- “We protest with all our power against the sham, the hypocritical sham, that [the non-intervention policy] now appears to be.”
–Philip Noel-Baker, House of Commons, October 29, 1936.
- “The outcome of the Spanish war was settled in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin–at any rate not in Spain….The war was actually won for Franco by the Germans and Italians.”
— George Orwell, “Looking Back at the Spanish Civil War.”
Spain 1936. An army revolt against the democratically elected government sets off a civil war. On one side are the Fascists, led by General Francisco Franco. On the other side is a coalition of democrats both social democratic and liberal; communal nationalists; anarchists, Communists, and independent Marxists. The Western democracies declare an embargo: no arms to be sold to the Loyalist side. But Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy help the Rebels, while Stalin’s USSR helps the Communists, increasing their power within the Loyalist coalition. In the end, the Fascists win and rule Spain for decades.
Syria 2012. The people revolt against the dictatorship setting off a civil war. On one side is the anti-American repressive Syrian regime that has been a champion of revolutionary Islamism; its ally, Iran; and Hizballah. On the other side is a coalition of democrats, communal nationalists, and Islamists. The Western democracies declare an embargo: no arms to be sold to the rebels. But Shia Islamist Iran and Russia help the regime, while Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood help the Islamists, increasing their power within the rebel coalition. In the end, either the regime wins or the Islamist component among the rebels is more likely to win.
This is why UN Ambassador Susan Rice is speaking nonsense when she says:
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“Our view has been that the best way to resolve this is not by intensifying the militarization, not by providing further arms into what is already a hot conflict – but to try to resolve it through non-military means, through a diplomatic and political process.”
- It’s already a fratricidal war in which 10,000 civilians have died; the American equivalent of that death tool would be 150,000 people. To decry militarization when your enemies are rushing arms into Syria and since there can be no diplomatic solution between two sides engaged in a battle to the death is absurdly hypocritical.
Rice continues:
- “For this to become a proxy war with countries all over the region and beyond funneling weapons in there is basically conceding a massive fire burning in that region. For those who are advocating arming the opposition, they really ought to consider the consequences of that approach and also to ask, frankly, who are they arming inside of the
Syrian opposition.”
It is already a proxy war but the only ones helping their proxies are America’s enemies, and while it is true that there are such forces also among the rebels–a point that never bothered the Obama Administration over Libya–a decent policy should be able to ensure that the arms don’t go to the Brotherhood and Salafists but to units commanded by officers who have defected from the army; Kurdish and Druze communal nationalists; and moderates.
In several respects, the Syrian civil war is the Spanish Civil War of our time. It is an exhibition match between two ideological rivals—Shia Islamism and Sunni Islamism—that both want totalitarian dictatorship but cannot co-exist. It is a testing ground for the conflicts to come. Yet it is not a simple battle of good against evil. The Syrian regime is certainly evil, but the rebels are a mixed bag who also include evil forces. It is only the best elements among them that deserve the outside world’s support, help to defeat those who want repressive dictatorship on both the enemy side and on their own side as well.
Yet the democratic outside world is, for all practical purposes, standing passive. The Iranian regime is helping one side with huge amounts of money and arms, as Nazi Germany did for the Franco forces; the Turkish regime and the Saudis are helping the other side a bit, but giving disproportionate assistance to the Muslim Brotherhood, like the USSR gave to the Communists in Spain. Indeed, U.S. policy is aiding the Brotherhood, too.
Nobody is helping the moderate pro-democracy people; the Druze and Kurdish communal nationalists; and the technocratic military officers who have put their lives on the line to fight the dictatorship.
Why stand and watch while the Iranian-Syrian bloc, determined to destabilize the region and destroy U.S. interests, crushes those who want democracy? Why stand and watch (and even help!) while the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey, determined to foment Islamist revolution and destroy U.S. interests, seize control of the opposition and seek to impose a new and equally ferocious dictatorship on Syria?
