Squaring up on Syria

With Egypt stepping into the Syrian quagmire, Shia-Sunni rivalries are increasing as a result of the Syrian civil war, writes Salah Nasrawi

With Syria's civil war degenerating into a sectarian showdown, tensions are building across the Middle East over its fallout, with growing signs that key regional players are increasingly taking sides in the conflict.

Regional rivalries over Syria's protracted war, which is pitching the country's Sunni majority against the minority Alawite-dominated regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, is complicating the conflict and raising alarms about its potential for Middle East instability.

New signs have emerged that Iraq and Iran are now teaming up to increase their help to the embattled Al-Assad regime, in stark contrast with Egypt, whose newly installed Islamist leadership is joining other Arab Sunni governments in seeking to get rid of the Syrian regime.

Last week, the Iraqi Shia-led government and Iranian leaders renewed pledges to support Al-Assad, who is facing a mostly Sunni uprising backed by Sunni governments in Turkey and the Gulf.

The new development came after Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi announced that Al-Assad had "lost legitimacy" in his fight to crush the 17-month-old revolt and bluntly called on him to go.

Mursi, a senior leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim Sunni world's most powerful Islamist organisation, stunned his Iranian hosts at a Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran last Thursday by likening the uprising in Syria to the struggle of the Palestinians.

That contradicts the line put out by Iran and Iraq, who have resisted efforts to oust Al-Assad and fear that the fall of the Alawite-dominated regime in Syria would embolden the country's Sunnis and upset the region's shaky sectarian geopolitics.

In response, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose Shia nation is Al-Assad's main ally, described the anti-Assad uprising as "a proxy war" waged by governments that "provide money and arms to irresponsible groups."

Syria and its allies accuse Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey of giving financial support and arms supplies to the armed insurgent groups on the ground in Syria. The three countries are reportedly running a clandestine base in Turkey that is working to topple Al-Assad.

Khamenei, who appeared to criticise Mursi for being too harsh on Al-Assad, said the Syrian uprising was led by the United States "with the aim of serving the interests of the Zionists against the resistance in the region."

In a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki who had traveled to Iran to participate in the summit, Khamenei said Iran, which has assumed the presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement, and Iraq, which holds the presidency of the Arab League, can play effective roles in resolving regional issues.

In addressing the summit, Al-Maliki submitted a plan to end the conflict in Syria based on a halt to the violence and the formation of a national unity government that could include Al-Assad.

Under the plan, the Syrian regime would negotiate with opposition groups and elections would take place under international and Arab League supervision.

The proposal rejected foreign military intervention, included an agreement by all parties in Syria to end the violence, and incorporated calls for all countries to "stop interfering in Syria's internal affairs."

Iraq, which shares a 375-mile (600-kilometre) border with Syria, has repeatedly cautioned that the crisis in Syria could spill over into other regional and neighbouring states if they do not work seriously to stop the violence and promote talks.

Last month, Iraq's military dispatched additional troops to tighten border controls with Syria in an attempt to staunch the spillover from the Syrian crisis. Thousands of Sunni Muslim fighters, including Al-Qaeda jihadists from Iraq, are believed to be fighting alongside the rebels in Syria.

They are widely expected to turn their guns against Shia-ruled Iraq once the Al-Assad regime has been removed in Syria.

Fearful of the potential rise of a hard-line Sunni regime next door, Iraq's Shia groups are reportedly rearming in southern Iraq. Reports in the local media suggest that Iraqi Sunni groups are setting up a "Free Iraqi Army" that would be ready to operate following Al-Assad's downfall.

Several top Shia religious leaders have also issued fatwas, or religious rulings, banning their followers in southern Iraq from selling their weapons after local media reports said there have been massive transfers of weapons to Syrian opposition groups throughout the area.

These are unconfirmed reports, but they send chilling signs of how ugly the Syrian conflict could turn out to be.

The new wrangling that involves Iraq, Iran and Egypt shows how sharply different visions of Syria's future could increase polarisation and fan the flames of religious tension in the region.

