House officials have repeatedly expressed concern that increasing the arms supply to the Syrian rebels may result in weapons falling into the “wrong hands", a concern exacerbated by the influx of foreign fighters in Syria.

As Al-Qaeda-affiliated militants have risen in the ranks of the armed Syrian opposition – partially due to better financial backing, equipment, training, and experience in Iraq/Afghanistan – it has become increasingly difficult to disentangle such groups from other opposition elements.

Even the very same cabinet members who have vocally supported arming the Syrian opposition have expressed grave reservations about the increasingly extremist inclinations of the rebels. Hillary Clinton herself has warned that “the opposition is increasingly being represented by Al-Qaeda extremist elements,” a development she considers “deeply distressing".

“You can always vet, but can you make the people you like win?” asked Landis. “I’m sure we know people we like, but the problem is, can you make them winners?”

Thus far, Washington’s efforts to marginalise militant Al-Qaeda groups have largely backfired. After the U.S. designation of Jubhat Al-Nusra, the largest Al-Qaeda-linked fighting group in Syria, as a foreign terrorist organisation, most of the Syrian opposition leadership jumped to their defence.

Moaz Al-Khatib, the titular head of the Syrian opposition’s main coalition, the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, immediately defended Jabhat Al-Nusra’s role in the uprising as “essential for victory".

Nevertheless, Washington has been covertly supporting rebel groups for well over a year, with “non-lethal aid", intelligence, and other unknown means.

The recent statements by Clinton and Panetta, therefore, still reveal little about the actual relationship between the White House and the Syrian rebels.

President Obama openly criticises the idea of armed assistance but has been silently supporting the rebels, while his administration’s liberal interventionists who have openly called for a more militant role have also expressed grave reservations about the ideology and direction of the very people they hope to arm.

These varied opinions and perspectives leave the door open for any number of policies toward Syria."No one has taken any option off the table in any conversation in which I’ve been involved," said Dempsey.

Nevertheless, Landis thinks a more militaristic approach in Syria in unlikely.

“Clearly…the people Obama has tried to put forward, all of his appointees, are not in favour of a muscle-bound Middle East policy and are not in favour of more military involvement," he said. "They’re consistent with his overall plan, which is not to get involved with Syria, not to start a war with Iran.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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In Mali, Driving Out Rebels but Not Fear

February 3, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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A couple of burned cars and abandoned Malian tanks now remind visitors that violent fights occurred in Diabaly in central Mali. Credit: Marc-André Boisvert/IPS

Marc-Andre Boisvert

DIABALY, Mali, Feb 02 (IPS) – “We know they are close. We do not feel safe,” mutters Allassane Traoré, as he stares down the road on which the Islamists entered the town of Diabaly in central Mali, almost two weeks ago.Traoré himself a muslim and a muezzin — the person who leads and recites the call to prayer at the local mosque – became nervous when he saw a line of pick-up trucks filled with Al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadists driving around town on Jan. 14, some 250 kilometres from the country’s capital Bamako. He sent his kids and wife away.

“They were violent and they destroyed everything – they can come back at any time,” he tells IPS, speaking in front of his modest blue mosque. “We have seen them snorting white powder. They are not good Muslims.”

For the past year, almost two-thirds of this West African nation was occupied by a coalition of armed groups composed of Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, and Ansar Dine, an Islamist group among the Tuareg – a traditionally nomadic Berber people that live across large parts of Mali and Niger.

The Islamists, who say they are committed to the imposition of Sharia law, gained control of Diabaly for over a week until Malian and French forces successfully repelled them on Jan. 21. The attack against Diabaly triggered the ongoing French-led international intervention – on request by Mali’s interim president Dioncounda Traore – that eventually pushed the Islamist fighters out of three key cities in the north.

A couple of burned cars and abandoned Malian tanks now remind visitors that violent fights occurred in the small community surrounded by rice paddies. French flags have since been flying on shops and motorcycles around town, put up by locals convinced that France’s 2,500-troop-strong intervention saved them from Islamist rule.

The terrorists, while unable to read or write, “were better trained and equipped than the Malian army,” Diakaridia Doumbia, a retired military solider who is now a city councilor, tells IPS.

“They said they were against the government, not against the population. We did not believe that,” Oumar Diakité, the mayor of Diabaly, tells IPS. “We heard about Sharia in the north, the amputation and the flogging — many fled knowing what would happen next, even if terrorists tried to deceive locals by being nice.”

French special forces have left for the north and life seems to be back to normal in Diabaly. In the surrounding area, a small garrison of Malian troops has settled down, waiting for reinforcement from the 4,500 African troops that are expected to be deployed around Mali in the next weeks.

Insecurity and anxiety

But further up the road towards the north, inhabitants of Dogofiri do not share the enthusiasm of Diabaly dwellers. Here, people stare at the ground and refuse to talk to foreigners.

“We know terrorists are still there hiding in the bush. They could come back at any time and retaliate,” Ousmane Diarra, a shopkeeper, tells IPS.

The few checkpoints on the dusty road, manned by two or three Malian military soldiers idling in plastic sandals, do not reassure the locals here.

“The Malian army has not been able to stop the Islamist advance — they run away. And, in spite of the attacks, security has not been reinforced,” one local, who prefers to remain anonymous, tells IPS. “It can happen again any time soon.”

What’s more, many locals fear the Malian military.

“They have beaten up an old man. They also have executed a man in plain daylight,” another Dogofiri resident tells IPS. “They said he collaborated with the Islamists.”

In Dogofiri, all Tuaregs and Arabs – the “fair skinned” people who used to sell goods in the local market – have since left.

“There is a feeling of anxiety,” the local adds. “Citizens are afraid of the military.”

On Friday, Feb. 1, Human Rights Watch accused the Malian army, which ousted the democratically elected civilian government last March, of executing 13 Islamist supporters in broad daylight.

In another incident, last September, just a few kilometres from the town, the Malian military executed 16 unarmed Muslim preachers crossing the Mauritanian border. French-based human rights group the International Federation of Human Rights recorded at least 11 extrajudicial incidents by the army in January.

