Are US And Russia Forming 5 New States In Middle-East? – Analysis
The Mideast map-redrawing ‘Act One’ has begun. Ba’athist/Alawite Syria, Sunni Syria, Kurdistan, Sunni Iraq and Shi’a Iraq are the first batch of new ‘states’ to be formed as the Obama Administration has finally accepted Russia’s role in preserving a Ba’athist Syrian state for the Alawis — the religious sect who makes up about 12% of Syria’s population and remains “loyal to the (Assad) regime even as the economy deteriorates” [Note 1].
Without some sort of compromise beforehand, it is common diplomatic sense that the Obama-Putin private meeting on September 29 could not have crystallized. The picture turned clear when Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, “standing shoulder to shoulder somewhere in the United Nations building” on September 30, announced their common vision of resolving Syria’s war through “political process”, thus sealing “an American stamp of legitimacy on Russia’s Syria intervention” [Note 2].
Ba’athist/Alawite Syria
After having hammered out the Iran deal in July, Washington has already been on a set-go position to redraw the Mideast map [Note 3]. What has probably speeded up the move is the rather sudden large influx of Muslim refugees flooding Europe’s heartland since early September. Despite Germany’s bravo opening of gates, it is beyond everyone’s imagination how the United States’ European allies could absorb, let alone assimilate, one to two million non-Christian immigrants. Consequently, such a gigantic pressure on the White House to “ease the humanitarian burden” [Note 4] on the allies’ shoulders is so unbearable to the extent that President Obama must drop the ideal of having “Bashar al-Assad and his supporters … forced from power” [Note 5] and then, as reported on Sept 23, “decided to meet with … Putin in New York, if it can be arranged, for their first face-to-face encounter in nearly a year” [Note 6], even though he still insisted Assad must go in his United Nations speech.
The Russian air strikes in Syria mean that Moscow is attempting to grab as much land as possible on Assad’s behalf during the transitional period which was probably agreed at the Kerry-Lavrov meeting in order to cultivate a fait accompli for the Alawite Syria with Damascus as its capital city. While it is uncertain whether Assad may step down or not, it seems the ruling Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party would stay in power.
Sunni Syria
The rationale behind President Obama’s reluctant but sensible acceptance of Russia’s direct intervention is very simple, namely, the Alawite-Sunni dichotomy. The in-power Alawis are a religious sectarian minority, whereas the Sunni Muslims comprise over 70% of the population. Since “the dominant Sunni tradition has always considered Alawites as infidels”, the (Ba’athist) regime, because of its secular character and the fact that it is dominated by members of the Alawite minority, never enjoyed any kind of religious legitimacy among Sunnis” [Note 7]. Given neither side can knock out each other after almost five decades, a quick fix before the Sunni Muslim refugee problem will get worse in Europe is to let both sides settle down in newly bordered territories in certain form of secession jointly masterminded by Obama and Putin.
On October 9, when the Washington officials revealed their plan “to assemble a group of Sunni tribes in a ‘Syrian Arab Coalition’ to fight alongside Syrian Kurdish forces against the Islamic State” [Note 8], there was no mention of fighting the Assad government. It is apparently a more mature plan to, after the compromise with Moscow, tailor-make a cradle for upbringing a Sunni political party with a view of governing a new Syrian state, hopefully with Aleppo as its capital city.
A peaceful co-existence between the two new regimes in Syria would gradually stabilize this war-torn country, thus not only alleviating the pain of the indigenous Sunni Syrians but also inducing those refugees being adrift in Europe to return home.
Kurdistan
The Kurds, despite bloodshed everywhere, benefit from the chaos in this region partly because they are no longer governed by Damascus as well as Baghdad, and partly because the “U.S. doesn’t trust anyone except the Kurds” [Note 9]. Although the 6.9 million Kurds living in Syria and Iraq have been disunited by different dialects (northern dialect in Syria vs Zaza and south-eastern dialects in Iraq) and political party affiliations (PUK, KDP and PKK), it has always been their common goal to have the “state of Kurdistan” (proposed by Treaty of Sèvres 1920) realized in the 21st century.
The major selling points to the White House for fostering a Kurdistan state (which will definitely become a faithful agent) are not simply to balance out the influence of Damascus and Baghdad but to place the increasingly disobedient Ankara and Riyadh in check and simultaneously insert an ethnical de-stabilizer inside Iran (4.7 million Kurds in Iran and 15 million in Turkey). With Washington’s trust and the continuous U.S. reinforcement, it would be just a matter of timing for the Kurds to turn their already de facto independence into a real sovereign state.
