The mystery of the Syria contact group
(By Vijay Prashad, Asia Times, September 21, 2012)
In late August, Egypt's new president Mohammed Morsi proposed the formation of a regional initiative to stem the conflict in Syria. Five decades ago, Egypt and Syria were yoked together to form the United Arab Republic, an experiment that lasted less than three years. Since then relations between the two states has ebbed and flowed, reliant more on the winds of mutual opportunity than on ambition or ideology. Nasser's enormous personality had overshadowed all those who came after him and the failure of the Syrian-Iraqi union on Ba'ath lines reined in the ideologues.
When Mubarak cemented Egypt's place in the Western ledger, the distance from the generally Soviet-leaning Syria of Hafez al-Assad could not have been greater. That Morsi comes from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood does not earn him favors amongst the Syrian Ba'ath, whose fight against the Brothers goes back to before the Ikhwan's attack on the Aleppo cadet school in 1979. The brutal assault by the Assad regime on the Brothers from Hama (1982) to the present must weigh on Morsi. Nonetheless, Morsi has brought Syria a gift that it cannot refuse on its face: the first chance of a non-Western backed "intervention" to save the country from absolute destruction.
To ease the Assad regime, Morsi asked Iran's government to take one of the four chairs of his Syria Contact Group. Iran remains close to Damascus for geo-strategic (and perhaps confessional) reasons. There is credible evidence that Iran's aircraft have been flying over a willing Iraq to supply the isolated Assad government (whether with arms or not is yet to be established).
When the Arab Spring was in high gear, Iran sought to take advantage of it for its own political gain. Tehran's intellectuals dubbed the Spring an "Islamic Awakening" and sought to link it to a dynamic opened up by the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Iran and Egypt broke relations over the Israel-Egypt peace deal in 1979, and links have only recently begun to be fixed. Tehran is eager to impress Egypt with its diplomatic flexibility, as long as this does not mean that it sells its few remaining allies down the river. There is considerable motivation in Iran to break out of its own strangulation by the West through new ententes with the Arab states.
The other regional actor that sought to take the measure of the Arab Spring and claim it to its advantage was the old imperial power, Turkey. Its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, hastened to Cairo and proposed his Justice and Development Party as an adequate model for a modern political Islam, and their hadari version of Islam as a modern religious sensibility (as opposed to salafi Islam, exported out of the Arabian peninsula). Turkey backed the rebellion in Syria as part of its forward policy, but in time this has come to be seen by sections of the Ankara political elite to have been a grave overreach.
The precipitous Balkanization of Syria might produce a Syrian Kurdistan beside the already autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan. A new front by the Turkish military against its Kurdish population in Semdinli showed the price that could be paid for Erdogan's support for the rebellion. The implications of Erdogan's policy has come on Turkey's shoulders, with disarray in the army at the same time as US President Obama has asked Turkey to "do more" (the catchphrase from Washington to its old CENTRO allies, Pakistan on one side, Turkey on another). Morsi's Contact Group provides Erdogan's government with an escape hatch from its excessive commitments. It takes the third seat on the Contact Group.
Saudi Arabia is the most eager backer of a section of the Syrian rebels. Keen to keep rebellion out of the peninsula, the Saudis are enthusiastic about the export of that rebellious energy to shores far and wide. This was the motivation for the creation of the Rabita al-Alam al-Islami (World Muslim League) in 1962, and of the substantial bursary paid to jihadis from Chechnya to Afghanistan.
When Morsi asked the Saudi Arabia to sign up to the Contact Group, it had little choice but to join and take the fourth seat. A credible source from the website Jadaliyya tells me that the Saudi Arabia and the Iranians "struck a deal" at the Organization of the Islamic Conference meeting held in Mecca this August when the Contact Group idea was mooted. "The Saudis would drop its steroidal support of the Syrian opposition in return for the Iranians convincing Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province Shias to tone down their opposition against al-Saud, if not altogether stopping their protests, threats and demands," the source says.
A source from the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Foreign Affairs would neither affirm nor deny this story, but would say that "it is a likely tale. There were discussions between the two parties about a 'cease fire' in the eastern part." If the Saudi Arabia joined the Contact Group, these sources say, it is more likely because they were able to get something in return to help them deal with levels of unrest inside the Kingdom that they had neither predicted nor know exactly what to do with absent the use of massive force. Egypt's Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr told al-Jazeera's Rawya Rageh that he "sensed no exasperation from the Saudis over Iran's participation in the Contact Group."
This week, foreign ministers from Egypt, Iran and Turkey met in Cairo to formulate a plan for the Contact Group. Nothing was made public, because the principals have agreed to have private talks until they settle on a firm plan. No sense in raising expectations when there has been little accomplished. The Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said, "The things that we agree on are greater than our differences." What they agree on is the need for a regional solution, or as the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu put it, there is a need for "regional ownership of the issues of our region."
One of the tasks of the Contact Group is to provide the new UN envoy, the Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi with a mandate and a roadmap. Brahimi came to Cairo from his meeting with Assad in Damascus. He immediately met the Arab League's head, Nabil al-Arabi and sat in with the Contact Group. During his stop off in Amman, Jordan, Brahimi told al-Jazeera's Jane Arraf that he was not optimistic, "The point I'm making as seriously, as strongly as I can is that the situation is very bad and worsening. It's not improving. Syrians on both sides say from time to time we are going to win very soon."
