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<big><big><font size="3"><big><big><strong>Syrian blood etches a new
line in the sand</strong></big></big></font></big></big> <br>
Pepe Escobar <br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NG25Ak02.html">http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NG25Ak02.html</a><br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
<b>Blow by blow</b><br>
No matter what militarized Western corporate media spins, there's no
endgame in Syria - yet. On the contrary; the sectarian game is just
beginning. <br>
<a
href="http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/ck.php?oaparams=2__bannerid=1901__zoneid=36__cb=103b1ee2da__oadest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cia.gov%2Fcareers"
target="_blank"><br>
</a>
<div id="beacon_103b1ee2da"
style="position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><img
src="cid:part1.06080200.03040006@freedomarchives.org" alt=""
style="width: 0px; height: 0px;" height="0" width="0"> there's no
endgame in Syria - yet. On the contrary; the sectarian game is just
beginning. <br>
</div>
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. <br>
<br>
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] <br>
<br>
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". <br>
<br>
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). <br>
<br>
They burned a lot of Turkish trucks. They shot their own <a
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_m0NqL7Ulc">promo video</a>.
They paraded their al-Qaeda flag. And they declared the whole border
area an Islamic state. <br>
<br>
<b>Hand over your terrorist ID</b><br>
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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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] <br>
<br>
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". <br>
<br>
<b>Follow the money </b><br>
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. <br>
<br>
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 <a
href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3189/the-call-for-july-22-2012-russian-ambitions-in">blog
discussion</a>. After all the "rebels" do not control any territory. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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] <br>
<br>
<b>Meet the new Bane</b><br>
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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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). <br>
<br>
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 <i>The Dark Knight Rises</i>, 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. <br>
<br>
<b><i>Notes:</i></b><br>
1. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage">http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage</a>
/world-news/detail/articolo/siria-syria-15868/<br>
2. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18930876">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18930876</a><br>
3, <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/07/22/227739.html">http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/07/22/227739.html</a><br>
4. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/07/nyt-terrorists-are">http://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/07/nyt-terrorists-are</a>
-now-insurgents.html#comments <br>
5. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/07/20/">http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/07/20/</a>
inside_the_secret_effort_to_plan_for_a_post_assad_syria<br>
<br>
<br>
<i><b>Pepe Escobar</b> is the author of</i> <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0978813820/simpleproduction/ref=nosim">Globalistan:
How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War</a> (<i>Nimble
Books, 2007) and </i><a
href="http://www.amazon.com/Red-Zone-Blues-snapshot-Baghdad/dp/0978813898">Red
Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge</a>. <i>His most
recent book is </i><a
href="http://www.amazon.com/Obama-Does-Globalistan-Pepe-Escobar/dp/1934840831/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233698286&sr=8-1">Obama
does Globalistan</a> <i>(Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at</i>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:pepeasia@yahoo.com">pepeasia@yahoo.com</a>
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