Underpaid Genius

Thomas Friedman is visiting Syria, and thinks the maps are about to change:

Letter From Syria - Thomas Friedman via NYTimes.com

Without a strong, galvanizing Syrian leader with a compelling unifying vision, backed by the international community, getting rid of Assad will not bring order to Syria. And disorder in Syria will not have the same consequences as disorder in other countries in the region.

Syria is the keystone of the Middle East. If and how it cracks apart could recast this entire region. The borders of Syria have been fixed ever since the British and French colonial powers carved up the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. If Assad is toppled and you have state collapse here, Syria’s civil war could go regional and challenge all the old borders — as the Shiites of Lebanon seek to link up more with the Alawite/Shiites of Syria, the Kurds in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey try to link up with each other and create an independent Kurdistan, and the Sunnis of Iraq, Jordan and Syria draw closer to oppose the Shiites of Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

We could be entering a new age of Middle East border-drawing — the do-it-yourself version — where the borders of the Middle East get redrawn, not by colonial outsiders from the top down but by the Middle Easterners themselves, from the bottom up.

Friedman doesn’t say whether this redrawing of the borders is good or bad. I sense that he favors stability rather than the chaos that change can bring. But the lines left behind by the French and British after dismembering the Ottoman empire make no sense, and power politics — like the Alawite takeover of the Syrian Baath party — should cede to democracy. 

The subtext is perhaps that Friedman doubts that democracy is coming. Maybe we’ll see new lines drawn, new alliances made, but that this will simply open a new era of sectarian violence and despotism, another front in the seemingly endless struggle between Shiites and Sunnis across the Islamic world, but now an especially violent front in Syria.

Do the Kurds have a right to a country, even when the governments of Iraq, Syria, and Turkey don’t agree?

Kurds to Pursue More Autonomy in a Fallen Syria - Tim Arango via NYTimes.com

Just off a main highway that stretches east of this city and slices through a moonscape of craggy hills, a few hundred Syrian Kurdish men have been training for battle, marching through scrub brush and practicing rifle drills.

Hohammed Morsi will be visiting China next week, in an effort to disentangle his country from US influence:

Egypt’s outreach to China and Iran is troubling for U.S. policy - David Schenker and Christina Lin via LATimes.com

Concerned about the effect of Egypt’s new policy of intentionally downgrading — and potentially even severing — ties with its peace partner Israel, Morsi appears to be engaged in hedging. Much like post-revolution Iran, China could be a willing partner for an Islamist Egypt.

China has not fared particularly well in the so-called Arab Spring. In addition to losing billions of dollars in energy sector investments in Libya, Beijing’s ongoing support for the Bashar Assad regime’s ruthless repression of the popular uprising has engendered the animosity of millions of Syrians. Beijing’s vetoes of United Nations Security Council resolutions against Syria has made burning Chinese flags a popular pastime among the anti-Assad opposition, and when the regime is finally dispatched, the Middle Kingdom’s economic and political interests in Syria will suffer.

Although an Islamist Egypt beset by insecurity and a failing economy might seem of little value to the Chinese, upgraded ties with the troubled nation would provide China with a foothold on the Mediterranean, and include, hypothetically, a port. Morsi’s Egypt might also be amenable to offering Chinese warships priority access to the Suez Canal, as the U.S. has traditionally been afforded. This privilege would be particularly appealing to China, which increasingly sees a need to protect its investments in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

[…]

The benefits for China of improved ties with Egypt are clear. But Morsi also sees advantages in diversifying Egypt’s sources of assistance. At the most basic level, China’s foreign policy is based solely on perceived national interest alone, and as such, unlike the United States, Beijing will have no qualms about Morsi’s increasing limitations on press freedoms, restrictions on freedom of speech, constraints on women’s rights or the ill treatment of minorities. At the same time, China is flush with cash, and Egypt will again be ripe for foreign investment when and if security is reestablished.

Egypt needs money, and China will provide more of it in serious investments than the US has, and without the need to play nice with Israel. However, this is a seriously destabilizing move from the perspective of the US, especially given China’s increasingly bellicose moves in Asia, and their land grab in Africa.

The very important people are beginning to discuss the possibility of the Syrian civil war turning into a possible separation of the Alawite region along the northeastern corner of Syria, and the formation of an Alawite nation state there.

Of course, the immediate reaction is dismissive. However, this ignores both the local history of Syria, and the general history of sectarian civil wars in recent times. The Alawites ran a relatively autonomous state while Syria was under French control after WW I. Here’s a map:

The division of Syria under French administration in the 1920s.

But even more important is the default kneejerk of Western countries to believe that the likelihood for greater stability lies in keeping existing ‘countries’ together rather than having them spin apart, even when the groups inhabiting the shared region have deep-seated hatred of each other.

