By Roger Simon
In his article “The Revolt of Islam in Syria” (Jerusalem Post,
December 12), Jonathan Spyer — senior fellow at the GLORIA Center —
points out compelling information about the new Western-backed
leadership in Syria.
The bottom line: if this is Syria’s new government, then Syria now has an Islamist regime.
This is happening with the knowledge and collaboration of the Obama
administration and a number of European governments. It is a
catastrophe, and one that’s taking place due to the deliberate decisions
of President Barack Obama and other Western leaders. Even if one
rationalizes the Islamist takeover in Egypt as due to internal events,
this one is U.S.-made.
As Spyer points out, U.S. and European policy can be summarized as follows:
To align with and strengthen Muslim Brotherhood-associated elements, while painting Salafi forces as the sole real Islamist danger. At the same time, secular forces are ignored or brushed aside.
The new regime, recognized by the United States and most European
countries as the legitimate leadership of the Syrian people, is the
Syrian National Coalition, which has also established a military
council.
Spyer’s detailed evidence for these arguments — much of which comes
from raw wire service reports, for which praise is due to Reuters in
this case — is undeniable. And if we know about these things, there is
no doubt that the highest level of the U.S. government does as well.
Why is this happening? Because Obama and others believe that they can
moderate the Muslim Brotherhood and this will tame the Salafists,
despite massive evidence to the contrary. This is going to be the
biggest foreign policy blunder of the last century, and the cost for it
will be high. It should be stressed: such a strategy is totally
unnecessary; the alternatives have been ignored; and the real moderates
are being betrayed.
Here is some of the proof for these assertions:
– “The founder of the Free Syrian Army, former Syrian Air Force
Colonel Riad Asaad, is notably absent [from the leadership]. General
Mustafa al-Sheikh, the first of his rank to defect to the rebels, is
also not there. Sheikh is known for his fierce opposition to the Muslim
Brotherhood. Hussein Haj Ali, the highest ranking officer to defect so
far, was similarly absent.” These men are all anti-Islamists.
– “A Reuters report on the new joint military council calculated that
the Muslim Brotherhood and their allies account for about two-thirds of
the 263 men who met in Antalya and formed the new body. Salafi
commanders are also there.” In other words, the Islamists will get the
overwhelming share of weapons provided under U.S. sponsorship, Turkish
oversight, and Qatari and Saudi financing. And the United States has not
objected to the arming of Salafist super-extremists as long as they
aren’t affiliated to al-Qaeda.
– “The new council is headed by Brigadier Selim Idriss, who is
described as a non-ideological military man. But his deputies,
Abdel-basset Tawil of Idleb and Abdel-Qader Saleh of Aleppo governate
are associated with the Salafi trend.” In other words, there’s a
non-Islamist front man for what will be an Islamist-controlled army.
– “The domination by the Muslim Brotherhood of the new military
council mirrors the movement’s leading position in the new civilian
leadership body — the Syrian National Coalition. The leader of this
coalition is Ahmed Mouaz al-Khatib, former Imam of the Umayyad Mosque in
Damascus.
“Khatib is closely associated with the Damascus Branch of the Muslim
Brotherhood. The leader of the new coalition has a long history of
anti-Semitic, anti-Western, and anti-Shia remarks. (He praised Saddam
Hussein, for example, for “terrifying the Jews” and wrote an article
asking if Facebook was an “American-Israeli intelligence website.”) He
is also an admirer of the Qatar-based Muslim Brotherhood preacher Sheikh
Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
– “Within the body headed by Khatib, the Muslim Brotherhood dominated
Syrian National Council controls around 27 of the 65 seats on the
executive body of the new coalition. There are also Islamists and fellow
travelers among the non-SNC delegates. The Brotherhood is by far the
best organized single body within the coalition. One secular delegate at
the first full meeting of the coalition accused the MB of `pushing more
of its hawks into the coalition, although it already has half of the
seats.’”
Let me add two other points:
– The U.S. government backed the previous opposition “leadership,”
the Syrian National Council, which was formed as a result of American
initiative operating through Islamist Turkey. The fact that this council
had a Muslim Brotherhood majority in the leadership did not deter the
Obama administration from proclaiming it to be the address for support.
Only when the council had clearly failed — and despite the fact that
months earlier several moderates had resigned complaining about
Brotherhood domination — did the U.S. government change strategy to
organizing a new, yet also Muslim Brotherhood-dominated group.
– American intelligence agents in southern Turkey supervise the
handover of weapons to the rebels. They make no attempt to stop arms
from going to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists while they make
no attempt to funnel the guns to moderates. The only restriction is that
they not go to al-Qaeda-affiliated Salafists.
One day, those guns will be used to commit unspeakable atrocities
against Christians and other minority groups just as they will be used
to install an Islamist regime and to kill or intimidate its opponents.
How has the United States handled this threat?
Well, it declared one Salafi group off-limits, because it is linked to al-Qaeda. That’s it.
As Spyer points out, there has been and still is an alternative: for
the West to back non-Islamist leaders, including liberals, Arab
nationalists, and Kurdish nationalist forces. Such a strategy was not
pursued either in Egypt or in Tunisia.
So when Syria gets an anti-Western, anti-Semitic, and anti-democratic
(aside from holding elections) regime, don’t be surprised. You can read
it in the surprised and grudging admissions of the Western mass media a
year or two after this regime takes power, or you can know about it
right now.
This outcome might have been inevitable anyway — but I don’t think
that’s true. A vigorous policy of supplying non- and anti-Islamist
forces while doing nothing to help the Brotherhood and Salafist
militias, plus the formation of a non-Islamist dominated political
grouping that would receive Western aid could have produced a very
different result.
But Western policy, and especially Obama administration policy, is
now putting into power yet another anti-Western regime that will oppress
its own people and put a high priority on trying to wipe out Israel.
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