Alternet
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Why the Idea of Cracking Syria into Pieces Would Be America's Latest
Imperial Disaster
Why the Idea of Cracking Syria into Pieces Would Be America's Latest
Imperial Disaster
By Vijay Prashad [1] / AlterNet [2]
April 11, 2017
Far away from Syria, in the air-conditioned offices of think tanks and war
rooms sit the intellectuals of our current order. They gaze at maps of Syria
a country to which they have no emotional ties or on whose land they might
not have walked. They are not the first men driven by the fantasy of seizing
resources and solving problems by drawing new borders. They follow in the
1916 tradition of the British diplomat Mark Sykes and his French counterpart
François Georges-Picot, who carved up Ottoman Syria into zones of influence
for their respective countries. A hundred years later, the men who follow
Sykes and Picot couch their imperial ambitions in humanitarian rhetoric.
Their lines begin with safe zones and then move to a confederation and
finally to a dismembered Syria. Partition, guaranteed by American airpower
and troops, they argue, is the solution to the Syrian crisis.
Deeply battered by the civil war, with half its population displaced and
over half a million dead, Syria is weakened to the point of virtual
collapse. The fall of the government of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus would
not be as many of these intellectuals of the American Empire agree the
best possible outcome. Realistically, as Michael OHanlon of the Brookings
Institute put it in 2015, the replacement of Assad does not appear within
reach given the lack of palatable alternatives. Moderate forces as far as
the US determines are simply not available. Therefore, the ouster of Assad
in a precipitous way is considered foolhardy.
Instead of removing Assad, then, the United States should argues OHanlon
push for the establishment of one or two safe zones in relatively
promising locations, backed by perhaps 1,000 American military personnel.
In these safe zones, local forces moderates, it is hoped could be
trained to put pressure on Assads government. Ultimately, and ideally,
OHanlon argues, some of the safe zones might merge together as key
elements in a future con-federal arrangement. This dynamic could very well
lead to the outright partition of the country if necessary. The partition
is envisaged along the lines of sect and ethnicity a Sunni zone, an
Alawite zone, and a Kurdish zone. OHanlon calls this deconstructing
Syria.
In a recent column, New York Times Thomas Friedman muses over the possible
futures for Syria. The least bad solution is a partition of Syria,
Friedman suggests, and the creation of a primarily Sunni protected area
protected by an international force, including, if necessary, some US
troops. The gap between OHanlon and Friedman is merely in that the former
recognizes that in the large mixed cities of Damascus and Aleppo, Hama and
Homs, a partition would not be easy. Prudence would have to be the
watchword, writes OHanlon.
Neither OHanlon nor Friedman both influential voices in Washington, DC
seem bothered by their imperial gestures. They are quite happy to speak for
Syrians, to offer tutelage to Syria which cannot seem to define its own
destiny. These are men who will speak of democracy and human rights when it
suits them, but then transform just as easily into imperial bureaucrats with
their crayons ready to draw lines on someone elses map.
The influence of these men can be felt quite palpably in the corridors of
power. Late last year, CIA Director John Brennan said quite casually, I
dont know whether or not Syria and Iraq can be put back together again.
Theres been so much bloodletting, so much destruction, so many continued,
seething tensions and sectarian divisions. The outcome of this, he
suggested, is the partition of Syria. Former US Ambassador to Syria Robert
Ford has said that there is already an emerging partition of Syria into
six zones leading to the Somalization of Syria. Amos Gilad, the Strategic
Advisor to the Israeli Defense Ministry and well-regarded in US intelligence
circles, said, Syria has reached its end. They quite cavalierly call
for the dismemberment of the country.
Last month, before the US strikes on a government airfield, US Secretary of
State Rex Tillerson suggested that once ISIS is removed from the northern
Syrian city of Raqqa, it would be governed by local forces with US
backing. What is being considered is that the US would create in northern
Syria an analogous development to the Kurdistan Regional Government, which
is autonomous of the Iraqi government. This statement was made in Turkey,
where there is fear of a Syrian Kurdish state on its border. Turkey is not
bothered by the break-up of Syria. What it fears is the concrete reality
that this fracturing shall produce a Syrian Kurdish autonomous region with
US support long the length of its southern border. Even here Turkish
sentiments are over-read. Last November, US General Joseph Dunford and
Turkish General Hulusi Akar agreed that the coalition and Turkey will work
together on the long-term plan for seizing, holding and governing Raqqa.
This means that the US and the Turks would adopt this region, with the Turks
eager to make the Kurds marginal to their occupied zone.
In sum, all the major players who speak the syrupy language of democracy are
quite willing to undemocratically plan for the dismemberment of Syria.
Weaken Syria To Weaken Iran.
