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Maysaloon

Answering Karl reMarks: The Case Against Anti-Interventionism

 Karl reMarks: The Case Against Anti-Interventionism

Posted: 25 Dec 2013 08:35 AM PST

Karl reMarks has written an essay describing the Arab uprising as a missed opportunity for self determination. I agree with him that there is a serious lack of historical context and political understanding when it comes to analysing and understanding the Arab spring, but I think his conclusions are, on the one hand, premature when it comes to judging some aspects of this spring a failure, and on the other, inaccurate when we come to the question of interventionism and the role played by outside countries in these national struggles. It is premature to say that any of these struggles has “failed” any more than it would be to proclaim that one has succeeded. After all, what does a “successful” revolution look like?
This is not a trivial question, but a very serious one. There is today a constant barrage of academics and journalists who talk about revolutions as if they were some kind of a project to be completed with tangible milestones and clear targets. And yet, if we look at the history of revolutions, we find them to be just as messy and chaotic as what we are seeing in the Arab world. Not only that, but almost all of these revolutions unleashed consequences and actors that none could have foreseen before they commenced. Karl argues that the Arab revolutions represented a real opportunity for change, albeit one that has now been missed. He pins this failure on a twin dynamic: The failure of the domestic political opposition to seize this opportunity; and the intervention of outside powers. And yet we are reading his words only three years after the first protests began in Tunisia. If a commentator were to have written similar arguments three years after the Russian, French, or even English, revolutions would that not also have been considered equally premature?
None of these revolutions could have been considered a “success” three years after their eruption, nor were they free of outside intervention. Even during the American revolution, the Founding Fathers did not think it beneath their principles to accept assistance from France in their struggle against King George III. And none of these revolutions lacked failed political leaderships and lost opportunities. So why are we constantly expecting so much from the Arab revolutions? And why is the concept of national sovereignty only invoked when a foreign country is about to intervene but not when it comes to tyrants usurping the state and subverting the laws of the land. Is the Assad regime’s bastardization of Syrian law and his emasculation of Parliament no less an infringement on Syrian national sovereignty? And is that not worthy of the outrage of foreign and domestic commentators alike?
Furthermore, and to use the “language of humanitarianism” as Karl described it, is it not just as legitimate to draw parallels between Hitler’s hijacking of Germany in the thirties and the Assad regime’s hollowing out of the Syrian state today? And can we not see in the regime’s systematic brutalization of Syria’s Sunni hinterland the same sectarian ferocity of a Milosevic? I disagree strongly with Karl in that the Holocaust and Bosnia are not tired cliches that have been misused but important lessons from the past that tell us what happens when “The State” goes insane. It is only when we move beyond this triviality that we can see national sovereignty for what it is, a privilege and not a right, and it is based upon these valuable lessons that doctrines such as the Responsibility to Protect have arisen.
Should we dismiss this doctrine simply because it has been cynically used by some countries for their own interests? Certainly not. The fact that the intervention in Libya or in Sudan was triggered by Western interests and not a genuine humanitarian concern should not detract from the very real crisis faced by the Libyans and Sudanese, and continues to be faced by Syrians today. Karl refers to the Western intervention as somehow denying a national Libyan expression from coming into its own as it fought Gaddafi’s brigades, but it is difficult to see how anything could have grown under the withering brutality of that tyrant. In the early days of the Libyan revolution, as would be echoed in the Syrian town of Deraa, the regime used anti-aircraft guns to fire rounds the size of Coca-Cola bottles at unarmed protesters. That a national opposition with principles that Karl can approve of could emerge under such difficult conditions is extremely doubtful. The sad fact is that the modern means at the disposal of “states” makes it all but impossible for the kind of national resistance movement we saw in Algeria and it would be simply impossible for such movements to ever come into existence through their own efforts. If such an endeavor was ever attempted seriously today the consequences on the civilian population would be far greater than what we are seeing in Syria or what we ever saw in Libya.
Viewed in this light, the “competition to gain victim status” as Karl so derisively puts it, is nothing more than the sheer desperation of people who are looking directly into the abyss. In such a situation who could be blamed for wanting any other country to come and assist, and at any cost? And who are we to insist that they die for the principles of self determination? I refer here to the example of a Syrian woman reported to have crossed the borders into the occupied Golan Heights to give birth in an Israeli hospital. Was she in contravention to the principles of self determination that would make a revolution legitimate and successful? Are we to tell her that it would be far better to risk her and her child’s life by giving birth in a ditch somewhere whilst under shelling? Have we become so crass? I should hope not, and I will not be the one to rebuke her brave decision or even question her judgment.
To choose inaction against regimes that fire rounds the size of Coca Cola bottles at unarmed protesters and drop barrel bombs on their own citizens is to turn a blind eye to it under the pretext of respecting a non-existent national sovereignty. The reality that has never changed is that we do live in a world where states meddle in the affairs of other countries, and where non-state actors will constantly try to subvert law and exist in conditions of lawlessness. Karl’s description of al Qaeda as the Syrian opposition’s scapegoat for its own failures is at best disingenuous. We should not dismiss the “vacuum theory” of extremist groups in Syria lightly, in the same way that we cannot blame the existence of al Qaeda in Iraq on the American invasion in 2003, regardless of its legality. Can we really claim that it was only Western intervention which turned Iraq into a “disaster” ignore over thirty years of Saddam’s rule that scourged an entire generation of Iraqis and Iranians in a needless ten year war? That states cynically play games with each other is not news, nor is it only something that Western governments do. In Vietnam, Chinese support was essential to the North Vietnamese. The “catastrophic” intervention in Afghanistan, as Karl puts it, was nowhere near as controversial in the wake of the World Trade Centre attacks in 2001. Missing in this narrative is that the collapse of Afghanistan as a country was triggered by Soviet intervention, and that the rise of the Taleban after the Soviet withdrawal came about precisely because Western assistance was pulled back as a result of that withdrawal.
The world has moved on from the days of the United Fruit Company and Guatemala, and believe it or not it has also moved on from the Iraq invasion of 2003. There have been numerous foreign interventions in many countries that have been illegal, catastrophic and immoral, but there have also been interventions such as in Kosovo and Bosnia where many people are alive today as a result. And, to be fair, let us not forget the invasion of Cambodia that put an end to the butchery of the Khmer Rouge, a butchery that had no end in sight were it not for outside intervention, even if it was by China. It has not been Western foreign meddling which has escalated the war in Syria, but the Assad regime and its allies. Answering unarmed protesters with live ammunition and tanks in the streets represents a pretty significant escalation, in my opinion. And when we consider the paucity of Western aid to the rebels, especially in the early days when one could still speak of a nascent Free Syrian Army espousing a moderately secular vision of Syria, the idea that Western “meddling” has somehow provoked Iran and Hezbullah to escalate their support for the regime, as if such allies needed this pretext, detracts from the very real advances made by the Syrian rebel groups in the early days, advances that came about mostly because of their own ingenuity in stealing, bartering and buying the weapons that they needed to advance and hold ground. In effect it was the kind of self determination that Karl laments today and which was in fact crushed by the one-sided foreign assistance given to Assad. The only foolish meddling the West can be accused of has been in its amateurish diplomacy with Russia and Iran, rather than any kind of material support for the Syrian people.
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Maysaloon , Oh well…

