[News] Syrian blood etches a new line in the sand

Tue Jul 24 11:30:02 EDT 2012

*Syrian blood etches a new line in the sand*
Pepe Escobar

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NG25Ak02.html

Once upon a time, early in the previous century, a line in the sand was 
drawn, from Acre to Kirkuk. Two colonial powers - Britain and France - 
nonchalantly divided the Middle East between themselves; everything 
north of the line in the sand was France's; south, it was Britain's.

Many blowbacks - and concentric tragedies - later, a new line in the 
sand is being drawn by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Between Syria and Iraq, 
they want it all. Talk about the return of the repressed; now, as part 
of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-Gulf Cooperation Council 
compound, they're in bed with their former colonial masters.

*Blow by blow*
No matter what militarized Western corporate media spins, there's no 
endgame in Syria - yet. On the contrary; the sectarian game is just 
beginning.

<http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/ck.php?oaparams=2__bannerid=1901__zoneid=36__cb=103b1ee2da__oadest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cia.gov%2Fcareers> 

   there's no endgame in Syria - yet. On the contrary; the sectarian 
game is just beginning.
It's 1980s Afghanistan all over again. The over 100 heavily armed gangs 
engaged in civil war in Syria are overflowing with Gulf Cooperation 
Council funds financing their Russian RPGs bought on the black market. 
Salafi-jihadis cross into Syria in droves - not only from Iraq but also 
Kuwait, Algeria, Tunisia and Pakistan, following enraged calls by their 
imams. Kidnapping, raping and slaughtering pro-Assad regime civilians is 
becoming the law of the land.

They go after Christians with a vengeance. [1] They force Iraqi exiles 
in Damascus to leave, especially those settled in Sayyida Zainab, the 
predominantly Shi'ite neighborhood named after Prophet Muhammad's 
grand-daughter, buried in the beautiful local mosque. The BBC, to its 
credit, at least followed the story. [2]

They perform summary executions; Iraq's deputy interior minister Adnan 
al-Assadi told AFP how Iraqi border guards saw the Free Syrian Army 
(FSA) take control of a border outpost and then "executed 22 Syrian 
soldiers in front of the eyes of Iraqi soldiers".

The Bab al-Hawa crossing between Syria and Turkey was overrun by no less 
than 150 multinational self-described mujahideen [3] - coming from 
Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, 
Chechnya and even France, many proclaiming their allegiance to Al-Qaeda 
in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

They burned a lot of Turkish trucks. They shot their own promo video 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_m0NqL7Ulc>. They paraded their 
al-Qaeda flag. And they declared the whole border area an Islamic state.

*Hand over your terrorist ID*
There's no way to understand the Syrian dynamics without learning that 
most FSA commanders are not Syrians, but Iraqi Sunnis. The FSA could 
only capture the Abu Kamal border crossing between Syria and Iraq 
because the whole area is controlled by Sunni tribes viscerally 
antagonistic towards the al-Maliki government in Baghdad. The free flow 
of mujahideen, hardcore jihadis and weapons between Iraq and Syria is 
now more than established.

The idea of the Arab League - behaving as NATO-GCC's fully robed 
spokesman - offering exile to Bashar al-Assad may be as ridiculous as 
the notion of the CIA supervising which mujahideen and jihadi outfits 
may have access to the weapons financed by Qatar and the Saudis.

At first, it might have been just a bad joke. After all, the exile offer 
came from those exact same paragons of democracy, the House of Saud and 
Qatar, who control the Arab League and are financing the mujahideen and 
the anti-Syria jihad.

Baghdad, though, publicly condemned the exile offer. And the aftermath - 
in fact on the same day - was worthy of The Joker (yes, Batman's foe); a 
wave of anti-Shi'ite bombings in Iraq, with over 100 people dead, duly 
claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq, al-Qaeda's local franchise. 
Spokesman Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi energetically urged the Sunni tribes in 
Anbar and Nineveh to join the jihad and topple the "infidel" government 
in Baghdad.

The mujahideen/jihadi back and forth between Syria and Iraq has been 
more than confirmed by Izzat al-Shahbandar, a senior member of Iraq's 
Parliament and close aide to Prime Minister al-Maliki. Baghdad even has 
updated lists. The crossover could only spawn more frenetic Orwellian 
newspeak, nailed by the website Moon of Alabama. [4]

Mujahideen and jihadis active in Iraq are now "Iraqi insurgents". And 
mujahideen and jihadis active in Syria remain the usual "Syrian rebels". 
They have been all decommissioned as "terrorists". Under this logic, the 
Colorado Batman shooter may also be described as an "insurgent".

