Egypt’s state of despair

S P SETH

One would expect that the referendum on the draft constitution would usher in a new democratic era in Egypt. But that is not going to happen. Ever since the Egyptians brought down Hosni Muabark, their dictator, who presided over Egypt’s destiny for three decades, the country is struggling to find a new path to democracy. The referendum on the constitution is making that transition even more difficult and painful.

In fact, President Mohammed Morsi’s gamble to assume sweeping powers to rush through a newly drafted constitution for popular referendum, brought the country to near chaos, with Tahrir Square once again the centre of popular demonstrations. Though Morsy later rescinded his decree under popular pressure, he refused to rescind the referendum on the constitution. Most of the opposition members of the constituent assembly had boycotted the drafting process, fearing that it was being rushed to produce a draft that negated the inclusive spirit of the Egyptian revolution to empower women, youth, minorities and the population at large around its new secular polity.  With the ruling Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party rallying its supporters for counter demonstrations, it looked like the country was in free fall.

The Morsi camp had calculated that the constitution, drafted by a predominantly Islamist assembly, would pass easily and that would give his party the stamp of popular approval for their policies. And that might not happen because there is significant opposition to it. The draft constitution is opposed as much as for its creeping Islamization as for its ambiguity on minority rights and human rights in general. The opposition, therefore, objects both to its substance as well the process by which Morsi has sought to push it through.

The process by which Morsi assumed sweeping powers, supposedly to promote democracy by putting the draft constitution to popular referendum is preposterous. Once the executive authority, in this case President Morsi, decides by decree to suspend or supersede established institutions, such short cuts can easily be replicated in future to circumvent normal constitutional channels. In other words, this was not an auspicious start for Egypt’s new democracy. No wonder, there was determined opposition to Morsi doing away with democratic processes to promote democracy.

Not only that the draft constitution had virtually no input from parties and groups other than the Islamists, the unseemly haste with which the referendum was pushed through, with very little time for any public debate, was against the norms of democratic functioning. Morsi needs to guard against becoming identified, like the fallen dictator Hosni Mubarak, as the symbol and personification of all that continues to be wrong with Egypt.

It is true that Morsi was voted President in the first ever-popular election in Egypt’s history. But he won by a very narrow margin, taking only 51.7 per cent of the vote against the Mubarak-era prime minister and a former air force commander, Ahmed Shafiq. In other words, the country is highly polarized. Another fact worth noting is that the voter turnout at the presidential election was quite low at 43.4 per cent. More than 50 per cent of the eligible voters didn’t care to vote either way, suggesting disillusionment or indifference with the political process being unfurled.

There are two reasons for this. First, the attempts by the army to manipulate the system by entrenching its over-riding power and interests seemed to suggest that the old system was likely to prevail minus Mubarak. Second, even as the army was trying to subvert the emerging democratic process, the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists were resurrecting religion (both as a matter of faith and political tool) to create an over-arching political presence. Which threatened the minorities, many women, liberals and secular elements that were in the forefront of Egypt’s revolutionary upsurge that brought down Hosni Mubarak. It appeared that the Islamists for their obscurantist ends were hijacking the revolution. Many people simply lost interest and seemed to be opting out by not voting at all. And many others decided to vote for the remnant of the Mubarak era, Ahmed Shafiq, than Morsi of the Brotherhood. They certainly didn’t like the Brotherhood usurping power in the name of democracy.

It was sad that the revolution had reached this point. And for this the Brotherhood must bear responsibility. They have never made a secret of taking the country into a faith-based (Islamic) direction, notwithstanding the fact that the revolution was actually pioneered by liberal elements, with women and the country’s Christians playing a prominent role. According to Human Rights Watch, Article 36 of the constitution promises to ensure equality between men and women as long as it does not conflict with “the rulings of Islamic Sharia”. There is this underlying message that the society will be reconfigured on Islamic principles. Considering that the Brotherhood and Salafists had dithered and only reluctantly, towards the end, decided to jump in on the revolutionary bandwagon, the usurpation by them of a broad-based revolutionary movement is not a good start.

It wouldn’t be easy, though. First, even if the constitution is adopted, it will face myriad challenges of vote rigging, the absence of international monitors, the stacking of the drafting panel and so on. Therefore, it will always suffer from a certain sense of legitimacy that comes from a country reconciled after a tumultuous popular upsurge.  And that is not going to happen with a large and diverse part of the population feeling that the Islamists had hijacked the revolution.  Such irreconcilability, in the midst of the country’s economy tottering, is likely to crystallize into Morsy replacing Hosni Mubarak as the hated symbol of all Egypt’s problems, past and present. If that were to happen, the regime will become increasingly dependent on the army like Mubarak was, taking things back to where it started. It would appear that Egypt is set to remain in a perpetual state of strife for the foreseeable future.  The Arab Spring in Egypt looks like turning into a long winter of discontent.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

For Israel, Palestine doesn’t exist

S P SETH

On the scale of human tragedies, Palestine will rank as one of the highest. Here is the case of a people who have foisted on them a new state of Israel for reasons unknown, except that this was once the home of the Jews in ancient times and that they are returning to claim their lost home. This ancient legend has nothing to do with the Palestinians who have known this region as their home as far back as they can envisage.  But that doesn’t matter because the powers that be of the time decreed through the United Nations that the Jews need a home of their own and that would be Palestine.

Understandably, Palestinians didn’t like it and sought to prevent it. But they lost, as was expected, because Israel was more powerful and had the support of some of the most powerful countries in the world. Since then things have only got worse for them. The new state of Israel sought to obliterate the Palestinian identity by denying its existence. And hoped that their expulsion from their homes in the new state and dispersal in other Arab states will remove any evidence on the ground.

They only partially succeeded by creating the phenomena of Palestinian refugee camps scattered in several Arab countries. The net result, over and above the perpetuation of Palestinian misery, was that their sense of identity even became stronger in refugee camps. And to this day, many of them want to return to their homeland, now Israel, and to their lands they were expelled from. Which is causing additional problems.

