Syria’s Future: Alawite Military Coup, or Regional Civil War
Syria may be on the brink of a civil war far bloodier than anything seen for a long time in the Middle East. To make matters worse, it could spill over into neighboring countries by pitting Sunni and Shia Muslims against one another, a conflict whose power has already been seen in Iraq
Iran, Hezbollah, and their allies in Iraq and elsewhere are often extremist Shia Muslims; the radicals further west — as in Saudi Arabia, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood — are Sunni Muslims.
Syria is on the borderlands between these two doctrines. Most of its people are Sunni Muslims but there are also Christians, Druze, and Alawites. Who are the Alawites? While arguably Alawites are not Muslims at all, they claim to be Shia Muslims. Syria’s government is also aligned with Iran and Hezbollah — in other words, the Shia Muslim forces.
And therein lies the danger. The ruling Alawites comprise only about 12 percent of Syria’s population but largely dominate the government. The bloody repression of the opposition, which is largely Sunni, is creating communal tensions. Sunni Muslims, who outnumber Alawites by a margin of more than five-to-one, may view this as a Sunni-Alawites and equally a Sunni-Shia conflict.
The Syrian dictatorship has thus begun a blood feud regardless of these potential consequences. Many Syrians I have spoken with inside the country are seething with anger over the Alawite-led government’s butchering of Sunnis. They are equally aware that Hezbollah and the Iranian regime support President Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s dictator, secretly and cheer him publicly.
Mr Ghadry, I read your posts at YNET from time to time. They often made me laugh, here you are, a real live Arab moderate who actually believes that democracy can work in a Muslim country. You should be on the endangered species list. No offense, but you can never be too pessimistic when Arabs are concerned, they always exceed your worst expectations.
The Sunni will massacre the Alawites, this will be genocide. The Christians will get caught in the middle. As for Assad, he’ll fight to the end & kill as many opponants as he can. And Iran & Hezbollah will help him, great humanitarians that they are.
I have no sympathy since all sides in this conflict are enemies of my country.
If it were up to me, Israel would have attacked Syria long ago & completely destroyed it’s military & infrastructure. Let Syria break up into fiefdoms ruled by bloody war-lords.
You know what? No one really cares. All the moron Leftists all over the world won’t raise a finger. Idiots like Obama & his moron Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, are clueless, so out-of-their-depth it’s not even funny.
The Europeans are sanctimonious impotents in need of viagra & a shot of testosterone, they can’t even protect themselves much less help anyone else.
The Arab world is sick, pathological. Your disease is Islam. I think this chronic ailment has finally become terminal, that happens with cancer.
Terry,
While I don’t doubt the accuracy of Farid’s description of the players and the animosity between them, I think it highly likely you are right about the outcome. It is difficult to tell if a Syrian general will step up, as the author seems to hope, and finish off Assad. Would there be any chance for librelization after that, from what tradition would it come from? Or would it be more likely the Muslim civil war would rapidly heat and boil over? The Sunnis have to be developing a serious thirst to smoke the Persians, but good.
One thing is certain, as far as I am concerned. There is going to be a confrontation between Islam and the west. The Dutch are finally waking up and the French are in the process. When the western countries belatedly realize that Islam is all about conquest and subjugation, when they realize that the intended caliphate means the extinction of 3000 years of western thought and a decent into intellectual darkness, there is going to be a confrontation and it will be seismic. I have believed this since September 14th 2001.
I am disgusted by the intolerance and duplicity of Islam. It is by definition close minded and anti intellectual, very much like communism, which is why liberals are embracing it. You can’t believe in its teachings and believe in a state or federal constitution, as those two things under Islamic law are incompatable. I know there are all sorts of Muslims I could probably get along with on a very casual basis, but because of the above, I can’t see them being anything more than a very small minority in the States.
I will be called a bigot for expressing these truths. I could not care less, for I know what I say is true, not based on what I believe, but on what Islam dictates. It dictates by it’s own words in the Quaran and by the practices of it’s parishoners absolute domination and intolerance and the elimination of any contrary tradition. That is existentially unacceptable to me as a Christian who values Cicero, Hobes, Locke, Voltaire, Jefferson, Smith, Burke, Friedman and Hazlitt.