Back in Diabaly city hall, the city council is treading cautiously.

“It is not a matter of race,” Diakité stresses. “The first person killed in Diabaly by Islamists was a Tuareg. We know who is good and who is bad.”

“In Mali, we all have family members from other races,” the mayor explains, “including Tuaregs. There are criminals and there are Malians. Mali is a multi-ethnic country and we live well together.”

But other suspicions are keeping the town alert and eager for justice.

Ever since locals recognised two former high-ranking Malian military soldiers who used to be posted in Diabaly among the Islamist forces, community members believe the Islamist fighters had local support.

“People want revenge, especially the youth,” says Doumbia. “We have identified collaborators who have provided information to terrorists — we see them as traitors.”

Once the the dust is settled down, he will denounce them and justice will be served, the councilman says. But “for now, we are a country at war.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Africa, Featured, Insurgency, Politics Tagged With:

Qatar intervening in Northern Mali?

December 2, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy

By Mehdi Lazar

While it is likely that ECOWAS is preparing for a military intervention to regain northern Mali following the military coup of March 22nd, 2012 that overthrew the regime of Amadou Toumani Touré, more and more is being said about Qatar’s involvement in this part of the Sahel. Taking advantage of the dual crisis afflicting this country – Islamist groups have benefited from the Tuareg rebellion to take control of the north and a military coup overthrew the incumbent president in Bamako – the emirate would advance its pawns on the territory on a path towards Afghanization. A game which if confirmed would prove quite dangerous.

Qatar’s presence in Mali has been proved but in a manner that remains unclear

If the presence of Qatar in Mali is confirmed, it is difficult to argue that the emirate is trying to change the political and strategic situation in one way or another. However, despite the lack of evidence of Qatari involvement in supporting armed fighters, a body of evidence suggests that this might be the case.

Firstly, Qatar already has a network of various funding projects which include madrassas, religious schools and charities which date from the 1980s and 1990s in Mali, as in other Muslim-majority countries in Africa. Secondly, following an agreement between the Qatari Red Crescent and Red Cross Mali held in Doha in August, Qatari aid is present on Malian soil to act in solidarity with the people of the north, particularly around the triangle of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal.

However, regardless of the degree and intensity, the presence of Qatari forces in Mali has been, and continues to be, a strategy used increasingly in Africa, especially since the Arab Spring. The emirate became involved in the financing of political parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011 and 2012, was involved in mediation in Darfur which was held in Sudan in 2011 and engaged in the NATO coalition that fought the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 (similarly, Qatar has also funded rebel fighters in Libya). Besides the presence of the Qatari Red Crescent humanitarian aid in Mali, one may wonder what could be some other reasons for their presence in this part of the Sahel.

What are the interests of a Qatari presence in Mali?

If the assumption of funding, even training and arming Islamist groups by Qatar forces in northern Mali is confirmed, then it is possible to draw several conclusions.

Firstly, this intervention would provide the emirate a simple but risky strategy to greatly increase its influence in West Africa and the Sahel. Indeed, Qatar could greatly increase its influence in the mediation between the Malian government, ECOWAS, the northern rebels, and even France. This would increase its political clout on the continent, taking advantage of, as it often does, a favorable political environment. In the case of Mali, it is a failed state with a sudden power vacuum in the North, due both to the Tuareg rebellion in the North and the coup in the South. Add to this the fortuitous presence in the Sahel of many fighters and weapons used in the recent war in Libya and the presence in the North of young and unemployed Tuaregs opposed to the Malian state, one can see how it is possible to fund the rebels.

Using this combination of favorable factors, the emirate can see a way to continue to have its influence heavily felt in Africa, continuing the work undertaken in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. In this respect, as in the case of Qatari engagement in Syria, two factors are in common. Firstly, after the success of the Libyan campaign, the emirate feels confident in being able to directly intervene abroad in a power perspective. In addition, as in Syria, the presence of the emirate in Mali, if it is real, should be viewed in the context of a twofold competition: first with Saudi Arabia to control the Sunni Islamic world, but also to strengthen the power struggle of Sunni Muslims against Shiite Muslims (because the axis Iran – Syria – Hezbollah remains strong while the Shia in Iraq rises).

Another common point, but this time with Libya, is that Mali is seen as a potential owner of large reserves of natural gas[2] and has a need for infrastructure development; two areas in which Qatar specializes. It could therefore, in the event of good relations with the leaders of an Islamic state in northern Mali, exploit the subsoil rich in gold and uranium, and prospect the country’s oil and gas potential.

Finally, geographically, Mali is also an axis of penetration into black Africa and West Africa to which Qatar is pursuing its influence through the purchase of resources and agricultural land, as well as the funding of places of worship.

An intervention which, if proved, could turn against Qatar

The situation in Mali illustrates how the problematic situation in the Sahel is of extreme concern because of the weakness of states in the region and the presence of AQIM and other jihadist fighters. In addition, the war in Libya in 2011 has worsened the situation, as evidenced by the recent assassination of the U.S. ambassador in Benghazi, Christopher Stevens. In Mali, the defragmentation of the state is not only due to intrinsic factors (Tuareg rebellion, structural weakness of the state, democratic façade, poor development) but also the consequences of the poorly controlled Libyan crisis.

In this context the intervention of Qatar, if it proves controversial, is very unwelcome and four players could take umbrage: The United States, France, Algeria and the African Union. French and American redeployment in the region is indeed currently in place to try to stop the downward spiral of northern Mali. The United States is refocusing its security efforts on North Africa and the Sahel, especially after the assassination of its ambassador and the prospect of future withdrawals of military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. France, the traditional power in the region, has recently had several of its citizens taken hostage in Mali and are under pressure from numerous economic and political interests. However, the United States and France have very strong relations with Qatar, which in the case of Mali, unlike the Syrian intervention[3], could go against western interests. The United States and France could make Qatar understand their decision to intervene, yet we have to wonder about the scope of “retaliation” possible vis-à-vis an emirate that is important economically, politically and militarily to the two countries[4].

