by Makram Khoury-Machool

Dr Makram Khoury-Machool is a Palestinian scholar, based in Cambridge, UK

http://www.deliberation.info/dismembering-the-arab-world/

 The behaviour of the NATO-aligned, anti-Syrian bloc is now blatant enough for us to better understand what is happening in Syria. On the one hand, we find political operators such the ad-hoc group ‘Friends of Syria’, and on the other, two Arab personalities, both ministers of two Gulf sheikhdoms.

The first group includes NATO-led heads of states, with a barely disguised Israeli master-plan conceived by the likes of Bernard-Henri Lévy. Rather than being the friends of Syria, these personalities are arguably working to secure their own financial interests in, around, and via Syria. The two Arab politicians are the two foreign ministers ofSaudi ArabiaandQatar. They have declared that those forces acting violently against the Syrian state should be armed and financially supported. In short, these conventions of the so-called ‘Friends of Syria’ are probably no more than a ‘modern’ version of those meetings conducted by Viceroy Lord Curzon, who, in 1903, addressed the ‘Chiefs of the Arab Coast’ on HMS Argonaut in Sharjah (UAE).

The Qataris and Saudis give financial support to the ‘rebels’ for weapons, payments to fighters and mercenaries, and logistical oversight of attacks on Syria. All of this is in addition to their support with telecommunication services, combat tactics, and strategic military advice. Unsurprisingly, the Western military advisors, who operate for the armed groups behind the scenes, do not feature in any media outlets. Neighbouring states also provide geographical assistance to the armed groups, with Jordan providing a passage for mercenaries from Libya, and Turkey acting as the northern military base for operations.

Turkey is involved because of its wish to align itself with the Saudi-Sunni, NATO-backed line and also its fear that a dismembered Syria would lead to the promotion of Kurdish autonomy. In their eyes, this could bring about the eventual union of the Kurds with Iraqi and Syrian Kurds and then lead to civil war with Turkey and the eventual separation of Kurdistan from Turkey and the creation of a Kurdish state.

For its part, Israel has for decades planned, as part of its strategy to dominate the Middle East and the Mediterranean, to weaken Syria in order to continue its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights and to dominate water sources. Essentially, Israel wants to be the main economic and military power in the region and indeed, Israel may well emerge from the weakening ofSyria as the main winner, if only in the short-term.

Through its orchestrated media campaigns transmitted over the decades to its  own public,Israel has constructed a concept of Syria as the major threat to its existence in the Arab world. Arguably, the governmental vacuum that might be created in Syria could be filled by al-Qaeda-like groups giving sufficient justification for Israel’s actions (against Syria and/or Iran) and would also promote the idea of a conflict between ‘civilized-democratic’ Israel and ‘savage’ Islamists.

Despite huge differences between Syria and Libya, Syria’s fate could be similar to that of Libya in terms of direct foreign intervention, were not Russia and China firmly opposed such actions at the UN, where there has been consistent cooperation between the two. Although the origins of Sino-Soviet relations go back to the early days of the 1917 Communist Revolution, it seems that, even two decades after the dismantlement of the Eastern Bloc, the Russian Federation and the Republic of China are, more than ever, following what Mao Tse-tung advised in his ‘Be a True Revolutionary’ address on 23 June 1950. Here, Tse-tung said that ‘in the international sphere we must firmly unite with the Soviet Union’ (see Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, vol. V. p. 39). Shared ideology, world vision, economic interests, and objectives in the field of energy have brought Russia and China ever closer together over the Syrian conflict.