In 1967, when Israel launched a pre-emptive strike on Arab countries and went on to occupy more of the Palestinian territory, Palestine’s humiliation and devastation was further compounded. Since then, even though most of the world and the United Nations regard Israel’s occupation illegal, including its powerful friends like the US and European countries, Israel remains undaunted and continues its policy of new Jewish settlements over and above the half-a-million already settled in West Bank and Jerusalem. The remainder of the Palestine now resembles like “Bantustans” of the apartheid era in South Africa.

Indeed, soon after the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly upgraded Palestine’s status recently to a non-member observer state, Israel has granted permission for the building of another 3,000 settlement units in East Jerusalem and other parts of the West Bank. And it includes the area, called E1 that would “completely” cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. Jodi Rudoren of the New York Times, in a report from Jerusalem, has explained it thus: “Construction in E1, in West Bank territory that Israel captured in the 1967 war, would connect the Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem, dividing the West Bank in two.” Which will mean that, “The Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem would be cut off from the capital, making the contiguous Palestinian state endorsed by the United Nations last week virtually impossible.” And that has raised some concern, even among Israel’s friends, who have criticized the move.

The point is that there is nothing new in Israel’s provocative policy of creeping annexation of what is left of the Palestine. The only thing new is that the US and some of the European countries have publicly criticized Israel for this new provocation, as if they have suddenly discovered that Israel has no interest in a two-state solution of the Palestinian issue. In any case, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as usual, doesn’t give a hoot about criticism of the new decision of his government. As he has reportedly said, “We are building and we will continue to build in Jerusalem and in all areas that are on the map of the strategic interests of the State of Israel.” In other words, Israel will continue to press ahead with Greater Israel of the legendry territory of Judea and Samaria that will remain conceptually flexible to include, if necessary, other Arab lands.

Understandably, the Palestinian celebrations over their virtual statehood, conferred by the UN vote, have been overtaken by the Israeli announcement of new settlements. The timing of the announcement, so soon after the UN vote, might seem overtly provocative. But the fact is that over the last twenty years of the Oslo Accord in 1993, that supposedly was to lead to the two-state solution, Israeli settlement activity has continued unabated. And now that there has been some sharp criticism from Israel’s traditional friends in Europe and even here in Australia, the government is making a virtue of it by linking their renewed settlements as a riposte to Palestine’s violation of the Oslo Accord by seeking a vote in the United Nations.

Israel certainly has a way of turning logic and law on its head. Palestine is supposed to wait for Israel until it has been annexed almost entirely with nothing left to negotiate. This is precisely what Israel has been doing and is continuing to do, and when the Palestinians make even some feeble protest to get things back to the starting point, as with the UN resolution, they are pilloried and punished by Israel for not following the Oslo Accord.

Israel maintains that they are willing to talk without any pre-conditions. But how can talks produce any results when Israel holds all the cards by way of occupying much of Palestine, refuses to stop settlement activities, threatens to withhold revenues it collects for Palestine, and do all this without inviting any international action and sanctions? Is it possible to imagine a more unequal relationship as between Israel and the Palestine? And still, Palestine is blamed for all the problems in the Israel-Palestine situation.

And this not likely to change unless Israel is made to realize by the international community that enough is enough and it is time to go back to the pre-1967 borders. Will it be possible? It doesn’t seem likely in the short and medium terms because there is a strong sense, morally and politically, in Israel to recreate the imagined territories of Judea and Samaria by annexing the West Bank and other Palestinian territories.

 According to Peter Beinart in the New York Review of Books, “In his 1993 book, A Place among the Nations, Netanyahu not only rejects the idea of a Palestinian state, he denies that there is such a thing as a Palestinian. In fact, he repeatedly equates the Palestinian bid for statehood with Nazism….” Netanyahu claims, as Beinhart writes, that Israel has already made “gut-wrenching concessions… It has abandoned its claim to Jordan, which by rights should be part of the Jewish state.”

Israel’s Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, is even more ambitious having reportedly said recently that, “We must blow Gaza back  to the Middle Ages, destroying all the infrastructure including roads and water.”

With such mind-set and ambitions, it is difficult to see any peaceful way forward on the Palestinian question.   

Note: This article first appeared in the Daily Times.

Syria: a road to nowhere

S P SETH

The Syrian crisis is going nowhere, with both sides mired in a brutal stalemate. On the other hand, it has the makings of a serious regional crisis. Turkey is deeply involved in it, providing cover and sanctuaries for the rebels. Its forces are on high alert on the Syrian border, and there have been exchange of artillery fire. Turkey is also worried about the linkages between the Kurd populations on both sides, fearing that Syria is stoking up trouble for Turkey’s Kurdish region. It has asked for Patriot missiles from the United States to deal with any threat from Syria, and the US has reportedly agreed.

Israel is not inactive either. It recently fired a warning shot across the ceasefire line between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights after a mortar round from the Syrian side accidentally hit an Israeli position.  

Lebanon is likely to become an alternative battleground, with supporters and opponents of the Assad regime going after each other.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and some of the other Gulf kingdoms are deeply involved, supplying arms and financial help for the rebels. Outside of the region, the US and Western countries are doing all they can, short of putting troops on the ground. In the same way, Russia is supportive of the regime, and would like to see a political solution of the crisis. China is with Russia on this.

Iran is a fervent and active supporter of the Syrian regime. The Syrian crisis is also shaping into a sectarian conflict between the Sunni and Shia kingdoms/regimes, with Saudi Arabia leading the charge to keep Iran out of the region.

When the Syrian uprising erupted early last year, it wasn’t expected to drag on like this. The popular upsurge against Bashar al-Assad’s oppressive regime was supposed to sweep it away in the spirit of the Arab Spring toppling dictators in Tunisia and Egypt. Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi took a little longer, needing considerable help from the US and its allies to overthrow him. But so far, the regime in Syria is still largely intact, even though its control of the country is shrinking.

There are a number of reasons for this, and some of them were spelled out at a recent TV forum of Syrian-Australians here. It was quite surprising to find such an animated group of people of Syrian descent with such strong opposing views on the crisis in their home country. And even more surprising that the Bashar al-Assad’s regime has some strong supporters in far-off Australia, reflecting some solid support back home.

