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

 

Empty Threats

President Obama has managed to take the full might and power of the United States of America and make it as impotent as a child who threatens to hold their breath until they turn blue. Once again this week President Obama stepped up and reiterated his willingness to act should Bashir Assad or either rebel group utilize any of Syria’s extensive stores of chemical weapons. His actions were necessitated by reports of possible use of said chemical weapons as reported by the intelligence agencies of France and Britain. These reports coincided with a more strongly worded statement from the head of Israeli military intelligence that President Bashir Assad had indeed used his chemical weapons. The Israeli communicated that they had proof that Syrian troops had released Sarin nerve agent on two occasions and not just military grade tear gas whose use had been reported earlier. This was likely stressed as President Obama had discounted the use of the military grade tear gas as not being sufficient to cross President Obama’s red line on chemical weapon use. The Israeli report was initially confirmed by United States Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel who later retreated from his position claiming to have been surprised by the Israeli claim as they had not informed him while he had been visiting Israel earlier on the week. So, where does that leave things?

 

The thing about the Israeli claim is it was backed up by the Syrian rebel forces which are currently receiving nonlethal supplies from Western powers when they admitted to knowledge that Israeli agents were working within Syria and would quite likely have first-hand evidence of any chemical weapons use. For the rebels to actually admit to the presence of Israelis inside Syria is a rather bold statement that would not be issued lightly. Despite the mounting evidence that Bashir Assad has resorted to using his chemical weapons, President Obama has chosen inaction and a simple restatement of his initial threat that any use of chemical weapons by either side would result in immediate action by the United States. When the initial reports of potential use of chemical weapons was issued by Britain and France President Obama requested clarification as to which chemicals were known to have been released. When it was then reported that there were suspicions of possible caustic chemicals as well as the aforementioned tear gas, President Obama dismissed the rumored use of caustic agents dismissing them as equally possible industrial chemicals such as chlorine being accidentally released as a result of the use of explosive munitions. When President Obama backed off these initial reports it might have been understandable that the American threshold to qualify as chemical weapons use was higher than that of their European allies and Israel. But with the reports of Sarin gas being released on the battlefields of Syria one might expect a reaction from the United States at least somewhat stronger than words, especially a stale repetition of the President’s original warnings. Does President Obama really believe that setting a red line and then when it is violated, simply resetting the red line will gain respect from the likes of Bashir Assad, a treacherous dictator who has already murdered tens of thousands of his own countrymen and sent millions into exile will recoil in fear from mere words that President Obama has given indication he never intended to back with actual actions?

 

And Bashir Assad is far from the only world leader watching to see if President Obama is a credible leader who backs his words with actions. There is always North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, another one who likes to hear himself threaten. The one thing absolutely necessary to keep the likes of Kim Jong-Un impotent is to mean action when one threatens to use it. If Kim Jong-Un expects for a minute that any threat of action by the United States is not going to be actually executed, then he is very likely to act on his threats in the belief that there would be no real consequences. And Kim Jong-Un is not the most dangerous of threats on the international stage. There is Iran and the Ayatollahs with their nuclear project which thus far words have proven to be less than useless, yet here too President Obama appears to be satisfied to talk until a nuclear Iran is a verified fact and a half a dozen cities around the world lie as smoldering ruins. With new leadership in Mainland China there is a need for the words of the President of the United States to have great weight, not great doubts. It is for exactly such reasons that President Obama must not allow his word to become a matter for questions rather than being taken at face value and his every word heeded. It is for reasons of credibility that President Obama may find necessity requiring him to act against the Syrian chemical weapons threat. It is not necessary for United States military forces to put boots on the ground as all that is required to fulfill President Obama’s warnings against the use of chemical weapons would be to destroy the chemical weapon storage facilities. My bet would be that should President Obama decide to commit a couple of B-2 stealth bombers, as he did in a show of strength to Kim Jong-Un, to actually bomb the Syrian chemical weapon stores, Israel would be more than agreeable to provide accurate coordinates and might even offer to turn off the Syrian radar grid, though such would not be really necessary with stealth bombers. The old children’s rhyme, “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never harm me,” does not apply in the realm of world politics where words can do one great harm, even break more than bones.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Middle East One Year After a Nuclear Iran

Everyone has given their picture of the horrors which would follow a nuclear armed Iran. Most of these warnings point to the possibility of Iran distributing their nuclear capabilities to their closest allies Syria and Hezballah in Lebanon. They explain how Iran might choose to attack Israel with a nuclear device smuggled into Israel by Hezballah in the north, by Hamas from the southwest, or Bedouins or others from within the Sinai Peninsula in the south. They mention that Iran could threaten Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE, and Bahrain with severe and dire consequences while loosing the Shiite populations in each country to serve whatever ends the Ayatollahs decide. Where these scenarios are troubling enough, they completely miss a far worse situation which is actually more likely. There have been some who have hinted at these problems but they warrant retelling.

