Syria faces neo-mujahideen
struggle By Victor Kotsev
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may have
won a battle earlier this year (as the retreat of
the Free Syrian Army from the ruined city of Homs
testifies), but he is nowhere near winning the
war. The uprising is quickly turning into a
full-scale insurgency - a foreign-sponsored
insurgency, to be more precise, which some
analysts term a "neo-mujahideen strategy".
After Saturday's unanimous vote, the lines
at the United Nations Security Council have
blurred somewhat: Resolution 2043, introduced by
Russia, authorized the sending of 300 unarmed
military observers to supervise the implementation
of the latest peace plan spearheaded by United
Nations peace envoy and former secretary general
Kofi Annan.
By most accounts, however,
this is no more than a token gesture, which will
not stop the bloodshed, but may win some time for all
sides to regroup and to
shore up their strategy. The status quo is clearly
unsustainable, but an ominous silence, at least as
concerns the next big moves, has set in.
On the ground, state lines have blurred as
well - although not officially, at least not yet.
The powers with the greatest stakes in the Syrian
conflict look at the map and increasingly appear
to see networks of ethnic and religious groups
scattered across a number of countries, rather
than the traditional state borders that nominally
define the space.
If a regime is too
strong militarily to be defeated from the outside,
it can be torn apart from the inside - yet this is
a game that requires great skill and caution, as
well as the micromanagement of an enormously
complicated web of regional relationships and
rivalries.
Neighboring countries, whose
populations have participated in these networks
for many years, typically have an edge in this
game over distant superpowers, but they also have
a lot more at stake in it. A mistake can cost them
dearly and can set the fire of identity conflict
to their own proverbial houses.
This logic
fits the situation Turkey finds itself in with
respect to Syria. The two countries were bitter
rivals for decades, though in the past years -
until last year's uprising - Ankara sought to
reassert itself on the Middle Eastern political
scene, and seemingly perceived Assad's regime as
its prized instrument for channeling influence
into the Arab world.
The Arab Spring put
paid to that, but Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan adjusted quickly and tried to
champion the cause of Syrian freedom, ostensibly
in hopes of winning even greater clout among the
Arabs in this way than his relationship with Assad
could ever have afforded him.
Since last
summer, the Turkish press has speculated that
Erdogan might order the army to create "buffer
zones" in its southern neighbor; [1] however, this
military option did not materialize, and currently
seems distant at best. It hinges, among other
things, on some unclear bargaining between the
United States and Turkey. According to a number of
reports, Turkey is asking for a strong American
and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
backing in any military operation in Syria.
While the precise meaning of this
"backing" is unclear, we can read this along the
lines of the Turkish request for US$26 billion in
exchange for letting the United States invade Iraq
from its territory in 2003. [2] Meanwhile, Turkey
has offered broad support to the Syrian
opposition, including bases on its own territory.
A different kind of military approach,
reportedly "backed" by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and
apparently sanctioned quietly by the United
States, is taking shape. James Traub, writing for
Foreign Policy Magazine, calls it "the
neo-mujahideen strategy":
One person I spoke to who does have
a plan is a former government official with
extensive experience in Syria. The opposition,
he argues, needs not just weapons but "a
comprehensive military and civilian battle plan"
to defeat Assad. He envisions a multilateral
effort in which the United States would provide
not just communications technology but real-time
military intelligence to help the rebels respond
to government troop movements. Gulf states would
provide the bulk of the weapons and funds; the
Jordanians might provide special forces to work
closely with the militia; Turkey would provide
the staging ground itself as well as other forms
of aid; and diplomats would give strategic
guidance to the SNC.
Such an effort
would look less like the bombing campaign in
Libya and more like, well, the US Central
Intelligence Agency-sponsored campaign to arm
and train the mujahideen who fought the Soviets
in Afghanistan. This is, of course, not a
terribly encouraging analogy, since yesterday's
anti-Soviet warriors became today's
anti-American Taliban. We need no better
reminder of the unintended consequences of
supporting foreign insurgencies.