Consider the case of Yugoslavia, where the US, Germany, and other EU countries opposed separation, and actively supported Slobodan Milosevic’s efforts to create a Greater Serbia. They decried the separation of Slovenia and Croatia, and only — reluctantly — shift course when nationalistic and religion-based genocide began:

Marko Hoare, The West and the break-up of Yugoslavia: A groundbreaking new study

[excerpt from a review of The Hour Of Europe by Josip Gluardic]

Glaurdic has marshalled an enormous wealth of documentary evidence to show that the British, French and Americans, far from reacting in a weak and decisive manner to a sudden outbreak of war, actually pursued a remarkably steady and consistent policy from before the war began, right up until the eve of full-scale war in Bosnia-Hercegovina: of vocally supporting Yugoslav unity and opposing Croatian and Slovenian secession; of resisting any singling out of Serbia for blame or punishment; of opposing recognition of Slovenia and Croatia; of seeking to appease Milosevic and the JNA by extracting concessions from Croatia as the weaker side; and finally of appeasing the Serb nationalists’ desire to carve up Bosnia. EC sanctions imposed in November 1991 applied to all parts of the former Yugoslavia equally, while there was no freezing of the international assets or financial transactions through which the JNA funded its war. The UN arms embargo, whose imposition had actually been requested by the Yugoslav government itself, favoured the heavily-armed Serbian side and hurt the poorly armed Croatians. Although, largely on account of Germany’s change of heart, the EC at the start of December 1991 belatedly limited its economic sanctions to Serbia and Montenegro alone, the US immediately responded by imposing economic sanctions on the whole of Yugoslavia.

According to myth, the Western powers applied the principle of national self-determination in a manner that penalised the Serb nation and privileged the non-Serbs. As Glaurdic shows, the reverse was actually the case. In October 1991, Milosevic rejected the peace plan put forward by the EC’s Lord Carrington, which would have preserved Yugoslavia as a union of sovereign republics with autonomy for national minorities, in part because he feared it implied autonomy for the Albanians of Kosovo and the Muslims in Serbia’s Sanjak region. Carrington consequently modified his plan: Croatia would be denied any military presence whatsoever in the disputed ‘Krajina’ region, despite it being an integral part of Croatia inhabited by many Croats, while Serbia would be given a completely free hand to suppress the Kosovo Albanians and Sanjak Muslims. Carrington’s offer came just after leaders of the latter had organised referendums for increased autonomy, and after the Milosevic regime had responded with concerted police repression (Glaurdic, p. 242).

Milosevic nevertheless continued to reject the Carrington Plan in the understandable belief that the West would eventually offer him a better deal. He consequently asked Carrington to request from the EC’s Arbitration Commission, headed by Robert Badinter, an answer to the questions of whether the Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia possessed the right to self-determination, and of whether Serbia’s borders with Croatia and Bosnia should be considered borders under international law. Carrington submitted these to the Commission, along with a third question, of whether the situation in Yugoslavia was a case of secession by Slovenia and Croatia or a case of dissolution of the common state. That the Arbitration Commission ruled against Serbia on all three counts was, in Glaurdic’s words, a ‘terrible surprise for Milosevic and for many in the international community’ (p. 260), given that Badinter was a close associate of President Mitterand, whose sympathies were with Serbia’s case. The Badinter Commission’s ruling dismayed both Carrington and French foreign minister Roland Dumas, and paved the way to international recognition of Croatia and Slovenia. But it did not fundamentally change the West’s policy.

Glaurdic’s account ends with the outbreak of the war in Bosnia, which as he argues, should be seen as the logical culmination of this policy. The failure of the EC foreign ministers to recognise Bosnia’s independence in January 1992 along with Croatia’s and Slovenia’s was, in Glaurdic’s words, ‘the decision with the most detrimental long-term consequences, all of which were clearly foreseeable… The EC had missed a great chance to preempt a war that would soon make the war in Croatia pale in comparison. Of all the mistakes the European Community had made regarding the recognition of the Yugoslav republics, this one was probably the most tragic.’ (pp. 281-282). Recognition of Bosnia at this time would have upset Milosevic’s and Karadzic’s plans for destroying that republic; instead, they were given every indication that the West would acquiesce in them.

I am certain the same stupidity will prevail in Syria, until the Sunnis have killed or driven out the majority of Alawites, once the Alawites control of the country fails. Instead, we should negotiate a peace which officially grants the Alawites a nation along the lines of the old region during the French administration.

For more information on what took place in Syria before the French departed, read The Syrian Civil War: An Alawite State?

