Krimpedia – das Kriminologie-Wiki

Agonal Autism in the Syrian Conflict: Unterschied zwischen den Versionen

Agonal Autism in the Syrian Conflict (Quelltext anzeigen)

Version vom 13. Juni 2017, 17:08 Uhr

975 Bytes entfernt ,  17:08, 13. Jun. 2017
→‎A March of Folly?
 
(33 dazwischenliegende Versionen desselben Benutzers werden nicht angezeigt)
Zeile 1: Zeile 1:
With the Syrian conflict in its seventh year, chances for any one side to end it by outright military victory have faded, thus making it a matter of formal logic that the relevance of other means of conflict resolution - especially communicative ones - should be heigthened. In practice, that is more easily said than done, though. To switch from the sword to the negotiating table has never been easy, but in the new age of small, asymmetric, and unconventional warfare (cf. Daase 1999, 2001), it seems to have become all but impossible. Diplomatic talks broke down in 2012 and 2014, and more recent attempts have also remained essentially fruitless.
= A March of Folly? =


In a situation where more than half of Syria's population has been displaced, where Syrian refugees challenge the neighboring countries' intake capacity, and chances for any kind of restoration of an effective central government have been declared dead (Jenkins 2014), millions of citizens of various countries, non-governmental organizations, and some governments have gone to great lengths to provide assistance. On the other hand, the influx of foreigners has created a certain socio-political backlash in many countries. Moreover, and in addition to the failure of negotiating attempts on the diplomatic level, there is strangely little interest in the Syrian catastrophe's causes and consequences. Comprehensive analyses like Michal Lüders' (2015) ''Wer Wind sät'' have found an audience, but failed to reach a breakthrough against the political establishment's glass ceiling of defense and denial. The following argument tries to add some provisional ideas to Lüders' analysis in the hope that one or the other conceptual tool might be of some use to reach a fuller understanding of what went wrong - and what could prevent a repetition of the kind of thought, actions, and strategies that caused the Syrian tragedy in the first place.
The Western world sees itself as a community of values. Even when it comes to questions of military intervention, the heads of state and governments never fail to mention this vital aspect of their mission. At countless meetings, official statements solemnly declare their commitment to the heritage of Enlightenment, and their proud military alliance is no exception to the rule when it routinely affirms that "NATO member states form a unique community of values, committed to the principles of individual liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law" [http://www.nato.int/cps/po/natohq/official_texts_68580.htm see: Strategic Concept for the Defence and Security of the Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation adopted by Heads of State and Government in Lisbon 2010].


= Lack of Agonal Partnership =
The problem is that the interventions undertaken by Western governments in the name of such good intentions - from Vietnam to Iraq, Libya, and Syria - tend to produce paradoxical results. Their secret manoeuvres, harsh sanction regimes and military interventions starved, maimed, tortured, displaced, repressed and/or killed literally millions all over the globe, toppled democratically elected governments, supported military coups, and forged the most reactionary alliances with ruthless dictators. More often than never, such actions were also doomed to failure in the sense that the "cure" did more harm than the original "disease" that had prompted the interventions.
It may sound terribly nostalgic of traditional warfare to say that it was a great advantage of "old" wars that they were culturally embedded in a network of practices, customs, rules, and meta-rules that allowed for institutionalized communication even with soldiers still fighting. Ethnologist Wilhelm E. Mühlmann (1940) had referred to such phenomena as "agonal partnership". The existence of a meta-level of partnership in the middle of armed conflict produced things like the Christmas Truce 1914, but also episodes very difficult to imagine in the present-day Syrian conflict:


:While German and British fighter pilots in World War I were the deadliest of enemies, stories of chivalry are not as rare as might be expected. In one case, German pilot Oswald Boelke shot down a British plane in January, 1916. Boelke then landed and was delighted so see that he had brought down the enemy plane with its two-person crew alive. He had a long talk with the pilot, saw to it that they were both taken in a car to the hospital, and later visited crewmember Fomilli in hospital, who wrote a letter to a Captain Babington of the Royal Flying Corps telling that they were alive and wanted their families to know that. The Germman pilot took the letter and dropped it over the British lines where it reached the captain and ultimately the crew member's family ("Gentlemen of the skies: German flew behind enemy lines to deliver letter from Brit he shot down. MailOnline 8 September 2012).
In all those cases, the risks were known to those in office, and alternative routes of action had been suggested to them by well-informed advisers, but had been ignored when the fatal decisions were being made. The frequency and the terrible consequences of such constellations in history had prompted Barbara Tuchman (1984) to write her bestselling book ''The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam.''


