Who Gets to Pick the Winner in Syria?

As the civil war continues to murder innocents with the latest estimate approaching one-hundred-thousand murdered civilians and over one and a half million refugees fled to neighboring Turkey and Jordan there is a group of nations attempting to influence who wins. The problem is that many of these outsiders are backing different forces which serve to extend the fighting possibly endlessly producing no winners, just increasing casualties in an endless procession. First we need to define the disparate groups and then find who is backing whom. The supposed home team definition would likely have to go the current President for life Bashir al-Assad and the Alawite tribe from which he comes. There are two sets that are considered rebel forces which sometimes cooperate and at other periods work either independently or actually impede each other. One rebel group consists mostly of members from the Muslim Brotherhood while the other consists of forces aligned with Jabhat al-Nusra which is the al-Qaeda terror group. Then there are two other groups which currently support Syrian President Bashir Assad but actually represent the Iranian interests and are likely to continue to engage in the war even after Assad collapses or is killed. These two groups are Hezballah, the terrorist group whose political wing currently leads the ruling coalition in Lebanon, and the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, a group of fighters which make up a second military force roughly equivalent in size, equipment, training and capabilities to the Iranian Armed Forces used mostly to assist in foreign interventions, terrorist training internationally and domestically as required, and any other clandestine operations which may be assigned by the leadership of Iran. So, generally speaking there exist five groups vying to take control over all of Syria.

 

Oddly enough getting the teams all figured out who are operating within Syria is difficult enough, but trying to untangle the external interests and influences is far more complicated especially when dissecting their various motives. Let us first address the most up front, above board and obvious of the external influences. The most obvious is Turkey who is steadily supplying arms to both rebel forces for the most selfish of reasons, assuring their continued preeminence as the only stable rout for oil and gas pipelines. There is a further reason driving Turkey in providing arms for the rebel groups which is that there is no love lost between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syria President Bashir Assad as both view themselves as a leader in some future Muslim Caliphate, Assad as leader of the Arab nations in an Iranian Caliphate and Erdogan as leader of a reborn Ottoman Caliphate. Add to this that as long as there exists some sustained level of violence which would discourage construction of new oil and gas routes through Syria then Turkey, with its already existent pipelines, would remain the uncontested and sole route of pipelines for oil and gas from the Arabian Peninsula and related reserves.

 

Another supplier of arms to one of the rebel forces is Saudi Arabia who is backing the Muslim Brotherhood aligned rebels. The Saudi interest is the opposite of Turkey as the Saudis would very much like to have an additional player supplying pipelines to the Mediterranean Sea and into Europe as competition would result in lower prices for them in transporting their oil and gas. Furthermore, the Saudis are rivals of the Iranians and thus would love to see Bashir Assad removed from ruling Syria thus breaking the Iranian crescent in which Syria is a vital link connecting Iran and Iraq through to Lebanon and the ports of the Mediterranean Sea. The Saudi Arabians are supported by the rest of the members of the GCC, Gulf Cooperation Council; whose members are of far less military capabilities thus the Saudis make all the decisions. The Saudis are also counting on support by the United States but they may run into some surprises in that relationship which we will cover later.

 

Then there are those exterior forces supporting the Syrian military and Syrian President Bashir Assad and at the same time defending the Iranian interests. These two groups are the IRGC and the Hezballah terror group. Should Bashir Assad fall either by fearing being taken by the rebel groups who would likely give him treatment similar to that used to dispatch Libyan Dictator Muammar Gaddafi, a rather unpleasant death, these two groups would simply continue the fight in support of their true masters, the Iranians. To either of these forces the continuance of Bashir Assad as the President of Syria is simply something that makes their presence in the fight more readily explainable. Remove Assad and their real motivations are revealed and Iran would be uncovered as the true force behind Assad remaining in power. Another nation supporting Bashir Assad, even if in a somewhat limited manner, is Russia and its President Vladimir Putin. Russia has thus far limited their support to continuing to fill all past weapons orders they have agreed to with Syria and are preventing any overt support for the rebels such as interventions or establishment of a no-fly zone by the United States or NATO. The most disturbing participation by the Russians is their intent to follow through with the sale and supply of their S-300 Anti-Aircraft Missile Systems which would make any Israeli strikes to prevent chemical weapons or other game-changing weapons from being transferred to the Hezballah forces in Lebanon for use against Israel in the future more hazardous. There is one potential future situation which would prove most intriguing, if President Assad should be killed or otherwise removed from the situation, would Russia continue their support giving the future weapons shipments to the IRGC and Hezballah or would their interest in the situation in Syria be terminated.