I don’t know when the next confrontation will occur, but I do know that Islam is going to have to be militarily defeated first in order for it to be contained. I think the Iranians and the Pakistanis are in the process of setting up the event that will trigger the most decisive act of violence ever witnessed by man.
If the Shia and Sunni factions want a bloody civil war that brings misery and weakens both sides, by all means have at it boys. It will be a side show to the ultimate conflict to come.
My observations Terry. You are not alone.
Terry & Samizdat – Spot-on!! Just remeber, Islam is not a religion. It is a totalitarian political ideology that uses the pretense of religion as a cover. From the Atlantic to India, the only country south of Europe with civil rights is Israel. How many Arab & Muslim countries are there in that area, and not a one gives its citizens the civil rights found in Israel. BTW Samizdat, I am much more pessimistic about a European awakening than you are.
Jack
Good point about the totalitarian nature of Islam. Totalitarianism exposes the weakness of a political system as it shows how brittle it’s nature is. Any disent, any deviation is a threat that must be wiped out or the system might be toppled. Totalitarianism is imposed on others, always by force. It always involves mass death.
I’ve known Muslims that I’ve liked but any philosophical construct that requires the emotional reinforcement of repeating a mantra 17 times per day damning everyone else to Hell has serious issues
‘There is going to be a confrontation between Islam and the west.’
Absolutely agree.
If we have our mind about it it will be short and horrible (who the hell likes war, but we humans have not figured out how to do it otherwise). Take oil away and these countries generally don’t have a lot going for them. If Iran or Pakistan decide to launch nukes there should be a retaliation that levels a few of their major cities in an effort to get their attention. This is what they and all radical totalitarians understand. This nonsense of reasoning with these yahoo’s is a total waste of time. Our western laws and ethics have been used against us for too long. I would guess that even the apologists and appeasers will get it in the west when their gated townhouse goes up in smoke. At least I hope so.
Geez Terry,
This may very well be the best post I have ever read on PJM re: Mideast. Gawd I hope you are right. Let’s just hope Iran gets into the mix as well and blows itself up. Let’s get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and watch them all march to hell. Gotta love it. I do have some remorse for the innocents, but I don’t have any say in the matter. Anyhow they tend to like using women and children as blood shields so it should be OK in their jaded minds.
It will be fun to see Obama’s pal Assad go down in flames. WOW, Thanks again.
Thanks Larsky, much appreciation.
I’m originally from an Arab country, believe me, I’m not happy to write as I do but the truth is the truth, I just wish it were otherwise.
In any case, I hope that bastard Assad ends up like Mussolini, hanging upside-down from a lamp-post. But I fully understand the support he has from the Alawite community, they know what will happen to them if the regime falls. Same with Christians, they support Assad or at least, they are neutral, but they too understand what the fall of the regime means for their future.
From my perspective, however, they are all enemies. The sad fact is that there are no ”good guys” in the Middle-East.
Hmmm. Assad controls the Syrian military. Iran is arming him and Hezbollah. Whence exactly is the other side of this “Civil War” supposed to get their weapons? The Syrian Sunnis may vastly outnumber the Alawites, but Syrian political arrangements are not resolved by elections.
Let them fight it out. Let the Shias and the Sunnis slaughter each other if they want to. They’ve been doing it for centuries and there isn’t much we can do to stop it. Nor should we. So long as these bigoted, hateful, superstitious, homophobic, mysoginistic, religious fanatics are killing each other, they’re not going to pay much attention to the west. These are people fighting a war that should have been settled in the 15th century, yet they foolishly continue to want to fight it today. Well let them. My only regret is that there can only be one loser in the religious war between Sunnis and Shias. These people are never, ever, going to co-exist unless there is some authoritarian dictator, monarch, or mullah crushing any resistence with force. Even Iraq is going to fall apart into sectarian violence once we leave. Let’s keep a few bases in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan just to let them know not to mess with us, and then leave. Let them just eat their own if they want to. This is not something we can stop, nor should we want to. If they want to re-live the “glories” of 15th century religious warfare, who are we to stop them?
Libertyship,
Points well taken given the realities of Islam.