The majority of the participants in the TV forum, reflecting the views back home, branded the regime as barbaric that should be got rid of to save the country and its people. They were frustrated with the lack of international help to speedily consign the Bashar regime into oblivion. The minority view, argued as passionately and with some conviction, condemned the rebellion that seeks to destroy a functioning stable and secular country and plunge it into sectarian warfare to finally install the Muslim Brotherhood in power with all the horrible consequences that might follow. And they also highlighted the danger from the al-Qaeda and other foreign Jihadi elements seeking to hijack the rebellion.

The surprising thing about the Syrian crisis is the tenacity with which the Bashar regime is still around. And this is not simply due to their superior firepower, though that certainly is a major factor. An important reason is that the regime has some solid support among the minorities, who are terrified of the alternative of extremist elements hijacking the revolution for their own internal and external agendas. The images of summary execution by the rebels of Bashar’s captured soldiers are not a pretty picture.

The counter argument that the regime is committing worst atrocities, even though true, is neither here nor there.  If the alternative is as bad or slightly less odious, it is not a choice with much recommendation. The proponents of the Assad regime, at the Australian TV forum, pointed out that, until the rebellion started, the country had a stable and secular government and people, by and large, (unless you were an anti-regime activist) went about their business without harassment and fear. And if the reported anger of many Aleppo residents is anything to go by, many blame the rebels for bringing destruction on their town from the Assad regime’s bombing raids by entering their town to make it their battleground. If the rebels were expecting that the streets and suburbs, with their civilian residents, might provide an effective cover to capture Aleppo, and other towns, they were obviously not counting on the regime’s brutality to hold on to power.

The rebels, and their external supporters, are frustrated by the staying power of the Assad regime. The regime was supposed to crumble under its own brutality by creating divisions and defections in its power base of the government and army. That has happened for sure, but not to the point of bringing down the regime. For this, the most important factor is the loyalty of much of the armed forces. And if that continues, it will require much more than the rebel action to get rid of the Assads.

Another important factor in the regime’s favour is the disunity of the rebel forces that lack a common program and command structure to fight against a much more disciplined and lethal professional army. There have been attempts recently to address this serious problem. A recent conference of most rebel groups in Doha, at Qatar’s initiative, has created a united front with its long-winded name of “National Council of Forces of the Syrian Revolution and Opposition.” This has been recognized by some countries “as the sole representative of the Syrian people and thus as the future provisional government of a democratic Syria”. It might later metamorphose into an interim government. But so far the US and Europe are not rushing into supplying weapons and air support to the new coalition. Doubts still remain that weapons, if supplied, might fall into extremist hands with their own agendas, because these groups are not keen on submitting themselves to unitary control.

The new coalition is certainly a step forward if it can be coalesced into a national resistance movement without distraction from competing and conflicting goals. It is early days yet but so far the brutal stalemate continues with civilians paying the highest price with an estimated cost in human lives of 40,000.    

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Massacre in Gaza

S P SETH

Whether or not the ceasefire to stop the Israeli bombing of Gaza, and the retaliatory rockets on Israel, will hold is anybody’s guess. If the past is any guide, the prospects of any durable truce are not too bright. At the same time, all the rhetoric about terrorist rockets falling and Israel simply defending by letting leash bombs and missiles on Gaza from air, sea and land, takes one’s breath away. Israel’s so-called defensive and “precision” bombing of Gaza in eight days killed about 160 people with more than 1,000 injured, while the “terrorist” rockets killed 6 Israelis.

And why did the Hamas and its allied groups persist with their rocket throwing until the ceasefire, knowing that it would cost them dearly? Simply because if they don’t react forcefully, they will simply be forgotten by the world, as they almost already are. This is their way of keeping their cause alive on the regional (Middle East) and global map. At the same time, despite Israel’s unbearable arrogance of invincibility, even the firing of admittedly not terribly effective rockets tend to unsettle Israel psychologically, with the rockets occasionally reaching deep into the country.

Gaza is essentially a large prison camp of nearly 1.7 million people (many of them refugees from, what is now, Israel), surrounded by Israeli forces that attack and kill at will to force them into submission. Their supplies of daily provisions and needs are rationed subject to Israeli blockade of their territory. The only wonder is that that they are still able to fight for their dignity and basic human rights. And it is this ‘stubbornness’ on their part that riles Israel. Even when there is the slightest gesture of some support from any international humanitarian group, as in the case of a flotilla of peace activists in 2009 that sought to bring relief supplies into Gaza for its besieged citizens, Israel goes berserk. Israeli soldiers, at the time, killed nine Turkish citizens on board the ship carrying relief supplies to Gaza.

Any decent human being, with no political agenda, will be appalled at the Israeli inhumanity towards Gaza’s citizens, as during the 8 days bombing of the territory. Jepke Goudsmit, a Jewish citizen of Australia who might invite the label of a self-hating Jew, was so appalled to write a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald. He wrote. “…Being of Jewish descent myself, I had hoped that a people who have suffered as much as the Jews would not become perpetrators of the same wrongs done to them in the past….” Well, he is in a hopeless minority in his community.

 The killings in Gaza this time, as in the earlier bombings like the 3-week Israeli invasion in 2008-2009 when 1400 Gazans were killed, seem like a normal military excursion for the Israeli armed forces. The obvious question is: How does Israel get away with all these murders? And the simple answer is the unqualified support it receives, politically, economically and militarily, from the United States and, for the most part, from European countries that follow the US lead. The statement of the US President Barack Obama supporting Israeli bombing raids on Gaza was almost identical to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s angry outbursts rationalizing Israeli attacks.

Netanyahu said that no country could tolerate its citizens being targeted by rockets. But he forgot to mention that it was his country that started the process by killing a Hamas commander, Ahmed Jabari, travelling in his car. Jabari had earlier been instrumental in having the captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, released from a Gaza prison. In a cruel twist, Jabari was reportedly working to bring about an effective and durable truce between Israel and Gaza.