Yes, despite all the smug “pro-democracy” rhetoric coming out of the Obama Administration and others, nobody is helping the moderates who are doomed either to being crushed by the repressive regime or being overwhelmed by the totalitarians on their own side. This is a tragedy but it is a tragedy in which passivity is as powerful a force as is evil. That the Obama Administration is mouthing platitudes about human rights and supporting democracy makes the situation altogether more sickening. The debate should not be over whether or not to intervene but how to help natural allies against the inevitable enemies on both sides of the war.
When the dictatorship defeats the opposition and hundreds of people are massacred or, albeit less likely but possible, if the Islamists turn Syria into another totalitarian regime in an alliance to destroy Western interests in the region, let’s have no doubt who is also responsible. It will be a defeat of both strategic and humanitarian proportions.
Homework assignment for readers: Rice said that we knew far more about the opposition in Libya–when the U.S. government and NATO decided to put it into power by force–than we do about the opposition in Syria. Discuss.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.
When fascists and communists kill each other – put a wall around them and let them kill each other. The same applies to a battle of Ayatollahs and Al-Qaida, let someone (does not matter who) win and then kill it
3) Barry writes, “The debate should not be over whether or not to intervene but how to help natural allies against the inevitable enemies on both sides of the war.”
We have no natural allies in Syria. Sorry. It’s a Muslim country.
4) Barry writes that, if the West doesn’t arm the good guys, “In the end, either the regime wins or the Islamist component among the rebels is more likely to win.”
Barry–even if the West does arm the good guys–even if there ARE good guys there to arm–and we can recognize and identify them–even in the very best of best case scenarios with an extra helping of luck and a sprinkling of fairy dust…”either the regime [will win] or the Islamist component among the rebels is more likely to win.”
And when they win–they’ll have our arms.
That’s how I see it. Personally, I’d stake my bet on the Islamist component among the rebels. Give you twenty to one odds. Only a matter of time.
2) Barry writes, “Nobody is helping the moderate pro-democracy people; the Druze and Kurdish communal nationalists; and the technocratic military officers who have put their lives on the line to fight the dictatorship.”
Isn’t that what we did in Egypt–help “the moderate pro-democracy people”? Yes, we did. We adored them there in Tahrir Square, called them freedom fighters, turned a blind eye to their harassment of women and flagrant anti-Semitism; celebrated them as the “Arab Spring”.
Bring on the confetti! And what did it empower in Egypt? The Muslim Brotherhood.
How many times do we have to make the same mistake?
I just have some observations.
1) Barry writes, “a decent policy should be able to ensure that the arms don’t go to the Brotherhood and Salafists but to units commanded by officers who have defected from the army; Kurdish and Druze communal nationalists; and moderates.”
How exactly do we ensure that the arms don’t go to the MB and Salafists? The guys we arm need only lose one skirmish, and whatever they have stockpiled there goes over to…either the Assadis or the MB and Salafists. And if our ‘good guys’ lose entirely (which is, after all, the overwhelmingly most probable scenario)–then ALL those arms we gave them go over to our enemies. Nifty.
Also, Barry’s list of good guys whom we ought to arm looks more than a little fishy to me. “Officers who have defected from the army”? This means they’re going to be pro-democracy? Pro-American? Pro-coexistence with Israel? On what evidence?
How about “Kurdish and Druze communal nationalists”? I can count reasons it would be in America’s interest to arm these on…let’s see now…zero fingers. None. Not a one. Are the Kurds or the Druze known for being pro-American? No. Not-prone-to-violence? No. Seriously dedicated to secularism and democracy? Uh…no.
Finally, “moderates”. A meaningless word. Who is a moderate, what defines him, and how would anybody recognize him? A moderate Alawite is not a moderate Sunni, let alone a moderate Muslim Brotherhood man. And none of these–none–could by any stretch be seen as an asset to US interests, nor to those of Israel, nor to the interest of abiding peace and human rights in the Middle East.
Any arms we add into the conflagration in Syria are arms that will eventually be used against us and against Israel. On top of adding to the total capacity for murder mayhem and misery unleashed upon the battling and embattled people of Syria.
Steven
You are right but not just the Obama regime as it is very widespread.
Bush referred to Islam as a religion of peace and he probably still holds that view..I think it is a theoretical issue in the main and people like Spencer and Bostom have done us a great favour in STUDYING IT.