You made a statement about US based soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. My thinking on the subject has evolved quite abit over the last 10 years. I would be receptive to a military opinion that such basing could be useful in hunting and killing our muslim radical enemies, Al Queda etc. However, I now reject the idea that we have any business nation building in other countries.
If you look at Afghanistan or Iraq it is obvious that there is no tradition of enlightened thought regarding republicanism or democracy. These societies are tribal and Islamic. It is an enormous waste of limited resources to try to encourage these people to govern themselves in our image. They have no tradition that instucts them that such a thing is desirable.
Instead, I propose that the US adopt a different doctrine of war. I believe we should pull out of most of our foriegn bases and come home. At the same time we should let our enemies know that we will deal with future attacks or threats in an entirely new and more efficient fashion. If threatened or attacked we will respond by anhilating the enemy as quickly and completely as possible. Rules of engagement will be quite liberally construed. We will then decide whether it is in our interest to keep the spoils of war or simply leave the country. There will be no rebuilding by the US taxpayers. There will be no nation building.
Most nations on this earth do not share our history or political and philosophical traditions. It is not up to us to go broke imposing our values on people who can’t understand them. It is up to us to defend our citizens from attack and threat and eliminate the threat permanently.
By the way, I would also get out of NATO which has proven to be a way of subsidizing the European welfare state at the expense of US tax payers. NATO is a military entanglement that we don’t need. Let the Europeans defend themselves or chose not to, it’s up to them.
We should spend our money building the most state of the art and lethal military ever conceived of and base it right here in the US. When it is needed, we deploy it, utterly and completely destroy our opponent and his military assets, and then either take the opponents valuables, if useful to us, or leave.
That will be a far more efficient use of resources than current doctrine permits.
I heartily agree that we should keep a few bases in Iraq and Afghanistan (and in fact I have advocated that here and in NRO from time to time). Because of Islam, we’re not going to make Iraq and Afghanistan into civil societies. Our best bet is to try to install a pro-Western strongman in those counries(although he probably won’t last all that long). At the same time we should withdraw to large, defensible and easily suppliable bases from which we can go out and destroy the Taliban and/or al-Qaeda whenever we have to.
I’m not even sure we need a pro-western strong man. I mean Saddam was doing a pretty good job of mixing it up with everyone else until we hung him. They seem quite capable of creating their own messes without any interference from the outside.
I am reminded of a comment I read a couple of years ago as to how the Sunnis and Shia get along. The comment when the Shia rose to power in Iraq was “Imagine a black governor of Alabama with a majority black legislature in 1930″. THAT is what they think of each other. Intolerence and Hate are a way of life for Islam.
George Washington welcomes you to the side of sanity! He warned us against mere alliances. I think he would consider our current policies to be something akin to treason.
Yeah, that really has worked out well for us in the past, hasn’t it? I mean, just look at Saddam Hussein… Uh well, I mean, just look at … at … at …
No, Jack, our best bet, and our only SANE bet, happens to be the morally RIGHT bet. It’s this:
THIS is the policy we should follow. THIS is the policy that should be enshrined in our Constitution so that future fools in the White House don’t have the option of entangling us in these kind of messes.
Samizdat, well said, sir!
Mark v,
Thanks for the compliment. My beliefs regarding international relations have changed due to facts on the ground. We are on a fools errand if we think we are going to convert the illterate to understand the sophisticated philosophy of Locke or Jefferson. It is a complete waste of time, I have come to learn.
We are far more efficiently served to let them rule themselves, with the stated proviso that if you make war on us, or harbor those who do, we will exact a cost that will leave you completely incapacitated. We will then chose whether we wish to take your remaining assets and leave or simply vacate.
Let’s bring the boys and girls home and commit to building a military machine capable of lightning response with devastating destructive power. We can do that easily if we are not paying for foriegn bases and the proping up of ungrateful so called allies.
The Libyan mess shows the complete worthlessness of the Europeans and the rest of NATO. Let’s transition now.
We should never again deploy our military unless we are committed to win, and committed to giving them the resources to do same.
The points made by Samizdat, Terry, Eilat – Israel, Jack in Silver Spring and Libertyship46 are correct.