Saturday, October 26, 2013

 

Should I really care if Abu Mohammad al Golani has been killed in a regime ambush? Probably not. The Syrian revolution isn’t about swapping an Alawite dictator for a Sunni one, it’s about fundamental rights for the citizen and for dignity. I’m not going to shed tears over somebody simply because he opposes Assad when his group openly calls for ethnic cleansing and has been accused of horrific human rights abuses. I’ve often heard Syrians telling me that they are “the only ones fighting Assad” and so we should turn a blind eye to their mistakes. I disagree.

Nobody asked for this war, Assad imposed it on the country in order to stay in power. The reason he did this was precisely for the kind of reaction that groups like JAN and ISIS are capable of. It is also to buttress his position internationally and domestically as some sort of champion for secularism. If we really think about it there are two things this regime has feared and avoided above all else, allowing peaceful demonstrations to take root in the country – coupled with a civil society movement – and foreign – specifically Western – intervention.

Both of these options seem a distant dream now, but if the killing is to stop, really stop, then we have to bring these back on the table. I don’t care who screeches to me about Iraq and imperialism, this is a matter of survival for an entire country. Assad and his allies are now presenting the world with two scenarios for Syria, and neither is acceptable. Either the country transforms into a version of North Korea, or it becomes Afghanistan. Both options would suit Iran, Hezbullah and Assad perfectly well for obvious reasons. But, and here is the important caveat, Iran, Hezbullah and Assad cannot impose their will on Syria. They’ve been trying to for almost three years and they can’t. That means a lot though it has come at a hell of a price.