In the Syrian conflict, there is no such thing as agonal partnership. Much to the contrary. Like other "small" wars, it is characterized by deep hatred and lack of empathy, the absence or violation of humanitarian law and rules of engagement, a lack of distinction between combatants and non-combatants, and even between war and peace. Small wars like the Syrian one are almost by definition wars of blurred boundaries and de-civilizing vicious circles of brutality. Not only the other side's combatants are being defined as enemy, but the ethnic, religious or national group in its entirety. Civilians are seen as legitimate objects of sub-state actors in small wars - but even regular armies tend towards assimilating to the irregular ways of fighting they see in their counterparts. Moreover, small wars are being fought everywhere: in deserts and urban centers, on battlefields and the bridges or Christmas markets of European capitals. In addition, long-distance weapons like killer drones guided by far away armchair "pilots" and/or impersonal computer software ("disposition matrix"), the use of makeshift weapons like trucks or cars, etc., contribute to a chaotic situation in which nothing is harder to imagine than chivalry as part of agonal partnership.
Michael Lüders' ''Wer den Wind sät. Was westliche Politik im Orient anrichtet'' (2015) can justly be seen as an equally successful sequel to this 30 years old March-of-Folly discourse. Lüders starts his account with the West's original sin of overthrowing Mossadegh in Iran (1953), and argues in impressive detail his case that the West is betraying its own values while at the same time pursuing a foolish policy that cannot but backfire against its own interests. The basic idea of the book is this: if we (the West) only did the right thing in terms of political values (respect democratic movements and human rights, refrain from supporting autocrats and hypocrites), it would create a win-win situation for both itself and the rest of the world.


The very fact that sub-state actors use unconventional weapons, tactics, and objects - including civilians - makes them more vulnerable to a definition as terrorists. Such a label paves the way for a strategy of extermination rather than negotiation. As White House Speaker Scott McClellan said when asked how the United States would react to Usama bin Laden's offer to negotiate a truce in 2006, "We don't negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business" (Buncombe 2006). - And is it hard to imagine a symmetric attitude on the part of insurgents with the experience of being exposed to incessant large-scale bombing and drone raids? Hence, what is certainly lacking in the Syrian conflict, is "agonal partnership" as a window of opportunity for getting to the negotiating table.  
known and suggested to the respective Western governments,  taken in the name of values and good intentions these values are also routinely being betrayed by Western governments. When it comes to geopolitics, our countries more often than not seem to take their advice not from their widely postulated ideals, but from a far more pragmatic primer, half a millenium old, once compiled by a mediocre poet for a ruthless Florentine prince. They betray democratic movements, ignore democratic elections, support military coups and hail repressive regimes.  


= Instead: Agonal Autism =
There are many reasons for speedy and efficient negotiations to end the civil war in Syria. For one thing, Syria is drowning in chaos and human misery; the country is beyond redemption or repair - it has been declared dead years ago in the sense that there is no possibility of any future government being able to control all of what used to be the modern state of Syria (cf. Jenkins 2014); today, if anything, Syria is even deader than it was then. The military stalemate and the increasingly sectarian nature of the conflict will prevent any revitalization. Secondly, the internationalization of the Syrian War makes it ever more likely that it leads the whole region into the abyss of large-scale hostilities. Since the local beginnings of the Syrian conflict and the foundation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in 2011, many groups joined the fighting. They include ISIL with a sizeable number of fighters from around the world, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (Ex-Nusra Front), Hezbollah, Iranian and Afghan fighters, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - the latter dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). In addition, states such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States provided weapons and materiel to rebel groups. Turkish troops and special forces (backed by the FSA) launched attacks against Kurdish milita fighters who in turn had been supported by the USA. Israel carried out air strikes inside Syria against Hizbollah arm deliveries and other targets. For some observers, the situation is so hot it can spark a regional explosion at any time that might affect the whole area from Turkey over Lebanon and Iran all the way to Qatar and Yemen - with neither Russia nor the USA very likely to just sit there and watch.
 
