Insoluble Syria
Let’s cut through all the pious pronouncements about the horrible Assad regime in Syria. We err when we apply majoritarian democratic criteria to tribal societies. There is a reason that Syria has labored under brutal minority regimes for half a century, since the Ba’ath Party coup of 1963 led by the Christian Michel Aflaq, followed by the Alawite Assad dynasty’s assumption of power in 1971. If you create artificial states with substantial minorities, as British and French cartographers did after the First World War, the only possible stable government is a minority government. That is why the Alawites ran Syria and the minority Sunnis ran Iraq. The minority regime may be brutal, even horribly brutal, but this arrangement sets up a crude system of checks and balances. A government drawn from a minority of the population cannot attempt to exterminate the majority, so it must try to find a modus vivendi. The majority can in fact exterminate a minority. That is why a majority government represents an existential threat to the minority, and that is why minorities fight to the death.
In a 2012 essay for Asia Times Online, I conjured the ghost of Cardinal Richelieu to explain this simple exercise in game theory:
“Isn’t there some way to stabilize these countries?” I asked.
Richelieu looked at me with what might have been contempt. “It is a simple exercise in logique. You had two Ba’athist states, one in Iraq and one in Syria. Both were ruled by minorities. The Assad family came from the Alawite minority Syria and oppressed the Sunnis, while Saddam Hussein came from the Sunni minority in Iraq and oppressed the Shi’ites.
It is a matter of calculation — what today you would call game theory. If you compose a state from antagonistic elements to begin with, the rulers must come from one of the minorities. All the minorities will then feel safe, and the majority knows that there is a limit to how badly a minority can oppress a majority. That is why the Ba’ath Party regimes in Iraq and Syria — tyrannies founded on the same principle – were mirror images of each other.”
“What happens if the majority rules?,” I asked.
“The moment you introduce majority rule in the tribal world,” the cardinal replied, “you destroy the natural equilibrium of oppression.
“The minorities have no recourse but to fight, perhaps to the death. In the case of Iraq, the presence of oil mitigates the problem.
The Shi’ites have the oil, but the Sunnis want some of the revenue, and it is easier for the Shi’ites to share the revenue than to kill the Sunnis. On the other hand, the problem is exacerbated by the presence of an aggressive neighbor who also wants the oil.”
“So civil war is more likely because of Iran?”
“Yes,” said the shade, “and not only in Iraq. Without support from Iran, the Syrian Alawites — barely an eighth of the people — could not hope to crush the Sunnis. Iran will back Assad and the Alawites until the end, because if the Sunnis come to power in Syria, it will make it harder for Iran to suppress the Sunnis in Iraq. As I said, it is a matter of simple logic. Next time you visit, bring a second bottle of Petrus, and my friend Descartes will draw a diagram for you.”
That, by the way, also explains the high incidence of atrocities. The really ugly developments of the past several weeks, including air attacks on civilians with mass casualties, probably are a calculated crime on the part of the Assad regime. Syria’s Alawites face the not-so-remote prospect of the end of their ethnic existence if a Sunni Muslim regime should accede to power. The Bashar al-Assad regime commits atrocities that are designed to be unforgivable, in order to persuade their base to fight to the end. In practice, that means holding out for an Alawi state on the Mediterranean nestled against the Turkish border. The Assad regime’s behavior resembles that of the Nazi regime, which went out of its way to ensure that the German population knew about its worst atrocities, the more to make them complicit in the crimes and persuade them to fight to the bitter end. Benjamin Schwarz of the The Atlantic reviewed new research supporting this interpretation in 2009, concluding, “New histories reveal that the Nazi Regime deliberately insinuated knowledge of the Final Solution, devilishly making Germans complicit in the crime and binding them, with guilt and dread, to their leaders.”
“…the national aspirations of the Kurds, who have proven the hard way that they deserve a state as much as any people on earth”. – That may be so, but it is ironic that the Iraqi Kurds have a strong political-economic relationship with Turkey (no doubt to give them leverage against the governments of both Iraq and Iran).
“…neutralize Iran, by which I mean air strikes to destroy its nuclear weapons program and a few other military capabilities”. That would be a mechaya, but what would you guess are the odds that a President Obama with “flexibility” will approve such an operation in 2013?
No, no, no… don’t neutralize Iran.
Bring them into the fold.
Heheheheheh….. Under the….hahahaha….rubric of the UN, reintitute the policy of ‘PROTECTORATES’. And award these myriad trouble spots to the good graces of the Iranian Republic. And may they all have much joy in the association.
“First, neutralize Iran, by which I mean air strikes to destroy its nuclear weapons program and a few other military capabilities.”
Dream on. Isn’t the message from the Obama administration: we love and support the Iranian Revolution?
They will never attack Iran.
Hi-yo, that’s partly David’s point …
Of course, we won’t attack Iran. Obama needs them to launch one of their nukes from a container ship to generate either an EMP or vaporize a major city and give him impetus to declare martial law so he can be Dear Leader forever.
Wouldn’t it be easier (witness Stuxnet) and simpler to let the Iranians build nuclear weapons, then use software to ‘accidentally’ set them off in their storage facilities?
However plausible your analysis is and however wise the proscribed solution, you have left out one factor in the equation. What does one do with the Christian minority? If small, though now PURE ethnic states exist in place of Syria, which ethnic dominated little country will not then be in the joyous Islamic position of persecuting the Christians. How would this group be protected? Give them arms? I know from the NYT that the Russian Orthodox Church asked Putin to protect the Christian minority and, well, Putin owes the R.O. Church for its support. Your solution???
Leonard, your point is extremely well taken: the Christians are not an ethnicity in Syria but a religious minority, and a very small one. My presumption is that once Iran is neutralized, the West would be in position to veto any Sunni government that did not guarantee basic rights for minorities. Outside powers have enormous leverage over Syria, given the utter collapse of its economy. Even this might not be enough, however. The rise of Islamism has made the position of the ancient Christian communities in the Middle East untenable and their attrition has been rapid. Middle Eastern Christians are one of the most successful of the world’s diasporas, and the long-term result, sadly, probably will be emigration.
“…veto any Sunni government that didn’t guarantee minority rights …”
WELL now you are just being silly. The disparate muslim groups will never be at peace with each other let alone Christians.