Syrians can push for the third option, a country that respects the rights of its citizens and gives them the opportunity to try and make a better life for themselves. In order to do that they don’t have to feel compelled to clap and cheer for every madman who fires a Kalashnikov at the regime.

Posted by Maysaloon at 1:17 pm

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Abandoning Chemical Weapons

Maysaloon – ميسلون
Posted: 24 Sep 2013 01:56 PM PDT

 

There has been a lot of talk amongst Syrians, both pro-regime and against it, about Assad’s sudden decision to “abandon” chemical weapons. Firstly this regime does nothing unless it has to, so all these rumours about Assad “pulling the rug” from the feet of America, or even Israel, is nonsense. Assad did so because for a very short period of time he was absolutely terrified that his forces will be bombed by the United States. That may or may not happen now, but I am firmly convinced that this is the only thing that frightens him.
As for the chemical weapons, some Syrians are feeling upset about Assad giving up Syria’s “strategic” capability. They seem to think that even with Assad removed then chemical weapons must remain a deterrent. At best, they argue that Assad has no right to decide unilaterally in this regards, but for me this whole discussion is absurd. Nuclear, biological and chemical weapons are horrible weapons because their effects are so unpredictable and long lasting, and there is a reason why they are considered a red line for the international community.
The fundamental point we as Syrians should be discussing is not about whether or not Assad has a “right” to give up these weapons. The point we should be discussing is by what “right” did his father or any Syrian government introduce these weapons into Syria. Furthermore, the idea that a Syrian government, any Syrian government, or the Syrian army can ever be trusted with weapons like this again is something that the Syrian people need to consider very carefully. The fact is we have no government or army worthy of the name and it is unlikely that we will have anything like that in the near future. Before we worry about deterring our “enemies” with chemical weapons, we need to have a debate about how to deter our own governments from killing Syrians – and the first step is to make sure that power is never left concentrated and unchecked in the hands of the few.
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A Eulogy for the Damascus Bourgeoisies

Tuesday, September 03, 2013

Spare a thought for those Syrians in their expensive cars as they drive to and from Beirut every time the tensions rack up. I mean how bad must it be for them to have to inconvenience their lovely mundane lives in the well protected posh districts of Damascus and come face to face with the kind of Syrians that they have spent the last forty years ignoring. That’s right, you know who I am talking about. I’m talking about the small people who have cleaned your houses, washed your cars, delivered your groceries and are the unwitting subjects of your mediocre photographic skills and nostalgic writings. Yes, those Syrians, the ones that don’t have enough money to drive straight through the Masnaa’ crossing area and have to squat down in the sun whilst the Lebanese border guards beat them with hoses to keep everybody in line.

Your Syria is the Syria of jasmine and cardamom, of “mosaics” and thousand year old temples built by long dead civilizations that have nothing to do with you. Their Syria is of shanty towns, plastic, and diesel fumes. You don’t know this, but Syrians are the Mexicans of Lebanon. They squat and stand at the street corners waiting for somebody to drive by in the pick up and hire a bunch of them to clean out his backyard or do some other menial work. But your nostrils only flare with indignation when you are the one discriminated against, when your visa gets turned down or your promotion is delayed. Only then do you make up the myth that the reason Syrians are despised is because out of all the Arab nationalities it is the Syrians that refuse to bow. Well I have news for you Mr Proud Syrian who won’t bow. We have been bowing for forty years whilst you sipped your black coffee on the balcony in Damascus and wrote your bad poetry – and we will still bow because Syrians have always been treated like dirt in their own country. You just didn’t notice because you were able to pay a bribe not to bow, at least not physically.

I have other news for you. The Damascus you think is the centre of the universe is actually an insignificant speck that nobody had heard of until the revolution showed the whole world our warts and dirty laundry. Nobody cares about what Mark Twain said of Damascus, or about the socialites who stopped by this or that place. You were a quaint little stopover that they forgot about as soon as they left, remembered more because people wanted to preserve everything they said than because what they said about your city was important. If you dig down deep enough you aren’t even from this city. Nobody really is. It’s been raped and pillaged so many times in history that you’re really just the descendant of rural labourers who now has the luxury of despising the newer rural labourers moving into the capital. And you don’t even see the irony in all this.