The Alawite can not allow the majority of the Sunnite Arabs to take power, because there is no way they can be sure or hope the Sunni majority will not oppress and persecute them for their real or imagined, past, present and future wrongdoing.
The Sunni don’t consider them Muslims (like the author write), so they can be Dimmi at best. Add to this that they came to power because the Turks Empire put them there as it did with the Sunnis in Iraq and the Christians in Lebanon. They were favored because they were a minority that, without the backing of the Turks, would be oppressed by the majority.
There is no way they are able to have a democratic revolution without and before a large bloodbath, because they must rid themselves of the people willing and able to wage war against others only because they are different.
There is no f…ing way the MENA and South Asia will be able to change course without a deep social change that will take away mundane power from the political and the religious groups. Without (enough) oil money, with rising prices of food and the other commodities, there is no way the governments are able to hold power. No matter how much they are bloodthirsty and disregard human life, they can not change the reality. At best, for them, they can deny it a bit longer.
By the Way, I would like to see a piece on Pajamas media about the Energy Catalyser of Rossi and Focardi, Defkalion Green Energy and their press conference, Ampenergo and the economic, social and political effects when their technology will have in the next ten years.
I blame French colonial government, the crusades, combined with corporate America, global warming and Michel Bachmann’s ethnocentrism.
You forgot Israel. I’m pretty sure they can be blamed for something.
‘The best option would be a military coup led by an Alawite general who would free political prisoners, initiate real and major reforms’
Mr. Ghadry,
Nice dream, but it wouldn’t happen. Unfortunately Syria, like Iraq to some extent Turkey will not survive in their current forms. Because, their maps were artificially drawn after WWI, without the consideration of the local conflicts.
Sooner or latter the people of the middle east will redraw the maps according to the natural/ethnic/religion boundaries. And when it happens it will be ugly and bloody. And no one will be able to stop it.
It does not matter if 12% are in charge, or if Islamic law is in charge. Both are full of blood shed.
The CFR globalists call it the Arab spring. Which means murder, and blood shed no matter who, or what is in charge. This is suppose to be the area called the house of peace. Islam is a joke!
BZO, or Die! Don’t forget to get a stinking haircut, and put polish on those boots!
To all those who commented on the post.. Thanks you all for your interest.
If one looks at Islam worldwide, one would discover that Islam is compatible with peace, co-existence, and fighting violence in countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, and neighboring Turkey, which has, since adopting its Constitution of 1923, survived and prospered as a Muslim democracy. To quit on the Arab countries who wish to emulate other successful experiments on the basis of a short dark history is to make our work harder and less productive. We are willing to take the bullets from both sides, that’s not the issue. But we urge you to see the Middle East as a friend and an ally in the aftermath of these turbulent and tumultuous times once our people close this chapter of darkness instituted by strongmen and regimes with an oppressive agenda. Farid Ghadry..
Farid – I think you’ll have to remove Turkey from your list. That leaves two out of whole lot, not a good percentage.
Mark v – Mostly agree with you. Also, as you are not, so I am not optimistic that our strong-man would last (hence my parenthetical statement). I thought that retaining bases in the region (albeit, sealed off from the rest of the country) would make what Samizdat is suggestion easier to do.
Based on what I have read about islam in both countries, I would also remove Malaysia and Indonesia from the list, which basically means that there is no country where a peaceful non-violent islam co-exists with non-muslims.
Mr. Ghadry,
I fully respect your sentiments. I will be the first to stand and embrace Islam, even the Arab brand of Islam when Islam cleans up it’s house and acknowledges that I and my children and grandchildren have a right to live without death threats, intolerance and hate constantly coming out of the mouths of Islamic clerics and radical laymen. When Islamic radicals quit blowing up people they don’t know and themselves to kingdom come in the name of Islamic peace. When Muslims stop blaming the rest of the world for their own ineptness and self imposed poverty. Take away their oil and what have the Arabs got. We had nothing to do with it. (The Jews were given, or rather were tossed into a barren and rather shitty little piece of earth and created a beautiful and thriving economy, the Palestinians in the same place have created what other than hate). When the 1.3 billion muslims on earth stop threatening the 15 million Jews with death and holocaust. When muslim women are treated better than a goat. When Muslim children are taught tolerance,not hate. When these same children are not dressed up in suicide uniforms. When Islam stops its’ incessant whining. Etcetera………………..