(Source: greatersurbiton.wordpress.com)

Few watching the news about Syria understand the back story, which isn’t about some nationalist strongman refusing to accept the will of democratically minded citizens. Bashar al-Assad is more than the dictator of Syria: he is the leader of the minority Alawis, a people distinct from other peoples in the region, with very different history and culture. Until quite recently, the Alawis were considered by most to not be Moslems, followers of Nusayrism:

Malise Ruthven, Storm Over Syria

Before the twentieth century they were usually referred to as Nusayris, after their eponymous founder Ibn Nusayr, who lived in Iraq during the ninth century. Taking refuge in the mountains above the port of Latakia, on the coastal strip between modern Lebanon and Turkey, they evolved a highly secretive syncretistic theology containing an amalgam of Neoplatonic, Gnostic, Christian, Muslim, and Zoroastrian elements. Their leading theologian, Abdullah al-Khasibi, who died in 957, proclaimed the divinity of Ali, the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, whom other Shiites revere but do not worship. Like many Shiites influenced by ancient Gnostic teachings that predate Islam, they believe that the way to salvation and knowledge lies through a succession of divine emanations. Acknowledging a line of prophets or avatars beginning with Adam and culminating in Christ and Muhammad, they include several figures from classical antiquity in their list, such as Socrates, Plato, Galen, and some of the pre-Islamic Persian masters.

Nusayrism could be described as a folk religion that absorbed many of the spiritual and intellectual currents of late antiquity and early Islam, packaged into a body of teachings that placed its followers beyond the boundaries of orthodoxy. Mainstream Muslims, both Sunni and Shia, regarded them as ghulta, “exaggerators.” Like other sectarian groups they protected their tradition by a strategy known as taqiyya — the right to hide one’s true beliefs from outsiders in order to avoid persecution.

As Ruthven points out, taqiyya is a great blind for the secret police that has controlled Syria for the past four decades: the Mukhabarat.

And, of course, the great division of Islam is that between those that believe in the divinity of Ali,  like Shiites, and those that don’t, like Sunnis. So even if Alawis were considered Moslems, they would be Shiites in a majority Sunni country.

The Alawis subverted the Baathist movement in the ’60s, and have controlled the state ever since, but not motivated by any ideological goal other than the survival of Alawis in an otherwise Sunni majority country.

But it might have been different. The French — who administered the region after WWI, could have carved out an Alawi State, independent of the rest of Syria. In fact, they did, but not for long.

The division of Syria under French administration in the 1920s.

Here’s the full back story:

Malise Ruthven, Storm Over Syria

The rise and possible fall of the Assad dynasty would provide a perfect illustration of the Khaldunian paradigm [the inevitable decline of a dynasty after a period of turbulence] under recent postcolonial conditions. Under Ottoman rule the Nusayris were impoverished outsiders struggling on the social margins. In addition to feuding among themselves, they were fierce rivals of the Ismailis, whom they expelled from their highland refuges and castles, forcing them to settle in the more arid lands east of Homs. The Ottoman governors regarded them as nonbelievers and tools of the Shiite Persians: they were not even accorded the dignity of a millet, or recognized religious community.

When the French took over Greater Syria after World War I (including modern Lebanon and parts of modern Turkey), they flirted briefly with the idea of creating a highland Alawi state of 300,000 people separate from the cities of the plains—Homs, Hama, Damascus, and Aleppo—with their dominant Sunni majorities. The French rightly believed that the Sunni majority would be most resistant to their rule. Like other minorities the Alawis, as they preferred to be called, saw the French as protectors.

[…]

The ‘asabiyya [social solidarity based on kinship ties, more or less synonymous with tribalism] of the Alawis was carefully exploited by the French, who polished the Khaldunian model by giving them military training as members of the Troupes Spéciales du Levant. In the turbulent years that followed full independence in 1946, their military know-how proved valuable. Bright members of the sect such as Hafez al-Assad, whose families could not afford to send them to university, joined the armed forces and were drawn to secular parties, such as the Baath (renaissance) party jointly founded by two intellectuals, Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din Bitar, with an agenda explicitly aimed at overcoming sectarian divisions.

It would be wrong to suppose that the Alawis deliberately sought to subvert or take over the Baath or the armed forces. Their primary impulse was their own security. After independence the Syrian parliament abolished the separate representation for minorities instituted by the French, along with certain judicial rights. Nusayri sheikhs and notables encouraged young men to join the Baath because they believed its secular outlook would protect them from Sunni hegemony and persecution. Other minorities, including Christians, Druzes, and Ismailis, tended to join the Baath (or in some cases the Communist Party and Syrian Socialist National Party) for similar reasons. The eventual dominance achieved by the Alawis may be attributed to their highland military background and the default logic by which ‘asabiyya tends to assert itself in the absence of other, more durable structures.

And, here we are today, in what is clearly a civil war. The ruling minority, the Alawis, have deep mistrust of outsiders, and feel that anything is justified in retaining control of their own destiny, which has now become affiliated with their notion of Alawi-dominated Syria.

This is unsupportable to the international community, but rather than accepting widespread ethnic cleansing — on either side — outsiders may have to negotiate the creation of an Alawite State, and the return of the remaining area to a Sunni-dominated Lesser Syria. This may wind up like Serbian and Kosovo, but one from a parallel dimension, where the Kosovars had been ruling over a Greater Serbia before the civil war broke out. Nonetheless, we should step in to stop a civil war heading toward genocide.