Didn’t you just love when you could sit with those foreigners as an equal in Bab Touma and talk about politics, art and society? About how Syria is the land of churches and minarets, about our lovely tolerance and how we were urbane Levantines in the “oldest continuously inhabited city in the world” with a five thousand year history? Did you ever realise that your entire life was about taking credit for what others have done? It never struck you as odd that you and everybody else around you could only exist because your parents had connections and money, and you never thought it odd that whatever you did, if you were unlucky to have just that Syrian passport that you are so proud of, you would have only found work in the family business? No, that wasn’t odd at all? Strange perhaps? How silly of me, of course it wasn’t when that was all you ever knew. You might have gone abroad to study and seen a bit of the world, but you came right back to that safe little world, because deep down you were scared of getting out there on your own.

Then your chest would burst with pride at your “British educated” first lady while she treated the entire country like one giant fashion accessory. You’d talk about the “Doctor” and about his wisdom and humility, about how he would walk into the restaurants and mingle with the normal people. When somebody mentioned Syria you would always say “We”, and you never thought for an instant, you poor soul, that it was never a “We”, just a “Them”. You were an accessory to fit into their little doll house of a Syria that was a “mosaic”. Their Syria was a quaint little place to be mentioned in a travel brochure. A country that you were taught from a young age to have a manifest destiny, just like every other joke of an Arab state around us. Maybe that’s why Arab governments hate each other so much? They see in each other the frauds that they have become.

So I’m sorry about your jasmine and your magically long Damascus nights. About the cool aniseed drinks and skewers of kebabs. The religious tolerance and the mosaic of cultures that you could show off to the world as if it were your own. I’m also sorry you never saw the shanty towns, the desperate people sitting in crowds outside of government hospitals waiting to be treated or for their loved ones, the queues for bread and government handouts, the girl selling chewing gum at the traffic lights, or the young labourers who had to leave their drought ridden villages and become casual labourers in Lebanon. Maybe if you saw all of that before the revolution started then you might have stopped and thought a little bit about why you were living and why things were the way they were.

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Airstrikes on Syria

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Let’s get one thing clear. Nobody is coming to help Syrians because they are getting killed. They are coming to help Syrians because nobody wants chemical warfare to become a norm and especially for countries like North Korea and Iran to start using them “because somebody else did it too”. In essence the behaviour of states in the international system is primitive and infantile, however thick the books on international relations may get. The basic rules of international relations are about as complex as the politics of siblings fighting over their toys. Possession is nine-tenths of ownership, what happens when the parents aren’t looking never happened, and the strongest will get to impose their will on the weakest unless they meet somebody stronger.

If we use this model to understand the behaviour of actors like the Syrian regime, we start to make much more sense of how they are reacting to the international community. Russia is not an innocent arbiter in this conflict, but the estranged parent who lets the errant brat do what they want to annoy the other parent. One parent cannot overstep the mark without risking an all out escalation with the other, and so a state of limbo lets the spoilt brat, Assad, throw his toys out of the cot and break everything. Yes it is probably too simplistic an analogy, but we need something, anything, to make sense of the stupid drama that has been unfolding in front of our eyes for the past two and a half years.

The Kosovo model for intervention is not perfect, but it stopped the bloodshed and today Kosovo is limping along and people are rebuilding their lives at least. Of course it is still not a recognised state thanks to Russia blocking its recognition, but the important thing is that militias are not slaughtering whole families and villages. The same thing needs to happen in Syria and the country must be given as much support as possible to get back on its own two feet. This is not because Syrians need the world’s charity, but because if that does not happen then Syria will become a Somalia on the Mediterranean and bordering Europe. It is in the world’s interest to stop this wound from festering, and it is in Syria’s neighbour’s interests – all of them – that this country not implode. Because when it implodes all of Assad’s toys are going to end up in the wrong hands, however “careful” the West is and however pervasive Israel’s intelligence tries to be. A poisoned atmosphere and water table is not something anybody in the region can afford. Syria is a big puddle that can splash a lot of people, Assad knows this and he has been using this to stay in power, but it does not mean he cannot be toppled.

This regime is powerful not inherently but in the positions it controls, like a spider in a web, and by hitting it strategically and in the places where it is most vulnerable, the various remnants of the Free Syrian Army might just be able to shred what’s left of it. I say might because at this stage there are only probabilities and worst case scenarios. It is not, for example, a question anymore of how many people might be killed accidentally in strikes against Assad but how many deaths can be avoided by crippling his ability to wage war. This kind of intervention should have happened a long time ago, and many more people would still be alive today if Assad was made to understand that mass murder is not acceptable, with chemical weapons or not. This is the real precedent that should have been set for all other tinpot dictators around the world.

