A UN Farce In Syria
By Daniel Greenfield
SultanKnish.Blogspot.com
If anyone is to blame for Russia and China's
vetoing of the Syria resolution in the UN Security
Council, it's Barack Obama. Last year the United
States and the Arab League brought forward a No Fly
Zone to the UN Security Council. Instead of
enforcing a No Fly Zone, Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy
instead used it as an excuse for an invasion and
regime change. If Russia and China refused to take
another plan from the same suspects at face value,
the blame lies with an administration that abused a
No Fly Zone.
The message from Russia and China is fairly
clear. Fool me once, shame on you. But don't even
think about trying it twice.
A closer look at the whole process reveals the
ridiculousness of it. The Security Council
Resolution calling for peaceful democratic change
was co-sponsored by Saudi Arabia, which is an
absolute monarchy, and which recently used tanks to
suppress protests in Bahrain. As the driving force
behind the Arab League, Saudi Arabia was the key
player in moving for regime change in Libya. Now it
has rubber stamped regime change in Syria.
But why are we expected to take a call by one
tyranny for the overthrow of another as a moral
duty. As bad as the Assad regime is, Syria is
marginally more open and democratic than Saudi
Arabia is. And unlike Saudi Arabia, it isn't an
Apartheid state that treats non-Muslims and women
like dirt. If we were going to implement regime
change on the basis of democracy and human rights,
we would start with the Saudis.
Of the Muslim co-sponsors of the UN Resolution,
virtually all of them have suppressed opposition
movements and imprisoned political dissidents.
Bahrain is another co-sponsor of the resolution and
the only difference between it and Syria, is that
Bahrain is a Sunni minority ruling over a Shiite
minority, while in Syria it's the other way around.
Kuwait ethnically cleansed the Palestinians back in
the nineties. Turkey is still conducting an
occupation and murdering Kurdish civilians. Libya
doesn't have an actual elected government, but it's
still somehow sponsoring UN resolutions for regime
change in another country.
Of the nine Muslim co-sponsors that have actual
governments... eight are monarchies. Most are even
absolute monarchies. The only quasi-democracy on the
list is Turkey which has prisons filled with
dissidents, persecutes minorities and continues to
deny its genocidal actions. Not to mention its
violation of UN resolutions on Cyprus.
Muslim absolute monarchies are calling for
implementing democratic change in Syria. Did
monarchies which torture and execute dissenters
expected anyone to believe that they were concerned
because the Assad family was killing opponents of
the regime? Two of the co-sponsors had been doing
the same thing last year. One of the co-sponsors is
busy torturing former members of its regime right
now.
The UN Resolution was based around the Plan of
Action of the League of Arab States based on an
observer mission to Syria headed by General Mohammed
Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi. Al-Dabi headed up the
Sudanese genocide, he is the pet thug of Sudan's
indicted war criminal leader, Omar al-Bashir and
helped create the Janjaweed rape squads.
Obama has been on the record opposing any military
intervention in Sudan, despite the fact that an
actual genocide did take place there. But now we are
being led by the Gulf Cooperation Council members
into another regime change plan. The loudest voice
calling for military intervention is Sheikh Hamad
Al-Thani, the fat smirking thug running Qatar.
Another of the Al-Thani clan, who serves as foreign
minister, said, "We ask that the Syrian regime leave
and hand over power. We are with the Syrian people,
with their will and with their aspirations." The Al-Thanis,
who rule in an absolute monarchy, are the last
people to be cheering on the aspirations of the
people. The Al-Thanis can't see the people from
their palaces.
And who are the Syrian people anyway? Is it the
Sunnis or the Alawites or the Christians? This isn't
a civil war between a dictator and his people, no
matter how often the media and foreign policy
experts will repeat the lie, it's a religious
conflict between a ruling Shiite splinter sect and
Sunnis backed by Turkey and Arabian Gulf monarchies.
For all the talk of replacing Assad with an
inclusive system based on elections, this will mean
majority rule and the disenfranchisement of
non-Sunnis, non-Muslims and women at the hands of
the rebels handpicked by Turkish ruling Islamist
party and the Emir of Qatar. Egypt's democracy led
to an Islamist parliament. There is no reason to
expect a Syrian election not to lead to the same
thing.
Sheikh Hamad Al-Thani has already called for an
invasion of Syria. Qatari special forces were the
first on the ground in Libya, But as the usual the
West will have to do the heavy lifting. Does the
United States have an interest in removing Assad? It
does, considering that Assad is an Iranian puppet
and he helped kill quite a few Americans in Iraq.
But removing Assad to replace him with the local
Muslim Brotherhood leaders doesn't benefit anyone
except the Brotherhood and its backers.
If Russia and China re reluctant to get fooled a
second time, so are Americans who were never fooled
a first time. The Libyan War was one of the most
unpopular on record, and that was before the
aftermath melted down into torture cells and
Al-Qaeda flags. With the examples of Libya and Egypt
before us, who's really up for a Syrian War besides
the Saudis and the Emir of Qatar?
France's Sarkozy is tediously eager to crack the
Gallic whip over another former colony, and he's dim
witted enough to think that it will be French
diplomats calling the shots, rather than officials
from neighboring countries who actually have the
contacts and the inside track, and who were backing
regime change while Sarkozy was busy with Libya..
The UK's Cameron has dismantled chunks of the fleet
and air force, but is still raring for another round
of fighting. Selling spartan cuts to his own people,
while fighting a new war every year would seem to be
at odds with policy and elementary mathematics, but
at least it's likely to create new jobs in the
British defense industry if a new Syrian government
begins ordering their equipment from the West
instead of the East. But stimulating your defense
industry by starting new wars every year is not
sound economic stewardship.
Considering the amount of Russian arms sales to
Syria, Moscow is protecting its own defense
industry, if nothing else. But it's also protecting
its access point to the Middle East. Russia has a
naval base in Syria and Russia's aircraft carrier
recently paid a visit to Tartus as a show of support
for Assad.
But what did the Russian veto really come down to?
The Russians attempted to introduce amendments
calling for the Syrian opposition to disassociate
itself from any armed attacks and blaming it for
some of the violence. Had the NATO countries been
willing to sign on, then the Russians would no
longer have had an excuse for a veto. But rather
than go that route, Rice bluffed the Russians,
rejected the amendments and got shot down.
That can mean a number of different things. Either
Rice really didn't care if the resolution passed.
Bringing the resolution forward and letting the
Russians shoot it down will score points with the
rebels if they do win, and destroy the Russian
connection. That's not an implausible scenario since
Obama might not be racing to war as fast as Sarkozy
might want him to. And if war becomes necessary then
the same coalition which exploited a No Fly Zone for
regime change will find another way to get it done.
It's not as if anyone is going to hold them
accountable.
But it's also an admission that the only purpose
of all this is regime change. Placing blame on the
rebels will challenge the absolute legitimacy
required to topple Assad on their behalf. Russia
knew that the backers of regime change could not
accept a resolution that undermined the legitimacy
of the rebels. Especially a resolution that would
not have been the endgame, but the lead in to
another one of the same.
This isn't the end of the push for regime change in
Syria. Germany's UN Ambassador has been discussing
how to move forward. And while the Assad regime is
completely unsympathetic, its enemies are equally
so. Absolute monarchies have no legitimacy when
calling for democratic change and an administration
whose head honcho built his rep on opposing military
intervention is now swaggering around with one war
under his belt and a second one behind his back.
The free world has no friends in Syria. None likely
to take power anyway. And it has nothing at stake in
a Sunni-Alawite civil war that will end with Syria
as a puppet of Iran or a puppet of Saudi Arabia.