 

All of the Sunni nations in the Middle East are fully aware of the threat they would face should Iran become a nuclear armed nation. The struggle for supremacy between Shiite and Sunnis Islam would become far more competitive with Iran having nuclear weapons with which to threaten the major Sunni powers who currently enjoy a measure of preeminence provided by their oil wealth. What has been omitted from many explanations of a future after Iran goes nuclear is that when Pakistan faced a nuclear armed India they went on an emergency nuclear weapons development program. This was an exceedingly costly program far beyond anything the Pakistani government could ever have afforded. Enter the ever helpful but not too egalitarian Saudis with all the cash that Pakistan would need. There was a very simple price for the assistance of the Saudis, the promise of nuclear weapons on demand should Saudi Arabia ever find themselves on the wrong end of a nuclear situation, say like Iranian threats. This agreement would provide the Saudis with a number of operative nuclear weapons along with the plans for building their own weapons once they put the processing and other required productions into place. There have been numerous conjectures to the number of weapons which would be provided the Saudis on demand with a dozen being the median figure which would be more than sufficient to keep Iran in check while the Saudis brought their own nuclear weapons program online. But the Saudis are but the first in a line of new nuclear powers which would result from a nuclear Iran.

 

There are other countries who would feel compelled to reply to a nuclear Iran by immediately developing their own nuclear arsenals. The idea that every nation in the Middle East, and even further, would be satisfied to rely on the United States nuclear umbrella to keep them safe is a foolish and silly belief. For starters, any nation which currently views themselves as being major players in the Middle East would take a nuclear armed Iran as an unacceptable challenge to their place in the order of the Middle East. Of these the first two which come to mind are Turkey and Egypt. Turkey and Egypt both have sufficient technology available to them to produce their own nuclear weaponry within a nominal amount of time, likely less than three years from inception to production of their first two or three devices. They would require negligible research times as access to plans for a nuclear weapon are readily available to any nation with sufficient money. The readily available sources for such plans are well known and include but are not limited to North Korea, Pakistan, China, Russia, and other former Soviet countries. Even without any assistance from a current nuclear power the designs for a simple nuclear device are readily available on the internet though not necessarily in sufficient detail to assemble one straight off those plans. But with sufficient engineering and nuclear physics expertise, nuclear weapon designs require mere months to successfully develop. With computer aided design it becomes even more readily accomplishable. But who else might decide they were in need of a nuclear arsenal should Iran complete their nuclear weapons plans?

 

The first suspects would likely be many European countries; especially Germany, Poland, Romania, and very likely all of the rest would either desire their own or would ally forming treaties of mutual protection with neighboring countries that were developing such weapons. England and France would likely resume building nuclear weapons and update any nuclear weapons they currently hold. Once any of the nations of North Africa developed nuclear weapons they might start a nuclear arms race through the rest of Africa. South Africa was once a nuclear power and who knows where those plans are now. Then one needs to reevaluate the equation even if only three or four nations in Africa manage to go nuclear and also look to Asia and South America. If Iran is allowed to go nuclear then the entirety of Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty goes out the window and a truly horrific domino theory will come to fruition. Such a world becomes the most ominous threat condition from which mankind may cease to exist along with near extinction event enveloping the world. Many of the nations which would become nuclear armed and enabled were either nonexistent or uninterested in the last World War and may not have taken the lesson of Nagasaki and Hiroshima to heart as those nations involved in World War II.

 

The United States and allies faced off against the Soviet Union and its allies in a nuclear standoff in which great care and mechanisms were built in to assure that no accidental confrontation would occur. Even with these precautions there were a number of times when the two sides came perilously close to the brink but fortunately never went beyond the cusp and committed their nuclear response. Once even one-third of the nations of the world possess nuclear weaponry the possibility of either a mistake or an intentional use of nuclear weapons would simply become a matter of time. Once one nation utilized nuclear weapons then either the attacked nation and the nations with which they have mutual defense treaties either respond in kind leading to an ever escalating nuclear conflagration or they stand down at which point every other nations’ nuclear deterrent becomes just one small bit less effective. Once a nation and their allies allow a nuclear attack to go without a response in kind then it becomes a measured consideration which would make the offensive use of nuclear weapons just a small amount more tempting. Since mankind has always used the weapon of previously unequaled destruction which ended the previous war to start the next war, how long before nuclear weapons become the first strike weapon of choice? Look at the evidence, the Ancient Greek used the Phalanx which was perfected by the Romans. World War I brought into use tanks and aircraft and World War II revolved around armor, bombers, and fighter aircraft. World War I used dreadnaughts which were the follow-up to the ironclads and metal warships of the American Civil War and the other wars between then and the outbreak of World War I. It may have been inevitable once mankind invented the nuclear weapon that it would be the weapon of initiation for World War III which may very likely be World War Last until the next intelligent species rises from the mire left afterwards. Maybe we should press for more actions to be committed for preventing Iran or anybody else developing and building nuclear weapons.

 

Beyond the Cusp