For now, the row could forestall proposals made by Mursi earlier to end the conflict in Syria that would include Iran together with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The quartet idea was seen as a good option for resolving the conflict, as it seemed to transcend the regional sectarian divide. However, it is far from guaranteed to succeed because both Al-Assad and his opponents see victory as the only desirable outcome in Syria.

Though it was hazy on many details, the idea meant that Mursi should have worked much more actively in order to win Iran's cooperation in mediating an end to the Syrian crisis that would avoid terrible sectarian conflict in the region.

Moreover, Mursi's efforts were hoped to bring the region's crucial Sunni and Shia players together as events in Syria unfold, especially with a view to the aftermath of the crisis.

The initiative was hailed by many inside and outside Egypt as a major diplomatic bid by Egypt's first elected president and first Islamist leader to recapture Egypt's leadership that many believe had been ceded to Saudi Arabia and even the tiny Gulf emirate of Qatar.

Now Mursi has backed himself into a corner in Syria, and there are few good options for a breakthrough as regional and international diplomacy scrambles to contain the violence and keep the conflict from spilling across borders.

Given that his plan for regional mediation had little chance to succeed, it's hard to know whether by annoying Iran and Iraq in his Tehran speech Mursi has changed his calculus on Syria.

By slamming Al-Assad and berating Shia Iran for its support of the regime, Mursi seems to have been appeasing many of his own sceptics. Turkey had been cautious about his overture, apparently for fear that it could undermine its own assumed leadership role in the crisis.

It was also always doubtful that Saudi Arabia would sit down with its arch enemy, Shia Iran, while Washington had killed off a previous bid to involve Iran by the UN's former Syria envoy Kofi Annan.

Inside Egypt, Sunni Muslim Salafis who do not hide their hatred of Shias and staunchly support efforts to oust Syria's Alawite regime were quick to welcome Mursi's denunciation of Al-Assad.

Whatever the calculations may be, Mursi seems to have shot down his own Syrian initiative and probably lost his chance to reassert Egypt's role as a key Middle Eastern player.

That could give a new push to regional polarisation. Some Iranian officials have warned that Tehran, which has signed a military cooperation pact with Damascus, will do what ever it takes to prevent Al-Assad's downfall.

By floating his spoiler plan that includes Al-Assad in the resolution of the Syrian conflict, Iraq's Al-Maliki is showing his solidarity with Al-Assad. Lebanon's Shia group Hizbullah has also showed strong backing for the Syrian leader.

In the meantime, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar continue to fund arms for the Syrian opposition. None of this augurs well for a breakthrough in the standoff in Syria, or for Middle Eastern sectarian harmony.

With each camp throwing its weight behind one of the warring parties in Syria, the region looks to be plunging into a sharper divide than ever along sectarian lines.

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The joint special envoy in Syria

It was among the most high profile jobs in diplomacy. Now it's like a curse, writes Graham Usher at the UN

Nearly a week after his name was first linked to the job Lakhdar Brahimi, former Algerian foreign minister and veteran UN troubleshooter, has yet to confirm whether he would be Kofi Annan's successor as the Arab League and UN's special envoy to Syria. He "hasn't said yes or no" said Ahmed Fawzi, Annan's spokesman, on 14 August. He added that Syria had agreed to Brahimi as the new Arab League mediator in the Syrian conflict.

Brahimi's caution is understandable. From a position that was once amongst the most prestigious (if toughest) in the diplomatic firmament the joint special envoy for Syria has become amongst the most onerous. "Why would anyone want to take the job?" asked one analyst.

The doubters include Brahimi himself apparently. Before he was tapped for the position by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, the Algerian was reportedly telling associates that he envisioned the Syrian conflict as a protracted civil war that could last "years". Since he became a contender, the reservations have only deepened, say UN diplomats.

He reportedly told Ban and Arab League chief Nabil El-Arabi that he was concerned by the deadlock on the Security Council over Syria. If he takes the job, he would expect "strong support" from its 15 member states and, according to one source, the "same conditions" as Annan.