These maximum positions have collapsed the space for dialogue. Brahimi knows that it will require oxygen from outside to allow the Syrian opponents to breathe, and to then talk to one another. He cannot do this alone. The West and Russia are convulsed in their own Cold War interpretation of events in Syria; nothing will come from Washington or Moscow to help the Algerian veteran. This is why it was important that Brahimi came to the Contact Group's meeting.
Salehi left Cairo for Damascus, where erroneous press reports suggesting that he was carrying a nine-point plan from the Contact Group. In fact, the Contact Group has no such plan. What Salehi was carrying was the Iranian proposal to the Group (which includes at least one non-starter, the addition of Iraq and Venezuela to Morsi's delicate balancing act). The nine points include the need for Contact Group countries to send observers into Syria to replace the now departed UN observers, to end all arms delivery into Syria, to maintain a cease fire, and to create confidence toward some kind of mediated settlement which will include (it appears) the departure of Assad from the presidency. The Iranians have not released their 9 points, so the actual details of the plan are not known.
One reason this could not have been the Contact Group's plan is that the Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister was not present in Cairo. Initially, the press was told that he had other "previous engagements," and then later the message came that Prince Saud bin Faisal al-Saud (the world's longest serving Foreign Minister) is unwell. He is apparently in hospital in Los Angeles, USA. At previous events, such as the NAM Conference in Tehran and the GCC meeting in Jeddah in August, the Deputy Foreign Minister Prince Abdulaziz has taken his place. Even Prince Abdulaziz did not come.
Two US-based academics, close observers of Saudi politics, tell me that the Saudi Arabia is trying to send a signal that they are not interested in this process after all. Princeton's Professor Toby Craig Jones (author of Desert Kingdom. How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia, 2010) says, "They don't trust Tehran and have likely reserved judgment on Cairo for now." Vermont's Professor Gregory Gause (author of The International Relations of the Persian Gulf, 2010) says, "Saudis think that their side is winning and they don't want to give the Iranians a seat at this table. They want to beat the Iranians in Syria."
The University of London's Professor Madawi al-Rasheed (author of Kingdom without Borders: Saudi Arabia's Political, Religious and Media Frontiers, 2009) agrees, "[Saudi Arabia] sends an important signal that it will continue to play the game in Syria according to its own terms, meaning total exclusion of Iran from the Arab sphere." Professor al-Rasheed is pessimistic for the success of the Contact Group. " Saudi Arabia has a interest in the conflict continuing as this is currently absorbing Islamist revolutionary zeal inside Saudi Arabia, promoting the myth about the Iranian penetration of Arab land and the Shia conspiracy against Sunni Muslims. Without these foci, Saudi Arabia may end up suppressing a local uprising that has the potential to spread beyond the Shia Eastern province."
It appears that the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia is driven by its obsessions with its oil-rich eastern provinces. Either it has cut a deal with the Iranians for a quid pro quo on Syria and the eastern provinces of its kingdom, or it wants to keep the Syrian bloodletting going as a tourniquet for its own internal hemorrhaging. Either way, Saudi Arabia seems the least serious about the Contact Group and its potential.
As Turkey's Davutoglu put it, "Consultations with Saudi Arabia are necessary because the kingdom is a key player in the attempt to reach a solution to the Syrian crisis." If the key player skips more meetings, it will dampen confidence in the Group and therefore in Brahimi for a regional solution to the Syrian crisis.
The Contact Group will meet again at the sidelines of the UN's General Assembly next week. The Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry will not confirm that its representatives will be at the Group's meeting. The Egyptians, Iranians and Turks are enthusiastic. So is Brahimi. The road to peace in Syria might go through the Contact Group. But it requires Saudi Arabia involvement to make it credible.
This is not the time for Obama to deny aid to Syrian rebels
(Trudy Rubin, Opinion Essay, Philadelphia Inquirer, September 22, 2012)
The talk in Washington is that last week's Mideast violence will cement President Barack Obama's reluctance to intervene militarily in Syria.
After all, the demonstrations in Libya and Egypt, etc., were orchestrated by radical Islamists – empowered by the fall of dictators and the emergence of Arab democracies. So why should Obama help Syrian rebels oust dictator Bashar Assad if his fall may produce a similar result?
The answer: If Obama doesn't help Syrian rebels now, the outcome will be far worse for America and the entire region. Indeed, Libya should make U.S. help for Syrian rebels more urgent, not less.
This argument is made compellingly by a courageous Syrian writer, Samar Yazbek, who visited Philadelphia this week to discuss her newly published memoir, "A Woman in the Crossfire: Diaries of the Syrian Revolution."
Yazbek risked her life to document how peaceful protests turned into armed rebellion. An educated, secular woman, with flowing blond hair, she traveled in disguise to watch as unarmed demonstrators were attacked by regime snipers and militias, and whole towns were punished by artillery bombardments.
Yazbek belongs to Syria's minority Alawite sect, the religion of the ruling Assad clan along with most of the military and security elite. She is considered a traitor for her activism, and was repeatedly hauled in for interrogation. She was made to view the bloodied bodies of young prisoners mutilated by horrifying torture. She agonized constantly that the regime might harm her teenage daughter.
Her life was probably saved by the fact that the murder of a well-known Alawite writer would have undercut the false regime narrative that the rebels were all Sunni religious fundamentalists. As Yazbek's book shows, that isn't true.