Meanwhile, the African Union is trying to assert itself as an influential political power and wants to resolve conflicts on its own soil, namely through its regional organization, ECOWAS, who have amassed a force of more than 3,000 men. If the strategy of Qatar is financing or arming fighters in northern Mali, then this complicates the African Union’s task. However, its ability to act and to influence the decisions of Qatar is very low (except through the EU or France). Algeria, for its part, is particularly concerned by the situation in northern Mali. On the surface, Qatari-Algerian relations are strong since the two countries are “brothers.” However, Algeria is monitoring this situation very closely because it fears an attempt to destabilize its borders and even its own soil. More generally, a Qatari intervention in northern Mali would increase Algeria’s distaste against the emirate. Despite recent agreements, the two countries oppose each other economically in their competition for gas exports, as well as politically (financing of the Muslim Brotherhood in North Africa by Qatar, which also hosts on its floor the former FIS leader Abassi Madani, is frowned upon by Algeria, as well as the fact that Qatar has joined the NATO coalition in Libya while Algeria advocates non-interference). In addition, MOJWA (the Movement for Jihad in West Africa), which could be financed by the emirate of Qatar, holds seven Algerian diplomats (kidnapped in April 2012 in northern Mali) hostage. Algeria, besides being a regional power, is therefore a key state in the Malian crisis but is reluctant to intervene because of its 1,300 km border with northern Mali in an area extremely difficult to control. Doing so would indeed carry the risk of a new terror strike on its soil as happened in the 1990s.

Algeria, like the United States and France has no interest in the status quo in the Sahel, and if Qatar intervenes, these states could potentially react. However, given the regional situation there is more for Qatar to gain than to lose from an intervention in northern Mali. This of course is true only if for the United States and France put the problems of the Malian crisis before their common interests with Qatar, which are indeed numerous.

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Mehdi Lazar is a geographer and former education inspector for the French Ministry of Education. M. Lazar has completed a PhD in Geography at Panthéon-Sorbonne University and is the author of “Qatar, une Education City” (l’Harmattan, Paris, 2012).

[1] “Notre ami du Qatar finance les islamistes du Mali” in Le Canard enchaîné, June 6, 2012 edition.

[2] Malika Groga-Bada, “Mali: et si les islamistes convoitaient l’or noir ?”, in Jeune Afrique, July 19, 2012 edition.

[3] Mehdi Lazar, “Axe sunnite et gazoduc : quand les Qataris interviennent en Syrie pour le plus grand bonheur des Occidentaux”, in Atlantico, August 26, 2012.

[4] Mehdi Lazar, “Qatar : une politique d’influence entre conjoncture favorable et fondamentaux géographiques”, in Diploweb, May 27, 2012.

 

© Copyright 2012 Mehdi Lazar, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Africa, Conflict, Featured, Insurgency, Security Tagged With: , ,

Syrian Opposition Rebrands as Rebels Advance

November 13, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Samer Araabi

WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (IPS) – As Syrian rebels launched a new attack in Damascus, opposition leaders announced the creation of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, an umbrella group designed to be more representative of – and more influential with – anti-Assad forces on the ground.Some view the development with cautious approval. Leila Hilal, director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation, told IPS, “The Coalition is substantively different in several meaningful ways. A main concern, however, lies in how it may be used to advance the proxy agendas at play in the country.”

Rebels advance

Components of the Free Syrian Army escalated attacks on the Syrian capital in the past few days, shelling one of Damascus’s two main presidential palaces and assassinating family members of senior regime officials.

A recent offensive along the border has also led to the rebel capture of Ras al-Ain, a small town in the northeast province of Hasaka, which caused up to 8,000 Syrians to flee into Turkey.

The Syrian army, in response, has bombed rebel positions by air, and laid siege to opposition-controlled areas. Reports indicate heavy fighting in Damascus, as well as the eastern town of Al-Qurriya.

In an interview last week with Russia Today, President Bashar Al-Assad claimed to have no intention to back down or compromise. "I am Syrian, I am made in Syria, and I will live and die in Syria," he told the interviewer.

Fighting spreads

The fighting has also deeply impacted the internal situation in Lebanon, and spread to Palestinian factions inside Syria. Rebels armed a brigade of Palestinians to battle the regime-friendly Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), killing at least 10 Palestinians in and around the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus.

Fighting also broke out last weekend along the border with the occupied Golan Heights, where Israeli forces attacked Syrian artillery positions in retaliation for a mortar round that fell near an Israeli army post.

Joshua Landis, an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma and author of the blog Syria Comment, warns that the Syrian spill-over may be even worse in Iraq.

“The Sunni-led attempt to depose Assad’s regime is sure to give a big boost to Al-Qaida in Iraq as arms and men flow across the border and find a refuge in Syria,” he warns. “Saudi, Turkish and Qatari support for Syria’s Sunnis is also likely to turbo-charge passions in Iraq.”

Opposition rebrands

Amidst the escalating violence, Western powers grew disillusioned with the Syrian National Council (SNC) as an effective leadership organisation for the Syrian opposition. After over a year of infighting, high-level defections, and a failure to implement its policies on the ground, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for the creation of a new, more representative opposition body.

After initially supporting the SNC as the “only legitimate representative of the Syrian people,” policymakers in Washington became concerned about its ability to manage a transition to a post-Assad Syria, and the strength of the pro-Western elements in its ranks.

Subsequent attempts by the U.S. to exercise greater oversight and control by coordinating with the opposition in Turkey revealed a chaotic military structure, and deep infiltration right-wing Islamist elements.

Clinton’s call for a new structure demonstrated the administration’s doubts that the current leadership would be unable to produce an outcome in Syria suitable to U.S. interests.

Despite Washington’s best efforts, the meeting of opposition groups appeared to fall apart on Wednesday, when prominent dissident Raid Saif pulled out of the coalition talks after losing his seat on the SNC executive council.

On Friday, SNC President Andulbaset Sieda was replaced by George Sabra, a left-leaning secular activist. Though he originally fell one vote short of being elected to the secretariat, Sabra was invited to take a seat belonging to a hard-line Islamist bloc called the Higher Council for the Syrian Revolution.