Posted by Maysaloon at 7:44 pm  

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A Rant for Syria

What a week it has been. The Khaldiyeh district in Homs was overrun by Assad’s army, the Syrian rebels are in disarray, Syrian women forced to offer “survival sex” in Lebanon, and fatwas in Aleppo banning the croissant. Well, I have to say I am impressed with the historical knowledge and zealousness of whoever thought that one up, after all the croissant was a symbol of the second defeat of the Ottomans at the gates of Vienna. The people there were so jubilant at this victory that an enterprising baker came up with the idea of the “croissant” after seeing the crescents of the Ottomans. In all fairness the Ottomans did also give Europe the inspiration for cappuccinos in return, so we really should call it even. But that hasn’t fazed the hapless zealots who seem intent on righting every historic wrong of the past four hundred years, although I don’t really understand how right it is that the Ottomans were trying to conquer Vienna in the first place, but I guess if the Ottomans lost then that is supposed to be a bad thing, and since they were Muslims and we are Muslims then that means we lost at Vienna, right?

This is all such a farce, Syria is such a farce. Has anybody looked at Bashar al Assad? What makes me feel like crying is that anybody would think this person is a leader, let alone inspirational. He sits there and pretends to be Mr Big Man in his expensive suits, and I bet you those suits weren’t even tailored by a Syrian – even though Syrians are probably the best tailors in the world, and barbers too (it’s true). His adoring fans celebrate a great “victory” in Homs, as they did in Qusair, and pretend as if they have something to be proud of. Have they even seen what those two places look like now? For goodness’ sake any more victories and there won’t be a country left to rebuild. But they don’t listen or see, they just tell us they feel “sad”. And then we have to listen to their constant drone about how “arming” the revolution was a mistake and a betrayal. Their shooting the jaws off adolescent boys wasn’t reason enough for these jingoistic Assad fans. After all what would people say if they saw Syrians as nothing more than a dysfunctional and inbred family? And how embarrassing would it be for young Hafez and his Acton mummy to shop in London and pretend to be normal if everybody knew that they came from a country that was as unfashionable and icky as Afghanistan. No, weaponizing this conflict was a big mistake, you hear me? and all you people who supported this revolution should be ashamed of yourselves. Think how embarrassed you’ve made Bashar Assad in front of the world. After all everybody knows that even though his allies are Iran and Russia what he and his wife really want is to get “in” with the West. It’s just like with the Ottomans really. They tried to invade Europe, then tried to join it, and all they ever wanted was to be Europeans. But what did the Ottomans get? Croissants thrown right back in their face. Oh the agony.

Besides, all this revolutionary business distracts us from our sacred mission, Palestine. The rebels you see, are part of a global conspiracy but at the same time we are one and the same, family. You understand. On the radio we have alternating narratives. One narrative wishes to kill these people and squash them like cockroaches. The catchphrases on fascist Assad radio channels like Sham FM is that “God willing we are going to make Syria better than it was. We are going to take it back”. Take it back from whom exactly? And who do you mean by “we”? Oh, yes, “we” is anybody who worships that lame duck you call a president, the one whose only accomplishment in life was to be the son of Hafez Assad. At least that dictator fought his way to power – not that that would ever wipe away his crime in Hama of course.

The other narrative on those radio channels is that these people we are fighting are “our brothers” and that they can be reasoned with to put their weapons down and “reconcile”. We’ll all sit down around the fire in a bedouin camp, the elders will talk of great things and nod their heads as they drink the bitter coffee, and we will magnanimously forgo the wrongs of the past and agree to unite our ranks once again. We’ll just blame this on the Jews – who are everywhere apparently and had planned this entire Arab Spring just after writing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

People think I’m joking, but we do have Syrians in Syria who believe this stuff. I would know as I’ve met some of them – in fact some of them are even family. That’s what happens to a nation that is cut off from the outside world and stops reading and asking questions. It becomes inbred and stupid. This is the Syria that Assad is trying to defend, because it is the only Syria he can rule over indefinitely. Anything else and people start prodding and poking, sticking their noses in all sorts of things such as elections, free associations, books and other such dangerous and seditious activities. Anyway I’m tired now and I’ve had enough of writing. The only thing I found remotely inspirational and interesting this week was that Youtube video of a young Syrian officer who decided to put his weapon down and actually speak to Syrians instead of killing them. He’s dead, apparently he was killed a few months ago, and now all the pro-Assadists have mental erections because they finally found somebody in their ranks who wasn’t an animal. That’s how it always is in Syria, we never hear of good news until it’s too late.