Regarding Obama’s support for Israeli bombing, he said, “…there’s no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders”, virtually echoing Netanyahu. The Palestinians in Gaza are simply fighting for their freedom from a horrifying Israeli blockade of their territory from land, sea and air, and they are rained with bombs when they seek to exercise that right.

An important question is: why do Europeans so supinely follow the US? One simple answer is that they follow the US as part of their strategic alliance. But at a deeper level, their commitment to Israel is born of a collective guilt of treating Jewish Diaspora inhumanely through pogroms and Hitler’s Holocaust. And they want to expiate their crimes by creating a new bogeyman, the Palestinians who resist Israeli occupation. Even at the height of the killing of Jews by the Hitler regime, known in the US and Europe, the pleas from Jewish groups to bomb railway lines and trains transporting Jews to their death camps, were ignored. Not only that, those Jews seeking refuge in these countries, including the United States, were simply ignored or turned away. With this kind of record, to turn on the Palestinians by supporting Israel’s killing machine is unconscionable.

Another problem is internal to the Palestinian movement. It is divided and badly fractured giving Israel enough scope to play one group against the other. For instance, the Palestinian Authority based in West Bank and the Hamas controlling Gaza have been at each other’s throat ever since the Hamas won Palestinian elections in 2006. Since the Hamas is branded a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and the western world, it was outlawed as a legitimate government, forcing it to withdraw to Gaza where it has a powerful base.  In the ensuing infighting between the Fatah organization and Hamas in 2007, the latter succeeded in ousting the Mahmoud Abbas’s organization from Gaza.

All attempts to bring the two warring factions together have failed, principally because Israel and its international backers would not accept a unity government with Hamas as its component. In other words, Israel has plenty of scope to play politics in the Palestinian movement. Hence, Palestine continues to be the orphan child of the international community, letting Israel play havoc with their lives.

And this will continue to happen unless the new political forces unleashed by the Arab Spring put up a joint front to help Palestinians. And to some extent, this has already happened with Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi playing an important role in bringing about the recent truce, winning plaudits from both President Obama and the Hamas leadership. Incidentally, Morsi has immediately used his enhanced status to assume unlimited powers in Egypt. He obviously hopes that his new found usefulness for the Americans will still their criticism of his “popular” dictatorship. But political developments in Egypt, following Morsi’s decree and plunging the country into political turmoil, might not be helpful for the Palestinian cause. In other words, they are likely to remain paws on international chessboard.

    

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Syria’s harsh reality

S P SETH

The great worry about the Syrian uprising early on was that it might develop into a brutal civil war. Which has already happened. The death toll is estimated around 30,000 and rising. The scenes of wanton destruction of entire suburbs and towns, principally by aerial attacks from an increasingly desperate Bashar al-Assad regime, are heart rending. On the battlefront between the rebels and the government, neither side has a decisive edge and the situation is stalemated.

The big danger is that the Syrian crisis might develop into a regional conflict, with even more disastrous consequences. In a way, it already has an external dimension. For instance, the rebels are getting their weapons from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. The United States and Britain are also actively helping. The Bashar regime, on the other hand, is receiving valuable military and non-military help from Iran, including elements of its special forces. Russia continues to ship weapons.

With both the government and the rebels having powerful backers, it is not difficult to work out where it is all leading. A human tragedy in Syria is slowly transforming into a regional geopolitical disaster, and that too at a time when the situation in the Middle East, in the wake of Arab Spring, is very fragile. The first major step in this direction is Turkey’s blunt warning of armed retaliation, if Syrian artillery and mortar shells were to hit its border territory. This was in response to a recent mortar shelling of a Turkish border town killing five civilians. The Turkish Government now has parliamentary authorization to take whatever military action to deal with the situation.

Ankara is now in a blustery mood, having mobilized its armed forces for, what looks like, a major operation some time soon. In one instance, Turkish armed retaliation has already reportedly killed 14 Syrian soldiers. There has also been a forced landing of a Syrian passenger plane flying from Moscow, suspected of carrying military equipment from Russia. Which has infuriated Moscow, as the plane doesn’t appear to have been carrying much in the way of weapons. The plane was carrying 30 passengers, half of them Russians.

When the Syrian rebels rose up against the Bashar regime, Turkey sought to prevail upon Damascus to resolve its crisis peacefully through democratic reforms. But as Damascus proved obdurate, it has increasingly supported the rebels’ cause, trying to mobilize international opinion against the regime. With the recent shelling of its border town resulting in the death of five of its citizens, it is now fired up against the Bashar regime.  

At the international level, Ankara immediately took up the matter with the United Nations Security Council that has since passed a resolution condemning the attack. But it didn’t sanction any specific course of action against any such repetition. This was obviously a sop to get Russia and China to support the resolution, as they wouldn’t have agreed to a military response.

At the international level, the Syrian insurrection has seen the revival of a cold war of sorts in the Middle East between the US and its western allies on one side, and Russia and China on the other. The creeping great powers’ political and, possibly, military involvement in an already embattled country can have unpredictable consequences for the region.

Turkey’s second response to the Syrian mortar attack was to take up the matter with its NATO allies. And predictably NATO countries have come in support of Turkey, indicating that any military attack on Turkey could involve NATO as well. Turkey is going about it in a calculated and systematic way, though still maintaining that it is not angling for war. Indeed, if its military preparations are anything to go by, it is all set to strike.

Turkey’s government is keen to play a major role in the Middle East region, much of which was once a part of the Ottoman Empire. And, in Syria, it has been politically active from the onset of insurgency. Following the influx of Syrian refugees across the border into Turkey, the rebels are using the border areas for attacks inside Syria. Turkey’s tough approach to Syria has the support not only of its NATO partners, but a number of Arab countries keen to see the end of the Bashar regime.

The US and western countries have been promoting Turkey as a model democratic Islamic country. Which is adding to its confidence to talk and act tough. And if Turkey succeeds in bringing down the Assad regime, it would have earned the gratitude of the US and some of the Arab countries working hard for the same objective. This would greatly enhance Turkey’s regional status, entitling it to play a determining role in the post-Bashar era.