Assads mistake was he didn’t act soon enough and hard enough. His father knew the stakes and stopped this same scenario years ago.
an aside …the west supporting the rebels is as guilty for the bloodshed as anyone and in my opinion they are the largest cause of the bloodshed. Why do people think the Assad government should not defend itself. It is an entirely leftist / progressive group think that believes in laying down and being slaughtered. Useful idiots being played by the criminal thugs in Iran Russia and the White House. Huma is smiling.
“Outside powers have enormous leverage over Syria,”
Like we have with Egypt? Whats that called? Foreign aid? I say we forgo handing out money we have to borrow for bribery. Lets use the energy resources we have here at home instead of relying on a bunch of religious nut-cases for energy. The more energy independent we are at home the less we will need to pay attention to a bunch of people that refuse to learn to live together without killing each other. If it weren’t for the oil in this region and our needless dependency on it nobody would give a rat’s ass who is killing whom.
There are also the Druze. Neither the Druze nor the Christians, nevermind the Alawites, should live under Islamic rule. It’ll make more sense to have all 3 groups share an infidel state armed with the means to defend themselves, and let the Muslims have the rest where they can live and die as they wish. Druze, Alawites and Christians can have a secular state since all three groups seperate religion and state and aren’t inclined to force their religions on others. They will still have power struggles and the occasional clashes, but it beats living under the Muslim Brotherhood.
Western (or Russian) leverage means nothing since you never use it to protect religious minorities. The West only “cares” about the human rights of Muslim Arabs since they are largely the ruling group and have most of the oil and the money, so you need to suck up to them. Besides, the non-Muslims don’t blow up your metros, fly airplanes into your buildings, slit your throats, or storm your embassies, so you have no reason to appease them, certainly not if it pisses the Muslims off. The religious and ethnic minorities matter to the West as much as the Jews mattered during WWII. I doubt you would even take in many refugees. If leverage mattered, you’ve had the most of it in the Gaza Strip that totally depends on Western handouts, and what did you do for the Christians there? There are hardly any left.
The Islamist tide is a once in a lifetime opportunity for the Kurds that can have mutually very beneficial relations with the West and Israel since Kurdistan is right where it can destabilize the axis of evil – well, one of the axes of evil anyway – Iran and its main sphere of influence (Syria, Iraq), and the neo-Ottoman Turkey. The Kurds will get their state, and we’ll get Iran and Turkey busier with internal affairs, so they’ll have less resources to invest in their respective imperialist projects. Of course, this isn’t going to happen with the current American administration that worships Turkey and believes the MB will moderate once they have to collect the garbage. And the time may not yet be ripe for it anyway. But perhaps one of these days Westerners will realize the Islamist thingy isn’t quite as benign as they initially thought (the lefties anyway, but they rule).
Ah, none of these things involves direct Western military intervention. Just arming and training those miserable groups, at least the ones who want it, so they may have a chance to defend themselves rather than simply perish.
Best comments on the thread.
Thank you.
Christians are roughly 10% of Syria, which is not a “very small” minority. The Druze and Alawites combined are only 16%.
“Is there a better way to handle the Syrian calamity? I believe so.
First, neutralize Iran, by which I mean air strikes to destroy its nuclear weapons program and a few other military capabilities.”
This is NOT going to happen unless Israel defies Obama and somehow does it, which seems increasingly unlikely. We have no compelling national interest in Syria. Why can’t we get a brain and a clue one of these years and stop sticking our necks between waring Muslims who all hate us anyway? I suppose that’s not going to happen, at least in the next four years, either.
The only compelling national interest we have in Syria is to prevent the use of chemical weapons, especially by terrorists. And that is an interest we share with the Russians, who have their own jihadi terrorist to contend with in the Caucasus. As for the Turks: they won’t touch Syria because it would bring them into conflict with Syrian Kurds, whom the Assad regime has set out as poisoned bait.
“As for the Turks: they won’t touch Syria because it would bring them into conflict with Syrian Kurds, whom the Assad regime has set out as poisoned bait.”
But in the ensuing chaos of a disintegrating Syrian state, doesn’t the creation defacto of a Kurdish sovereign hard up against Turkey’s border undercut your proposed solution in which the Turks are dispensable? Dispensable and in possession of obsolete weapons they may be, but motivated to use what counts as a significant force they will also be. Driving Russians and Turks together in an alliance of convenience – with NATO caught in the cross-fire – would make for interesting times indeed.
This hard-headed look at tribal government is illuminating indeed, but I have been waiting in vain for a coherent explanation as to how some of the peculiar Russian foreign policies are actually in Russia’s interest. They remind of an old man who is still chasing skirt, but has forgotten why. It is entirely possible that I am missing their true objectives, but it often appears that many policies guarantee splash-back, the terror industry by no means the least of it.
Russia has long played the game of ‘the enemy of my enemy’ shtick. Putin has no use for America – put it in that light and some of their policies begin to make sense. Not all – but some. Not so different than our progressives playing conservatives against Muslims in this country.
Let their fellow Muslims in Islamic Turkey come to the “rebels” rescue if they care to. They have 10 times Syria’s population and a big modern Army and Air Force and are right next door. If the Turks need money to help their ‘Muslim Brothers’ and don’t care to spend much of their own, let them get it from the hyper-rich Muslim Saudis. We don’t have to be the world’s biggest Muslim Serving Infidel Idiots in perpetuity.
“New histories reveal that the Nazi Regime deliberately insinuated knowledge of the Final Solution, devilishly making Germans complicit in the crime and binding them, with guilt and dread, to their leaders.”
And how about the Final Solution the Muslim Syrian “Rebels” will have for Syria’s Christians if Assad is done away with?
Just to remind, the San Remo conference ensured some autonomy to the Kurds.
Attack Iran? Oh the horror for our milquetoast leaders. Maybe that could happen on Earth II. Here, not so much.