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Fasting for Humanity

If somebody asks me whether I fast Ramadan for some higher deity I’d be lying if I said I was. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore with this stuff. I haven’t for a very long time. When I read posts that were written in the midst of spiritual passion, passion that felt as if it was going to burst out of my chest, I feel as if they were written by somebody else a lifetime ago. I can’t feel like that at the moment, and the reserves that I drew upon then are now completely depleted.

Then I think about stories I’ve heard of Syrians in refugee camps, of people in desperate circumstances that they didn’t ask for and facing trials they weren’t prepared to undergo. I think how easy it is for me to fast knowing I have food ready for me at the end of the day. But what would I do or say if I didn’t? Or if I had children who didn’t? I don’t know but even considering that thought gives me a chill. For all my failings as an individual the past three years have taught me so much more about what it means to be human and fallible.

We like to think of ourselves as paragons of virtue when we speak with the moral clarity of some high priest for this or that dogma. The “Resistance” with a capital “R” for example, or when we refer to the sacrifices necessary to fight some nebulous great Enemy. I used to feel like that. But isn’t it ironic that the great narrative of a titanic clash between good and evil that the resistance narrative uses comes from the same strip of land which introduced that concept into organized religion through Zoroastrianism? Was it not the great clash between Ahura Mazda and a mysterious “hostile spirit” which was the precursor to our own Abrahamic faiths? And within the story of an epic war to end all wars weren’t there also the seeds of oppression? And from oppression didn’t we also see the rise of self deceit?

Most religions emerged out of a genuine desire to do good, but it seems almost universal that the dogmatic hierarchy which follows that initial creative impulse subverts far more than it preserves. Today we have people who wish to uphold that hierarchy as guardians of some supreme truth – possessing the right to absolve any sin and to damn any soul. These people forget that even the Zoroastrians believed the followers of the “Lie” would fall forever into a hell fire of some sort. To hell with the Lie, and to hell with them I say. Isn’t self deceit the greatest of lies?

If I’m fasting, it would be a lie to say I’m doing it for some bearded old man sitting on a throne in the clouds. It’d be far more sincere to say that I’m fasting because it puts me in touch with my humanity and the suffering of others. I can’t give them relief, but I can carry the same burden as them even if for a while. Maybe then they can feel better knowing they are not alone in this world even if nobody can help.

Posted by Maysaloon at 8:30 pm  

 

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The ‘Afghanization’ of Syria: A Fallacy

In 2011 Assad gave an interview to a Western journalist in which he made the following statement:

Syria is the hub now in this region. It is the fault line, and if you play with the ground you will cause an earthquake … Do you want to see another Afghanistan, or tens of Afghanistans?

Since then there has been a growing narrative which not only blames the West for the instability that we see in Afghanistan today, but which equates Western support for Syrian rebels, especially the Free Syrian Army under General Salim Idriss, as akin to the support given to the Afghan mujahideen during the eighties.

This is wrong. Those who draw comparisons between Afghanistan and Syria in order to discourage foreign intervention in the latter are either ignorant or conveniently ignore a very important fact – it was the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in 1979 which caused the disintegration of the Afghan state today, and it is the Russian (along with Iranian) support of Assad today that is leading to the disintegration of Syria.
Lessons from History

Most people today look at Afghanistan as some formless mess. Somehow the arming of the mujahideen during the eighties led to the formation of al Qaeda and then we had 9/11 and after that the world went crazy. There is nothing factually wrong with that narrative, and states, like people, do make mistakes, however, it is conveniently missing one crucial element – what were the Soviets doing in Afghanistan in the first place?

In 1979 the Soviets overthrew the then ruler of Afghanistan, Hafizullah Amin, for fears that he might have been moving the country away from the Soviet orbit. Amin had previously deposed his opponent, Nur Mohammad Taraki, who had been staunchly pro-Soviet but whose policies were causing widespread unrest and rebellion in the country. Though they were both members of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, the country’s main Marxist opposition before the toppling of Muhammad Daoud Khan’s government in 1978, the Soviets did not think Amin was reliable enough. On October 31st 1979 the Soviet Union launched a series of coordinated attacks, landing their troops in Kabul, to ouster and eventually kill Amin.