Early in the revolt, many ordinary Syrians were inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt to protest against the Assad regime's repression and corruption. The regime's violent response led groups of defecting soldiers and ordinary citizens to form militias to protect their towns.
The rise of more radical fighting groups was "a reaction to the regime's violence," says Yazbek. "They aren't representative of (all) these militias, but if the regime continues, this will lead to more religious radicalism from the people."
Yazbek describes how Assad is deliberately provoking sectarianism and religious radicalism: He seeks to frighten minorities and moderate Sunnis into believing they must support him. Regime thugs, known as shabiha, move around the country spreading rumors amongst Alawites that Sunnis are coming to rape and kill them – and vice versa. Their aim is to goad one sect to fight the other, in a sectarian war that will spread across Syria's borders.
Yazbek was told by an Alawite member of the security services that "Assad won't leave power before Syria is destroyed."
This brings us to the issue of Obama's policy toward Syria. The administration has called for Assad to leave power but has done little to expedite his departure. Understandably, the White House doesn't want to get involved in another Mideast war. However, the longer the Syrian fighting goes on, the worse the likely outcome. For months, the White House clung to the unfounded hope that Moscow would abandon its support for its last Mideast ally. It also tried fruitlessly to get exiled Syrian activists to agree on a leadership that the West could recognize.
Yet the future Syrian leaders who matter are those leading the militias that are fighting on the ground.
U.S. officials only belatedly started talking, in a limited way, to some of these militia leaders. "We know very little about the armed opposition," says Syria expert Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who just returned from a month spent talking to Syrian rebel leaders along the Turkish border.
When it comes to helping Syrian fighters with weapons, the administration has outsourced that task to Persian Gulf countries. The result: Gulf money and arms are flowing to Islamist groups and hard-line Salafis, while non-Islamist militias go begging for weapons and communications equipment. This makes more likely the result that everyone fears.
What to do? Tabler says the administration should be making a massive effort to "directly track and engage with Syrian armed groups and see whom we could work with." If we can identify such groups, he believes we should supply them with "what they need." That might be ground-to-air weapons that could shoot down the planes that are bombing civilians in Syrian cities. This wouldn't end the conflict but might turn the corner and convince some key Assad supporters that he can't last.
Yes, there are risks involved, and some weapons could get into the wrong hands. Yes, Assad's fall would probably mean some Islamists will play a key role in a successor democracy. But if we stay aloof and outsource Syria policy, radical Salafis will gain strength along with an influx of Arab jihadis. And U.S. influence in Damascus will be nil.
As for a possible diplomatic solution, only if Moscow perceives Obama to be serious might it join in a regional formula to stabilize a post-Assad Syria (leaving Iran, Assad's strongest ally, isolated).
Samar Yazbek knows she could face difficulties as a secular woman under a post-Assad government. She is still adamant that Washington should help the non-Islamist militias with weapons. "What happened in Libya must force the West to help Syria so that religious radicalism won't spread," Yazbek says.
I agree.
Syrian opposition figures meet in Damascus, call for regime's overthrow
(23 September 2012, Albert Aji, Zeina Karam, The Associated Press)
Syrian opposition figures called Sunday for the overthrow of President Bashar Assad at a rare meeting of anti-regime groups held in the government-controlled capital Damascus, a possible attempt by the gathering to position itself as an alternative to the armed rebellion.
Rebels fighting Assad typically dismiss the so-called "internal opposition" as too lenient on the Syrian dictator, so the strong statements from the 16 parties in the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria may be aimed at gaining credibility among Syrians who despise the regime but are weary of an uprising that has since devolved into a grinding and bloody civil war. Assad's government tightly restricts criticism in areas it controls.
But the group would have its work cut out for itself to have its peace initiative, centred on a cease-fire, gain traction. Many rebels look askance at any political plan short of Assad's immediate ouster, seeing it as a play for time.
Ambassadors from Iran and Russia attended Sunday's conference. Both countries support Assad, suggesting the regime authorized the gathering to bolster its own rhetoric that there should be a peaceful settlement to the Syrian crisis through dialogue.
A statement distributed to journalists said the participants at the conference have agreed on a number of principles, mainly "overthrowing the regime with all its symbols" while emphasizing the need for "peaceful struggle to achieve the goals of the revolution."
"It's our right to meet here in the capital to express our views without being subject to dictates and pressures or to be forced to make concessions," the NCB's head, Hassan Abdul-Azim, told The Associated Press.
The Syrian opposition suffers deep divisions between the largely exiled opposition and those based inside the country. While agreeing on the need to topple Assad, the two differ on the means. Unlike the Free Syrian Army rebel group and Syrian National Council made up largely of Syrian exiles, the NCB is opposed to the militarization of the Syrian uprising and any foreign military intervention. It is also more inclined to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the Syrian 18-month-old crisis.
NCB leaders, most of them traditional, leftist opposition figures, accuse the rebels and the SNC of being beholden to Turkey, which shelters defected Syrian generals and opposition figures, as well as Gulf Arab countries who support the rebels.
The rebels in turn accuse the NCB of being cut off from grassroots opposition fighters on the ground.
The statement that emerged from Sunday's conference called for an immediate ceasefire accompanied with the full withdrawal of the Syrian army from towns and cities and the release of all political detainees and kidnapped people. This would be followed by the start of negotiations between the opposition and representatives of the Syrian government on a peaceful transition of power, it added.