As a recovering liberal I must admit that I fell for the neoconservative intervention in Iraq, failing to appreciate the Cardinal’s understanding of why minorities are the basis for stable government in multi ethnic tribal societies. I’m not sure that minority rule really worked very well in either Iraq or Syria. Saddam brought stability at the expense of about 450,000 killed and I believe the elder Assad killed 20,00 at Hama in a matter of days. Nonetheless, I never really got why Papa Bush didn’t finish off Saddam in 1991 because I thought the long suffering Shia were the natural ruling majority. So I was surprised when things went so badly wrong in Iraq. However, I wasn’t so wedded to liberal interventionism that i failed to grasp that the US has to do better. Watching Obama intervene in Libya was surprising after all the criticism leveled at Bush – did the new administration think all would be well so long as they didn’t put ground troops in? Wasn’t the ‘duty to protect’ just liberal interventionism dressed up in a more ‘progressive’ suit of clothes? The consequences of Bush’s intervention involving Iran, Turkey, and the Kurds that you describe so well is mirrored in the tribal ‘afterparty’ resulting from the Libyan intervention. It seems to me that until we have a better model for trying to fix tribal parts of the world we would be better off being less interventionist.
Enjoyed this article very much. Had no idea there was such a thing as a minority-rule imperative in the artificial states created in the ME after WWI. O what a tangled web we weave…
The minority rule imperative has been used for centuries by various powers. The Romans used it to keep the Gauls and Goths (among others) in line up until the end of the Western Empire. And the British used it quite well in India, Kenya, Iraq, etc. in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Playing one group off against another group is as old as the hills. And Feckless Won is a master of the game.
So what about Egypt? We need to cut off military and economic aid to Egypt which is rapidly devolving into the Sunni version of Iran.
Morsi is just waiting for Assad to fall so he can welcome the Brotherhood and AQ types into a new alliance, replacing Iran in the Syria axis. He is also allowing economic war against Jordon to desabilize that regime.
Strange article today in the J Post about Egyptian claims that it intercepted US made anti tank and anti aircraft missiles headed for Gaza. How did they get there? This, a day after he gave an anti semitic rant calling for the destruction of Israel that was over the top even by middle east standards. We are getting played by that Jihadi in a business suit.
“All the minorities will then feel safe, and the majority knows that there is a limit to how badly a minority can oppress a majority.”
Try telling that to the Kurds in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, who almost waged a war of genocide against them, including the use of poison gas. I don’t think people like Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, or Assad really cared about going over any “limits” to how badly they could treat a minority. I’m just surprised that it took so long for revolutions to come to places like Libya and Syria. And if it wasn’t for the American intervention in Iraq, it would have been only a matter of time before the Kurds and the Shias in Iraq ganged up on Saddam Hussein and his Sunni followers.
No, people are people and they will not stand by helplessly when they are being slaughtered. Eventually you reach a breaking point and those countries reached theirs. It is ironic, though, that neither Libya, Iraq, or Syria have been able to bridge their differences after their major civil wars (because remember, after Saddam Hussein was gone and even though American troops were in country, Sunnis and Shias were still slaughtering each other in Iraq). It all comes down to who keeps the power, and in the Middle East that is a very deadly game.
NO! Not one more dead American in defense of the right of the likes of Assad or Malaki or Karzai or Morsi or whomever to slaughter their own people. We, the Western Infidels, are the declared enemy of all Muslims, so, if they want to kill themselves, so be it. If they want to use chemical weapons against their own, tough. Use them against us and get vaporized! The Leftist liberals can moralize all they like about “international human rights.” Just think about what those self-same folks said about GWB and Iraq. 0 claims Afghanistan was the “good war” and he is now scrambling to get out. So, no, no more. Tribes slaughtering tribes in the Middle East do not post a direct or an existential threat to either the U.S. or the West as a whole.
The obvious and humane solution would be to separate the warring parties…
The best order for freedom loving Infidels is that all countries in Dar al-Islam be held under the yoke of self-interested dictatorships. To pursue any other foreign policy is the worst form of projection of civilized ideals onto uncivilized populations, only to enhance the ultimate goal of the Cause (as Allah called it) that everybody everywhere be killed or subjugated, except the ruling elite Moslem clerics, of course.
So the reasonable thing to do is to leave warring Moslems to their own devices, which is to say: be humane to ourselves.
And here’s to a three-way partition of Turkey between Greece, Armenia, and Kurdistan. A man can dream, at least.
like the song says..
you can’t go back to Constantinople.
Constantinople got the works? But why?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks’
The tagline in the song is, “because it’s Istanbul.”
Myself, I’d love to go to Contantinople. And the Hagia Sophia, as a church.
Richelieu would’ve manipulated another country into doing the fighting, too.
Then, again, he was a nationalist and a patriot, whatever else you might think of him. He did everything possible to make other nations and kingdoms pay the price, instead of France. If it didn’t benefit France, he didn’t do it. If it would benefit France, he did whatever it took to make it happen.
In the end, though, all of his hard work back-fired and they got the French Revolution. ..and war after war after war…
Unintended consequences. Payback. What goes around, comes around. Paying the piper. tanstaafl. Reaping and sowing. You can even invoke the law of thermodynamics. If you use energy in one spot, you gotta pay the price somewhere, somehow, and sooner or later.
Although he was, w/o doubt, a brilliant man…his attempts to control everything and everyone eventually failed…and would have failed, no matter what he tried.
His story, in the end, is a cautionary tale. It is not a story to be emulated.
It seems a bit harsh to blame the man for a revolution that happened more than a century after his time, as a result of political actions and wars that he probably would not have supported.
If Richelieu was alive at the end of 18 century, there would be NO French Revolution at the first place. Revolutions are catastrophes which happen when there are no great people left to prevent them. Even Syrian revolution would never happen if Hafez Assad was still alive.
David Goldman gives the reason for all of our problems in the Middle East, the “brilliant” diplomats who, after WWI, created artificial countries whose boundaries ignored ethnic and religious status. We are perpetuating that position in Iraq, one nation composed of three tribes who hate each other. Ditto Libia, the area we call Palestine, central Africa, etc. No one knows the solution. It will probably be as Von Clauswitz predicted, once a war uis started, it will escalate until one side is crushed or the public will refuse to support it. In this case it may take generations.
No, Spengler’s got it backwards. Let Syria go to hell, in ORDER to defang Iran (*and* Hezbollah). That being done, the Alawites get pounded, b/c they more or less deserve it, and the failed state remains failed, leading to an eventual redrawing of boundaries – Turkey can absorb the Alawites, Syria will be majority Sunni, and Kurdistan will more or less informally crawl towards being a real thing.