A government under a former Afghan diplomat to Czechoslovakia, Babrak Karmal, was formed, but he could not control the country and came to rely on the Soviet troop presence almost entirely owing to the desertion of large parts of the Afghan army. Although the mutinying Afghan military units were quickly crushed owing to Soviet airpower and ground troops, resistance continued in the country against this occupation. By the start of the eighties the Soviet Union was controlling the urban parts of Afghanistan but could not control the countryside.

In order to subdue the population, a deliberate Soviet strategy was pursued to utterly decimate villages and rural areas that were outside their control. Afghans that did not flee were killed by Soviet aerial attacks, ground assaults, and bombardments of these civilian areas. In total it is estimated that about 1.5 million Afghans died during this conflict.

When the West, as well as China and Muslim countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, provided support to the loosely organized mujahideen, it was in reaction to this ongoing national trauma that the Afghans were enduring.

Anybody who reads about the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and its aftermath will quickly note parallels with Russia’s involvement in Syria today. There are even stark similarities to the way Assad’s army is dealing with the Syrian revolution. This is hardly surprising owing to the fact that Syria’s army, like that of most Middle Eastern potentates, relies heavily on Soviet and Russian military tactics and training, as well as weapons.In Syria today large swathes of the country that are outside the regime’s control are rendered uninhabitable and indiscriminate attacks on civilian centres have resulted not only in massive casualties but an enormous refugee problem.

Continued Russian assistance and diplomatic cover for Assad’s brutalization of the Syrian people, and with the direct support of Iran and the Shiite militia Hezbullah, parallels with the Soviet Union’s meddling in Afghan affairs over three decades ago.
Granted, the instability in Afghanistan resulted in the rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda, but it is disingenuous to suggest that the West created these monsters to defeat Communism and then forgot about them. Arguably, the real mistake of the West in Afghanistan was not that stinger missiles were given to the Afghan mujahideen, but that the mujahideen were left alone to pick up the pieces of the Soviet invasion of their country. They were abandoned, and when the ferocious Taliban arose to take over the country in 1992 they strung up the country’s president, Muhammad Najibullah, from a lamp post. Ironically Najibullah had himself been a member of the PDPA and would later become the head of the Afghan equivalent of the secret police.  His death marked the final nail in the coffin for the Soviet Union’s adventure in Afghanistan, but the final dismemberment of the Afghan mujahideen that had fought the Soviet Union’s occupation happened on the eve of 9/11, when the Taliban assassinated the charismatic Ahmed Shah Masoud.

Shah Masoud was an engineering graduate from Kabul university who rose to prominence fighting against the Soviet Union and who rejected the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islam. People today ignorantly equate the mujahideen who fought the Soviets with the Taliban, ignoring the fact that the remnants of the mujahideen were themselves targeted by the Taliban and eventually destroyed. If anything, we can see in Masoud’s death a severance with an Afghanistan that was a normal country, and its final descent into the madness we now see it in.

Rather than helping the mujahideen that had fought the Soviet Union to a standstill to consolidate and help in maintaining the cohesion of the country, the West left them to their own devices. The abandonment of Afghanistan by the West following the Soviet withdrawal also created the vacuum that allowed the “Afghan Arabs” to coagulate into al Qaeda, and from here the rest of the story is known.
Conclusion

The death of Ahmed Shah Masoud is highly symbolic because it marked the  severance of Afghanistan from its “normal” past, a time when the country had functioning universities and government structures. We have not reached that point yet in Syria, but if Assad is allowed to continue his scorched earth policy, a policy inspired directly by the Soviet treatment of Afghanistan, then that link will be broken. Eventually Syria will run out of university graduates and defected professional soldiers willing to lead its rebellion, and we will reach a stage where we have angry religious men who cannot read continuing to fight for reasons they can no longer remember.
It was the Soviet Union which bore the ultimate responsibility for meddling in Afghan affairs, and for creating the conditions that allowed the Taliban to rise to power. Today Russia is doing the exact same thing when it meddles with Syria by aiding its dictator in crushing a popular rebellion and brutalizing the Syrian people.