The scenario outlined by the participants is similar to a six-point peace plan proposed by the former international peace envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan. That plan ended with Annan quitting the post last month after his cease-fire failed to take hold as violence escalated across the country.
Syria's bloody 18-month conflict, which activists say has killed nearly 30,000 people, has so far eluded all attempts at international mediation.
Rajaa al-Nasser, a member of the NCB, said Damascus authorities have permitted all Syrian political figures to attend the conference "without restrictions."
However, the NCB has said two of its senior leaders disappeared after returning to Damascus International Airport from a trip to China on Thursday, along with a friend who was to pick them up. It has blamed the regime for the disappearance.
The state-run news agency SANA quoted the Interior Ministry as saying "terrorist groups" kidnapped the three.
Haitham Manna, a Paris-based veteran dissident who heads the external branch of the NCB, said the Syrian revolution was launched from inside Syria and it was "only natural for us to speak on behalf of the revolution from inside Syria."
He said regime change in Syria was inevitable.
"This regime is dead in the hearts and minds of all Syrians ... there must be negotiations on a peaceful transition of power," he said in a telephone interview.
The Russian ambassador in Damascus lauded the conference, calling it a "direct implementation of the process of reforms launched by the Syrian government, including the freedom of expression."
Azmat Allah Kolmahmedov called for a peaceful political solution to the Syrian crisis.
"The convening of the conference is a clear evidence of the Syrian government's readiness to start a constructive and serious dialogue with all opposition factions that reject violence and foreign intervention and which are ready for an overall dialogue to reach a democratic and free Syria," he said.
UN envoy: Syrian war is threatening the region
(By David Stringer, The Associated Press, September 25, 2012)
Syria’s civil war is worsening and there is no prospect of a quick end to the violence, international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said Monday in a gloomy assessment to the U.N. Security Council.
The new envoy leavened his message, however, saying he was crafting a new plan that he hoped could break the impasse, but refused to give details or say when it would be ready.
Despite President Bashar Assad’s refusal to end his family’s 40-year grip on power, some tentative hope of a solution remained, Brahimi said in his first briefing to the council since he took over from Kofi Annan on Sept. 1 as the U.N.-Arab League special representative for Syria
“I think there is no disagreement anywhere that the situation in Syria is extremely bad and getting worse, that it is a threat to the region and a threat to peace and security in the world,” Brahimi told reporters after the closed-door talks.
Activists claim nearly 30,000 people have died in the uprising which began in March 2011, including in attacks Monday by Syrian warplanes in the northern city of Aleppo.
Brahimi had just returned from Syria and refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey. His gloomy report of a looming food crisis, battle-damaged schools and shuttered factories, contradicted his insistence that he saw grounds for optimism, including “some signs” that the divided Syrian opposition may be moving toward unity. That is key for any political negotiations Brahimi would oversee.
“I refuse to believe that reasonable people do not see that you cannot go backward, that you cannot go back to the Syria of the past. I told everybody in Damascus and everywhere that reform is not enough anymore, what is needed is change,” said Brahimi, who has met with Assad and other regime officials in Damascus.
“Paradoxically, now that I have found out a little more about what is happening in the country and the region, I think that we will find an opening in the not too distant future,” Brahimi said.
Brahimi said he wanted to hold further discussions before disclosing precisely what action he plans to propose. “I do not have a full plan for the moment, but I do have a few ideas,” he said.
According to a diplomat inside the council’s private briefing, who demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly to reveal details, Brahimi was also reluctant to discuss the proposals with the Security Council. “He kept his cards very close to his chest,” he said.
In the private talks, Brahimi urged Security Council members to overcome the diplomatic deadlock which has paralyzed their ability to help end the crisis.
The Security Council is the only U.N. body that can impose global sanctions and authorize military action. Russia, Syria’s key protector, and China have vetoed three Western-backed resolutions aimed at pressuring Assad to halt the violence and open talks with his opponents on a transition of power.
“If I do not represent the entire council, I am nothing. I need to be seen to represent a united council and a united League of Arab States,” Brahimi told reporters.
Brahimi told the council that he believed Assad’s goal was to return the country to “the old Syria,” in which he and his father had ruled as dictators for four decades, the diplomat said.
He said Brahimi claimed Assad’s intention was to portray the uprising as fueled by outside nations in a bid to discredit his internal opponents.
The envoy told the meeting that food shortages are likely in Syria because of a poor harvest and citizens fear seeking hospital treatment when injured. Brahimi said about 2,000 schools had been damaged and others used as shelter by those who had lost their homes. Many factories and pharmaceutical laboratories were destroyed or falling into disrepair, according to the diplomat.
Despite a call from Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle to maintain backing for Annan’s six-point peace plan, which starts with a cease-fire and ends with a political transition, Brahimi said only that the ideas would remain “elements in my toolbox.”
Brahimi said it wasn’t yet clear how his new proposals might incorporate Annan’s plan and a June declaration by world leaders in Geneva backing the peace process.
Annan’s plan never took hold and was largely ignored by the government and the rebels before it ultimately collapsed.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, said that Iran is neutral in the Syrian civil war, and denied allegations that Tehran is providing weapons or training to Assad’s regime.
“We like and love both sides, and we see both sides as brothers,” he said. He referred to the conflict in Syria as “tribal” fighting and said that international “meddling from the outside has made the situation even harder.” He refused to say whether Iran would accept a government not led by the Assad regime, which for years has been Iran’s closest ally in the Middle East.