However, he did not shy away from the
comparison. "We need to do what we did under
[former US president Ronald] Reagan," he said,
"which is to actively support these
insurgencies". But, he adds, we need to know who
we are working with, to set out clear standards
of behavior and to condition our help on
maintaining those standards - as we did not do
in Afghanistan. And we need to be careful that
the international effort doesn't exacerbate the
problem: The Saudis, for example, are likely to
bring an overtly sectarian agenda to Syria. The
effort would be better off with a bigger role
for the Turks, and a smaller one for the Saudis.
[3]
Such a strategy would seek to
wear out Assad's forces and deplete his war chest.
There are indications that it is already working:
according to a recent Reuters report, for example,
Syria has resorted to selling off its gold
reserves at steeply reduced prices, a sign of
desperation. [4]
His war machine is likely
starting to strain as well, and military
analysts point out that the ceasefire - however
imperfect, as shown by the continuing violence -
may be a welcome chance for him to regroup his
forces.
According to an expert cited in a
separate Reuters report, "It's demoralizing
conducting counter-insurgency operations, shelling
urban areas and having troops deploy away from
home ... These place enormous strains on armed
forces. And he has very limited numbers of elite
units that are available, so there are benefits to
his military strategy from the ceasefire." [5]
While Assad currently controls a
formidable force, equipped with sophisticated
Russian-made air defenses and ballistic missiles
tipped with chemical weapons, which acts as a
powerful deterrence against a foreign
intervention, it is likely that in the future his
grip on power will deteriorate. According to Syria
expert Joshua Landis,
I doubt he will have a lot more
success than the US has had in Iraq or
Afghanistan, although, his army probably
understands Syrians a lot better than US troops
and commanders did Iraqis. But they will likely
be provoked into over-reacting to terrorism,
road-side bombs and demonstrations as they have
already been. They can only lose the battle for
hearts and minds. The Alawites cannot regain the
battle for hearts and minds. They can only
instill fear and play on Syrian anxieties about
turning into a failed state, such as exists in
Iraq. That is what worked in the past for the
Assad regime. The regime has no new tricks up
its sleeve. Syrian State TV is now trying to
demonize the Saudi monarchy for being descended
from Jews and backwards. That says a lot about
the regime's tactics. [6]
It bears
noting that the full extent of the regime's
violence has yet to come to light, but according
to the latest United Nations statistics at least
9,000 have died since the start of the uprising.
The fragmentation of Syria under the
pressure of a cross-border insurgency promises
many more deaths; moreover, this strategy takes
away some of the glitter of big power diplomacy
and shifts the focus back on regional micro
dynamics. The United States - along with Russia,
China, and the European powers - lacks the
knowledge and long-standing relationships with the
countless groups and political interests on the
ground which regional powers such as Turkey, Saudi
Arabia and Iran have. This kind of leverage is
critical for micro managing an insurgency.
As an old cliche has it, the United States
is playing poker in the Middle East, while Iran is
playing chess. Assad is similarly playing chess,
and, moreover, is backed by Iran.
This
explains, in part, why Turkey is essential for
this strategy to work. However, it also poses
enormous problems for the Turks. The Syrian
conflict could easily spill over into Turkey: as
Soner Cagaptay observes, Turkish Alevis, who make
up between 10-15% of the population, could end up
supporting Assad. [7] Such support would probably be political rather than violent, yet, as Cagaptay notes, it may "complicate any international intervention against Assad's regime".
The Kurdish
insurgency is an even bigger thorn in the Turkish side,
and the Syrian regime's close ties with the
Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) serve as a reminder
to Erdogan that his country, too, could suffer
greatly by an insurgency. As MK Bhadrakumar
reported in Asia Times Online, Erdogan might be
trying to neutralize this threat by using his
relationship with Iraq's Kurds, but this is "a
tall order". [8]
More broadly, if a prolonged insurgency takes place in Syria, this would represent a new evolution for the Arab Spring (despite the sporadic use of similar tactics previously, including, more systematically, by the regime of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi). Needless to say, this is a dangerous shift, and it promises more bloodshed and greater regional fragmentation.
It is quite possible that the map of the Middle East will look different in the near future; new countries may well appear, and some may be reduced in size. We can anticipate a debate whether this fragmentation, and the accompanying bloodshed, is caused by a superpower vacuum (the United States scaling back its regional presence) or by malicious interference. If anything, the reliance on insurgency strategy and tactics - to further democratic processes, no less - would suggest the latter.
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