Assad is responsible for the worst humanitarian crisis since the Cold War and he cannot be allowed to continue destroying the country with Russian and Iranian assistance. It is inconceivable that a regime like his be allowed to continue ruling the country for fear of an “Afghan alternative” when the reality is that aiding the Free Syrian Army will actually lead to the exact opposite. If we are going to make comparisons with Afghanistan, then we should at least do so for the right reasons, and with a clear understanding of history. To do otherwise will condemn us to repeat it.

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Syria: A Revolution Denied

Posted: 04 Jul 2013 05:56 AM PDT
Being democratically elected is not a mandate for riding roughshod over the rule of law. After all everybody knows that the Nazis were democratically elected and yet they unleashed the template for the state sanctioned horror that we are seeing in Syria today. So what are we to make of events in Egypt? My view is that it is both a military coup and a popular uprising against Morsi.

To say it is one or the other, or to pretend as if the Muslim Brotherhood dominated government in Egypt, democratically elected or not, is a victim, is to take a simplistic view of a complex region. There is no denying that in spite of whatever support he could claim, Morsi was deeply unpopular and the numbers and crowds on the street calling for him to go were remarkable. This movement was in the same spirit as the uprising which toppled the Mubarak regime, and as with Mubarak, it was the army which stepped in to remove the unpopular ruler. But the Egyptian generals are the king makers and they cannot themselves rule.

That Morsi or even ten more presidents after him would be toppled is hardly surprising after a period of revolution. There are going to be many more administrations that come and go in this way before the country settles into some form of normalcy, but this should not be taken as a bad thing. In fact it holds excellent lessons for Syrians who are working hard to topple Assad. The removal of a decades long regime is not alone the goal of the Arab spring, but the beginning of opportunity. To put it simply the removal of tyrants will not give people the jackpot but rather it will give them the opportunity to buy the lottery ticket – something they have long been denied.

There are plenty of Assad supporters, the same ones who cheered the protests in Turkey for all the wrong reasons, who think that this vindicates Assad and condemns the revolution in Syria. They are wrong. The Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups enjoy far less support in Syria than they do in Egypt, and if anything the toppling of Mursi shows us that when Assad goes then nobody will have the monopoly on rule anymore. When nobody has absolute power then compromises are necessary, and with Assad no longer able to bomb the country we will see Syrians returning from refugee camps, and civil society and coordination committees operating and communicating freely again. We will also see the kinds of protest scenes that Syrians have long looked to their Egyptian cousins at with envy.

Going back to Egypt, the Egyptian military is ruthless, secular and not to be trusted. It is simply playing a game of swapping heads around to find one that is more acceptable for the masses. But it is no contradiction to support the toppling of Morsi whilst also condemning the military coup that removed him. The battle in Egypt is one for the state, whilst in Syria we do not have a state. As such, the Egyptian army must maintain a some form of adherence to the Egyptian rule of law that everybody is trying to dominate. By contrast, we Syrians have neither a state nor a military institution but rather a private army and a regime to face. As such the unprecedented brutality and national trauma that we’re going through as we fight to remove our own dictator is far worse than anything the Egyptians have gone through. It doesn’t mean their fight is any easier, but it does mean that the forces they are fighting to wrest power from do have a grudging respect for the rule of law. This is probably the only thing stopping the Egyptian military from bombing parts of Cairo and imposing martial law.

This is explained partly because Egypt is an old state something that Egyptians have Muhammad Ali to thank for. Syria, on the other hand, remained under the Ottoman yoke for far longer and so we just didn’t get the experience of state building that the children of the Nile did.
Ironically for us the period of the French mandate did lay the groundwork for some form of a Syrian state, and it was Syrian nationalists who chafed against rule from Paris who laid the groundwork for the country’s independence and statehood through their struggle. The Syrian “Independence” flag of green white and black is today the symbol of that almost forgotten Syrian state and the struggle of our forefathers.

The start of the revolution against Assad might have been an attempt at regaining that national spirit, but this has now been sabotaged by Assad’s overwhelming brutalization of Syrians, causing some deep sectarian rifts to re-emerge. This regime survives by creating crises and then solving them. Denying it the ability to sustain the crisis it has created in Syria will again allow some type of Syrian state to emerge. To do this then his power must be destroyed. Alternatively Assad and his allies must be taught that any transgressions will have painful repercussions directly to him, his regime, and his inner circle unless he agrees to negotiate and abide by the rule of law.

That might all be idealistic to hope for but it is realistic to demand. Until that happens Syrians will continue to look on in envy at the incredible scenes of public protest in Egypt, scenes that they were just starting to get used to before their revolution was denied them.

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