On Sunday, however, opposition groups tentatively agreed to a new leadership structure. Sheikh Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib was chosen as the new president, replacing Sabra as the titular head of the opposition after only two days. Riad Saif was also reincorporated as the new vice president, and the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir claims that Qatar successfully pressured the SNC into the coalition by threatening to cut off its funding.

Washington responds

The new organisation was immediately recognised by the Gulf Cooperation Council. The U.S. Department of State issued a statement on Sunday promising to “work with the National Coalition to ensure that our humanitarian and non-lethal assistance serves the needs of the Syrian people".

Despite the administration’s focus on the political dimension of the conflict, other prominent government figures and analysts continue to push for more direct military intervention.

David Schenker, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, recommended that Washington “take the lead in vetting and providing units of the Free Syrian Army with the weapons required to more quickly end the war.”

General Mustafa al-Sheikh, one of the leaders of the Free Syrian Army, has similarly warned that “If there’s no quick decision to support us, we will all turn into terrorists.”

However, the New America Foundation’s Hilal has warned that increased foreign involvement may be counterproductive.

“The challenge now will be to avoid letting external agendas interfere with what is good for Syria," she told IPS. "A sudden infusion of foreign assistance and weapons could prove more harmful than helpful, including potentially undermining the nascent unity.”

Meanwhile, Lakhdar Brahimi, the current international envoy for Syria, warned that the violence in Syria may produce a failed state. “What I am afraid of is…the collapse of the state and that Syria turns into a new Somalia," said Brahimi in an interview with the London-based al-Hayat newspaper. Brahimi’s attempt at a ceasefire collapsed in late October.

“I believe that if this issue is not dealt with correctly, the danger is ‘Somalisation’ and not partition: the collapse of the state and the emergence of warlords, militias and fighting groups.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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Radical Salafis Overrunning the Syrian Revolution

August 30, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

EmileNakhleh

Aug 30 (IPS) – The recent visit by Abd al-Halim Murad, head of the Bahraini Salafi al-Asalah movement, to Syria to meet with Syrian rebels is an attempt by him and other Gulf Salafis to hijack the Syrian revolution.Sadly, the Saudi and Bahraini governments have looked the other way as their Sunni Salafis try to penetrate the Syrian opposition in the name of fighting Assad, Alawites, Shia, Hizballah and Iran.

The Assad regime has pursued a sectarian strategy that has resulted in promoting violent "jihadism" in order to bolster his narrative that the opposition to his regime is the work of foreign radical Salafi terrorist groups. Despite Assad’s self-serving claims, violent Salafi activists are nevertheless exploiting instability and lawlessness in some Arab countries, Syria included, to preach their doctrine and force more conservative social practises on their compatriots.

Some Salafis do not believe in peaceful, gradual, political change and are actively working to undermine nascent political systems, including by terrorising and killing minority Shia, Alawites, and Christians.

Radical Salafis have recently committed violent acts in Mali and other Sahel countries in Africa, as well as in Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya. Salafis also have committed violent acts in the name of "jihad" in Egypt, Sinai, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East.

As the Arab Spring touches more countries and as more regimes—for example, in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Sudan and the Palestinian authority—come under pressure from their own citizens, they begin to use sectarianism and promote radical elements within these sects for their own survival and regional posturing. Salafi "jihadists" are more than happy to oblige. Unfortunately, average Muslim citizens bear the brunt of this violence.

Where did modern day Salafism come from?

Since the late 1960s, when King Faisal declared exporting Islam a cardinal principle of Saudi foreign policy, Saudi Arabia has been spreading its brand of Wahhabi-Salafi Islam among Muslim youth worldwide.

At the time, Faisal intended to use Saudi Islam to fight "secular" Arab nationalism, led by Gamal Abd al-Nassir of Egypt, Ba’thism, led by Syria and Iraq, and atheist Communism, led by the Soviet Union.

The Wahhabi-Salafi interpretation of Islam, which has been a Saudi export for half a century, is grounded in the teachings of 13th century Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyya and 18th century Saudi scholar Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. It’s also associated with the conservative Hanbali school of Sunni jurisprudence.

In a nutshell, the Wahhabi-Salafi religious doctrine is intolerant of other religions such as Christians and Jews and of Muslim sects such as the Shia and the Ahmadiyya, which do not adhere to the teachings of Sunni Islam. It also restricts the rights of women as equal members of the family and society and uses the Wahhabi interpretation to quell any criticism of the regime in the name of fighting sedition, or "fitna".

Even more troubling, Salafis view violence as a legitimate tool to fight the so-called enemies of Islam without the approval of nationally recognised religious authorities. Any self-proclaimed Salafi activist can issue a religious edict, or "fatwa", to launch a jihad against a perceived enemy, whether Muslim or non-Muslim.

Usama Bin Ladin did just that in the 1990s, which, of course, started an unending cycle of violence and terrorism against Muslims and "infidels" alike, including the United States and other Western countries.

Many of the radical Salafi activists in Mali and other African countries have received their religious educations at Imam Muhammad University in Saudi Arabia, the hotbed of Salafi Islam and one of the most conservative institutions of Islamic education in the world.

The Saudi government and some wealthy Saudi financiers have been spending significant amounts of money on spreading Islam through scholarships, local projects and Islamic NGOs, as well as by building mosques and printing of Korans and other religious texts espousing Wahhabi-Salafism.

Since the early 1970s, Wahhabi-Salafi proselytisation has been carried out by Saudi-created and financed non-governmental organisations, such as the Muslim World League, the International Islamic Relief Organisation, the World Association of Muslim Youth, and al-Haramayn.

Some of these organisations became involved in terrorist activities in Muslim and non-Muslim countries and have since been disbanded by the Saudi government. Many of their leaders have been jailed or killed. Others fled their home countries and forged careers in new terrorist organisations in Yemen, Morocco, Iraq, Somalia, Indonesia, Libya, Mali and elsewhere.