Ahmadinejad also alluded to the U.S.-made amateur anti-Islam video, accusing the United States and others of misusing freedom of speech and faiiing to speak out against the defamation of people’s beliefs and “divine prophets.”
The Iranian leader also called Israel a nuclear-armed “fake regime.”
Qatari emir: Arabs must intervene in Syria
(Al Jazeera, September 26, 2012)
Arab countries should intervene in Syria out of "national, humanitarian, political and military duties" in the face of the UN Security Council's failure to act, Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani has said.
He suggested in his speech on Tuesday at the annual UN General Assembly in New York City that bypassing the Security Council would enable a peaceful transition of power in Syria.
Violence in the country continued on Wednesday morning, as state television and activists reported two large explosions at the army general staff building in central Damascus. Syria's information minister said the explosions had resulted in "only material damage".
In New York, Sheikh Hamad criticised the Security Council for failing "to reach an effective position".
"In view of this, I think that it is better for the Arab countries themselves to interfere out of their national, humanitarian, political and military duties and do what is necessary to stop the bloodshed in Syria," he said.
Western powers are opposed to direct intervention, and the Security Council, which includes Syrian allies China and Russia, has been unable to pass even a resolution calling for President Bashar al-Assad to step down.
"We had a similar precedent when Arab forces intervened in Lebanon in the mid-'70s ... to stop internal fighting there in a
step that proved to be effective and useful," Sheikh Hamad said.
He urged countries to provide "all sorts of support" to Syrians until they gain legitimate rights.
US President Barack Obama, also speaking at the General Assembly on Tuesday, again called for the Assad's removal but provided no clear plan.
U.N. chief demands global action to end war in Syria
(The Associated Press, September 26, 2012)
Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon demanded international action to stop the war in Syria, telling a somber gathering of world leaders Tuesday that the 18-month conflict had become "a regional calamity with global ramifications."
In sharp contrast to the U.N. chief, President Barack Obama pledged U.S. support for Syrians trying to oust President Bashar Assad -- "a dictator who massacres his own people."
Opening the U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting, Ban said in his state of the world speech that he was sounding the alarm about widespread insecurity, inequality and intolerance in many countries.
Putting the spotlight on Syria, the U.N. chief said the international community should not look the other way as violence spirals out of control. "We must stop the violence and flows of arms to both sides, and set in motion a Syrian-led transition as soon as possible," he said.
Ban, declaring that the situation in Syria is getting worse every day, called the conflict a serious and growing threat to international peace and security that requires attention from the deeply divided U.N. Security Council.
That appears highly unlikely, however, at least in the near future.
Russia and China have vetoed three Western-backed resolutions aimed at pressuring Syrian President Bashar Assad to end the violence and enter negotiations on a political transition, leaving the U.N.'s most powerful body paralyzed in what some diplomats say is the worst crisis since the U.S.-Soviet standoff during the Cold War.
Alluding to the recently circulated amateur video made in the U.S. which attacks Islam and denigrates the Prophet Muhammad, Ban said that "in recent days we have seen hate speech and violent responses that perpetuate a cycle of blind violence."
Earlier Tuesday, several bombs went off inside a school in Damascus, Syria's capital city, that activists say was being used by regime forces as a security headquarters.
Ambulances rushed to the area and an initial report on state media said seven people were wounded.
An amateur video posted online showed smoke billowing from several spots in an area near a major road. The narrator said: "A series of explosions shake the capital Damascus." The authenticity of the video could not be independently confirmed.
Abu Hisham al-Shami, an activist based in Damascus, told the Associated Press via Skype that the "Sons of Martyrs School" had recently been turned into a regime security center. He said government forces use the school as a base to fire mortars at rebellious neighborhoods. State-run television quoted the director of the school as saying that two bombs exploded inside in the school, wounding seven people and causing minor damage. It said the bombs were planted by "terrorists" the term that the government uses for rebels.
As Syria's civil war intensifies, rebels have increasingly targeted security sites and symbols of regime power. In July, a bombing killed four senior security officials including the defense minister and President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law. Other massive bombings have targeted the Damascus headquarters of security agencies, killing scores of people this year.
A government official in Damascus confirmed a blast in the vicinity of the school, saying there was an explosion along the highway leading to the Damascus International Airport. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said three people were wounded. It was not possible to immediately reconcile the differing casualty tolls.
Meanwhile, Syrian refugees angry over harsh living conditions in their desert tent camp have clashed with Jordanian police.
A police official says about 150 refugees hurled stones at security officers, torched a tent and attacked the offices of a Jordanian charity responsible for the camp and a Moroccan field hospital. Twenty-six policemen were injured in the violence late Monday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The charity's spokesman, Zayed Hammad, says about 1,000 refugees were involved in the protest.
Syrian refugee Abu Nawras says police fired tear gas to disperse the protest. He says the protesters demanded improved conditions, better food and education for their children.
The Zaatari camp near the Syrian border is home to about 32,000 Syrian refugees.
Panetta warns clashes between Syria and Turkey may escalate
(The Associated Press, October 6, 2012)
The continued exchange of artillery fire between Syria and Turkey raises additional concerns that the conflict may escalate and spread to neighboring countries, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Saturday.
Panetta said the U.S. is using its diplomatic channels to relay worries about the fighting in the hopes that it will not broaden.
His comments came on the heels of warnings from Turkey's prime minister that his country is not far from war with Syria.