But it might not quite work like this for several reasons. First, while all of the Syrian rebels want to bring down the Bashar regime, their common goal ends here. There is no discernible unity among the rebels about what would and should happen after the Bashar regime is overthrown. And attempts to forge that unity by Turkey, Arab states and the US haven’t made much progress, if any. Any interventionist role by Turkey and others to shape a new political order in Syria is likely to be resisted along the way by one or more groups fighting for their respective agendas.

Second, the rebel movement has been infiltrated by al-Qaeda and other extremist elements interested only in creating greater mayhem in and outside Syria. And Turkey might not be immune to it. There is a danger, along the way, of linkages developing between Syria’s Kurdish minority and the Turkish Kurds (and other rebels), where there is an insurgency, on and off, against Turkish domination.  The Bashar regime has already relaxed their control of the country’s Kurd region. In a period of political and strategic flux, events can take dramatic turn that Turkey might not be able to control. In other words, despite Turkey’s calculated and neat strategy, the results might be the opposite of what is intended.

The Alawites’ minority, now in power, is not going to simply go away. With Turkey now engaged in bringing down the Bashar regime, long memories of Ottoman (Turkish) rule are likely to find a fresh lease of life. In a recent article in the London Review of Books, Nir Rosen quotes historian Hanna Batatu who wrote, ‘Under the Ottomans they [the Alawites] were abused, reviled and ground down by exactions and, on occasion, their women and children led into captivity and disposed of by sale.’ According to Rosen, “They were practically serfs to the Sunni feudal lords put in place by the Ottomans.” And these painful memories will further firm up their determination to keep fighting for their survival.

The point is that even if the Bashar regime is overthrown, there will be a variation of it to keep up the struggle. Therefore, Syria will continue to be a battleground of all sorts of competing and contending forces and, at times, a proxy war of international and regional interests seeking dominant political, economic and strategic space in an already volatile Middle East.

Turkey, therefore, over time, might find itself subsumed into a seemingly endless game of international chess, but with blood and gore.

Note: This araticle first appeared in the Daily Times. 

Bombing Iran?

By S. P. SETH

Will he or will he not bomb Iran? The reference here is to Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on warpath. He wants to bomb Iran if the US wouldn’t to do it to prevent it from developing an atomic bomb. How serious he is about going it alone is not clear but obviously it has been taken seriously enough by the US and Britain to dissuade him from doing it. But this has only angered Netanyahu. He wants the US to lay down “red lines” for Iran on its nuclear program beyond which it would be open war on that country. However, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, has reportedly said that Washington was “not setting deadlines for Iran”, obviously indicating that it would keep up the diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran to produce results.

Netanyahu hasn’t taken kindly to it announcing angrily and petulantly that: “The world tells Israel: ‘Wait, there’s still time [before Iran develops a nuclear weapon].’  And I say: ‘Wait for what? Wait until when?’ Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.” Netanyahu is one angry man apparently unconcerned about blowing up the Middle East where things are already inflamed enough after the Arab Spring and, now, the smouldering unrest caused by the YouTube documentary, made by some crazy guy in the US, insulting Prophet Muhammad.

The backdrop for Netanyahu’s ratcheting up the Iran issue at this particular time is the ongoing electoral contest between Obama and Romney and the leverage he might have from a strong pro-Israeli lobby in the United States. Romney is his favored candidate because he is prepared to make all sorts of promises on Iran to galvanize the Jewish interests in the United States behind his election campaign. Israel was one of the few countries that Romney recently visited where he was received with great warmth by Netanyahu to highlight his preference.

Indeed, Romney has reportedly accused Obama of  “throwing Israel under the bus”, in an apparent reference to the Iranian nuclear issue. Obama has refused Netanyahu’s request for a meeting between the two during the UN General Assembly meeting, further angering the Israeli Prime Minister. Obama is also not prepared to commit any specific deadline for US military action against Iran beyond a broad commitment, already in place, to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Netanyahu’s interference in US’s internal politics by playing presidential favourites (Romney) seems to be hardening feelings in the United States. According one recent poll, 70 percent of American respondents were opposed to unilateral US military action against Iran. Indeed, 59 per cent reportedly said Israel should be left to fend for itself if it were to bomb Iran, and then called for US help.

The intensity and comprehensive nature of the US and western sanctions against Iran to force it into stopping enrichment of uranium is indicative of US commitment against Iran going nuclear. And it is hurting Iran. The idea is that if the pressure is maintained and kept up it will start hurting people to a point where they might want to get rid of the present regime and replace it with a new government willing to give up the nuclear path. But it doesn’t seem to be working and Israel wants a cut off point beyond which the US will bomb Iran or allow Israel to do so with its backing. Which is where the Netanyahu government and the Obama administration diverge, with Washington refusing to be dictated by Tel Aviv in this matter.

Indeed, there are now voices in the United States---though not yet powerful enough to change the US’ Iran policy---, that are starting to think the unthinkable about Iran’s nuclear issue as in a recent article in the New York Times. According to Bill Keller, a former executive editor of the New York Times, “…There are serious, thoughtful people [in the US] who are willing to contemplate a nuclear Iran, kept in check by the time-tested assurance of retaliatory destruction”, meaning a strategic balance based on the old doctrine of mutually assured destruction. The other option of bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, he writes, “would almost certainly require major US participation to be effective, and would not be neat.” And he lists all the possible disasters that might accompany such an action.

Keller dismisses the scary scenario of Iran using its bomb (if it gets one) to exterminate Israel. He argues that, “The regime in Iran is brutal, mendacious and meddlesome…. but there is not the slightest reason to believe the mullahs themselves are suicidal” to invite nuclear retaliation from a powerful Israel backed by the United States. Therefore,”… if forced to choose, I would swallow the risks of a nuclear Iran over the gamble of a pre-emptive strike.” Such a thesis on Iran’s nuclear program is quite remarkable. It is even more remarkable that it has appeared in the New York Times, inclined sympathetically to Israel.

In a similarly unconventional way, Kenneth Waltz argues in the American journal, Foreign Affairs, that, “It is Israel’s nuclear arsenal, not Iran’s desire for one, that has contributed most to the current crisis.” And he says of Iran’s potential nuclear status: “… Every time another country has managed to shoulder its way into the nuclear club, the other members have always changed tack and decided to live with it.”