Sunni Iraq and Shi’a Iraq
The dangerous liaison between the post-Saddam Shi’a Iraqi administration and Tehran is certainly not in the interest of the United States. Strategically speaking, occupation of Mosul by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militias and thereafter, loss of nation-wide control by Baghdad may not be unwelcome by Washington.
As millions of Sunni Iraqis who are now living along Tigris River from Mosul to Takrit and Euphrates River from Anah to Fallujah are already beyond the reach of the Shi’a authority, a better choice to alienate them from the ISIL is self-government. Such a new Sunni Iraq could further trim the Shi’a government’s political and economic spheres of influence over the already delimbed Iraq after the Kurds’ departure.
A pragmatic reason for the necessary dissolution of Iraq is that the Western mode of democratic system may not function normally in a deeply ethnically- and/or religiously-divided country as voting for the same ethnic or religious group is usually highly binding on each citizen. The ‘tyranny of majority’ without protection for the minorities is very often the result of a series of elections, however open and fair they may be, over time. The inevitable outcome is non-stop sectarian confrontations and violence, thus feeding the extremists’ growth.
Negotiated secession as a political solution
The Obama Administration is co-leading with the Kremlin to help slice the Syria-Iraq area into five or more political states so as to “deconflict” [Note 10] this region and hopefully reduce the attractiveness of ISIL. China, who is eager to see restfulness in this region to facilitate its Silk Road projects, might have made some contribution to the U.S.-Russia deal, bearing in mind that President Obama happened to have several chats with Xi Jinping in Washington three days before his private meeting with Putin in New York on Sep 28. The Chinese foreign minister’s call for political solution to the Syrian crisis on Sep 30 therefore may not be just coincidence [Note 11]. Having garnered the endorsement of Russia and China, such a state formation project is unlikely to be vetoed at the United Nations Security Council meetings.
Down to earth, ascertaining how the Wahhabist Saudi Arabia and Shi’a Iran may participate in this Sunni-Shi’ite tug-of-war is not easy [Note 12] but what is sure is that, so long as the Arabian tribal traditions remain here, the national borders arbitrarily set by the Western powers during the colonial era to contain antagonistic clans inside a tent can do nothing but ignite fire. For long-lasting peace, with reference to the disintegration of Yugoslavia, why not apply the Platonic principle of “mind your own business” to let the various ethnic/religious groups find a habitat of their own to live their local socio-economic, cultural and political lives?
This article was also published at FPIF.
Notes:
[Note 1]
See p.7 in CRS Report, “Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview and U.S. Response”, Oct 9, 2015.
http://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33487.pdf
and p.22 in CRS Report, “Armed Conflict in Syria: U.S. and International Response”, Aug 20, 2012.
http://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33487.pdf
[Note 2]
See paragraphs 2 and 5 in:
Vox, “John Kerry just made a significant and consequential gaffe on Russia and Syria”, Sep 30, 2015.
http://www.vox.com/2015/9/30/9429039/syria-russia-kerry-lavrov
[Note 3]
FPIF, “Iran Nuclear Deal Redraws the Middle-East Map”, July 21, 2015.
http://fpif.org/iran-nuclear-deal-redraws-middle-east-map/
[Note 4]
This phrase “ease the humanitarian burden” can be seen in paragraph 8 in CNN, “John Kerry raises Syria no-fly zone despite Obama’s skepticism”, Oct 7, 2015.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/06/politics/john-kerry-no-fly-zone-syria-obama
[Note 5]
See p.1 in CRS Report, “Armed Conflict in Syria: U.S. and International Response”, Aug 20, 2012.
http://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33487.pdf
[Note 6]
See paragraph 1 in New York Times, “Amid Fresh Tension over Syria, Obama and Putin seek to meet”, Sep 23, 2015.
[Note 7]
See p.7 in Thomas Pierret (2013), “Religion and State in Syria: the Sunni Ulama from Coup to Revolution”, Cambridge University Press; and its footnote 4 quoting Yvette Talhamy, “The Fatwas and the Nusayri/Alawis of Syria”, Middle Eastern Studies 46, no.2 (2010), 175-94.