Goldman’s solution to defang Iran first does nothing to solve the original problem: how to keep the Sunnis from butchering the Alawites as they run for the coastline. The answer is that nothing short of a massive military intervention will do so, and said intervention is in nobody’s interests.
The only problem with this dear Russ is in the meantime the Syrian Christians get slaughtered or flee for their lives, as do many Allawites. And I don’t see Russia ‘losing’ big if they can lease another port for their Mediterranean fleet in Greece after the EUrocrats starve that country into looking for new friends anywhere it can find them. The main Russian concern will be what the same jihadi brigades Qatar and Saudi Arabia funded will do once Assad is overthrown. Judging by their post-Gaddafi overthrowing activities it will be commit more terrorism, first against the U.S. that abetted their rise through the GCC states, but later against Russia too.
But David is correct that other than a Yugoslav style breakup into rump states there is no way out of this crisis that the GCC states certainly helped to instigate by pouring gasoline and high explosives on the flames of Sunni unrest. Meantime the idiot neocon and mindless humanitarian trendies’ pretext that the FSA did not have a large number of Al-Qaeda jihadi Christian and Allawi murdering scum in their ranks has been exposed as the Big Lie that it always was, along with the notion that Libya has been ‘liberated’ as it descends into tribal warfare and eventual annexation by Morsi’s Muslim Brothers when they take the eastern Libyan oil fields.
“The Turks and the Russians would be the biggest losers.”
Gosh that sound wonderful.
Compared to the rest.
Suggested model for handling tribal societies: quarantine.
Keep them in their home countries. They live in sovereign nations. Let them be responsible for what happens WITHIN their borders.
Another suggestion: move the UN to one of these countries and see how long it lasts.
As long as we are all offering possible ‘happy endings’, why not partition turkey into a federation with re-drawn boundaries? A kurdish state, an alevi area, including the alawites, and a separate Istanbul with an association with Russia and the EU? Many Turks from Istanbul might prefer autonomy under Russian cover to an Erdogan Turkey. If the Muslims want no-go areas in W Europe and Russia,a
Westernized Constantinople seems fair.
That’s exactly what Stanislav Mishin aka the Russian who wrote for Pravda quoted by Glenn Beck wrote back in 2011. He said eventually Russia and Israel would end up fighting an Islamist Turkey and this time unlike in WWI the Turks would lose and Constantinople would be liberated.
Often empires will use persons with minority status when there are a number of large competing groups. It is simply safer to be multi-polar.
As to hatred, I have found that groups need to be hated and hate in return it builds solidarity. Of course of commit atrocities: makes it much harder for you people to surrender.
Mr. G. makes the mistake of believing as the Marxists do that events can and should be managed. Chaos rules, it is much safe for those not involved. I would say too, that fantasies of disaster don’t really help. My suggestion would be to wait until the problems get to bayonet range, and deal with them then rather than looking for trouble.
I personally like ‘Hank the K’ want them all to lose, and they will do that more quickly and effective if we save our money and enjoy the show.
The solution to all this crap lies in Washington and London. If only the British and US governments could be persuaded to mind their own business. Let the Arabs get on with doing what they always do – killing each other and other people. For 1400 years they have squatted in the ruins they created doing what they do best – killing. Quarantine them and let them sort it out – or not.
Cdl Richelieu would arm all minorities in Syria, and allow them to butcher each other for the next 2-3 decades. This is exactly what he did during the Thirty Years War. The Cdl may have been a Prince of the Church; but, he was a Frenchmen first. In the end, Richelieu got what he wanted: a severely weakened Central Europe where no German power was strong enough to dominate or threaten the Bourbons.
The tragedy of de-colonialization. If only tribal societies could be as humane as Israel.
Thank you, Mr Goldman for this:
“If you create artificial states with substantial minorities, as British and French cartographers did after the First World War….”
At every possible opportunity presented, I’ve been posting everywhere, and if I were rich I’d have it written by a sky-writer way up above for all to see:
Review that clandestine Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916….yes, indeed, that’s soooo yesterday by today’s ahistorical standards. But, please read it and look closely at the maps provided by our Captain Google. Notice those hand drawn borders straddling centuries’ old butchery.
What could be simpler? It’s all been right here, all along…. lurking under a layer or two of this screen…right here…but nobody bothers to read any History.
The big question is why no one ever calls the British and French to task for this colonial man-made mess.
I like to post also that just recently the British Foreign Secy. Hague has asked for “American leadership in the Middle East”……
What classic chutzpah!
Classic whining. Everything wrong in Arabia is the fault of the wicked British and French (and Americans).
Maybe it’s time for the people there to accept some responsibility for their own actions and for gullible Westerners to stop feeding into this narrative of victimisation.
Why not go the whole hog and just blame it on the Ottoman Empire? It was much more responsible for the state of the area than anything the British or French every did. But I guess that doesn’t fit in with the preconceived narrative.
What about the Syrian Druze? Don’t they deserve autonomy too?
And despite your handwaving of the Christian population in the region, they do actually form an ethnic as well as religious minority, that being Assyrians. The Muslims of course consider themselves to be Arabs, making them doubly distinct from the Assyrian Christians.
You are also overlooking the Alawites within Turkey, and the lingering issues with the Kurds in Turkey, and Iran for that matter.
Now certainly it would be . . . “intriguing” . . . to go in and really reassign territories and such, carving up Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and even Armenia and Azerbaijan, and creating theoretically more functional ethno-religious states in the region, though of course you’d have to find somewhere to dump the Sunni “Arab” Muslims of Syria and Iraq, but barring some dramatic shift in Western cultural dynamism that simply is not going to happen, and any half-steps like trying to preserve the Syrian Alawites and Kurds is going to be spitting in the wind for all the stability it will achieve.
Nice article, salient comments.
I must however disagree with your dismissal of the Turkish military. While I have no direct connections to it in the last 8 years or so, it is a capable force that is trained well and equipped decently. A long history, warrior tradition, and reverence from Kemal Ataturk make them, IMHO, the strongest of the Dar-al-Islam militaries. The Saudi have better toys and money for mercenaries (*cough* Brits *cough*) but not the will or training to fight. The only other Islamic military powers, Egypt and Pakistan, are irrelevant. Both have pressing internal problems.