Turkish and Syria traded artillery fire Saturday as rebels clashed with President Bashar Assad's forces near the border, heightening the fears that the crisis could erupt into a regional conflict. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday cautioned Damascus not to test Turkey's "limits and determination" and said Ankara was not bluffing in saying it won't tolerate such acts.
Panetta said the U.S. is using its diplomatic channels to relay worries about the fighting in the hopes that it will not broaden.
Mitt Romney calls for Syrian rebels to be armed
(By Jon Swaine and Raf Sanchez, The Telegraph, 08 Oct 2012)
The Republican presidential challenger told voters the US must spend more, not less, on defence and effectively fight a proxy war against Iran by ensuring Syrian anti-government forces "obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad's tanks, helicopters, and fighter jets".
"Iran is sending arms to Assad because they know his downfall would be a strategic defeat for them," Mr Romney said in a speech in Virginia. "We should be working no less vigorously through our international partners to support the many Syrians who would deliver that defeat to Iran – rather than sitting on the sidelines."
The former Massachusetts governor did not, however, specify which rebel factions should be armed, nor if the US should arm them directly or facilitate supply by allies. Diverging from prepared remarks, he said the US should work "through" its global partners, rather than "with".
Mr Romney quoted a Syrian woman's comments to a National Public Radio interview to sum up the likely response to Washington's failure to act on the killing of 30,000 civilians. "We will not forget that you forgot about us," she said.
Senator John McCain, a longtime advocate of US intervention in Syria and Mr Obama's opponent in 2008, hailed Mr Romney's speech to cadets at the Virginia Military Institute as "a blueprint for restoring America's strength in the world".
Mr Romney consistently trails Mr Obama in polls on foreign policy, reversing a typical Republican advantage. However his national post-debate "bounce" continued yesterday as he drew level with the President in daily tracking polling by Gallup and Rasmussen.
He mounted a wide-ranging assault on Mr Obama's foreign policy, telling him "hope is not a strategy" and saying: "It is the responsibility of our President to use America's great power to shape history, not to lead from behind," referring to a now-infamous remark by an Obama aide.
Having been chided for too quickly politicising the crisis last month, Mr Romney revived his criticism of Mr Obama's response to the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that killed Chris Stevens, its ambassador to Libya. He accused the White House of misleading the public.
"This latest assault cannot be blamed on a reprehensible video insulting Islam, despite the administration's attempts to convince us of that for so long," he said. "No, as the administration has finally conceded, these attacks were the deliberate work of terrorists."
Mr Romney said the Sept 11 attack "was likely the work of forces affiliated with those that attacked our homeland on September 11th, 2001" – softening a planned remark that they were "the same forces", amid a lack of clarity on the potential involvement of al-Qaeda.
Despite the President's endorsement of the Arab Spring uprisings, Mr Romney alleged that he had emboldened enemies by placing "great strains" on America's key alliance with Israel and failing to give "the tangible support that our partners want and need" across the middle east.
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However Madeleine Albright, a Secretary of State to Mr Clinton, said Mr Romney was "shallow" and had surrounded himself with "a division of neoconservatives" responsible for the Bush administration's reckless foreign adventurism.
"Iran is sending arms to Assad because they know his downfall would be a strategic defeat for them," Mr Romney said in a speech in Virginia.
However Madeleine Albright, a Secretary of State to Mr Clinton, said Mr Romney was "shallow" and had surrounded himself with "a division of neoconservatives" responsible for the Bush administration's reckless foreign adventurism.
'We Think the Price Is Worth It'
Media uncurious about Iraq policy's effects--there or here
By Rahul Mahajan
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.
--60 Minutes (5/12/96)
Then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's quote, calmly asserting that U.S. policy objectives were worth the sacrifice of half a million Arab children, has been much quoted in the Arabic press. It's also been cited in the United States in alternative commentary on the September 11 attacks (e.g., Alexander Cockburn, New York Press, 9/26/01).
But a Dow Jones search of mainstream news sources since September 11 turns up only one reference to the quote--in an op-ed in the Orange Country Register (9/16/01). This omission is striking, given the major role that Iraq sanctions play in the ideology of archenemy Osama bin Laden; his recruitment video features pictures of Iraqi babies wasting away from malnutrition and lack of medicine (New York Daily News, 9/28/01). The inference that Albright and the terrorists may have shared a common rationale--a belief that the deaths of thousands of innocents are a price worth paying to achieve one's political ends--does not seem to be one that can be made in U.S. mass media.
It's worth noting that on 60 Minutes, Albright made no attempt to deny the figure given by Stahl--a rough rendering of the preliminary estimate in a 1995 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report that 567,000 Iraqi children under the age of five had died as a result of the sanctions. In general, the response from government officials about the sanctions’ toll has been rather different: a barrage of equivocations, denigration of U.N. sources and implications that questioners have some ideological axe to grind (Extra!, 3-4/00).
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http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084
(....Romney's first name is Mitt, not Milt.
Will NATO Intervene in Syria?
(Doug Bandow, The National Interest, October 9, 2012)
Turkey and Syria exchanged mortar and artillery fire last week. The dispute need not involve United States, yet NATO membership risks dragging America into yet another unnecessary war, this time in the guise of defending its Turkish allies.