For years, Saudi officials thought that as long as violent "jihad" was waged far away, the regime was safe. That view changed dramatically after May 12, 2003 when terrorists struck in the heart of the Saudi capital.

Wahhabi proselytisation has laid the foundation for today’s Salafi "jihadism" in Africa and in the Arab world. Saudi textbooks are imbued with this interpretation of Islam, which creates a narrow, intolerant, conflict-driven worldview in the minds of youth there.

Unlike the early focus of King Faisal, today’s proselytisers target fellow Muslims, who espouse a different religious interpretation, and other religious groups. The so-called jihadists have killed hundreds of Muslims, which they view as "collateral damage" in the fight against the "near and far enemies" of Islam.

While mainstream Islamic political parties are participants in governments across the Islamic world, and while Washington is beginning to engage Islamic parties as governing partners, radical Salafis are undermining democratic transition and lawful political reform. They oppose democracy as understood worldwide because they view it as man-made and not God’s rule, or "hukm".

And what to do about it?

The raging violence in Syria and the regime’s clinging to power provide a fertile environment for Salafi groups to establish a foothold in that country. National security and strategic interests of the West and democratic Arab governments dictate that they neutralise and defeat the Salafi project.

As a first step, they must work closely with Syrian rebels to hasten the fall of the Assad regime. This requires arming the rebels with adequate weapons to fight the Assad military machine, especially his tanks, bulldozers and aircraft.

Washington and London must also have a serious conversation with the Saudis about the long-term threat of radical Salafism and the pivotal role Saudi Wahhabi proselytisation plays in nurturing radical Salafi ideology and activities. A positive outcome of this conversation should help in building a post-Arab Spring stable, democratic political order. In fact, such a conversation is long overdue.

For years my colleagues and I briefed senior policymakers about the potential and long-term danger of spreading this narrow-minded, exclusivist, intolerant religious doctrine. Unfortunately, the West’s close economic and security relations with the Saudi regime have prevented any serious dialogue with the Saudis about this nefarious export and insidious ideology.

The writer is the former director of the CIA’s Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program and author of A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World.

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Thousands Call for Peace in Colombia

May 21, 2012 by

The Real News Network

Thousands of victims of violence march in Bogota tell warlords they want an end to the conflict


More at The Real News


Filed Under: Conflict, Human Rights, Inequality, Insurgency, Justice, Latin America, Politics, Social Justice, Video Tagged With: ,

U.S.-Afghan Pact Won’t End War – Or SOF Night Raids

May 3, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, May 2, 2012 (IPS) – The optics surrounding the Barack Obama administration’s "Enduring Strategic Partnership" agreement with Afghanistan and the Memorandums of Understanding accompanying it emphasise transition to Afghan responsibility and an end to U.S. war.

But the only substantive agreement reached between the U.S. and Afghanistan – well hidden in the agreements – has been to allow powerful U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) to continue to carry out the unilateral night raids on private homes that are universally hated in the Pashtun zones of Afghanistan.

The presentation of the new agreement on a surprise trip by President Obama to Afghanistan, with a prime time presidential address and repeated briefings for the press, allows Obama to go into a tight presidential election campaign on a platform of ending an unpopular U.S. war in Afghanistan.

It also allows President Hamid Karzai to claim he has gotten control over the SOF night raids while getting a 10-year commitment of U.S. economic support.

But the actual text of the agreement and of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on night raids included in it by reference will not end the U.S. war in Afghanistan, nor will they give Karzai control over night raids.

The Obama administration’s success in obscuring those facts is the real story behind the ostensible story of the agreement.

Obama’s decisions on how many U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan in 2014 and beyond and what their mission will be will only be made in a "Bilateral Security Agreement" still to be negotiated. Although the senior officials did not provide any specific information about those negotiations in their briefings for news media, the Strategic Partnership text specifies that they are to begin the signing of the present agreement "with the goal of concluding within one year".

That means Obama does not have to announce any decisions about stationing of U.S. forces in Afghanistan before the 2012 presidential election, allowing him to emphasise that he is getting out of Afghanistan and sidestep the question of a long-term commitment of troops in Afghanistan.

The Bilateral Security Agreement will supersede the 2003 "Status of Forces" agreement with Afghanistan, according to the text. That agreement gives U.S. troops in Afghanistan immunity from prosecution and imposes no limitations on U.S. forces in regard to military bases or operations.

Last month’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on night raids was forced on the United States by Karzai’s repeated threat to refuse to sign a partnership agreement unless the United States gave his government control over any raids on people’s homes. Karzai’s insistence on ending U.S. unilateral night raids and detention of Afghans had held up the agreement on Strategic Partnership for months.

But Karzai’s demand put him in direct conflict with the interests of one of the most influential elements of the U.S. military: the SOF. Under Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. war strategy in Afghanistan came to depend heavily on the purported effectiveness of night raids carried out by SOF units in weakening the Taliban insurgency.

CENTCOM officials refused to go along with ending the night raids or giving the Afghan government control over them, as IPS reported last February.

The two sides tried for weeks to craft an agreement that Karzai could cite as meeting his demand but that would actually change very little.

In the end, however, it was Karzai who had to give in. What was done to disguise that fact represents a new level of ingenuity in misrepresenting the actual significance of an international agreement involving U.S. military operations.

The MOU was covered by cable news as a sea change in the conduct of military operations. CNN, for example, called it a "landmark deal" that "affords Afghan authorities an effective veto over controversial special operations raids."

But a closer reading of the text of the MOU as well as comments on by U.S. military officials indicate that it represents little, if any, substantive change from the status quo.

The agreement was negotiated between the U.S. military command in Kabul and Afghan Ministry of Defence, and lawyers for the U.S. military introduced a key provision that fundamentally changed the significance of the rest of the text.

In the first paragraph under the definition of terms, the MOU says, "For the purpose of this Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), special operations are operations approved by the Afghan Operational Coordination Group (OCG) and conducted by Afghan Forces with support from U.S. Forces in accordance with Afghan laws."

That carefully crafted sentence means that the only night raids covered by the MOU are those that the SOF commander responsible for U.S. night raids decides to bring to the Afghan government. Those raids carried out by U.S. units without consultation with the Afghan government fall outside the MOU.