The danger is that Turkey remembers when the Sultan of the Sublime Porte was Caliph and ruled the Arabs, Assyrians, Semites, Berbers, etc. Demagoguery by their current president over Turkey having a greater role in the area is a political build up for cassus belli over their neighbors. 100 years of restive Armenians and Kurds has not convinced Turkey to withdrawal from those territories. Channeling Richelieu, I would say Turkey plays cool, waits for things to fall apart, and makes Syria (or part of it) a client state.
When it comes to “lines on a map”, and the fall out of opportunities lost – it is best to stand up to political correctness, and put the parts of the world that need it, under trustee ship.
I submit that there are Syrians, regardless of tribal identity, who want government and mosque to respect there are areas that they do not belong.
Therefore, we can identify the problems, and say, “To H*** with the torpedoes”, when we break away from the shackles that tie too many to the past.
No, Mr Lincoln, we don’t want this again…”it is best to stand up to political correctness, and put the parts of the world that need it, under trustee ship.”
[See my multiple (repeating ...."sorry" ...again for my duplicate posts) have had Windows crashes at my PC...no punning intended..]
Syria after WW1 was a French Protectorate and ancient Jewish “Palestine” was subjected to a British Protectorate (Mandated Area) at the same time.
All should review the British curtailment of Jewish Settlement in their Mandated Area after WW2, the tragic “Exodus” era, Cyprus caught right in the middle, etc, it’s all a terribly European-muddled situation…Google that era for the complicated details.
Now, for much needed perspective, all are asked to review the extant anti-Americanism in the Middle East after freeing Iraq of Saddam and his poisonous gasses and self-advertised nuclear ambitions, and after freeing Kuwait from Saddam’s invading armies.
Afghanistan is a separate story…..”you’re welcome”, Maliki and Karzai, and remember the fleeing Kuwaiti royalty self exiled in London?
The British-French (Anglo-Franco?) colonial-attitude and rampant hypocrisy and taqiyya of this whole rotten Muslim cauldron defies description.
Let’s hear no more requests for “American leadership” and dollars from our fire hydrant. No more.
Demography is destiny. Things do not look good for Europe, for the US or for Israel. I will be long gone by then, but it is already clear that the world of the future will be governed by Slavs, Arabs and East Asians, with Africans and an Africanized America serving them as citizen slaves. Jews are survivors, but I cannot imagine Israel lasting long, what with their American brethren voting in such overwhelming numbers for Obama.
NO, the Jewish people in Israel are thriving demographically. See Spengler’s book and Yoram Ettinger’s website.
Interesting, you’re very devious. Since civilizations are basically tribes, I gather you would recommend the Americans or the west keep their nuclear arsenals at levels to better bounce the rubble and the rabble?
Thank you, Mr Goldman for writing this sentence:
“If you create artificial states with substantial minorities, as British and French cartographers did after the First World War, the only possible stable government is a minority government.”
For several weeks now at every possible opportunity at two or three websites I’ve been advocating that everyone read via Google, it’s just that easy, that clandestine Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 which is the source of our modern day mess in the Middle East-Central Asia. These present-day troublesome Muslim colonial era “entities” were created inside the Foreign Offices of the British and French in London and Paris. These hand-drawn frontiers straddled centuries’ old butchery of ethnic, religious and tribal origins. And, of course these continuing Muslim mutual butcheries aren’t going to go away.
Why aren’t the British and French called to task for these artificial “entities”?
So, here we are. Recently the British Foreign Secretary Hague has asked for “more American leadership in the Middle East”.
What classic chutzpah.
….immediate apologies for the double post here re: Sykes Picot.
I had a Windows crash and then did a “system restore” to an earlier time, and when I brought back this page I assumed that the first one never made it through the Windows labyrinth.
uh, the American help to France and UK in WW2 was under condition that we renounced to our colonies !
The French had little to say during the aftermaths of WW1 concerning ME, the Brits had chosen their part first.
Though while being allocated the “Great Syria”, we opted to give their country to the Christians of the era, Lebanon.
Also ME, wasn’t unknown to the French, since the kingdom of François 1er, France had the duty to protect the pilgrins that went to the Holly Christian place, and Jerusalem too. That’s why we had to entertain good relations with the Ottoman Empire when all the other european contries were at war with it.
So for saying that we knew the different communauties there
More propaganda from the Arab street at the Mosquai d’Orsay?
Bernie the Mad of course
Well, if ad-hominem is all you have to offer, it seems my comment touched a sensitive point.
wasn’t it your first wish?
Drop that trolling line, it’s badly snagged.
Charlie Griffith
tell that to Bernie
or you’re just been intolerant
All societies are to some extent “tribal” and can break along ethnic, racial, religious, or other lines under certain circumstances. History is full of examples where things seemed to be just fine and then the iceburg breaks apart.
Concerning Syrian Christians I am afraid I agree with Mr. G. Maybe my bias from being Jewish and knowing the history of my own people in both the Middle East and Europe but that process started long ago and is just now being accelerated. Christians in the ME are a fraction of what they were a century ago.
You dont have to commit some large scale genocide to get rid of a group like that. Just a few small ones and other things to make life very uncomfortable, like looking the other way when the pogroms happen (think Kristallnacht or attacks on Egyptian Copts). The government does not have to do anything.
Thanks Mr Goldman for writing this sentence:
“If you create artificial states with substantial minorities, as British and French cartographers did after the First World War, the only possible stable government is a minority government.”
For several weeks now I’ve been posting at every opportunity the urging that readers look up via Google that clandestine 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement during which these still existing hand drawn borders of the Middle East were set up at the Foreign Offices of the British and French, then setting out their areas of influence to be effective at the end of the First World War and the collapse of the Axis ally, the Ottoman Empire. Syria became a French Mandated Area.
Just recently, the British Foreign Secretary Hague has asked for “… more American leadership in the Middle East”.
What classic chutzpah.
Why aren’t the British and French called to task for these “entities” straddling centuries’ of animosities and butcheries?
Asking for “more American leadership”, eh?
“Syria has no oil”, but some say, there’s gas !
http://mecanoblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/la-syrie-centre-de-la-guerre-du-gaz-au-proche-orient/
from a Syrian source, therefore sided !
And the French colonialists never found out about it?!