Jerry
Actually I am not from Moscow. I was born among the trees and hills of beautiful Ireland but on reading the Communist Manifesto at a young age I grew horns and have never been the same!
Catch yourself on Jerry!
@ Felix Quigley:
With all due respect, that sounds like a stretch, Felix. . . .
But if you think you’ve got something, let’s hear it.
What US interests, in particular, do you see Iran deliberately steering clear of — ‘in deference to the US’?
— and how & when has the Islamic Republic ever ‘campaigned’ on behalf of those interests?
Is that why Tehran cut the non-secularist HAMAS loose financially (a year ago)
— for deserting the sinking Syrian ship?
And why it continued — and beefed up — its support for the non-secularist Palestinian Islamic Jihad?
Some seem to ignore that the Obama administration has open the door widely for the Muslim in the US. And the petro$ are flowing in our “great universities” to undermine the Western culture with the collaboration of whoever is left to the center. The left in the Western world is promoting the invasion of the Muslims willingly or unwillingly. The result is the same. This administration is a catastrophe for the West.
@ Felix Quigley:
Felix,
You are a Left Fascist ass – and an Obamist tool.
Go back to your crayons and your Guevara teeshirt, little boy.
many appear to believe that the US govt is intentionally allying with the MB to take control in the arab world. If so, Does anyone know why? The only thing I can think of is that their ideologies allow total control of the masses and it is easier to make deals with totalitarian govts than democracies as if and when they agree they are able to deliver. Capitalists discovered that a deal with a communist country means no labor disputes, perhaps it is similar with the MB. Perhaps the idea is to beat drums on the outside and make deals under the table. Have tha alliances ever changed: IN afghanistan the sauds financed and sent their cannon fodder to fight in afghanistan against the soviets in the 80’s in alliance with the US(the saud, wahabbi,US axis). Apparently now that axis has reappeared as the Saud, MB(wahabbi,taliban, sunni, al Quaeda), US alliance. Or did it ever disappear? Was there a US, Saud (Taliban, al quaeda) alliance putting on a smoke and mirrors show. The US, Saud, Wahabbi alliance has proven able to accomplish many things, under the table, while enriching those in the diplomatic and executive corps of western nations(under the table)
@ Jerry:
Whenever anyone denies that the U.S. is an empire, I smell The Third Reich.
Whenever someone accuses the US of imperialism I immediately smell Moscow.
Great Barry You are a wonderful man!
So brave and so full of good ideas. So why not then get your ass over there to Syria and take up the fight for the Kurds against Assad.
But most of all I would like to know where Ted stands on this issue of Syria and what is the position of Israpundit which he heads, or does it have a position at all?
it seems to me that Rubin is false to the core when he makes this comparision with the Spanish Civil War. And then carries on further with this paragraph;
“Why stand and watch while the Iranian-Syrian bloc, determined to destabilize the region and destroy U.S. interests, crushes those who want democracy? Why stand and watch (and even help!) while the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey, determined to foment Islamist revolution and destroy U.S. interests, seize control of the opposition and seek to impose a new and equally ferocious dictatorship on Syria?”
According to francisco Gil White who ted has featured often on Israpundit Iran is the baby of US Imperialism and is not about under any condition to destroy US interests because Iran is a great campaigner on hehalf of US interests, and vice versa.
That is why the US Government and the European Governments are busy creating Sharia states EVERYWHERE.
So if you follow Francisco and I certainly do then the US Empire wants to have Assad gone and a Sharia state organized pronto in Syria.
And since Iran is the tool of US Imperialism then it too will want Assad gone in order for its greatest hope Sharia put in place of the secularist Assad.
I have been saying for about 9 months that Iran would turn on Assad at the critical point.
yesterday a friend emailed me on Facebook to say that this is indeed just beginning to happen.
i will not discuss the Spanish Civil War here because the likes of Rubin would not have a clue what i would say, he is such an out and out US Imperialist.
But even so a child would grasp the major difference between Spain and the world today…there was no Sharia involved in Spain .