Coverage of the MOU by major news media suggesting that the participation of U.S. SOF units would depend on the Afghan government simply ignored that provision in the text.

But Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters flatly Apr. 9 that Karzai would not have a veto over night raids. "It’s not about the U.S. ceding responsibility to the Afghans," he said.

Kirby would not comment on whether those SOF units which operated independently of Afghan units would be affected by the MOU, thus confirming by implication that they would not.

Kirby explained that the agreement had merely "codified" what had already been done since December 2011, which was that Afghan Special Forces were in the lead on most night raids. That meant that they would undertake searches within the compound.

The U.S. forces have continued, however, to capture or kill Afghans in those raids.

The disparity between the reality of the agreement and the optics created by administration press briefings recalls Obama’s declarations in 2009 and 2010 on the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq and an end to the U.S. war there, and the reality that combat units remained in Iraq and continued to fight long after the Sep. 1, 2010 deadline Obama he had set for withdrawal had passed.

Fifty-eight U.S. servicemen were killed in Iraq after that deadline in 2010 and 2011.

But there is a fundamental difference between the two exercises in shaping media coverage and public perceptions: the Iraq withdrawal agreement of 2008 made it politically difficult, if not impossible, for the Iraqi government to keep U.S. troops in Iraq beyond 2011.

In the case of Afghanistan, however, the agreements just signed impose no such constraints on the U.S. military. And although Obama is touting a policy of ending U.S. war in Afghanistan, the U.S. military and the Pentagon have public said they expect to maintain thousands of SOF troops in Afghanistan for many years after 2014.

Obama had hoped to lure the Taliban leadership into peace talks that would make it easier to sell the idea that he is getting out of Afghanistan while continuing the war. But the Taliban didn’t cooperate.

Obama’s Kabul speech could not threaten that U.S. SOF units will continue to hunt them down in their homes until they agree to make peace with Karzai. That would have given away the secret still hidden in the U.S.-Afghan "Enduring Strategic Partnership" agreement.

But Obama must assume that the Taliban understand what the U.S. public does not: U.S. night raids will continue well beyond 2014, despite the fact that they ensure enduring hatred of U.S. and NATO troops.

*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

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Afghanistan: The Quagmire of U.S. Occupation

April 16, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Nicole Colson*

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

CHICAGO (IDN) – The U.S. war and occupation of Afghanistan was supposed to bring stability and democracy. Instead, Afghanistan remains a country on the brink of disaster – one that has clearly been exacerbated by the U.S. presence.

More than 10 years after the U.S. war began, in spite of the presence of about 2,000 international aid groups, at least $3.5 billion in humanitarian funds and $58 billion in development assistance, humanitarian conditions in Afghanistan remain abysmal.

This past winter, one of the harshest in recent years, compounded the suffering of those living in refugee camps – an estimated 35,000 people just in the capital of Kabul, and many more around the country. The camps, according to the New York Times, are euphemistically referred to as "informal settlements," because labeling them as what they really are, camps full of war refugees, is "politically sensitive." According to the Times, "The Afghan government insists that the residents should and could return to their original homes; the residents say it is too dangerous for them to do so."

The death rate for children under age five in these camps is 144 out of 1,000, according to Julie Bara of Solidarités International. The Times calls this "stunningly high even for Afghanistan, which already has the world’s third highest infant mortality rate."

As Mohammad Yousef, director general of Aschiana, an Afghan aid group that provides education and other services in 13 of the camps, told the Times, "There is no clear strategy to help these people. They don’t have access to anything–health, education, food, sanitation, water. They don’t even have an opportunity for survival."

Such a bleak picture of humanitarian conditions should give pause to anyone who might still believes that the U.S. could be a force for good in Afghanistan.

But it isn’t only the dire conditions in the refugee camps. By any measure, even those of the occupiers, the U.S. war and occupation has been a dismal failure – failing to liberate women, failing to improve conditions for ordinary Afghans, failing to bring about democracy, failing to stop the killing of civilians, failing to permanently oust the Taliban, failing to train a national armed forces.

Of course, that’s because the U.S. occupation was never about liberation and democracy in the first place. It was about securing an imperial foothold in the region – no matter the consequence to the Afghan people. Now, as the U.S. occupation unravels, it is ordinary Afghans who are suffering the consequences as the U.S. looks in vain for a "Plan B" that doesn’t exist.

Women’s Rights

Take women’s rights. Although the 2001 war was accompanied by relentless propaganda from both Democrats and Republicans telling us that the U.S. had to go to war in order to "save" Afghan women from repressive fundamentalism, reports today suggest that little has changed.

According to the Guardian, half of all Afghan women in prison–some 400–are there for "moral" crimes – including running away from abusive homes. Others have been imprisoned for the "crime" of sex outside of marriage – after being raped or forced into prostitution.

A report last fall from Oxfam found that 87 percent of Afghan women reported experiencing physical, psychological or sexual abuse or forced marriages.

The U.S.-backed stooge President Hamid Karzai, whose government is notorious for its corruption and its lack of legitimacy outside Kabul, recently backed a decree by the Ulema Council, a government-sponsored group of religious leaders, insisting that women are worth less than men, should be subordinate to men, should not mix with men in school or the workplace, and should always travel with a male guardian.

Karzai backed the decree as part of a plan to appeal to conservative forces and the Taliban – which his government is currently negotiating with as the date approaches for a planned September withdrawal of some 30,000 U.S. troops. This would bring the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan down from approximately 90,000 to 60,000 – a necessary move for the Obama administration prior to the November election.

Whatever else is taking place, it’s clear that even empty rhetoric about women’s rights is being ditched. "There is a link with what is happening all over the country with peace talks and the restrictions they want to put on women’s rights," Fawzia Koofi, a member of Afghanistan’s parliament, told the Guardian, adding that the decree is a "green light for Talibanization."

Doubts and Protests

Karzai – along with the U.S. – is desperate to cut whatever deals he can with the Taliban and other forces now, because his isolated and weak government would have a hard time remaining in power once the U.S. presence is wound down.