*Follow the money *
As it stands, the romanticized Syrian "rebels" plus the insurgents 
formerly known as terrorists cannot win against the Syria military - not 
even with the Saudis and Qataris showering them with loads of cash and 
weapons.

Nor is there any evidence the regime is contemplating a retreat to the 
Alawite mountains in northern Syria, as evoked by this collective 
foreign policy blog discussion 
<http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3189/the-call-for-july-22-2012-russian-ambitions-in>. 
After all the "rebels" do not control any territory.

What's certain is who would profit from Syria being progressively 
balkanized. The House of Saud and Qatar would love nothing better than 
to have the civil war exported to Iraq and Lebanon; in their very narrow 
calculations, that would eventually yield fellow Sunni regimes.

So expect Saudi and Qatari funds buying every well-connected Syrian 
regime apparatchik in sight - even while the urban Sunni bourgeosie 
still has not abandoned the ship.

And as the civil war spreads out, a tsunami of weapons will keep 
inundating Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and of course Turkey, boosting assorted 
guerrilla outfits, Kurdish included - yet one more facet of now 
ostracized neo-Ottoman Turkey impotently watching nation states carved 
out of that 1920s colonial line in the sand being smashed.

Strategically, this will always be a war by proxy; essentially Saudi 
Arabia vs Iran - with the House of Saud behind hardcore Islamists of all 
colors compared to Qatar supporting "its" Muslim Brotherhood. But most 
of all this is the US-NATO-GCC vs Iran.

Israel's motives go way beyond the Saudi/Qatari sectarian lust. Israel's 
Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has just excavated a Bushism - calling 
Iran-Syria-Hezbollah an "axis of evil". What Tel Aviv wants in the long 
run is clear; for Washington, Obama administration or not, to bring down 
the axis.

Meanwhile, this long-term goal does not prevent Defense Minister Ehud 
Barak from getting crazy - speculating on an invasion of Syria based on 
a hypothetical transfer of Syrian anti-aircraft missiles or even 
chemical weapons to Hezbollah.

Washington for its part would love at least a pliable/puppet Sunni 
regime in Damascus to turbo-charge the encircling of Iran - without 
increasing Israel's substantial fears. Meanwhile, what passes for "smart 
power" is no more than glorified wishful thinking. Here in detail is how 
pro-Israel functionaries in the US are designing post-Assad Syria. [5]

*Meet the new Bane*
For all its production values, NATO's jihad - in conjunction with 
al-Qaeda affiliates and copycats - still has not delivered regime 
change. UN Security Council sanctions won't be forthcoming, as Beijing 
and Moscow have already stressed three times. So Plan Bs keep surfacing 
all the time. The latest is straight from the Iraq playbook; Damascus 
will attack civilians with chemical weapons. This lasted only for a few 
news cycles.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has already made it clear; regime 
change is anathema, especially for a reason that eludes most in the West 
- jihadis at the gates of Damascus means they are a stone's throw from 
the Caucasus, the possible new pearl in a lethal collar bound to 
destabilize Muslim Russia.

Blowback meanwhile is ready to strike like the Medusa. What is for all 
practical purposes NATO-GCC mujahideen/jihadi death squads will be more 
than happy to bleed Syria across sectarian lines - in the sand and 
especially in urban areas. It's hunting season now, not only for 
Alawites but also Christians (10% of the population).

A foreign policy that privileges Sunni jihadis formerly known as 
terrorists to create a "democratic" state in the Middle East seems to 
have been conjured by Bane - the Hannibal Lecter meets Darth Vader bad 
guy in /The Dark Knight Rises/, the final chapter of the Batman trilogy. 
And yes, we are his creators. While the best lack all conviction, and 
the worst are full of passionate intensity, a masked Sunni jihadi 
superman is slouching towards Damascus to be born.

*/Notes:/*
1. http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage 
/world-news/detail/articolo/siria-syria-15868/
2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18930876
3, http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/07/22/227739.html
4. http://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/07/nyt-terrorists-are 
-now-insurgents.html#comments
5. http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/07/20/ 
inside_the_secret_effort_to_plan_for_a_post_assad_syria

/*Pepe Escobar* is the author of/ Globalistan: How the Globalized World 
is Dissolving into Liquid War 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0978813820/simpleproduction/ref=nosim> 
(/Nimble Books, 2007) and /Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during 
the surge 
<http://www.amazon.com/Red-Zone-Blues-snapshot-Baghdad/dp/0978813898>. 
/His most recent book is /Obama does Globalistan 
<http://www.amazon.com/Obama-Does-Globalistan-Pepe-Escobar/dp/1934840831/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233698286&sr=8-1> 
/(Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at/ pepeasia at yahoo.com
-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863-9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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