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The Real News From Syria
Theres a lot of noise coming out of Syria and the various international chat-fests being organized around it these days. Stern warnings from the State Department, charges and counter charges of massacres and atrocities on the ground in Syria, soothing platitudes from Kofi Anan, diplomatic warnings from Russia: most of it can be summarized as blah, blah, blah.None of this has much bearing on what will happen. It is mostly posturing the Russians are trying to look like they matter, the Turks want to look busy while minimizing their risks, the Americans want to feel good about themselves by mounting rhetorical assaults against atrocities they have no will to prevent, and so it goes. The legacy press covers this stuff because it can, and because it often buys into the establishments diplomatic narrative, but serious students of international affairs should not be misled: most of what is written about Syria these days is fluff and filler rather than news. For insight into the future of Syria, try this story in the (paywall protected) Financial Times. Support for arming the rebels is growing, as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and wealthy Syrian expats and others step up funding for the military resistance to Assad. The weapons being provided include light infantry arms and, increasingly, anti-tank weapons. Better armed rebels are credited with increasing the death toll among Assads soldiers as well as growing numbers of tanks destroyed. ...radical and Salafist sheikhs and organizations in the Gulf are getting into the weapons delivery act. For many jihadis, the fight against Assad is first and foremost a struggle against Alawite heretics, and the goal is to build a radical Islamic state on the ruins of Baathist, secular Syria. Its been a classic Saudi ploy to keep the radicals quiet at home by letting them fight and support fighters abroad; this dates back at least as far as the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and has been a pattern in many conflicts since. It seems likely that in this case, when the Saudi state interest in weakening Iran and strengthening the Saudi voice in both Lebanon and Damascus coincides with the jihadi hunger for a Syrian religious war, that Saudi authorities will see radical enthusiasm for Syria as an asset. IMO, the most important thing to remember re Soodia vs. MM is that here enemy of my enemy is not my friend Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2012-06-11 |
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