Among the conditions Annan mooted was the threat of sanctions to strengthen a council resolution on Syria. It proved a wholly divisive request. Russia and China vetoed the resolution. And the US and Western states have since viewed as futile any attempted action against Syria at the Security Council. It was the last of several schisms that eventually forced Annan to resign as special envoy. There is no reason to think Brahimi would fare any better.

What does Brahimi want with the position? In what so far has been his only public statements about Syria (posted on the website of the Elders, a group of retired statesmen and women committed to peace and human rights), he wrote:

"The UN Security Council and regional states must unite to ensure that a political transition can take place as soon as possible. Millions of Syrians are clamouring for peace. World leaders cannot remain divided any longer over and above their cries."

As for Syria it "must come together as a nation in the quest for a new formula. This is the only way to ensure that all can live together peacefully, in a society based not on fear of reprisal but on tolerance".

These are admirable sentiments. They are also almost verbatim the Annan peace plan: his vision, based on Security Council resolutions, where a UN observer force in Syria monitors first a ceasefire then a Syrian led "transition" to a new political order.

That plan was wrecked by the Syrian civil war but also by the "divided" world powers which refused to trade compromise for their own regional imperatives of regime change (on the part of the US and the West) and regime protection (on the part of Russia and China).

The last piece of the Annan peace plan will probably come to rest on 19 August. The Security Council is expected to let the UN observer mission in Syria expire. The conditions for its renewal -- namely a major reduction in violence and withdrawal of the Syrian army's heavy weaponry from city centres -- "have not been achieved" acknowledged Ban in a letter to the 15 members of the Security Council on 10 August.

Sources say the observer mission may be replaced by a UN political mission or a "political liaison office" attached to the special envoy. The secretary-general wants "en effective and flexible UN presence in Syria", he wrote, not only to "work towards ending the hostilities" but, "where possible and agreed, to support the Syrians in taking the steps they identify towards a negotiated and inclusive political settlement".

Would such a role appeal to Brahimi? Unlike Annan's special envoy he would not be kingmaker, staking out the terms of a new Syria. The special envoy here would be a gatekeeper, keeping the UN flame alive in Syria until either one side in the civil war is victorious or both are so bloodied that, they accept a UN rescue out of exhaustion.

Brahimi lacks the stature of Annan. But he's no lightweight. He has a muscular diplomatic history in Algeria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq and South Africa. Being a bit player on the sideshow of a war that, by his own admission, could last "years" may not be his cup of tea. On the other hand, at 78, it may be only the diplomatic swansong he is likely to get.

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Crime in Syria, Reading in New York, and 'Into the Woods'

Now that The New York Times pay wall is live, you only get 10 free clicks a month. For those worried about hitting their limit, we're taking a look through the paper each morning to find the stories that can make your clicks count.

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Sports: In these Olympics, Jeré Longman writes, "perhaps no single day was more crowded with drama and record achievement than Thursday." 

Opinion: Ta-Nehisi Coates writes "when people invoke culture in the Romney manner, what they are really invoking is a scale by which humanity may be ranked from totally dysfunctional to totally awesome." 

Theater: Ben Brantley reviews Amy Adams and others in Shakespeare in the Park's Into the Woods. 

Movies: A.O. Scott on The Campaign, which he says is "a fun-house fable that both exaggerates and understates the absurdities of our democracy in this contentious election year."

Art & Design: Roberta Smith reviews the Museum of Modern Art retrospective of "experimental animators" the Quay Brothers. 

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Syria at the tipping point?

Recent developments have favoured the revolution in Syria even as the regime has escalated its ferocity and violence, writes Bassel Oudat in Damascus From top: a vehicle turns to rubble at the Damascus district of Qaboun; the funeral procession of Marwan Refaai Nasser in Homs, Syria, Sunday

After the bombing of the headquarters of the Syrian National Security Office that killed at least four senior military and security officers leading the regime's crisis management cell, battles between the regular army and the revolutionary Free Syrian Army (FSA) broke out in the capital Damascus and in Aleppo, the country's second-largest city.