 

And then there is the most troubling foreign influence, and that is the United States and President Obama. The obvious interpretation of the United States interests is that they are aligned with Saudi Arabia and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and against the entirety of other forces. This façade also has another participant, Turkey, who also appears to work with the Saudis while also passing weapons to their intended recipient without question. Some of these weapons are intended for Jabhat al-Nusra as they are supplied from the al-Qaeda forces and influences who were involved in Libya. There have been rumors that the truth behind the catastrophe in Benghazi may have been related to attempts to prevent powerful and game-changing weapons, possibly stinger missiles, from being sent from Libya to undesirable recipients. Even if such a proposition were true, that is one truth that will never see the light of day. As is said, some secrets are secrets for a very good reason and as such must remain nothing more than a rumor, a whisper in the tempest and nothing more.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Obama and the Middle East Dilemma

While everyone stares at the ever shifting, ever blurring Syrian Chemical Weapons red line which is now befuddling the White House, the Syrian civil war continues to wind on and on eventually to determine who will prove supreme, bad or worse. There is no good side to choose in this fight. It now comes down to Assad backed by Iran and Hezballah, the Syrian Free Army which is backed largely by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the al Nusra Front which represents al-Qaeda and even should Bashar Assad be toppled there will still be Hezballah allied with the IRGC guerilla forces attempting to preserve the influence of their Iranian masters. As far as the United States is concerned there is no actual good guy for them to back though President Obama has appeared to have a soft spot for the Muslim Brotherhood in the past.

 

The one democratic country which is very concerned over the eventual results and intermediate activities in Syria is, of course, Israel. While the Israelis are not particularly fond of any of the players, their previous knowledge of Assad may make him the least troublesome of the evils for Israel. Do not misunderstand that Assad would make Israeli leaders overjoyed as they have fought three conflicts against his forces; one in the Six Day War in 1967, once again when both Syria and Egypt launched the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and their final conflict was an air war over the Bekaa Valley in 1982 where the Israelis knocked sixty Syrian fighters from the skies in two days of dog fights losing absolutely no planes themselves. For the memory of these defeats Bashar al-Assad might be sufficiently gun shy that would make his remaining in power preferable to having to teach a new leader the perils of engaging the IDF from scratch.

 

Whatever the eventual result of the civil war in Syria the one thing Israel absolutely cannot allow is for Iran or anybody else to funnel new and more dangerous weapon systems to Hezballah in Lebanon. This is what spurred the recent air raids by the Israelis on Damascus and along the Syrian-Lebanon border over the past week. The Israelis were removing transports carrying new weapon systems which would have posed a serious increase in the threat potential of Hezballah. One can only imagine what such systems might have entailed as Hezballah already possesses at a minimum sixty-thousand rockets of various ranges with which to threaten Israel. Despite such a seemingly overwhelming threat potential, Iran has still decided it is worth the possible losses to attempt to further arm Hezballah in order to turn their threat into a certainty that Tel Aviv would be decimated in return for any actions taken against the Iranian nuclear program. Iran has made it very certain that it matters not who attacks their nuclear program, Israel will receive the brunt of the Iranian response through Hezballah and Hamas and Syria providing Syria is still a part of the Iranian Shiite Crescent across the Middle East.