Last week, several errant Syrian mortar shells fell in the Turkish border town of Akcakale, killing five residents. (Some Turks blamed the opposition Free Syrian Army, which may want to provoke Ankara into joining the conflict.) The Erdogan government responded to what it termed “this abominable attack” with artillery strikes in Syria. The Turkish parliament authorized cross-border military operations. The two nations’ militaries exchanged mortar fire for the next two days.
Nadim Shehadi of the London-based Chatham House suggested that “Turkey is using this to tell NATO, ‘Wake up, we are a member and we are being aggressed.’” The organization held an emergency meeting and criticized Syria’s “flagrant breach of international law and a clear and present danger to the security of one of its allies” and promised to “stand by Turkey.” A Pentagon spokesman denounced “the depraved behavior of the Syrian regime.”
Tensions similarly rose last June when the Syrian military downed a Turkish reconnaissance plane. The circumstances were unclear. Damascus said the aircraft was hit in Syrian airspace; Ankara admitted that the plane had mistakenly entered Syrian territory but claimed the jet was in international airspace when shot down.
Ankara pushed for stronger allied action then. The Erdogan government requested that NATO develop contingency plans to establish a no-fly zone to “protect” Turkish territory. Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc advocated that NATO invoke Article 5 and treat the incident as an attack on all members. However, while the alliance criticized Syria, members made clear that they did not want a military conflict. For good reason.
Depraved the Syrian regime and its behavior are, but that’s no cause for war. There are many awful governments around the world. Nor, as the Bush administration found in Iraq, is it possible to ensure that good follows evil in war irrespective of Washington’s intentions. Americans are best served by remaining at peace, not joining someone else’s civil war. And while Turkey is technically in the right this time, Ankara’s claims of innocence ring hollow. For instance, the downed reconnaissance plane may have been on an official surveillance mission.
Moreover, while the Syrian conflict is “spilling over” the border, the Erdogan government, once allied with Syria, has invited the war into his nation. Ankara is hosting Syrian opposition activists, allowing the Syrian Free Army to operate, perhaps training SFA soldiers and likely serving as a conduit for weapons to regime opponents. Turkey also is urging UN creation of “safe zones” within Syria for the opposition to operate militarily against the Damascus government.
In short, Turkey has initiated a low-grade war with Syria. And Damascus has noticed. Information Minister Omran al-Zo’aby complained that the two nations’ border “is being used for smuggling weapons and terrorists.” The Turkish government has knowingly turned its people into targets. If Ankara wants to do so, it should do so at its own risk. And Turkey is capable of defending itself, says its government; “Turkey is a country which is capable of protecting its people and borders,” said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
So it is. Even before fighting erupted in Syria early last year, Turkey’s military was much larger and more capable than that of its neighbor. Since then Syria’s military has been in almost constant action, with its most elite (typically the most trustworthy) units used the most. There would still be hard fighting in any conflict, but Damascus surely recognizes that it almost certainly would lose.
The fact that Ankara’s greatest security threat is posed by a civil war next door (along with the long-standing Kurdish insurgency) demonstrates NATO’s lack of modern relevance. Washington’s security guarantee served a purpose during the Cold War, when Turkey faced a potentially hostile Soviet Union. With that threat removed there is no plausible justification for the U.S. promising to defend Turkey. Indeed, Washington long was embarrassed by Ankara’s brutal anti-Kurdish operations, which relied on U.S.-supplied weapons. At least that campaign did not threaten to drag America into an unnecessary conflict.
Even though the Turkish people appear to oppose war with Syria, Prime Minister Erdogan declared that the two nations are “not far” from war. His government might decide that the public could be carried along in a burst of patriotism. Ankara also might consider provoking an incident in an attempt to force events and invocation of Article 5. Or war could be sparked by another incident, even if unintentional. A seemingly minor spark lit the fuse for World War I. In any case, having routinely intervened all over the world where few important U.S. interests were at stake, Washington could not easily remain aloof from a violent challenge to such a long-standing ally.
The original NATO was directed against a common outside threat, the USSR. The importance of confronting such a large, existential danger caused Washington to take on its allies’ burdens. Indeed, the United States was even willing to back its friends when both sides’ interests were not perfectly aligned. But none of the original circumstances survive today. There’s certainly no reason to backstop Turkey if it decides to forcibly oust Assad.
This problem isn’t limited to Ankara. Bringing Georgia and Ukraine into NATO would automatically make their serious problems, including poor relations with Moscow, America’s problems. What could justify Washington promising to go to war for these states against a nuclear-armed Russia? Georgia actually shot first in its 2008 conflict with Russia but still expected American backing (which had been strong, despite Tbilisi’s lack of NATO membership).
Syria’s implosion is a humanitarian tragedy. But there’s little Washington can do, other than expand the tragedy by turning Americans into combatants and casualties. So far the Obama administration has demonstrated restraint by staying out, but NATO risks pulling America in. In the short term, Washington should make clear to NATO’s other members that the United States will not intervene in Syria, whether under the aegis of NATO or the United Nations. In the long term the United States should substitute ad hoc cooperation for permanent alliance membership, leaving Europe’s defense to the Europeans. Syria demonstrates how NATO has become worse than useless. It is positively dangerous.
Syria’s implosion is a humanitarian tragedy.
NATO Backs Turkey In Standoff With Syria
(by The Associated Press, BRUSSELS, October 9, 2012)
NATO is ready to defend Turkey, the alliance's top official said Tuesday, in a direct warning to Syria after a week of cross-border artillery and mortar exchanges dramatically escalated tensions between the two countries.