What is worrying is Netanyahu’s advocacy of bombing Iran, even if it meant Israel going it alone.  This is not only causing disquiet in the United States and other western countries, but also in parts of the Israel’s political, security and intelligence establishment. In a long article in the New Yorker, David Remnick, its editor, explores the issue based on his conversations with relevant people. He writes, “… a growing number of leading intelligence and military officials, active and retired, have made plain their opposition to a unilateral Israeli strike.” He adds, “ They include the Army Chief of Staff, the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, the heads of the two main intelligence agencies, the Mossad (Israel’s C.I.A.) and Shin Bet (its F.B.I.), President Shimon Peres, and members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, including the Intelligence Minister.”

Meir Dagan, director of the Mossad from 2002 to January 2011 expressed his strong concern in an interview with Remnick. He said, “ An Israeli bombing would lead to a regional war and solve the internal problems of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It would galvanize Iranian society behind the leadership and create unity around the nuclear issue.” Furthermore: “…it would justify Iran in rebuilding its nuclear project… A bombing would be considered an act of war, and there would be an unpredictable counterattack against us…”

Considering that the United States and its allies have amassed a large naval fleet in the region to warn off Iran against blocking Strait of Hormuz or any other action they might consider provocative, the situation in the region is highly explosive, even though the culprit is Israel with its Prime Minister Netanyahu threatening to bomb Iran. But the US feels helpless when it comes to Israel’s belligerence. The point is: will Netanyahu bomb Iran before the US presidential election or after it? The world will be waiting with bated breath.   

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Syria Exploding
By S P SETH

Syria is in a descending spiral. Whichever way one looks at it, its present and foreseeable future is the stuff of a Greek tragedy on a national and regional scale. Bashar al-Assad and his ruling clique will hang on for a while wreaking more havoc on their unfortunate country and its people. They are, however, unlikely to reclaim their kingdom, even with all the firepower at their disposal. Being challenged in Damascus, with some of the regime’s inner circle killed by the rebels right under its noses, what is left of the Assad regime has lost its credibility.  The Syrian people no longer fear their rulers. The Assad family never had popular legitimacy. They ruled by fear, starting with Hafez al-Assad, the father, and continued under the son, Bashar al-Assad. Now that it is cornered from all sides the Assad regime might fight to the finish with their immense arsenal as is currently being done in Aleppo. The entire country, at times, looks like one large ghost town with many of its buildings destroyed, and people lost or killed in the mêlée. If and when the killing spree from the regime and the rebels ends the reconstruction will be a gigantic task. But we are running ahead of the events.
Syria was stabilized, if that is the right word, after Hafez al-Assad instilled fear into his people by killing thousands in Hams in 1982. It was peace of the grave, though, but it worked. Syria’s minorities, including the ruling Alawites, felt safe as the Muslim Brotherhood, committed to establish an Islamic state, were crushed. With memories of the past oppression and killings still fresh, Syria’s Sunnis, admittedly fragmented but newly energized, are not going to be forgiving of their Alawite rulers and their community. Which is already starting to happen with the captured pro-government militia and army soldiers executed summarily in Aleppo and elsewhere.
It is important to note that the rebels are no freedom fighters and angels, and are prepared to outdo the government in cruelty and violation of human rights when given a chance. They are reportedly starting to receive heavy weaponry from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with the US looking on approvingly as well as providing intelligence and surveillance information. The rebels are hoping to entrench themselves in Aleppo and surrounding areas. In other words, we are looking at a protracted civil war with sectarian and religious overtones. One just have to imagine all the marauding gangs of militia and rebel groups taking law in their own hands and seeking private and sectarian revenge. In other words, it is going to be a long fight with Syria thrown into total chaos.
And the external ramifications of such free-for-all in Syria are even more nightmarish. It is increasingly reported that the rebels in Syria now include Islamic radicals of all sorts, including al-Qaeda, and affiliates from other countries. If extremists penetrate the rebel movement in Syria as is reported, its next-door neighbor, Iraq, will become even more vulnerable to al-Qaeda attacks that are already a staple of its political life. And most of these attacks have a strong sectarian edge targeting Shia suburbs and pilgrims in Iraq.
It is pertinent to note that Bashar al-Assad and his regime are anathema to Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies because of its close links with Iran. Iran, as the standard-bearer of Shia tradition, is perceived to threaten the Sunni kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council. For instance, the revolt in the majority Shia populated kingdom of Bahrain, crushed with Saudi military backing, is attributed to Iran’s wider design to destabilize Arab kingdoms by fanning trouble among their Shia minorities. In Saudi Arabia, its oil rich eastern province has majority Shia population. The recent unrest there was again seen as part of Iranian trouble making. The eastern province is just across the causeway that links Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. And if Bahrain’s Shia were to be enfranchised as a democratic force, its Sunni kingdom will be history, creating visions of impending danger for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region. At the same time, the majority-Shia Iraq, with its Shiite government, has close links with Iran. Indeed, some of its prominent leaders were political exiles in Iran during Saddam Hussein’s rule. Therefore, Iran already has considerable influence there.
Syria and Iran have also been consistent supporter of the radical Palestinian movement, Hamas, frowned upon by Saudi Arabia and its fellow monarchs in the Gulf as dangerous precedents and practice for its people. At the same time, Syria is believed to be the link between the radical Hezbollah movement in Lebanon through which Iranian arms and money is funneled. And Hezbollah, the umbrella Shiite movement, has a veto right on political decision-making in Lebanon.
To top it all, Iran’s nuclear ambitions are said to be a grave threat to Saudi Arabia and the region by potentially changing the balance of power, and starting a nuclear race. Coincidentally, both Saudi Arabia and Israel perceive Iran’s nuclear ambitions as threatening their security. At the same time the United States and its European allies are doing everything, and threatening to do more, to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. In this complex geopolitical web, the fall of the Assad regime, with its close ties to Iran, will help loosen/break the chain that has so many stakeholders worried over the years.
Turkey is another regional actor getting increasingly enmeshed into the Syrian imbroglio, with Syrian refugees pouring in large numbers across the border. While it is keen to get rid of the Bashar regime and doing all it can, it also worries about the nexus between its own restive Kurdish population and Syrian Kurds who are keen to create their own autonomous region out of the ruins of the Syrian dictatorship. It is important to realize that Syria borders Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Israel and Lebanon. Lebanon, for instance, over the years has been manipulated by the Assad regime as part of its greater Syria ambition. And in its north (Tripoli) there have already been sectarian clashes between its Alawite and the Sunni population.  In other words, all Syria’s neighbors will be sucked into this regional cauldron in a big or small way.
But by the same token, the fall of the Assad regime, brutal though it is and still killing its own people, will create a vacuum in the country with all sorts of elements and militias, including the al-Qaeda, seeking to exploit the situation for their own respective competing and contending agendas. The danger is that Syria might turn into another Afghanistan to make it a veritable hellhole. Therefore, while there is not much hope for the Assad dynasty, Syria’s future, and with it of the region, appears quite gloomy at this point of time.