 

Meanwhile, back in Washington DC President Obama is doing a number of pirouettes on the head of a pin trying to avoid being pinned down to his red line should Syria use chemical weapons threat. Syria has, according to Israeli, French, British and even most United States sources, already deployed Sarin nerve agent against the rebel forces and civilians. There have been reports of multiple usages yet President Obama continues to squirm and wrestle with these facts attempting to twist them into a cloud of doubts in order to back away from the precipice and avoid actually being forced to act. The problem President Obama is facing is that he really miscalculated when making a threat he never expected to have to ever face. Now that reality has not only caught up but has swept past his threat of action crossing over his red line, President Obama must now fudge the facts and blow enough smoke that he can claim that his red line was more flexible and has remained inviolate, but with his red line not only crossed but rather obliterated, President Obama has been left appearing completely toothless in all ways concerning Syrian use of chemical weapons.

 

There is one huge problem beyond the simple fact that President Obama has been rendered impotent concerning events in Syria; all of his threats and posturing over the Iranian nuclear program are now mute and meaningless. This can only serve to make the Iranian nuclear weapons threat even more potent as it is now obvious that President Obama never actually intended to ever take action in order to prevent the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons. This leaves all of Europe as well as Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the other nations within the GCC, and anyone else who Iran may see as an opponent directly in the crosshairs of a potential nuclear Iran. What makes things even more clouded is that now all of the intelligence information which originated with the United States or was heavily influenced by the United States now cannot be considered to be anything other than a ruse to prevent the appearance of a need to act. This is very likely to cause a complete reevaluation of the entire Iranian situation by Israel at the very least. The backing away from his red line by President Obama has resulted in the entire world now realizing that they are on their own when it comes to the Iranian threats. This can only lead to a more dangerous Middle East, like anybody thought such was even possible.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Jordan is Next to Fall, Will Saudi Arabia Follow?

Pressures have been slowly building quietly and just below the sight of most Western observers which aim to topple Jordan’s monarchy of King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein. These pressures are being exerted by two competing forces, the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran through assistance by al-Qaeda. Contrary to what has served as a basic understanding in much of the West, al-Qaeda is allied with Iran in the power struggles for dominance in the Muslim World, something that initially makes little sense for those who placed al-Qaeda firmly in the Sunni camp. Slowly but ever so surely the base of al-Qaeda has drifted from its Sunni origins into an orbit with Iran and a balance in membership between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. This is making for strange possibilities which would have originally been unthinkable and for many purists is still beyond imagination. The current challenges for dominance in the Muslim World is being played out between the two main forces, Iran with al-Qaeda against the Muslim Brotherhood, in two major theaters, Syria-Lebanon and on a quieter but just as serious confrontation in Jordan. So, what are the likely results and what will follow in the future?

Syria has been front and center in the coverage of the Middle East with its violent clash which is destroying the entire fabric of society sending thousands fleeing over the borders or being murdered in the streets. Often civilians who are not among the combatants often become the targets of both sides as the civil war spreads through every corner of the country. The real problem is trying to explain the sides of this conflict as it is more than simply the rebel anti-Assad forces against the Syrian army which has remained loyal to President Assad. There are also the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps) and Hezballah also fighting and supporting Bashir Assad while the rebel forces are actually several groups who, even should Assad fall, would soon be at each other’s throats conflicting over who would take over in a new government. Some of the Rebel forces are backed by the Muslim Brotherhood while others by al-Qaeda with still others belonging to other interests be they Kurdish, Christian or even aligned with Turkey.