Gee, are French Vichysts dumb!
no, but the Brits were aware that there was oil in theirs !
Rubbish.
There is not oil in Jordan, the British mandated area.
Are you interested in facts or just making cheap jibes?
oil was already discovered in Iran, knowing that Germany and the Ottoman Empire had agreements in the aeras, Germany was constructing railways from Turkey to Bagdad, Briain fears that the Germans would threat their oil fields in Iran 5oil in Irak wasn’t unknown from Lawrence of Arabia, though officially discovered in 1923. Joran might not have had oil, but the Jordan territory was proxy to Egypt (Nile canal) and Irak, therefore necessary to be controlled by the Brits
http://tinyurl.com/bgk4y2t
By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Ottoman territories had become the focus of European power politics. During the previous century, enfeebled Ottoman rule had invited intense competition among European powers for commercial benefits and for spheres of influence. British interest in Iraq significantly increased when the Ottomans granted concessions to Germany to construct railroad lines from Konya in southwest Turkey to Baghdad in 1899 and from Baghdad to Basra in 1902. The British feared that a hostile German presence in the Fertile Crescent would threaten vital lines of communication to India via Iran and Afghanistan, menacing British oil interests in Iran and perhaps even India itself.
-http://countrystudies.us/iraq/19.htm
You didn’t mention Christians. I don’t think they will want to live in a sunni state, or a kurd state。 Will they choose to form a state with alawites?
Islam does not teach the same sort of compassion for the other that virtually every other religion including today’s “secular humanism” teaches. Muslims murder and torture each other without compunction and their own ummah, “brotherhood” has no condemnation to offer. That’s because they don’t value individual human life the way Christian westerners do. It’s not a concept in Islam, which means it’s not a concept in Muslims “hearts and minds”. Their hearts and minds instead understand what Allah teaches them in the Koran, namely, the Collective Will to Power.
When will our leaders understand this? And moreover understand that it is necessary in the end to treat Muslims in the way they themselves understand moral principles? Which ultimately means that they must be beaten back and vanquished and humiliated by a greater strength. That is clearly what they understand. Every move to win their hearts and minds only strengthens them, emboldens them to advance their own peculiar ethics of the world, which couldn’t give a damn about “hearts and minds”, as we understand the term. They will accept the shehada from anyone they can swindle and connive to recite it while at the same time are willing to kill anyone who leaves Islam. Whatever it takes to build the army of Islamic soldiers is what their ethics is about.
There is no way of avoiding the reality that the adults in this world are going to have to act like adults and step up and slap, and in a big way, Muslims who have made of their own societies the equivalent of “Lord of the Flies” and who now threaten to overrun every more advanced society with their mayhem. We’re going to have to come to terms this reality. Either that or it’s simply going to be cruel for all of us, with no kindness in sight, and possibly no one left to come and rescue us off an Island from Hell that in our passivity and cowardice we allowed to be taken over by moral pygmies.
Dear Carol.
If push comes to shove the BEAST Man from every nook and cranny figure of speech break out of his polite chains with threat of becoming RIVER for his people tribe who worship him I see this in reading Doctor Helen’s threads and the leash is not strong enough to stop beast man to break out to do his business upon the women so it seems
They get sick of serving and only mass conversion by the sword in USA figure of speech to Christian keep them from running hog wild in the future when push comes to shove so it seems
Is there another way when nations fail?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPB3oXU3kn0
Could you be more incomprehensible?
Excellent caroline, shehada, read it study it know it. We are on a fools errand “helping” Islam. They do not care about their fellow tribesman marauding about murdering one another. Why do we? No more American blood or treasure should go to humanitatian aid to this sad culture. Murder and mayhem is who they are and what they do. since the 7th century. We have the vanity to think we can alter this course???
Ceterum censeo Iran must be bombed.
Solution to every problem for Spengler.
a few weeks ago this was a headline: Syrian rebels cut off Bashar al-Assad’s escape route
Bashar looks like my nephew . My nephew is so lamb -like caring considerate helpful ,sheepish, hidden from the limelight but always ready to rise to the event to do the right thing. So I have so much good feeling toward Bashar Assad yet this is the old story of what the ring of power can do to even a Frodo and I just see the Return Of The King on TV for my 30th time and there is samewise save Frodo and the look in his eye of samewise when frodo asked him for the ring back . I hope Basher can unite with his wife and live a peaceful life with his children far far away from warring dwarfs
(this is not easy to chain the fire breathing dragon and one can see why the elves turn away)
Good God’s word the Bible to go along with post up above
1 Corinthians 15:33
King James Version (KJV)
33 Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.
(have a feeling it was translated this way not to offend the King)
But David had this evil communication fleeing King Saul and look who Jesus got stuck with the fire breathing sons of thunder so one can be forgiven for rubbing of the elbows with the rif raf as the Elves keep distance holding their nose
I loved this:
“1 Corinthians 15:33
King James Version (KJV)
33 Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.”
Thanks.
[....Disclosure: Goldman is rolling his eyes because I'd been chastised by him some time back for an ad hominem that simply begged to be posted......]
Cheers!
Uncle Charlie.
imagine a world without islam.
Who cares? Let them kill each other as long as possible. Eventually, they will be exhausted and then the war will end. More rubble, less trouble…
At the end of this article Spengler wrote: “The Turks and the Russians would be the biggest losers.”
——————————
The reason Russians would be big losers is because they are more threatened by Sunni Muslims within their sphere of influence than the Shiite Iranians. For the moment, for the Russians even a nuclear Iran is less dangerous than a Sunni world that is united near Russia. Already, it is projected that within a few decades a large percentage of the Russian army will be Sunni Muslim, a demographic transformation that the Russians certainly fear a lot. Thus this explains why Russia supports Syria and Iran. But if Russia is overrun by Sunnis in the future, this will not serve the interests of the US and EU, on the contrary, it is in the interest of US and EU to support Russia, as Russia is still a semi-European country that basically admires the European culture.
it seems to be the religion of secular atheism has served the purpose of uniting enemies but now must go the way of the dinosaur
Here is my simple solution: Convert the Jew back to Judaism where they remember the sacrifice of the lamb at passover made it possible for the slave to live in God’s Glory as life was taken from the firstborn of Egypt . Convert the Christian where they are willing to be the great sacrifice as their savior was and great miracles come upon them to heal in the Presence of God. Unite the Shia with the sunni and then they have deep respect for all Islam people becoming the religion of peace which then translates to deep respect for Judaism and deep respect for the Christian willing to sacrifice their lives to heal Islam people in the name of Jesus thus deep deep respect for Jesus some opening their eyes to THE SON of God
Then the three Abraham faiths begin to open their eyes to the enemy to unite against
Thanks Mr Goldman another scholarly article on internecine Islamic tribal warfare. In the parade of scholarly article on this topic, why is there never any mention of the Gulf Cooperation Council or Arab League? They are ostensibly the hegemonic powers. Is there absolutely no confidence that they could actually make a positive contribution to resolving this debris field that is blazing away in their neighborhood?