Nor has the U.S. been able to train a stable Afghan army – at least not with any confidence that its soldiers will remain loyal to U.S. interests or to Karzai and the central government. The Obama administration is counting on the perception that its troop "surge" brought internal security and stability to large areas of the country, even though that’s clearly not the case.

In fact, the U.S. and its NATO partners in the Afghanistan occupation don’t trust the soldiers that they do recruit and train.

In many places outside Kabul, the Taliban and other warlords are in total control of local militias. In Ghor province in the West, for example, more than 150 illegally armed groups are estimated to contend for power in the area – against some 200 NATO soldiers. According to one report last month:

Governor Abdullah Hiwad recently told media that President Hamid Karzai had agreed to raising and deploying an additional 1,000-member militia to the province. He said the president had promised completing the process this solar year. However, provincial council members and officials believe militias cause unrest and fuel insecurity instead of bringing relief to the people.

On top of this local instability is the widespread outrage caused by repeated insults and massacres at the hands of U.S. troops.

Recent months have seen mass protests in Afghanistan over photos showing U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of "insurgents," the burning of Korans at a U.S. military base in February and, last month, the massacre of 17 unarmed civilians by Staff Sgt. Robert Bales.

The atrocities committed by Bales didn’t provoke the immediate and furious protests seen during the Koran burning, but they have built on an even deeper sense of distrust of American and NATO forces by ordinary Afghans.

U.S. commanders are well aware that their own troops are a barely contained powder keg. According to journalist Robert Fisk, just three weeks before Bales carried out his massacre – after the death of six NATO troops, two of them Americans, in the wake of the protests against the Koran burning–the U.S. Army’s top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, lectured his men, "Now is not the time for revenge for the deaths."

According to Fisk, Allen told soldiers that they should "resist whatever urge they might have to strike back" after an Afghan soldier killed the two Americans. "There will be moments like this, when your emotions are governed by anger and a desire to strike back," Allen continued. "Now is not the time for revenge, now is the time to look deep inside your souls, remember your mission, remember your discipline, remember who you are."

As Fisk wrote:

[T]his was an extraordinary plea to come from the U.S. commander in Afghanistan. The top general had to tell his supposedly well-disciplined, elite, professional army not to "take vengeance" on the Afghans they are supposed to be helping/protecting/nurturing/training, etc. He had to tell his soldiers not to commit murder.

I know that generals would say this kind of thing in Vietnam. But Afghanistan? Has it come to this? I rather fear it has. Because – however much I dislike generals – I’ve met quite a number of them and, by and large, they have a pretty good idea of what’s going on in the ranks. And I suspect that Allen had already been warned by his junior officers that his soldiers had been enraged by the killings that followed the Koran burnings–and might decide to go on a revenge spree.

The Bales Massacre

One of the things that made the Bales massacre particularly appalling was that the U.S. had specifically told civilians in the area who had previously fled the fighting to come back to their villages – that it was "safe," and there was no longer a threat from the Taliban.

Following the massacre, the U.S. military was so worried about the anger it could spark that, within days, it paid the families of the victims $50,000 for each murdered civilian – as opposed to the several hundred or few thousand dollars that has been routine during the war.

But payoffs won’t bring dead civilians back to life–nor will they make the resentment that fuels opposition to the U.S. and NATO war go away.

As one anonymous Afghan official told ABC News, "The villagers aren’t like animals that you can buy. Yes, it’s a lot of money. But their children are not coming back."

Adding to that resentment is the fact that the U.S. immediately whisked Bales out of the country following his murder spree–preventing Afghan officials or courts from having any role in investigating the crime or seeking justice for the victims’ families.

This comes on top of the February Koran burnings, which sparked days of mass protests around the country.

During the protests, Afghan soldiers – not "insurgents" – killed six occupying troops. Two were found dead with shots to the back of the head inside the Interior Ministry headquarters in Kabul. These two killings, at least, were certainly carried out by a person or persons that the U.S. had trained as part of the Afghan security forces, and who therefore had access to U.S. soldiers and a U.S. base.

In late March, following the Bales massacre, Afghan forces reportedly shot and killed three NATO soldiers. Reports suggest the person who carried out the attack had been in the Afghan army for four years – another sign that U.S.-trained soldiers are taking aim at the occupiers.

Also in late March, the Afghan defense ministry was forced to go on lockdown after discovering 10 "suicide bomb vests." More than a dozen Afghan soldiers were arrested on suspicion of plotting to attack the ministry and blow up commuter buses for government employees. As the New York Times noted, "The security breach took place in one of the most heavily fortified parts of Kabul, less than a mile from the presidential palace and the headquarters of the American-led coalition."

These are just a few of the recent attacks in which Afghan forces are suspected to have attempted to turn their weapons on U.S. and NATO occupiers.

According to the Associated Press, since 2007, an estimated 80 NATO service members have been killed by Afghan security forces. More than 75 percent of those attacks have actually occurred in the past two years, and they’re happening right in front of, and even on, military bases. Almost one in five of the NATO soldiers killed so far this year in Afghanistan, have been shot and killed by Afghan soldiers and policemen, or militants disguised in their uniforms.

For U.S. leaders, such attacks are particularly worrisome – because they expose the idea that a loyal Afghan army will soon be ready to take over security of the country.

The U.S. currently spends some $9 billion a year to fund and train the Afghan army. As Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister, said recently, if the U.S. stops funding the Afghan army after its planned withdrawal of combat troops in 2014, "We will have given 100,000 people training and a gun, and then made them unemployed."

All of this complicates the Obama administration’s timeline for withdrawal. While Karzai remains largely a figurehead, the U.S. continues to rely on his administration to broker a deal with the Taliban in order to set the stage for the September drawdown of troops and, ultimately, the planned withdrawal of all combat troops by 2014.

Following the Bales massacre, the Taliban withdrew from talks- leaving the Karzai government and the U.S. scrambling now to figure out how to get them back to the table.