Army units loyal to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad used field artillery and helicopters to bombard locations where the revolutionaries were concentrated and opposition strongholds in lower-class districts in both cities, causing the protesters to make a tactical withdrawal from some areas.

However, this did not stop advances in other areas, especially near the border in the north and east of the country. Syrian revolutionaries seized control of two border crossings between Syria and Iraq and three out of five border crossings between Syria and Turkey. Fierce battles took place when opposition fighters attempted, but failed, to take control of the single border crossing with Jordan.

The opposition said that many towns in the northeastern Kurdish region of Syria had fallen into the hands of the revolutionaries without any fighting as the central government's power continues to erode. The FSA said that its forces were now in control of most Aleppo districts and that the economic capital of the country could be liberated within days.

Meanwhile, defections from the ranks of the regular army have been continuing, enhancing the capacities of the FSA, which is composed of defectors from the regular army and civilian volunteers. Sources in the armed revolutionary brigades said that the FSA now possessed armour-piercing weapons and that portable anti-aircraft weapons were "on their way".

The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) described the battles that began last week in Damascus and Aleppo as "a critical step and foundation for the regime's demise". However, it also expected "a further round of bloodshed in Syria because the regime will not surrender easily."

The regime's military fourth division has participated extensively in recent battles in Damascus under the leadership of Maher Al-Assad, the president's younger brother, whom the opposition views as a primary advocate of the military crackdown and the most ferocious in using violence to suppress the protesters.

Observers say that the intervention of the fourth division in the capital indicates that the president's brother is now becoming more involved after the deaths of the minister of defence, the director of national security and the president's brother-in-law, all members of the regime's crisis management cell.

After the deaths of these men, there were reports that Moscow would be prepared to grant the Syrian president and his family political asylum if he stepped down and rumours that Al-Assad and his family had already fled the country.

Russia's Foreign Ministry denied the reports, with Israel confirming that Al-Assad was still in Damascus, where the armed forces remained loyal to him. Sources familiar with the Syrian leadership said there was no reason for Al-Assad to flee at this point, though there have been reports that some members of his family are in Russia, including Khaled Mohamed Makhlouf, a businessman who participates in political decision-making.

The escalating battles on the ground last week triggered a variety of Arab and international reactions, most notably European, Arab and Russian statements to the effect that moves may now be afoot behind the scenes to bring the end of the regime closer.

Statements by Russia's ambassador to Paris Alexander Orlov were perceived by some observers as indicating that an agreement could be in the offing that would resolve the crisis and would not guarantee that Al-Assad remained in power.

"It is difficult to imagine that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad will remain in power?ê? he will leave," Orlov told the French Le Parisien newspaper in an interview on Friday. "I think he understands that, but it must be organised in a civilised manner, like in the case of Yemen."

The Russian diplomat did not change his statement despite strong criticism by the Syrian leadership and attempts to distort his words. On Sunday, he made the same statement again even more clearly during an interview with Radio France International.

"Al-Assad's approval of the Geneva Agreement means that he agrees to leave," Orlov said, explaining that the Agreement "outlines the start of a process for the transition of the current president's powers to a transitional government that represents all political forces."

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called on the Syrian opposition to organise in preparation to take power in the country. "The time has come to prepare for the transitional phase and beyond," Fabius said, adding that France hoped "that an interim Syrian government is formed quickly and is representative of all sectors of Syrian society."

He also supported efforts by the Arab League in this direction. After a meeting of the foreign ministers of the latter earlier this week in Qatar, the Arab states offered al-Assad safe passage out of the country if he stepped down and called on the Syrian opposition and FSA to hold consultations on a transitional government.

The Arab League also offered to give $100 million to care for Syrian refugees.

Syria's Foreign Ministry immediately rejected the proposals, describing them as "blatant interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state". It added that it was unfortunate that the League had "regressed to such an unethical level" in dealing with one of its founding members. The Arabs "instead of helping Syria are making the situation worse," it said.