When Islam cleans up its’ act come back and talk to me, I am open to a hand shake.
Mr. Ghadry,
As one who was born and grew up in the middle east I can tell you for sure that The division/hate/rivalry among the local-Muslims in the middle east is deeper than the Atlantic ocean. What is delaying the eventual Armageddon? Their ability to divert their hate for each other, toward the Jews and the west in general. Even that much hate would deter the incoming mayhem.
Unfortunately U.S and the West are trying to deny reality.
Farid
You can’t have a peacefull tolernt society with what you teach your childern. Not going to happen.
Farid,
Thanks for your informative article. I learned some important things from it.
I also appreciate your attempt to reach out, but I have to tell you in all honesty that I have zero trust that Islam and the west can accomodate each other. I think it will take a war to get things back to a proper balance.I wouldn’t expect that war to go particularly well for Islamic countries. It is sad that it can’t be otherwise.
I am disgusted by what Muslims do towards my country, especially after Bosnia and Kuwait. I can’t see how to reconcile relations with people who think non believers are infidels and are not human, and who treat 52% of the adult population as inferior chattles who have no rights. That creates no basis for further discussion.
It was not I who said that Muslims are not human, but muslims who said that I am not human. You may be a person that I can have a casual relationship with, but Islam and its followers subscribe to a set of beliefs that exclude non believers and treat us as expendable.
This may seem very harsh, but until the Quaran’s admonitions about the rest of us are repudiated, something that will never happen, I don’t see a basis for further discussion. I am enough of a Christian to permit your coexistance away from me and my Constitution, however your belief in Sharia means that you can’t really be governed by my Constitution. You can deny this all you want but it doesn’t change the facts.
Thank you again for your informative piece. I respect the knowlege you obviously have about the Middle East. It is too bad we can’t have a relationship man to man, but that was Islam’s choice, not mine.
To all those who commented on the post.. Thanks you all for your interest.
If one looks at Islam worldwide, one would discover that Islam is compatible with peace
LMAO
look at just today muslums killing Christian in the Ivory Coast
Sorry the only reason Turkey is what it was, is because islam was side lined and they were part of NATO and recieved mucho bucks in turkey they made non muslums pay an extra tax. They had many non muslums visit because it was the seat of Christdom at one time and the beautiful things to see were made by Christians.
The cold war made it important to the west that war is over or so we have been told.
You must live in a place called de-nile
fareed,untill when we as sunni syrian will still be shy of telling the truth.
yes,as a majority in syria 65% sunni arabs have the legitimacy to rule syria,my god,,,it was us who never discriminated against any of the other small minorities and look what happend to us.
if sunni syrian want their rights back they first have to expose the alawis as the reall APARTHEID STATE not isreal( palestinian are indeed lucky to live in isreal).
second:we should give the alawi treatment the same treatment the alies give nazi germany after the war.and to those who ask for who would come after assad,just ask them why it was easy to find democracy in afganistan,iraq,haiiti and that land on the moon`s surface.
While I agree with most of the posts on here. We are missing one major point, the only reason the middle east has any value is the oil. If the West, US, developed it’s own energy independence, by allowing drilling, clean coal, natural gas etc, then we would no longer need to prop up these islamic regimes. The best scenario would be for the Americas to form a joint energy cartel. This would include protections for democratically elected governments in our hemisphere and assure prosperity for our region. Just a thought
Boy, do I heartily agree with that sentiment. We have 120 billion barrels of known oil reserves off our own coast and the largest shale deposits on the planet. Too bad the progressive republican and democrat fools in Washington can’t figure out the path to independence. What a bunch of useless maroons.
I bet the Alawites now wish they stuck with the Alawite state instead of becoming part of Syria.
Besides using our own resources, we need to plan for the future with green energy which would also be a huge job creator. This will never happen because Republicans and Democrats alike are funded and kept in office by the oil corporations and the industrial-military complex. Globilization is good for their PROFITS and they care little for the United States, except as a vehicle for their greater wealth. Losing our young men in war in the middle east and blowing our tax dollars, means nothing to them.