Within the U.S., this latest atrocities and tragedies have had a clear impact on people’s attitude toward the war. According to a New York Times/CBS News poll taken after the Bales massacre, in the last four months, American opposition to continuing the war in Afghanistan has climbed from 53 percent to 69 percent of the population. Some 60 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of Democrats now agree that the war is going badly.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta immediately dismissed the poll, stating, "We cannot fight wars by polls. If we do that, we’re in deep trouble."

But the Obama administration is already in "deep trouble" when it comes to the quagmire in Afghanistan. It has no strategy except its hope to cut whatever deal it can with the Taliban, maintain the six U.S. military bases across the country, keep Karzai as a nominal figure in Kabul, and continue the drone war.

The Republicans, of course, don’t have an alternate strategy. Mitt Romney has been critical of Obama’s "withdrawal timetable," but all his campaign website says is that as president, he would "order a full interagency assessment of our military and assistance presence in Afghanistan."

As Sonali Kolhatkar of the Afghan Women’s Mission recently explained in an interview with the Real News Network:

[W]hat Afghans, ordinary Afghans have been subjected to over the past 10 years has been they get targeted from three different sides. You have the U.S. and NATO occupation on the one hand, which is conducting these night raids and killing civilians, the likes of which we just saw. And then you have the Taliban, who are only stronger because of the U.S. presence, because they have a great excuse to remain in Afghanistan. And then you have the U.S.-backed central government in Afghanistan, which is riddled with very corrupt and criminal warlords.

After 10 years, it’s long past time for ordinary Afghans to be able to decide their own fate–without the interference of the U.S. and NATO. As long as the U.S. military remains, Afghanistan cannot be free.

*Nicole Colson writes for SocialistWorker.org, in which this article was first published. [IDN-InDepthNews – April 10, 2012]

2012 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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THAILAND: Malay-Muslim Insurgency – Lessons Learnt

January 18, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Jan 17 , 2012 (IPS) – Teachers’ Day on Jan. 16 was a sombre affair in Thailand’s troubled southern provinces where memories are strong of 155 educators killed over the past eight years in an insurgency led by Malay-Muslim separatists.

Yet, this grim fact – which has placed this Southeast Asian nation among the top four countries in the world for ‘teacher assassinations’ in a United Nations study – has not cowed all public school teachers from the Malay-Muslim community, the largest minority in predominantly Buddhist Thailand.

Risking death, these teachers have played a pivotal role in a path-breaking initiative: bilingual education in a clutch of public schools located in remote villages across the provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, home to the Malay-Muslims, near the Thai-Malaysian border.

This four-year lesson of hope, covering close to 300 students in primary education, has proved that Malay-Muslim students taught subjects like basic math and social studies in their Malay dialect score far better marks than Malay-Muslim students compelled to study the same lessons in the Thai medium.

"This improvement has been more dramatic than we expected," says Kirk Person, a director of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, a United States-based global network that promotes the development of ethnic minority languages and is working with Mahidol University to lead this effort. "It is pretty spectacular."

Spurred by the success, the experiment is set to be extended to 15 more public schools this year, Person told IPS. "They will also be in remote villages, where the students are Malay-Muslims and the teachers speak and teach in the local Malay dialect."

This small crack in the education system held under the grip of Thai nationalism is winning support from the Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre (SBPAC), a powerful local authority tasked with finding a solution to the conflict pitting government forces against a shadowy network of Malay-Muslim separatists.

"We want to have more public schools use the Malay language in their classes," Piya Kijthaworn, deputy secretary-general of SBPAC, said in an interview. "It may not contribute directly to peace, but it will let the local people express themselves and it is also important for their identity."

While such openness is welcome by Malay-Muslim educationists, they are far from sanguine about it precipitating change in the region’s 1,640 government schools. The latter stick to the Bangkok-driven curriculum, insisting on the Thai language as the sole medium of instruction.

"Thai governments are still not accepting the use of the local Malay language as a working language for the people in the south, even though it is their mother tongue," Abd Shakur Dina, assistant manager of the Chariyathsuksa Foundation School, revealed. "The government needs to be open to the use of Malay by the locals, because it is part of their identity."

"The place to begin is the school system," he explained to IPS. "The students will do better if they can study science, math, social studies and other subjects in their mother tongue. The low results they continue to get are because of this problem."

It is a view articulated in mid-2006 by a Thai elder statesman. The Thai government should make Yawi – the Malay dialect of the local Muslims – an "official language" in the south, declared the findings of a government-appointed national reconciliation commission headed by former prime minister Anand Panyarachun.

That recommendation was shot down by Prem Tinsulanonda, a former army chief who heads a powerful council of advisors to the Thai king. "The country is Thai and the language is Thai… We have to be proud to be Thai and have the Thai language as the sole national language," Prem said at the time.

Such opposition to the cultural and linguistic identity of the Malay-Muslim minority in public spaces is at the root of the conflict. Public schools, consequently, have become a fault line in this ethnic dispute.

Public schools are being targeted by the current crop of insurgents in the same way a previous generation did in the 1960s and 1970s. The schools are considered agents for a Thai assimilation policy that compels Malay-Muslims to take Thai names and learn the Thai language.

The conflict has roots in the annexation of the three southern provinces in 1902 by Siam, as Thailand was then known. These provinces were, until the annexation, part of the Malay-Muslim kingdom of Pattani, now in Malaysia.

The current cycle of violence, raging since January 2004, has resulted in over 5,200 deaths and injuries to over 10,000 people, including imams (Muslim preachers), teachers, bureaucrats and community leaders. While Buddhist monks, soldiers and policemen have also been targeted, the majority of the victims have been Muslims.

Heavily armed Thai troops have been fingered for a range of human rights violations, from arbitrary arrest and torture and extra-judicial killings to the deaths in military custody of 78 Malay-Muslim boys and men.

The insurgency has not been completely in vain and compelled the government to listen to Malay-Muslims demands.

"The escalation of the conflict has opened the space for the cultural issues to be considered by the Thai establishment," says Rungrawee Chalermsripinyorat, Thailand analyst for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank. "Bilingual education in public schools would not have been possible in the past."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

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