Strangely enough for such a risky situation, opportunities to negotiate still seem to disappear swifter than they arise. Chances for peace are treated as if they were a nuisance. As Michel Aoun (2013) said, it was a great mistake of historic proportions not to accept Assad's offer to negotiate Syria's future. Assad had offered at the beginning of the uprising to talk about the role of the Baath Party, and admitted that this party was not capable anymore to lead the country; he even conceded that new parties would have to be allowed. - In September 2015, The Guardian revealed that the USA had refused a Russian offer as early as in 2012 to have [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/15/west-ignored-russian-offer-in-2012-to-have-syrias-assad-step-aside Assad step aside for a negotiated peace deal]. And none less then Ahtisaari said that the West should have and could have prevented all this from happening. He called the Syrian war "a self-made disaster", and when speaking of the flow of refugees to Europe, he stated that he saw no other option "but to take good care of these poor people … We are paying the bills we have caused ourselves.”
 
As Michael Lüders (2015: pp. 73) writes, the two UN Syria conferences of June 2012 and January 2014 did not produce results, because the "Friends of Syria" insisted on the removal of Assad's regime even before installing any transitional government - and on the exclusion of Iran from the negotiating table. Iran had not been invited to the first conference, and it was being disinvited under humiliating circumstances due to US pressure from the second one. The US policy of lambasting Moscow and Peking and of ever increasing the pressure of sanctions against Damascus lacked intelligence and sensibility. Bad diplomacy and lack of readiness for compromise with Russia and Iran as well as clinging on to the supposed alternative of a "moderate" opposition paved the way for the weakening of the Syrian state and the rise of ISIL. Simultaneously, Syria turned into the arena of a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which gave the conflict an ever stronger sectarian character as a war between the shia and the sunnni factions of Islam - a development with consequences hard to assess.
 
With hindsight, the most striking aspect of the Syrian conflict is the absence of communication and negotiation. The question therefore must be answered: What is behind the catastrophical absence of communication - purpose or accident, madness or badness?
 
Building upon Michael Lüders' (2015) ''Wer Wind sät'' this paper looks into the (f)utility of one or the other conceptual tool to further our understanding of what went wrong in Syria - and what continues to push the whole region ever closer to the abyss.
 
= Nostalgia and Dystopia =
 
==Agonal Partnership ==
Here is one hypothesis: while it has always been difficult to make the step from sword to talk, communication is much more difficult in the new age of asymmetric and unconventional warfare with its recurrent complaint by state parties to be suffering from a "lack of partners for peace". It was a great advantage of "old" wars that they were culturally embedded in a network of practices, customs, rules, and meta-rules that allowed for institutionalized (meta-) communication even while the fighting was still going on. That permitted phenomena like the Christmas Truce of 1914 (Blom Crocker 2015) to happen - or the story of a German flying behind the British lines to deliver a letter written by an enemy he had shot down himself (Seamark 2012):
 
:After downing the enemy plane in January, 1916, the German pilot Oswald Boelke landed close to the wreck and found the two person crew alive. After getting Mr. Somervill and Mr. Formilli to a hospital and engaging in conversation, he took a letter written by Formilli to let his superiors and his family know that they were alive and relatively well. Boelke then flew over the British lines and dropped the letter that did indeed reach its destination, only to be auctioned almost a century later together with pictures that had been taken of the incident ...
 
In the Syrian conflict, stories of just how gentlemanly combatants behaved, even in grim battle, do not abound. There seems to be no such thing as agonal partnership. Quite to the contrary: like in other "small" wars, there is a distinctive lack of chivalry and empathy, of respect for humanitarian law, of a willingness (and ability) to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. All this creates a vicious circle of de-humanizing stereotypes and activities such as rape, torture, and arbitrary killings. The irregularity of the partisan militia also affects conventional forces who tend to assimilate their own behavior to match that of the others. These wars are fought in deserts as well as cities in Syria, but also on bridges and market places in Central Europe. With blurred boundaries between war and peace, computerized warfare and the use of makeshift weapons like trucks or cars, nothing is less likely to flourish than agonal partnership.
 