When I initially read your post I thought it a spoof, then I realized you were actually serious.
There have been several economic studies on “green jobs” and Spain went heavily into the industry in the last 20 years. Green technology does not produce much in the way of employment or energy. It is wishful thinking to believe that we can achieve energy independence that way. It can serve as a small component piece to be sure in specific regions, but that is about all.GE, with Jeff Imelt being Obama’s chief economic advisor is heavily invested in green tech. He is the Albert Speer of the Administration.
Industrialized economies don’t run on the sun, they run on petroleum, coal uranium and natural gas. We possess all of those sources in spades, but we have a congress and president who are progressive ludites and they believe in anthropogenic global warming in spite of the thin science supporting it and the vast amount of science showing it is crap. We will have more wars with Islam because of the Sierra Club and the dim wits who are our federal overlords.
Your post disappoints me Cynthia, please study fact and rethink your position.
What a way to start off a Saturday morning that is the real Independence Day.
Cynthia,
Welcome to this informative site. A little more time here (and less on daily kos) and you’ll be up to speed in no time.
” A religion must stand or fall on it’s own writings and holy books. The fundamentalists haven’t perverted anything. In fact, Osama bin Laden is the best practicing Muslim out there. He is practicing Islam exactly the way that violent nutcase Mohammed wanted it practiced.” Brad Thor-Foreign Influence
” To paraphrase Churchill, individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but Islam’s fanatical frenzy is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia is in a dog.’ Brad Thor Foreign Influence
It was a process for me. I wanted to give islam a chance at coexistence. Part of the process was speaking with three muslims in Amsterdam. I unsuccessfully was asking if it was possible for islam to get along with the rest of the world.
I’m probably lucky to have made it home. It was near Theo VG’s death location and the murderer had not been caught yet.
This is looking more and more like a train wreck in slow motion. We know the outcome, and really are powerless to prevent it. We just don’t know the extent of the damage after it’s over. I think China believes itself to be impervious to what is on the way. They will find themselves badly in error.
“Proof of Sunni-Shia coordination of effort is everywhere. According to the State Dept., Iran, the most active state sponsor of terrorism, provides training and funding to Hamas and Hizballah, and weapons to the Taliban. Iran is Shia, Hamas is Sunni, Hizballah is Shia, and the Taliban is Sunni. Enough said.”
— Lt. Col. W. Thomas Smith Jr.
Do a search on this guy, he’s for real.
Read this on the brotherhood, very informative.
http://victoryinstitute.net/ctat/?page_id=348
TO ALL Arab Hating Israelis; Jews; American; WHOEVER YOU ARE, WHERE EVER YOU ARE.
I’m sickened by the replies made about Syria and the Arab Spring in general. I’ve heard about the extremism in Israeli public toward Arabs and Islam. But I didn’t expect this kind of replies. It shows: YOUR arrogance, YOUR ignorance, and YOUR inhuman nature toward Arabs and the Muslim world. Wishing that a country can rot in hell, just because it is the enemy of your country is inhumane, it is against any type of religion and a worldly believes. How can anybody not give a damn about millions of people; women and children and men who breathe like you and me? No I’m not a leftist, but I’m a human being who deserves at least dignity and respect in this life time of ~80 years. You can make the most successful country in the world, but it doesn’t make you superior to those people. Your people aren’t happier, they aren’t smarter, and they defiantly aren’t more alive. YOU call yourself tolerant and an intellectual, but you wish the otter destruction of those people, WHAT TOLERANCE is that???? What democracy you are making an example of?? NO my friend, YOU MUCH MORE CLOSED MINDED THAN THOSE YOU THINK YOU ARE BETTER THAN.
I think it is a great thing that men, women and children are willing to give their lives for the promise of dignity, peace, and equality. They are willing to face a government with tanks and gun, knowing it could be their last day. It is something you don’t understand. But believe me, it shows a great promise. Much like the start of those you call great nations.
MARK MY WORDS, your grandchildren will speak of us, my people, and our democracy with more respect than you are right now.
Please do not get insulted by my comment. I mean no harm. I’m just tired and disgusted of strategic thinking. You can call me an idealist and a dreamer, but friends, I know there are a lot of humans like me, and we are growing.