"If a transitional government is formed to run the country, its tenure should not be longer than 18 months," said Haitham Manaa, chair of the opposition Coordination Committee of Forces for Democratic Change, in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly. "It should prepare for democratic elections that would establish a democratic state."

Manaa added that "if Al-Assad steps down or is removed, then all the figures of his regime should also go. The Syrian opposition rejects the compromise solutions that are on the table now. We want to prosecute regime figures who are responsible for killing Syrians or have participated in or planned or ordered these operations."

"We also want to prosecute figures from the al-Assad regime who have committed economic crimes."

Commenting on the deaths of a number of members of the old guard surrounding Al-Assad and who have participated in planning military operations, Manaa said that "it is clear that there are disputes among the regime's leaders, because there is no central security agency or military leaders for the entire military institution."

"Today, we are seeing discrepancies in the security apparatus that once appeared to be monolithic."

"I believe the Al-Assad regime now realises that there is a countdown to its ending, but will regime members involved in the killing leave the country to stem the bloodshed and end the violence, putting the country in the hands of honourable people accepted by both the regime and the opposition? This is the critical question we should ponder today."

Meanwhile, the international community has been scrambling to keep up with the developments in Syria, but it is too early to tell if Russia has begun to change its posture of supporting the Syrian regime. However, it does seem to have started to nuance its support for Al-Assad and other key players.

The opposition fears that the regime may become more ferocious as it loses control on the ground, believing that the government's admission that it possesses chemical weapons could be an implicit threat. However, it remains confident that the regime cannot remain in power forever and it is determined to use all possible means to overthrow it.

Developments are moving quickly in Syria, with the regime escalating the military crackdown against the revolution and the number of civilians killed in Damascus alone climbing to more than 100 every day.

This alone may indicate that Al-Assad will not agree to step down and hand over power as suggested by the Arab proposals, European hopes and Russian expectations.

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Final scene in Syria

Learning from the region's other violent uprisings, it is perhaps time for the Arab League to step into the Syrian drama, with armed forces if need be, writes Abdel-Moneim Said

It is difficult to say whether the appalling violence in Syria will still be raging by the time this article appears, or whether events will have reached their inevitable conclusion with the death, flight or disappearance of President Bashar Al-Assad and the beginning of a new Syrian era.

The final scene in the Syrian epic opened with the bombing that did away with half the country's defence and security leaders. Most likely this "qualitative operation" will not turn out to be the Syrian version of the German Valkyrie operation, in which a number of senior German officers plotted to assassinate Hitler, and which marked the beginning of the end of the Nazi regime, even though the war continued for another year. However, the Syrian regime will ultimately meet the same fate, and when it falls Syria will embark on a new phase in its history. Not that the next phase, which in the literature of the Arab Spring is called the "transitional stage", will be any less difficult and dangerous than its predecessor.

It is now possible to identify some patterns to the revolutions in the countries of the so-called Arab Spring. For example, countries with a strong state and professional army produced the pattern that was seen in Tunisia and Egypt, where the revolution ended quickly, the regime fell but the state remained intact, and then the diverse political players, inclusive of the state, engaged in a protracted haggling process as they struggled to rebuild the state on new foundations. A different pattern emerged in countries where the state was weak, the army not as professional, and both were divided into forces of roughly equal strength on the basis of tribal affiliation. In this case, after some bloodshed and due to the fear that it would escalate into civil war, the concerned parties reached the "Yemeni solution", which is to say the departure of the president and his clique while the regime remains virtually the same, but with some democratic modifications.

Countries in which power was monopolised by an ethnic or ideological group, or by a monolithic state party or by a leader that believed he is possessed divine rights over his people, gave rise to the third pattern. Here madness prevailed over wisdom and the country was plunged into civil war and massive bloodshed, which only came to an end when the revolutionary army entered the capital in a scene that culminated in a combination of jubilant triumph with the death or execution of the leader and bleak images of destruction, this being the toll to be paid for the overthrow of a tenacious fascist regime. Libya and Syria, at present, typify this model.

