US Attack Will Prevent Mid East Coalition From Splintering
Saeed Naqvi
If the United States is so
convinced that the Bashar al Assad regime used chemical weapons on the
opposition in Syria, why is it not sharing the evidence with the UN, Vladimir
Putin, anybody?
Putin says he will support
military action against the regime if he sees clinching evidence that Assad
used chemical weapons. But Barack Obama will not oblige.
It is possible that Obama is
bluffing. But there is a bluff and there is a bluff. Deepawali is round the
corner and there will be that audacious gambler who will keep tossing chips
onto the table even if he, or she, has only one ace in his hand. But the
gambler will make nonsense of the game if, on a weak hand, he keeps moving
until the bank breaks and the Casino shuts down.
At this stage, the gambling
metaphor fails. Now another game begins, the game of Mind over Matter. It does
not matter what evidence Washington
has. Whatever the evidence, the entire American establishment is under great
pressure to find an excuse, (OK, let it be chemical weapons) to act militarily
in Syria .
What could this urgency be?
Completely out of character
with the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia
He has been darting around
from capital to capital like a globule of sodium on water. Sources suggest he
has been imploring Washington to give him a
month to alter the situation on the ground inside Syria ,
after which Moscow
can be brought into play towards some settlement.
He turned up in Moscow , held Putin’s hand
and said he would sign lucrative arms deals, give him all he wanted in oil,
gas, pipelines, new hydro carbon discoveries, pricing, the works. And, the
piece de resistance, Saudis would keep Chechen extremists on a tight leash so
that the Sochi Olympic Games can be held peacefully. “We control the Chechen
extremists”.
All this, and more would be
delivered unto Moscow if only Moscow
co-operated on Syria and
supported Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt . And, Bandar added, all that
he was laying out on the table had America ’s blessing. It was like
Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) claiming that whatever he said was as Allah’s
Messenger.
The distillate from Bandar’s
exertions in Moscow are: help us in Damascus and Cairo
and we shall give you the keys to paradise.
A revealing moment at the
heated hearing in the Republican controlled House of Representatives on Tuesday
was when Secretary of State, John Kerry turned to the bench behind him and
pointed to “Robert Stephen Ford, our ambassador in Syria ”.
In form and feature, face and
limb
One
Ford was like the other
For folks went taking him for
him
And
each for one another.
I rubbed my eyes with
disbelief. I could swear on oath that exactly a month ago I had seen John Kerry
appoint the very same Robert Stephen Ford as the ambassador to Cairo to replace Ambassador Anne Patterson
who had been too closely identified with Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim
Brotherhood.
What is happening is this. For
the Alif Laila world of West Asia (Middle East ),
Americans have identified a handful of Foreign Service officers who are a cross
between Arabists and the Special Services, a poor man’s T.E. Lawrence.
When Morsi was dramatically
ousted from Cairo ,
Ford it was who surfaced as Ambassador for the crisis. But as soon as Damascus needed urgent attention, he reverted to Damascus . There he was,
right behind Kerry at the Congressional hearing.
At the hearing, quite
inadvertently, Kerry gave the game away. He blurted out another name: Gen.
Salim Idris, who defected from the Syrian army last year and is now Chief of
Staff of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army. He told NBC News
on August 29 that the US Intelligence knows of his “sources” in Assad’s inner
circle. He has links with units working on chemical weapons. Idris and other
army defectors are therefore the rallying points for Western help which
includes military attack so that they can expand their influence on the ground
to be credible negotiators at Geneva II. Alternatively, they must excavate deep
into the Baathist structure and split it. All of this is easier said than done.
But, again that overwhelming
question. Why did Obama not act when the chemical weapons Red Line was crossed
earlier? Kerry explained to the Congressmen, because the President had not
changed his policy then.
That precisely is the point.
Why has Obama changed his policy now? What is the urgency?
The urgency arouse the day the
Saudis rushed in with $ 12 billion as a gift for Gen. Sisi for having toppled
the Muslim Brotherhood and a Saudi-Qatar split became imminent. The Brothers
are a Sunni version of the Ayatullahs in Tehran ,
both ideologically opposed to monarchies, a nightmare for the Saudis, jointly
or separately. Qatar , Hamas , Turkey
were a strong coalition of the Brothers focused on Syria and are now in disarray. As
it is Kerry was embarrassed at the hearing to list the “34 countries and
groups” supporting US
military action. Where has it fled, the Atlantic Alliance? “I shall give you a
written list” said Kerry, sheepishly.
A very real, regional
coalition for change in Syria
is about to splinter because of differences over Egypt . A joint military action
would be the glue to keep this coalition together.
That is why Bandar is counting
his worry beads. Obama, Hamlet like, is holding aloft a scroll of the Valliant
34, like Yorick’s skull: “To bomb or not to
bomb…..”
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