Egypt: revolution stymied

S P SETH

With the former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak dying (reported clinically dead at one point), his systemic legacy looks like continuing. Nothing much has changed so far except that the generals, appointed by Mubarak, now rule the country. The generals’ grab for power for, what might be, an indefinite period is likely to plunge Egypt into further uncertainty. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has dissolved the recently elected parliament and arrogated to itself the task of the final approval of the constitution as and when it is drafted at their behest. They were happy to be rid of Mubarak when he became the symbol of all that was wrong with the country. In the process they (the military) became the darlings of the people with the slogan that the army and the people were one. In giving Mubarak a nudge into oblivion, they managed to save the system with their berths intact as the country’s rulers.

But it was not as simple as that as the military council was soon to find out. When the military council’s first attempts to formalize their role as the country’s arbiters brought out protesters once again into Tahrir Square, they made a tactical retreat by allowing the holding of parliamentary elections; resulting in the overwhelming victory of the Islamist parties with Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis garnering about 70 per cent of the seats.

The presidential contest that followed apparently gave Mohamed Morsi, the Brotherhood’s candidate of the Freedom and Justice Party, a narrow victory.  Ahmed Shafiq, a former air force chief and Mubarak’s last premier, did quite well at 48 per cent to about 52 per cent of Morsi, reflecting sharp polarization with a large section of the people going for the old order. Fearing that the military council might play politics with the election results by declaring Shafiq as President-elect, the Freedom and Justice Party made a pre-emptive announcement of having won the election. Whether or not Morsi is declared the official winner and the first popularly elected President of the country, the army has in any case pre-empted him of any real powers by dissolving the parliament and taking over the executive, legislative and constitutional powers for an indefinite period. Morsi, as President, will be a titular head with the military council fielding real power.

What it means is that Egypt’s revolution has been stymied. And the country is likely to be plunged into a power struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and the army; in some ways reminiscent of the confrontation between the two since the days of the then Colonel Nasser who, with the help of some of his fellow military officers, had overthrown the monarchy in the fifties. The Muslim Brotherhood, with its roots going back to 1928 when it was founded by Hassan al-Banna, has a track record of taking on the powers that be, first in an anti-colonial role and subsequently against the military rule of Colonel Nasser and his successors, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak. They were mercilessly persecuted, tortured and thrown into prison until Mubarak was satisfied that they were tame enough to be tolerated under strict internal security watch.

 When the Tunisian contagion--with its dictator Ben Ali fleeing to Saudi Arabia-- spread to Egypt and became the Arab Spring, the Brotherhood initially had difficulty believing that the anti-Mubarak upsurge was for real. They dithered before joining the Tahrir Square crowds. And at times, after Mubarak was overthrown, the Muslim Brotherhood seemed like becoming cozy with the military council to advance their political ambitions. Peter Hessler, in an article in the New Yorker, reveals this based on his conversations with Nader Omran, a spokesman for the Freedom and Justice Party, political wing of the Brotherhood. Omran told Hassler that the only problem was assuring the military council that it could make a “safe exit”. In other words, “They need to have some guarantees, but they have to first step down.” The Brotherhood felt close to gaining power on the basis of a deal with the generals.

And that is where the Brotherhood’s calculations have come unstuck, as the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is not for retiring, with or without guarantees. The country seems set for the power struggle between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood, the latter projecting itself as the legitimately elected power centre further reinforced with the popular revolution that brought down Mubarak. But with the Ahmed Shafiq side claiming victory too, the picture is becoming murky giving the army enough scope to manipulate events to its advantage. The Muslim Brotherhood is mobilizing their supporters in Tahrir Square to continue the revolution that has been thwarted by the old system.

However, the Brotherhood made some important errors during the course of the revolution that has damaged its image of moderation and inclusiveness it sought to cultivate. For example, having promised not to field a candidate for presidential election, they went back on it, as power seemed within their reach. This has tended to polarize the Egyptian people as testified by the close presidential election results, admittedly unofficial but based on returns from polling booths. They even started to hobnob with the military council to achieve their political ambitions. Indeed, at times, they seemed keen to go out of their way to publicize their Islamic credentials. For instance, Morsi reportedly said at one point that, “ I swear before God …, regardless of what is written in the constitution, Sharia will be applied.”

There is nothing wrong with them proclaiming their Islamic credentials but it doesn’t gel with the spirit of the revolution that sought to build a broad church (to use an expression) where proponents of civil society, including women and minorities, played a lead role. The Brotherhood was a latecomer. The result is that the initial enthusiasm and fervour of the much-heralded Arab Spring might have waned; though the new crowds at Tahrir Square seem to reflect a sort of unity in diversity. But the Brotherhood, by their overweening political ambitions, managed to compromise the revolution. To take an example, the Coptics (the Egyptian Christians) who participated in the anti-Mubarak upsurge, are not too keen on the Brotherhood taking over the reins of power.  