Watch as the atrocities pile up,israel will be asked to take in druse,alawi and Christian refugees.after all how can holocaust survivors turn away people facing genocide? I wouldn’t mind the druse. If the druse choose Israeli “occupation” over Arab rule, it further legitimizes israel’s claim to the golan. However, there is compelling reason to take in as ad’s clan anymore than it makes sense to take losing war criminals from other conflicts I.e Nazis,Stalinist. As for the Christians, they created Arab nationalism to save themselves from Muslim ethnochauvinism.didn’t work out too well for them. But part of their platform was to throw the Jews (not the zionists) under the bus.even today we see the Coptic popes and orthodox church perpetuating this strategy. Despite dr Goldman’s philochristianism, he and cardinal Richlieu should understand it is not in israel’s interest to invite these barbarians into our gates
Charlie Griffith
I share your irritation about the Sykes-Picot agreement results. Less than a century later, it’s obviously been disastrous for the millions of persons in the areas thus parceled out — not that they were of any importance for the pencil-holders — and hardly of any use for the people in the countries these ministers were representing.
What Mr. Goldman suggests in his last paragraph is in some way encouraging a return to more natural boundaries, corresponding to the regional mentalities, by regional leaders. I believe he’s right about Iran being the major threat to such a rearrangement (and not only for that).
I’m not sure about air strikes being the best means to destroy the Iranian nuclear program, but that’s a different question. As is whose (air)force should and ultimately would do it.
Thanks, Bern.
Have had the impression that no one has ever heard of that perfidious colonial machination. That’s why I jumped up so eagerly to post.
Don’t know how best to deal with these octopus-hydra-headed Muslims. Seemingly prefer isolation and containment…but we’re already deeply infiltrated with their sleepers. It may be way too late for such a tactic now.
When I was an expat long, long ago in East/South-East Asia we’d never even heard of any “Muslims” except perhaps reading about that Barbary Coast and the Shores of Tripoli……Tripoli!…good grief.
C.G.
It wasn’t a machination. Merely delusional “enlightened” beliefs and some age old interests — not only economic — that directed the map drawers.
The porous nature of those artificial borders has been proven more than once during the past century, to the detriment of the regional inhabitants. The “old” colonialist powers have not as yet grasped the discrepancy between their views and reality, and the newly formed Islamic regional entities happily take advantage of that willing blindness. The other regional minorities, Saturday and Sunday people, hardly benefit from Euro-delusional doctrines.
for a reminder:
http://www.ambafrance-tr.org/Histoire-des-relations-entre-la
http://www.clio.fr/BIBLIOTHEQUE/le_proche-orient_sous_mandats_francais_et_britannique.asp
Had the Brits respected their promises to Fayçal that helped them to get rid of the Ottomans, there wouldn’t have been a Israel state in Palestine, but… in Uganda
If you feel like revising history, the French Consulate in Jerusalem is a top source.
and a embassy in former Ottoman empire, and Philippe conrad isn’t trustful sources for you?
so far a consulate doesn’t deal with history but with domestic problem for one country citizen
Well, Marie Clown, if your civil spirit can’t or would not take the shock of what your taxpayer Euros serve, then by all means avoid their current use made by the French Consulate in Jerusalem.
Not that it’s very different from the past French collaboration with the Ottomans, Young Turks (perpetrators of Armenian atrocities – but Hey, secularists!) or Damascus thugs – Vichy Nazi France was alive and kicking in the ME. They even got Moshe Dayan’s eye.
Their legacy is faithfully followed by their successors, spending French Euros and long-lost decency on genocidal projects.
If it hold to me I would close the Jerusalem french consulate, it’s not our business to protect pilgrins anymore
“but Hey, secularists!) or Damascus thugs – Vichy Nazi France was alive and kicking in the ME. They even got Moshe Dayan’s eye.
Their legacy is faithfully followed by their successors, spending French Euros and long-lost decency on genocidal projects.”
Turk Armenian Genocide and any atrocities facts in the aera weren’t a french fact, it was before that the french occupied aeras, and the Pacha that drove the army was still then muslim Enver, not the Kemal that you’re referring to (Smyrne his’), nor the atrocities facts made in Palestine by the different arab factions
Besides you’re ignoring that Turkey was Allied with Germany in WW1 and in WW2, therefore she became the allies enemy
Vichy regime only lasted 4 years, into our long history, this is les than a second, and didn’t represent France usual policy, but of a occupied colony.
“When he was only 14 years old, Dayan joined the Haganah, an underground organization that defended Jewish settlements from Arab attacks. In the Haganah, Dayan learned guerilla warfare from British Captain Charles Orde Wingate, who was a leader of night patrols organized to fight Arab rebel bands. During the riots of 1936-1939, he served with the special police force in the Jezreel Valley and Galilee. When the British outlawed the Haganah in 1939, Dayan was arrested and imprisoned for two years.
“Upon his release in 1941, Dayan joined the British army, where he served with the forces that liberated Lebanon and Syria from Vichy France during World War II. Dayan was wounded in battle in Lebanon and lost his left eye. He began to wear the black eyepatch that later became his trademark. He cooperated with British intelligence to set up a broadcasting network for clandestine operations behind enemy lines in the event that Palestine should fall to the Germans. He remained active in the Haganah until 1948.”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Dayan.html
“The Allied offensive was aimed at preventing Nazi Germany from using the Vichy French-controlled Mandate of Syria and Mandate of Lebanon as springboards for attacks on the Allied stronghold of Egypt, as the Allies fought a campaign against Axis forces further west in North Africa. Although the French had ceded autonomy to Syria in September 1936, they had retained treaty rights to maintain armed forces and two airfields in the territory. From 1 April, after a coup d’état, Iraq was controlled by pro-German rebel forces under Rashid Ali, causing eventually the outbreak of Anglo-Iraqi War and the subsequent British victory and control over neighboring Iraq.
