The West, the United States, Israel, Arabs and Turks have tried all kinds of provocations, slanders, and excuses to get rid of Assad’s regime, and sooner or later the Assad regime will be replaced by another one, which may prove to be a worse regime such as Sunni Wahabists or Gulenists. Granted, at present the Assad regime is worse; in fact, we know that more than a million Kurds who lived in Syria could not have their citizenship until the Syrian civil war broke out two years ago.
Assad is a terrible dictator, and he should pay for what he has done to more than one millions Kurds, among others. Yet, there are violence and human rights issues in almost every country in the world, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain. In Turkey, for example, more than 20 million Kurds living there, still cannot have their basic rights, and more than 10 thousand Kurdish politicians, activists, students, academics, and journalists are in prisons. Is it not time for Turks, Arabs, Persians, and even Israelis to take care of their own problem of human rights violations?
I believe the war in Syria is Turkey’s war with the Assad regime, and America should not get involved in the war. America should not forget when it tried to get rid of Saddam Husseyin and asked Turkey to use its airbase to attack Saddam’s forces. Turkey did not let America use the base, and as a result, it cost many American lives and a great deal of money. Turkey argued that the Iraq war was illegitimate and that the American infidels could not use Muslim land to kill another Muslim brother. However, Saddam had already killed and used chemical weapons against the Kurdish people murdering more than 100, 000 Kurds, so why was Turkey silent then? Are Kurds not human beings?
The Obama administration’s biggest foreign policy flaw is its determination that Turkey would be the United States’ close friend and primary gateway to the Middle East, and Turkey’s new Islamic movement, called the Gulen movement, and Prime Minster Tayyip Erdogan will help to implement Obama ‘s Middle East foreign policy to engage Iran and Syria to make peace between Israel and Palestine. However, President Obama failed to realize the more than 20 millions Kurds still under the Turkish oppression and more than 10, 000 Kurdish politicians in jail? Further, Obama’s foreign policy advisor failed to understand Turkey’s engagement with Iran and Syria, as well as its talks with Hamas, simply to manage and limit the US’s power in the region.
In the future the biggest obstacle to American national interests in the region will be Turkey. Turkish and Syrian relations have never been friendly since 1949, when Syria gained its independence from France. Because of Turkey’s previous secular government’s ties with Israel, and because of Syria’s support for the Kurdish group, the PKK rebels’ movement, which was fighting for basic rights of more than 20 million Kurds living in Turkey, the two countries were at odds. Furthermore, there is a water dispute between Turkey and Syria, because Turkey ‘s massive development such as dams, power plants and irrigations systems robbed Syrian agriculture of its water resources. So basically Turkey wants to limit America’s power in the region and is saying, “This is my territory, so before you do something, you have to ask us permission.”
The biggest obstacle for Turkey’s having such power and indeed hegemonic power is the Kurdish people. Turkey does not want Kurds in Syria to have an autonomous region like the Kurds in Iraq because that will also lead to the Kurds in Turkey expecting that they should have autonomy.
No matter what America does or does not do, they hate America. We have already seen what happened in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Egypt; the end result is the hate for the USA only increases. The rebels are not any better than or worse than the Assad regime. US supported the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in 1979 in its efforts to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan. Then the same Mujahideens ended up murdering more than 3000 people in America during the 9/11 attacks. In Libya, America helped other European allies oust Kaddafi from power, freeing the Libyan people from the wrath of Kaddafi, and then the same people killed an American Ambassador; the same ingratitude and hate may be seen in Egypt, Yemen, and Turkey. The problem for the USA is difficult since intentions are clouded by falsehoods. For that reason, President Obama has warned Assad that deploying chemical weapons would cross a “red line” that could lead the United States to intervene. So far, however, the President has said that firm evidence is lacking. U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria’s civil war and medical staff indicating that the Assad regime did not use chemical weapons but instead rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin in the form of a gas. Using chemical weapons against civilians is banned by international law. Will the U.N and the international community punish the rebels for using chemical weapons?
Currently, Israel has attacked Syria in what appears to be an intentional provocation to drag Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon into a wider conflict. Israel’s involvement in the war means the United States’ involvement in the war. So why has Israel attacked the Syrian capital? It is because the Israelis wanted to prevent a shipment of Iranian missiles from reaching Hezbollah in Lebanon. The end of the Assad regime would be a great disaster for the Iran government because of the route through which Iran arms to Hezbollah and because it is a permanent threat to Israel. The Assad regime gets most of its support from the Alawite community and the Alawite led security forces. The majority of the Syrian population is Sunni Muslim, while the Assad regime is Alawite–an offshoot of Shiite Islam, one often considered heretical by orthodox Sunnis.
The problem for the USA is difficult since the intentions are clouded by falsehoods because the Syrian rebels are fighting, trying to have a new Syria and the Assad regime is fighting to have control and to maintain power in Syria. However, both sides have a record of human rights violations and ties with terrorism while fighting for their causes. Al- Qaeda and other Jihadist groups from Libya support the Syrian rebels, who are fighting against the Assad regime. Jihadists from the Caucasus region and Central Asia are fighting for a jihad against Assad’s regime in order to create an Islamic State in Syria. Al-Qaeda is a Sunni organization that has killed more than 3000 Americans and non-Americans. The Assad regime, on the other hand, has killed thousands of Kurds and supported Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which are considered a terrorist group.
The winner is not the United States, the West, or Israel if either side succeeds. The winner is Turkey because both regimes hate America and the West and will give America a weak position in the Middle East to make peace. The goal of the US’s policy should be to end the violence and to make sure the aftermath of the Assad regime should lay a basis for a stable democratic system with protections for all the minorities, Kurds, Sunnis, Alawites and Christians. The question is -- can that happen? I really doubt it. The United States should support the overthrow of the Assad regime but not get involved by aiding the rebels with arms or by being involved militarily. The idea of helping Syrian rebels mostly driven by Al- Qaeda global jihadists would not make any sense for the United States, and helping Hezbollah does not make sense either because Hezbollah is the biggest threat to the Jewish state. Instead, America should wait to see who wins and prepare for another enemy regime in Syria.
Dr. Aland Mizell is with the University of Mindanao School of Social Science, President of the MCI and a regular contributor to The Kurdistan Tribune, Kurdishaspect.com, Mindanao Times and Kurdish Media.You may email the author at:aland_mizell2@hotmail.com.
