The Obama Administration’s Pro-Islamist Syrian Opposition “Leadership” is Collapsing
By Barry Rubin
Five months ago, I wrote here and here detailing how the U.S. government collaborated in creating an anti-American, Islamist-dominated leadership for the Syrian revolution. This leadership group, assembled by the Islamist Turkish regime as the Obama government’s subcontractor, failed immediately. Now it is collapsing openly.
Of the nineteen announced members of the top leadership, I explained, ten of them were Islamists, either Muslim Brotherhood or Salafist. A reliable Syrian opposition source tells me that two more members are secretly Islamist tools. This was far in excess of the proportion of those forces in the revolution. In short, the U.S. government was helping to turn Syria’s revolution over to the Islamists. If this group had succeeded, the West would be facing still another radical Islamist regime that hated the West, wanted to go to war with Israel, and would be imposing a new dictatorship on its country.
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But the Syrian National Council (SNC) has failed. The Islamist angle and the Obama Administration’s responsibility for this fiasco is being far underplayed in the Western media.
Several SNC members, including Kamal al-Labwani and Haitham Maleh, have announced their resignations. They are both elderly veteran dissidents who are not Islamists. The reason being given most often for this crack-up is that the group’s leadership is “autocratic,” excluding most of the membership from any role in decision-making. Leaving aside the element of personal ambition, however, why is it autocratic? Because it is imposing the Muslim Brotherhood line rather than responding to the preferences of the activists within Syria, that’s why.
As the New York Times admits, al-Labwani, “accused Muslim Brotherhood members within the exile opposition of `monopolizing funding and military support.’” Yet there is not a word about how the Obama Administration pushed this Brotherhood-dominated leadership onto the Syrian opposition.
Most of the Kurds involved in the original talks angrily walked out of the negotiations because of their objection to Islamist leadership. The Obama Administration’s choice of Turkey to coordinate this operation made it even harder to bring in Syrian Kurds, who play an important role in the revolution, since Turkey has fought a long war against Kurdish nationalism at home.
Another issue fomenting conflict is the SNC’s bad relationship with the Free Syrian Army and the SNC’s rejection of armed struggle to overthrow the dictatorship. Anti-Islamist oppositionists say that this is because the Islamists hope to make a deal with the regime that would give them more power now and, they hope, would bring them to power in the longer run.
Due to these various antagonisms, more than a half-dozen other opposition groups have developed as rivals to the SNC.
Dissidents have also pointed to this video which shows Muslim Brotherhood leader Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni claiming that the Brotherhood chose Birhan Ghalioun to be the SNC leader as a front man because he would be more appealing to the West than an open Islamist.
It is good that the SNC is falling apart. Here are the lessons:
–The Obama Administration collaborated in creating an anti-American leadership group. This is another example of the administration’s terrible policy and promotion of Islamists who oppose U.S. interests and who want to create a new dictatorship.
–The Turkish regime, Obama’s favorite Middle East government, betrayed U.S. interests (and those of the Syrian people) in assembling a group dominated by its fellow Islamists who hate the United States and would link up with other radical regimes in Egypt, the Gaza Strip, and Tunisia. This shows that the Turkish regime cannot be trusted.
–The Syrian opposition should be helped to form a truly representative, moderate-dominated, pro-democratic opposition which should then receive Western support.
–Western countries should support that opposition with weapons and also impose a safe haven and a no-fly zone for the Syrian regime.
I do not expect that the Obama Administration or other Western governments will do any of these things to happen but they are precisely what should be done.
And if you want to read a more detailed account of how U.S. policy toward Syria is a mess, watching while thousands of civilians are being killed, selling out the rebels, and missing a tremendous opportunity, read this article by the always superb Tony Badran.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.