Iran, since 1979, has confounded the West and its West Asian allies Israel
and Saudi Arabia. The point for these powers has been to find a mechanism to
weaken Iran. Saudi Arabia and the West backed Iraqs long war against Iran
precisely to hem in the Islamic Republic.
In 1979, right after Irans Revolution, US embassy official Talcott Seelye
wrote from Damascus that his government should exaggerate the Alawite hold
on the Syrian state so as to break the legitimacy of Hafez al-Assad, the
father of the current president. It was important to get rid of Assad,
Seelye wrote, to dent Irans role in the region. We are inclined to the
view that his days are numbered, Seelye wrote, even if by the
assassination of Assad. Although there is not really an Alawite control
over the government, Seelye noted, perception is more important than
reality.
During the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), the United States wished to hit Syria as
a way to weaken Iran. In a revealing cable from 1983, CIA chief Graham
Fuller urged his paymasters to bring real muscle to bear against Syria.
Fuller suggested that the US should consider sharply escalating military
threats against Syria from three border states hostile to Syria: Iraq,
Israel and Turkey. He hoped that if these countries simultaneously attacked
Syria, it would weaken its position and its prestige. If Syrias position
was dented, Fuller argued, Iran would be forced to reconsider bringing the
war to an end. What is important is that the regional countries such as
Iraq still need to remain on guard against Iranian influence and power
throughout the Gulf. Hitting Syria would weaken Iran. That was the posture
in 1983 as it was in 1979 and as it is today.
Twenty years later, in 2006, the US political officer in Damascus, William
Roebuck, wrote that his country should join with Saudi Arabian intelligence
to stoke fears of sectarianism in the country. Their stick would be to
suggest to the Sunni community that Iran was promoting a Shiite agenda in
Syria. Roebucks cable reveals the continuation of fear mongering around
Iran to increase sectarian feeling to weaken Syrian society and the state.
There are fears in Syria, Roebuck wrote, that the Iranians are active in
both Shia proselytizing and conversion of, mostly poor, Sunnis. What is
startling is that Roebuck then conceded that this is often exaggerated.
The Americans, Roebuck said, against all evidence, should join with the
Saudis to better publicize and focus regional attention to this issue.
The evidence actually showed that Saudi preachers had entered Syria in large
numbers and they had established themselves in the slums. It was in these
mosques that they preached virulently sectarian rhetoric and prepared
society for the outbreak of sectarian violence. This is precisely what
overran Syria in 2011. Roebuck advised his paymasters to encourage splits in
the military, advised the Gulf Arabs to stop investing in Syria and
encouraged any mischief that would deprive the regime of any support. In
other words, Roebuck insisted on preparing the terrain for regime change
which would harm as US intelligence openly said a decade ago both the
Lebanese political-military group Hezbollah and Iran.
Two years ago, the US State Department noted in a memorandum, The best way
to help Israel deal with Irans growing nuclear capability is to help the
people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad. Fear of Iran
saturates this document. The basic argument is that Iran has its grip on
West Asia through Syria and into Hezbollah. These have to be brought to
heel. If Assads government falls, then Irans conduit to Hezbollah would
break. It was therefore essential to overthrow Assad. This has nothing
to do with the Syrian people or their needs, but everything to do with the
Washington and Tel Avivs hallucinations about Iranian power. The fall of
Assad, the US diplomats calculated, would mean that Iran would no longer
have a foothold in the Middle East from which to threaten Israel and
undermine stability in the region.
If Assad falls and a new perhaps radical Islamist regime comes to power
in Damascus, how would this help Israel? A US intelligence official told me
this week that the word of this period is Yugoslavia. The break-up of
Yugoslavia, he said, left behind minor states with no regional power.
Balkanization, he said with a smile, would be the appropriate solution for
Syria. Break it up and Iran would lose its foothold and no powerful state
would remain on Israels border to pose a threat. Israel could permanently
claim the Golan Heights, a US-backed state would emerge on the Syrian
border, Jordan could help itself to the totality of the Hawran plateau, an
Alawite state would take the coastal plain, leaving a series of Sunni states
from the al-Ghab valley to the Hamad desert. A weak Syria would be easy to
dominate.
Mischief surrounds Syria. Partition is seen as a way to destroy that state
and offer Israel relief on its borders with Syria and Lebanon. The rights
and ambitions of the Syrian people are irrelevant to these plots and
schemes.
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Cochin;
-webkit-text-stroke: #000000} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font:
11.0px Cochin; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px} span.s1
{font-kerning: none}
Vijay Prashad is professor of international studies at Trinity College in
Hartford, Connecticut. He is the author of 18 books, including Arab Spring,
Libyan Winter (AK Press, 2012), The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of
the Global South (Verso, 2013) and The Death of a Nation and the Future of
the Arab Revolution (University of California Press, 2016). His columns
appear at AlterNet every Wednesday.