Peter Hessler, in his New Yorker article, captures the essence of disillusionment with the Brothers. He writes, “Last fall, people often described them as honest and hardworking, but by the end of April, when the Presidential campaign officially began, it was hard to find anybody who openly supported Morsi. Comments were scathing; the Brothers were liars; they had made a mess of parliament; they cared only about their own interests…”

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces will have quite a fight on their hands if Ahmed Shafiq is made President. But even with  Morsi as the winner, the country is likely to remain in a state of recurring strife as the elected President will have virtually no powers.

The question is: will the Brotherhood be able to forge a broad revolutionary church to carry on the revolution? That will remain to be seen because they haven’t been inclusive so far.

 Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times

Israeli occupation of Palestine

By S P SETH

A group of us, here in Sydney, were discussing a book that traces the travails of a Jewish family spread out in Austria and France during WW11. It is a very poignant story told with great sympathy, compassion and understanding by the author several generations down the family line. Luckily for this family, it escaped what many Jews suffered in a holocaust engineered by Hitler’s Germany. In the midst of this discussion, some one raised the question: has it ever bothered the successive governments in Israel that the same (Jewish) people who have been one of the most persecuted in history are now dishing it out to the Palestinians? The Palestinians have been displaced, bombed, terrorized, hunted, blocked, balkanized and what not and Israel still manages to do it all with a clear conscience as if the Palestinians were the initiator and perpetrator of all the historical pogroms, including Holocaust, that the Jews suffered; when all this happened and was done to them in Europe.

It is a cruel travesty of history that the victims (the Jews) are now the perpetrator of crimes against humanity on people (the Palestinians) who, historically, have had nothing to do with the persecution of Jews. Still, they have been deprived of their homeland. They are now living under Israeli occupation in what little is left of their homeland. And even that too is coveted by Israel, with Jewish settlements springing all around them, parceling their land into Bantustans of the South African apartheid era.

In an era when the question of human rights is sought to be made a central issue of international politics, Israel is the only country that still manages to flout them with impunity. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and Gaza (blockaded and bombed) are illegal under international law. But, in the case of the Israeli usurpation of Palestinian lands, international law apparently has no validity, with Israel able to interpret and twist it to its requirements. For instance, some of the European countries recently criticized another bout of occupation settlements that Israel is building which are patently illegal, but Israel simply dismissed their objection as “partial, biased and one-sided depiction of realities on the ground.”

There is a method behind this madness. It is two fold. First, it is meant to create new ground realties as a fait accompli. Second is to make existence for the Palestinians so miserable and horrible that they might have no option but to leave to create more ghettos in neighboring Arab countries. After all, Israel denied for quite a long time (some still do) the existence of a Palestinian entity and identity. They wanted to squeeze them out (it still remains the ultimate goal) to seek a ghettoized existence in other Arab lands.

But so far it has worked only partially.  The underlying policy though remains the same, with the Israeli Arabs also coming under a tightening regime of a discriminatory legal dispensation for them. Indeed, the siege mentality enveloping the Israeli state, despite being the strongest country in the Middle East and enjoying the protection of the world’s most powerful country (the United States) is such that it sees enemies everywhere. As David Shulman, Professor of Humanistic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, writes in an article titled, Israel in Peril, “… Like many Israelis, he [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] inhabits a world where evil forces are always just about to annihilate the Jews, who must strike back in daring and heroic ways in order to snatch life from the jaws of death.” And he adds, “I think that, like many other Israelis, he is in love with such a world and would reinvent it even if there were no serious threat from outside.”

Shulman is spot on about this enveloping psychology of the state of Israel where the existence of the country and the Jewish people is always on the line, requiring preventive and pre-emptive action. Commenting on the policy of Jewish settlements in the occupied territory, Shulman says, “ By now, a huge portion of the West Bank has, in effect, been annexed, perhaps irreversibly, to Israel. No state can be constituted on the little that remains…” Still, the Netanyahu Government continues to invite the Palestinian Authority for “unconditional” talks on the two-state solution. It is a cruel joke that Israel keeps playing on the Palestinians, knowing that a two-state solution in truncated Palestine with non-contiguous territory, and under overall Israeli control, is an insult to the Palestinian people.

Tony Judt, historian and essayist, characterized as a self-hating Jew, and once a great admirer of the kibbutz-loving Israeli experiment as a “social-democratic paradise of peace-loving, farm-dwelling Jews…” was later turned off by his experiences in the country. And he came to see in Israel “ a Middle Eastern country that despised its neigbours and was about to open a catastrophic, generation-long rift with them by seizing and occupying their land.”  How true it is and getting worse by the day, with the Palestinians copping the lot with graffiti in some places calling “Death to the Arabs”, and “Arabs to the gas chambers” as reported in a recent article in the New York Review of Books by Jonathan Freedland.

The question is: how long will Israel be allowed to exercise their sense of entitlement and perpetual victimhood at the expense of the Palestinians? The answer obviously is: as long as the United States and its European allies will continue to indulge Israel. The United States’ political system is held hostage to the Jewish lobby in that country. So much so that Netanyahu has had the temerity to lecture, snub and demand answers from President Barack Obama because of the political and economic weight of the Jewish lobby.

As for Israeli society, according to Peter Beinhart, “… the Netanyahu coalition [and its social foundation] is the product of frightening, long-term trends in Israeli society: an ultra-Orthodox population that is increasing dramatically, a settler movement that is growing more radical and more entrenched in the Israeli bureaucracy and army, and a Russian immigrant community that is particularly prone to anti-Arab racism.”

It is a depressing picture for the Palestinians and the only way for things to change is, one, by pressure from the United States and, two, for the Arab world to unite on the issue of justice and freedom for the Palestinians. On both counts; there is not any significant movement. And such impotence and indifference on the part of world tends to simply reinforce the Israeli view that, if they continue on their course, the fait accompli of their occupation will acquire the stamp of legality.

 David Shulman writes in the New York Review of Books that the system that underpins Palestinian Bantustans “… someday, as happened in South Africa…will inevitably breakdown.”  Furthermore, “To prolong the occupation is to ensure the emergence of a single polity [with] necessary progression to a system of one person, one vote.” In that case, Israel must face the likelihood that “unless the Occupation ends, there will also, in the not so distant future, be no Jewish state.”

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times