I’ve begun to suspect that focusing on Iran is a head-fake;
the real attack will be from the west, from Egypt, Libya, and now, Syria
using Gaza/Lebanon proxies-
and it wil be an attack on Israel
Obama isn’t just buying time for Iran to harden nuclear facilities,
apparently it’s also to get the Islamization of Syria back on track
(Muslim Brotherhood is banned or suppressed in Syria as they were in Egypt)
it would be pretty hard to bring our carriers back from the Gulf through a blocked Suez Canal; I wonder if the Somalis could be a harassing force
I find one set of American blinders so galling.
This silly notion that Middle Easterners are united in patriotism, in a way that Americans are not.
Specifically, the idea that Sunni won’t work with Shia to stab other Sunni in the back. How childish. It’s about who grabs the power, not who is todays’ temporary ally. Shia and Sunni cooperate all the time. Hell, they intermarry all the time too.
Where this blindness is most important is in understanding Saudi Arabia.
911 occurred due to Saudi internal politics.
Atta and the other Egyptian were Muslim Brotherhood.
The 17 Arabs were from the Shia-dominant southeastern provinces that have been in quiet rebellion against the Mecca Royals.
911 allowed the Rebel 6 to sieze the Throne. The pro-Western allies and Bush family friends were cast down. Abdullah then threatened to collapse our banks at home and our currency overseas if Bush did not remove Iran’s biggest threat next door. State and the agencies- controlled by Arabist Democrats, with a few friendly Iranian spies- dutifully gave false intel and screwed up the military’s plan for Iraq.
Afghanistan was ruled by a Pakistani puppet government- Mullah Omar and the Taliban. Iran has cut a deal with the bad half of the ISI, and is protecting both Pakistan’s Shia 20% and the Ghazdi in Afghanistan. Perhaps that’s why Pakistan’s nuclear program was funded by the Saudis- because it was the bad half, the Rebel Saudis, who organized it.
In short, rebel Saudis, Muslim Brotherhood Sunnis, and Shia Iran are all working together- and have cut deals with Pakistan and Turkish allies.
What Americans don’t understand is alliances of convenience.
They too, have no friends, only interests.
It’s not cut and dried- Sunni/Shia non-cooperation is another illusion created by the Western media at the direction of their political masters.
That’s like saying Democrats will never work with Communists in Asia or South America- or like different Mafia families refusing to negotiate with each other.
Forgot to mention, they are not just working together, but with the radicals who have seized the American Democrat party.
When Moscow fell, they saw their chance to take the communist banner- because that’s how THEY will grab the ultimate prize.
They represent none but themselves. There is no richer prize in history than control of the US financial and military system.
Dr. Rubin,
Your work, along w/Jonathan Spyer’s is a great fact-based anecdote to those in the USG and MSM who paint MB as benign, as well as to those voices from conservative think-tanks and the blogosphere who paint all Muslims as potential killer androids with an inevitable default to “jihad”, thereby rejecting important potential allies and making our fight more difficult.
http://www.gloria-center.org/ (homebase of you and Spyer) is a great resource.
Thanks, Mark. Much appreciated
Interesting. After three years of serial foreign policy fiasco and more revelations regarding the current administration’s historical critical theory point of view (especially since it morphed into critical race theory), I don’t think one can chalk this up to incompetence. I suppose the logic goes thus: The American Government (dominated by white folk) have exploited the Arabs, among others (P). The Palestinians and Syrians and Libyans are ethnically Muslim Arabs (p2). Therefor, (Q) supporting Western oriented non-Muslim Brotherhood Arabs would continue the Western exploitation of Arabs and Muslims in general.
This is not exactly on topic but my question is what are your thoughts about the resurgence of the notion of Jordan is Palestine.
Please make a comment . Your opinions are always valuable
I think Jordan is pretty stable. The problem with “Jordan is Palestine” is that it plays into Hamas’s hands which is trying to take over Jordan and the Palestinian Authority both.
The Obama administration have worked hard for the Muslim Brotherhood conquest of the Middle East. Who can doubt the fact that the Obama administration would love to have the Muslim Brotherhood conquer America.