In May 1941, Admiral François Darlan signed an agreement with the Germans known as the “Paris Protocols”. Darlan signed on behalf of Vichy France and the agreement granted the Germans access to military facilities in Syria.[15] Though the protocols were never ratified, Charles Huntziger, the Vichy Minister of War, sent orders to Henri Dentz, the High Commissioner for the Levant. In accordance with these orders, aircraft of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) and the Italian Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) were allowed to refuel in Syria. Disguised as Iraqi aircraft, the German and Italian aircraft landed in Syria en route to the Kingdom of Iraq during the Anglo-Iraqi War. The Germans also requested permission from the Vichy authorities to use Syrian railways to send armaments to Iraqi rebels in Mosul. There was a threat of Axis support for anti-British parties in Iraq, thus endangering strategic oil supplies and communications. General Archibald Wavell—Commander in Chief of Middle East Command—faced a threat posed by Vichy collaboration with Germany and Italy.”
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria%E2%80%93Lebanon_Campaign
I’m especting that you’re going to tell me that we also are responsible for WW1 and for WW2, like some Germans pretend to
Pilgrims? Is that the Newspeak on the Arab street at the Mosquai for Arabs?
Go get a look at the Jerusalem French Consulate site and see how your home-pilgrims are discriminated against foreign-pilgrims, at your expense.
And while you’re at it, do provide a rationale for depriving the pilgrims around Damascus, Aleppo etc. from your pseudo-humanitarian largesse, while refusing to name Hezbolla a terror organization.
Bernie, depends on the sense of the vocabulary you’re using, call them what you want, when we were in charge of the CHRISTIANS pilgrins, there weren’t such a vocabulary controversy for them
you’re good at lecturing, but why don’t you make the gendarme in your own aeras, don’t expect us doing your job, you wanted it, bear it
Mary Clown – Your government is interfering, and quite heavily so, in another sovereign state’s affairs. It’s spending your taxpayer Euros to incite Pilgrims to hatred and terrorism, and also rewrites the history of a region, including your state’s roles there.
Meanwhile, your home Pilgrims are getting wilder in the Ghettos you concentrate them in.
But why should it bother a Vichy-gendarmette?
You are the clown
and our “pilgrins”, not the Christians, but the muslims (your hidden word), this was part of your big sheme, destroy the nations states by a mass immigration, so that a international world finance power could reign
We aren’t responsible for what happens in the ME today, ask your american and sionnist friends !
There we go, Marie Clown drops the mask.
- Who established a “Kingdom of Jerusalem” some 900 years ago? France, by any chance?
- Who was endowed with a League of Nations Mandate for Syria (Lebanon included in those occupied territories)? France by chance?
- Who was the Picot of the Sykes-Picot “agreements”? Not a French FM by any chance?
Of course Ze Fwench “defender” Marie Clown prefers to ignore Fwench responsibilities (and their utterly irresponsible acts); only to accuse, well… surprise: Yankees and Zionists!
No wonder France is in dire straits.
pff, De Gaulle was right to call you arrogant
but you ain’t going to have the last word
Some have a design of the new golden calf cult
http://www.wnd.com/2008/01/45563/
-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcasKI_H3_s
And I expect that the blog owner is aware of the stakes
De Gaulle called us an elite and self-confident people – don’t rewrite history – and he was right.
You can Pffff as much as you are able to – it won’t change the facts. Being envious about others’ accomplishments won’t make you accomplish anything. Better deal with your mediocrity and don’t waste public money on enhancing foreign Pilgrims’ genocidal projects. Clean your own filthy stables first.
Not that one can cont on a Vichyste geandarmette to do any work. That’s the kind who’d rather earn her living by denouncing.
mediocrity is a well shared human characteristic, and, especially among the arrogants
I don’t envy the fate you created yourself
The above should read. No compelling reason to take in Assad,s clan
Ha ha ha ha.. Divide and rule is as as old as empires.. what new game theoretic wisdom follows from Spengler? we already know Israel is the only successful(?) creation of British and French imperialism that relies on the minority jews’ oppression of the majority arabs. mind you spengler that existence however is becoming perilous by the moment as US willingness to pay the bill is diminishing by the moment. Everyone in the ME has natural allies except the colonial jewish settlers..
It’s no surprise that a member of an invented people or one who sympathizes with an invented people would subscribe to such lies.
I was going to say the minority rule scheme sounds uncomfortably like the new political rules here in America.
Next supreme court justice has to ba a gay female inuit. But has to be ugly. I dont know why ugly has to be part of it but it does.
RT is broadcasting an Orthodox Epiphany service live from Constantinople.
http://rt.com/on-air/turkey-orthodox-christian-epiphany/
Of course the Ecumenical Patriarch is on the Westernized Greek calendar while Russia is on the Julian calendar so the Russians (and Bulgarians?) are celebrating Christmas eve today (perhaps the OCA is as well in America). Epiphany in Russia and for the ROCOR and Moscow Patriarchate churches abroad won’t be until January 19th.
What I meant to say above is that most of the Serbs, Greeks, ‘Arabs’ (since much of the Antiochian Orthodox diocese now consists of adult converts) and the autocephelous Orthodox in America celebrated Christmas on the 25th.
Depardieu is the last Adult convert
Depardieu is the ultimate French.
No wonder the current nomenclatura despises him. He’s got what they won’t ever have, even if they rob all they can.
Spirits can’t be stolen or transferred.
Not that this has anything to do with Syria – or does it?
you’re silly
Putin is opportunly using him as his fool, hey, Russia is such a great Democracy !
he can send us his pussy riots girls, we would love to send him our old schmocks
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151216195352057&set=a.151269762056.120033.692982056&type=1&theater
“Not that this has anything to do with Syria – or does it?”
did you say something on Syria?
The odds of an Obama with “flexibility” approving a strike on Iran apparently just descended from their previous basement home: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/01/06/hagel-means-iran-containment-nuclear-obama/#more-815322.