The real question will come down to what will Iran do should Bashir Assad be killed or effectively overturned from office? Will Iran send divisions of regular army with supporting armor and air power or will Iran simply accept the loss of both Syria and Lebanon and their over-ground link with the Mediterranean. Iran has made huge financial and logistical investments in Lebanon as well as in Syria and should Iran lose their surrogate, Assad, in Syria they will also lose their supply line to support Hezballah which controls Lebanon as an Iranian proxy. Already interests in Lebanon which oppose Iranian and Syrian influence are threatening Hezballah leader Hassan Nasrallah over his using weapons and arms supplied Hezballah against the Syrian people despite his original claims that they were to be solely used against the Zionist Entity, Israel. Iran currently enjoys an unhindered path through to the Mediterranean through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Iran is known to be using transit across Iraq to start to impose their will on Jordan. This has come about as the Bedouins have been steadily radicalized and their youth are no longer supporting King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein and his rule in Jordan. This poses an additional threat on Israel originating from Iran and is a result of the United States being unable to negotiate an agreement with the leadership of Iraq that would have allowed for continued American presence and prevented Iraq from entering into the Iranian orbit. This was facilitated by the appearance of a weakened United States no longer willing to lead in the Middle East. One thing which is becoming evident is that either through Iran and their surrogates or by the hand of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Jordanian monarchy is being undermined and is losing its authority and influence. It appears that the fall of Jordan to the more radical forces of Islam has already been written into the near future. That begs the question of what comes next.

The future will depend to a large extent on who will gain the upper hand in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. It will also depend on in which direction the Muslim Brotherhood and through them, Egypt, take in making alliances in the near future. Currently the main forces are the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Iran with their influences in Iraq and gaining influence in Afghanistan. The wildcards are Turkey and the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia. Turkey will eventually need to ally with either Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood and give up on their aspirations to return to their place as the leadership of the Caliphate as they were during Ottoman rule. The one thing that should be feared beyond all else would be a pragmatic alliance which joined together the forces of Shiite Iran and Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. This may become an alliance of convenience as both find themselves in competition with the Saudi Wahhabis for preeminence in the Muslim world. If Iran should manage to retain their grip over Syria and Lebanon along with their new found influence over Iraq, then if they add Jordan to their sphere the Muslim Brotherhood may have little choice but to join forces with the apparently rising Shiite Iran and put the Sunni Shiite differences aside. This would not be the first time this divide has been overrode in the interest of Islam and would lead to a force that would be difficult to contain should they also become nuclear armed. Should Iran become the obvious preeminent power of the Muslim world, then the countries of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) would be facing an unavoidable threat from said force. Bahrain and Oman would likely be the initial targets, especially the islands claimed by them and also by Iran in the Gulf, be it called Arabian or Persian which the winner will decide, and particularly those in the Straits of Hormuz. Once the smaller nations have been neutered and footholds be made by Iran one can expect that Iran would then begin to pressure Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The Iranians do not need to necessarily conquer all of Saudi Arabia to gain their desired goals; they only need take the predominantly Shiite northwest of Saudi Arabia which includes the vast oil fields. The Iran can simply wait for Saudi Arabia to fall as their financial goose that lays the golden oil eggs in Iranian hands. In time Iran would then gain the real gem held by Saudi Arabia, Mecca and Medina.

As for which result would be preferable for the Western nations of Europe, the United States and the rest, it is more of a pick your poison than a choice between a positive and a negative result. Neither Iran nor the Muslim Brotherhood is amiable to Western interests. Both see themselves as the eventual rulers of all of humanity and both are incompatible with the freedoms and liberties that the Judeo-Christian world has become accustomed to enjoying. This has already been made evident by the riots over what in the West is viewed as a guarantee under the ideals of free speech. As long as Islam insists on the validity of their notion that the world will be rendered under their rule and that this is inevitable and it is the responsibility of every Muslim to work toward this goal, there is likely to be conflict existing in numerous places where Islam and the rest of the world border each other. Fortunately, there are some within Islam who have begun what they see as a necessary reevaluation of the tenets of Islam which call for the use of force and rejection of all who are not Muslim. The struggle for the heart of Islam between those who desire an Islam which is able to coexist with the rest of the world and those who insist that Islam is the sole religion of truth and all else is a blaspheme is the struggle which should be encouraged in favor of the former over the latter. The struggle between Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood is a disagreement without a difference as far as those outside of Islam are concerned. That is the truth that the powers in the West need to learn and understand. It unfortunately seems thus far to be beyond the capacity or understanding in much of the Western world’s leadership.

Beyond the Cusp