[Note 8]
See paragraph 22 in New York Times, “Obama Administration Ends Effort to Train Syrians to Combat ISIS”, Oct 9, 2015.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/world/middleeast/pentagon-program-islamic-state-syria.html
[Note 9]
See paragraph 26 in New York Times, “Obama Administration Ends Effort to Train Syrians to Combat ISIS”, Oct 9, 2015.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/world/middleeast/pentagon-program-islamic-state-syria.html
[Note 10]
This word can be found in paragraph 5 in:
Vox, “John Kerry just made a significant and consequential gaffe on Russia and Syria”, Sep 30, 2015.
http://www.vox.com/2015/9/30/9429039/syria-russia-kerry-lavrov
[Note 11]
Reuters, “China again calls for political solution to Syria”, Sep 30, 2015.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/30/us-mideast-crisis-china-idUSKCN0RU0FN20150930
[Note 12]
Business Insider, “Saudi Arabia just replenished Syrian rebels with one of the most effective weapons against the Assad regime”, Oct 9, 2015.
http://www.businessinsider.com/syria-rebels-and-tow-missiles-2015-10
Reuters, “Putin reaches out to Saudis”, Oct 11, 2015.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/11/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idUSKCN0S506F20151011
Mr. Hui is a retired financial engineer and now has become foreign policy engineer in writing this article which aims at downgrading Russia bombing of Terrorists. First, the policy of dividing Iraq and Syria into smaller states is Israeli made policy and published in 1982, and US foreign policy makers and politicians have adopted the view. The policy is not about the right of various ethnic groups as the author wrongly claims but it is about security of Israel and the domination of US monopoly capitalism to loot economic resources. Basically, Russia has nothing to do with this policy, and there are no indications that Russia is implementing this policy in Syria. It seems that Russia’s bombing is helping the Syrian regime to control the battle fields as terrorist groups are retreating. The Syrian Army is an excellent army and currently has all the power and incentives to fight back and advance to control Syria. This advancement is coupled with the supports of Hezab Allah, Iraq, and Iran, and some other Arab countries. Recently, even the Turkish government under the leadership of new Sultan is accepting the fact that the Syrian president can be involved in the so called political transition which has no time. It follows that important factors are tilting towards a unified Syria and near victory for the regime. So, why the current government will accept a tiny state? It just does not make sense. No retired financial engineer would give up a fortune for few dollars. Second, if US decides to establish a homeland for the Kurds, why did not the Americans do it in 1945? People know that in that year the Kurds were able to establish Mahabad Republic on some Iranian, not Iraqi, land. But that republic was destroyed by US and the Shah of Iran. The Kurd movement was also strong after 1958 in Iraq and was fighting against the Iraqi army until 1972. Then Kissinger made a deal with the Shah of Iran and Saddam by which the Kurd military forces dropped their weapons and surrendered to the Iraqi army. The mullah came to US and died in the Dakota area. That is to say, the Kurd movement has been used by imperial foreign forces for achieving their interests, not the Kurd interests. I am sure the Kurds know these issues very well. In addition, the Kurd state cannot function properly if it has no oil or the price of oil declines. It may be true to argue that if any Kurd state emerges, the Turkish and the Iranian governments will react strongly against that state and will occupy the Kurdish land. US cannot do anything. No one will get into war against Iran, because the country is very strong and loaded with weapons and military forces. A fact has to be mentioned here in that US spent half billion dollars to train five moderate fighters the fight against ISIL and the Syrian regime. It was called American politicians a ‘joke’ and no country can be divided by a ‘joke’. Finally, President Bush made a good statement in that you are either against us or against the terrorists. To be against Russia’a bombing in Syria actually means you are with the terrorists.
It is now 21st century and each stakeholder has new factors for tactical consideration.
[Kurdistan] One major problem to the White House is that it is not easy to send large number of ‘foot soldiers’ to the Middle East. Given the deep divide among the American public on sending troops abroad, seeing several U.S. solders beheaded by the ISIL on TV will generate a nation-wide storm to Washington. The Kurds are now acting on behalf of the U.S. to execute its military plans on ground and their role here is irreplaceable. They already have the major ingredients for forming a state — people, land, self-government — and what remains outstanding is the formal recognition by the United Nations.
[Syria] The Obama admin was keen on a complete regime change, similar to Afgan, Iraq, Libya and Tunisia. But the persistent Russian support and the recent drifting of refugees to Europe, as mentioned in my article, have forced Obama to back down. Since the 1960s, the Sunni Ulama has been resisting the Alawite minority government till now. There is no hope to maintain the territorial integrity of Syria. As shown in the U.S. CRS reports in my Note 1, a number of Anti-Asad forces have been in shape and a new coalition government on its land to be masterminded by Washington and Riyadh is inevitable. It is a deal both Moscow and Washington cannot afford to lose.
Please note that it is another sign of the slow but steady re-emergence of Plato’s ideal — mind your own business — in the 21st century to challenge the concept of “love your neighbor”. Thanks for your comment.