The fourth pattern occurs in countries where the state is cohesive but fearful of revolution and, simultaneously, unable to make the necessary reforms to avert it. Such a situation generates a climate of permanent anxiety peppered by intermittent revolutionary events and periodic eruptions of short-lived violence. Examples of this pattern are to be found in Sudan, Mauritania and Bahrain that, in spite of the considerable dissimilarities between them, have reached neither the spring of revolution nor the summer of stability.

As we noted, Syria falls into the third category. It has proven the most vicious and bloodiest of the lot, and it is also the most expressive of the prevalence of "Arab nationalist" fascism that exhibits an extraordinary degree of vanity and lunacy, which accounts for why the regime's reaction was so relentlessly brutal. Generally, in such cases, the state, the army and political society fragment and the head of state meets a tragic end. Iraq and Libya are the obvious precedents and, today, Syria is experiencing similar fissures. The Baathist state is crumbling as one member flees, another defects and others vanish. The national army has split into the regular forces and the free army. Society is divided between a majority that has suffered bitterly for decades and now feels that the time for revenge is at hand, and trembling minorities who had long thought that their protection from the majority was to be found in the embrace of a tyrannical regime and who now find themselves caught between choices each of which is more dire than the next.

One is struck by the fact that this type of regime was often a vociferous champion of the "Palestinian cause", deriving legitimacy from defending this cause against various international conspiracies. Unfortunately, more often than not "the cause" is one thing and the Palestinian refugees in the country are another. The latter are required to demonstrate their absolute loyalty to the regime as it remains steadfast in the fight to protect the cause. But when the hour of revolution strikes, which in this pattern bears little semblance to spring in view of the callousness that eventually coalesces in the face of a ruthless regime, the Palestinians become victims of a momentous plight: on one side is the regime that believes that it is only logical for the Palestinians to support it; on the other are the revolutionaries who believe that they have paid far too much for a cause that defies all solutions and for a people that always finds a home in the ranks of tyrannical regimes. The inevitable consequence is another exodus of the Palestinian people, as occurred in Iraq and in Libya. Already, in Syria, at least 300 Palestinians have been killed, even before the fall of Damascus, by bullets from the regime and the revolutionaries.

Yet, this is almost a sideshow, as tragic as it is. The real show will come the moment that the Syrian Free Army marches into Damascus, for this moment will be as epoch-making as the entrance of the Arab army into Damascus at the end of the Great Arab Uprising, or the culmination of the wave of Syrian coups d'êtat with the rise of Baath Party rule in 1971 and Hafez Al-Assad's "corrective movement" whose four decades of correction succeeded only in entrenching a horrifying fascist dictatorship and hereditary rule.

Will Syria experience another Tripoli or Baghdad? Will the march to Damascus turn into a search for the remnants of the regime that are abandoning ship like rats and fleeing in all directions as the people are gripped by a collective frenzy in which murder and mutilated corpses quench their thirst for vengeance against the tyranny of prisons and torture? At the time of writing, the regime is bombarding Damascus from all directions, as though it had never been its proud capital. One is reminded of the last days of Hitler, before his suicide, when he vented his wrath against Berlin and the German people. Wrath is also frequently the name of the game for revolutionaries when revolution can find no other ending but the violent fall of the regime and the capital.

What one hears from the leaders of the Syrian revolution is heartening: All will be well. Rule of law will prevail. The majority and the minorities will unite on a foundation of equal citizenship. There will be a new democratic constitution that will establish justice and the peaceful rotation of authority. The people will be happy and enjoy the fruits of their many resources. That is what we hope for the Syrian people, of course, but it is a hope that is difficult to sustain in light of previous similar cases in the region. Perhaps Syria will set a precedent, but it seems wise to be prudent from the outset. In view of its experience to date with the Syrian crisis and in light of what it may have learned from the Libyan crisis, the Arab League should consider establishing a political presence in Damascus, and even a military one if necessary, in order to ensure the peaceful transfer of authority. The task would not be an easy one, if the Arab League summoned the resolve to undertake it, but one still reserves the right to entertain high hopes.

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