Ankara has sent additional fighter jets to reinforce an air base close to the frontier with Syria where shells killed five Turkish civilians last week, sparking fears of a wider regional crisis. Syria has defended its shelling of neighboring Turkey as an accidental outcome of its 18-month-old civil war.
The comments by NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen were the strongest show of support to Turkey since the firing began Wednesday — though the solidarity is largely symbolic.
NATO member Turkey has sought backing in case it is attacked, but despite publicly supporting Syria's rebels Ankara isn't seeking direct intervention. And the alliance is thought to be reluctant to get involved militarily at a time when its main priority is the war in Afghanistan.
"Obviously Turkey can rely on NATO solidarity," Fogh Rasmussen said ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. "We have all necessary plans in place to protect and defend Turkey if necessary."
When pressed on what kind of trouble on the border would trigger those plans, NATO's chief said he could not discuss contingency plans. "We hope it won't be necessary to activate such plans, we do hope to see a political solution to the conflict in Syria," he said.
NATO officials said the plans have been around for decades and were not drawn up in response to the Syria crisis. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.
In an address to lawmakers from the ruling party, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated that Ankara will continue retaliating for attacks from Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.
"Every kind of threat to the Turkish territory and the Turkish people will find us standing against it," Erdogan said. "Soldiers loyal to Assad fired shells at us, we immediately reacted and responded with double force. We shall never stop responding."
At least 25 additional F-16 fighter jets were deployed at Turkey's Diyarbakir air base in the southeast late Monday, Turkey's Dogan news agency said, quoting unidentified military sources. The military's chief of staff inspected troops along the border with Syria on Tuesday.
But despite the flare-up in recent days, there appears little appetite in Turkey for a war with Syria, said Volker Perthes, the director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
Only a sudden change in the situation on the ground could draw Turkey into what has so far remained a domestic conflict, said Perthes.
"If the humanitarian situation becomes even worse, where you have more massacres, where at some point even the Russians wouldn't block a U.N. Security Council resolution ... then who could do the job of protecting civilians? It would be Turkey in the first place," he said.
Joshua Alvarez, managing editor of the Istanbul-based Kalem Journal, said it was very unlikely that Turkey would call on NATO and force a decision on a commitment unless hostilities with Syria sharply increase.
"Turkey will continue to seek as many reassurances as it can, but Turkey will not put its foot down and demand a commitment from NATO," said Alvarez. "Turkey is aware of NATO's extreme reluctance about repeating a 'Libya-styled' campaign in Syria, a much more complex and difficult scenario. Turkey wants no part of such a campaign, either. "
NATO established a no-fly zone to protect civilians during last year's Libyan revolt against longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Western diplomats said enforcing the zone required taking out Libya's air defenses and attacking tanks and military vehicles that posed threats to civilians.
Ankara's reluctance to go it alone in Syria was voiced Tuesday by Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan.
"Whichever step we take, it will be taken in consultation with our friends and our allies and in agreement with them," he said. "This is not a Syrian-Turkish bilateral issue, it is a humanitarian issue and we think that at the same time it's an issue that should be viewed as a regional security issue. The Arab League is involved, the Islamic Conference Organization is involved and NATO is a part of it."
Syrian opposition activists estimate more than 32,000 people have been killed since March 2011 when the uprising against Assad's regime began. Initially, regime opponents launched a wave of peaceful protests that were met by repeated attacks by security forces, and the conflict has gradually turned into bloody civil war that has motivated tens of thousands of civilians to flee Syria. The fighting has devastated entire neighborhoods in Syria's main cities, including Aleppo in the north. Syria's government has always blamed the uprising on what it calls foreign terrorists.
A Sunni extremist group called Jabhat al-Nusra claimed responsibility for an attack on Syrian air force intelligence compound in the Damascus suburb of Harasta Monday evening. A statement on a militant website by the group's media arm, Al-Manara al-Bayda, said the bombing aimed "to avenge the killing of Muslims and those who suffered injustice."
The Syrian state-run news agency did not report the explosion and there were conflicting reports on how badly the compound was damaged. There were no official reports on casualties, but the pro-government Al-Ikhbariya channel said on Monday the blast was heard across Damascus.
Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency, reported that Syrian Nation Council leader Abdulbaset Sieda visited rebel-controlled areas in Syria on Tuesday.
It said he entered Syria from the Bab al-Hawa border crossing and "made observations in rural areas" of Idlib province before traveling to Aleppo's Etarib area where he met with commanders of the Free Syrian Army. If confirmed, the trip would be Sieda's first into Syria since he became the council's leader in June.
Anadolu quoted Sieda as saying: "We are here to see what the opposition in Syria and the opposition outside of Syria can do together to serve the Syrian people."
Sieda made the trip ahead of an Oct. 15-17 meeting of Syrian opposition groups in Qatar.
Meanwhile, two Syrian rebels told The Associated Press that seven military and intelligence officers belonging to Syria's ruling Alawite minority have defected to Jordan. The rebels said they helped the seven cross into Jordan on Monday, and that the highest-ranking figure among them was an army colonel.
Defections by Alawites, who make up the backbone of Assad's regime, are relatively uncommon. Almost all the defections have been from Syria's Sunni majority, who dominate the rebellion.
Three other Alawite intelligence officials came to Jordan three weeks ago, said the two rebels, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the Assad regime. Jordanian officials declined comment.