Their irregularity makes unconventional parties vulnerable to be defined as terrorists. This label paves the way for extermination rather than negotiation. As White House Speaker Scott McClellan said when asked how the United States would react to Usama bin Laden's offer to negotiate a truce in 2006, "We don't negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business" (Buncombe 2006). As soon as you call your enemies "terrorists" you promise yourself and others not to negotiate with them for both pragmatic (lack of trustworthiness) and deontologial ("thou shalt not negotiate with terrorists") reasons.
 
== Agonal Autism ==
If we try to find a way to describe the Syrian situation today, we have to look for an antonym to the Mühlmannina term of agonal partnership - a search that could produce a term like "agonal autism". That would refer to the lack of communality, and the non-functioning of social communication and interaction including a basic lack of reciprocity. In people with an autistic personality disorder this comes to show in the problems that appear in everyday rituals like meeting and leaving, asking, giving and thanking, reciprocal smiles, frowns etc. - To be sure, the clinical term of autism has quite a varied use from Eugen Bleuler's first use in 1911 as a central symptom of schizophrenia over Sigmund Freud's equation of autism with narcissism, and all the way to today's everyday use to refer to persons with an excessive self-centeredness and who are in need of help because of their living mostly in their own imagination. While it may certainly be seen as objectionable to pick a term of individual pathology to draw analogies to political strategies, one may decide to provisionally accept this manoeuvre - and be it ''faute de mieux'' until some more appropriate term emerges.
If we try to find a way to describe the Syrian situation today, we have to look for an antonym to the Mühlmannina term of agonal partnership - a search that could produce a term like "agonal autism". That would refer to the lack of communality, and the non-functioning of social communication and interaction including a basic lack of reciprocity. In people with an autistic personality disorder this comes to show in the problems that appear in everyday rituals like meeting and leaving, asking, giving and thanking, reciprocal smiles, frowns etc. - To be sure, the clinical term of autism has quite a varied use from Eugen Bleuler's first use in 1911 as a central symptom of schizophrenia over Sigmund Freud's equation of autism with narcissism, and all the way to today's everyday use to refer to persons with an excessive self-centeredness and who are in need of help because of their living mostly in their own imagination. While it may certainly be seen as objectionable to pick a term of individual pathology to draw analogies to political strategies, one may decide to provisionally accept this manoeuvre - and be it ''faute de mieux'' until some more appropriate term emerges.


Agonal autism lacks the prerequisites of agonal partnership, i.e. it lacks the option to change from a first level of antagonism (fighting each other) to a second one consisting of communication about the conflict). Lacking such a normative framework on a meta-level, a party to a conflict is condemned to a radically self-centered perception, conceptualization, and action within a conflict. Parties fight each other, but with regard to the codes of right/wrong, good/bad, legal/illegal, etc., their autism confines them within the conceptual walls of their own subjective world view and reality. All of this would be innocuous were it not for the fact that - as the Thomas theorem goes - "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences" (Thomas & Thomas 1928: 571-2). In other words: If a party to a conflict believes that the enemy is "really" neither willing nor able nor worth to negotiate, then there will the real consequence that there will be not negotiation - even if in the objective world the enemy were of a kind that did want to negotiate, were able to do it and were worth dealing with peacefully. The "real consequences" of the mere belief then could be the annihilation of the enemy believed to be unable, unwilling and unworthy negotiations.  
Agonal autism lacks the prerequisites of agonal partnership, i.e. it lacks the option to change from a first level of antagonism (fighting each other) to a second one consisting of communication about the conflict). Lacking such a normative framework on a meta-level, a party to a conflict is condemned to a radically self-centered perception, conceptualization, and action within a conflict. Parties fight each other, but with regard to the codes of right/wrong, good/bad, legal/illegal, etc., their autism confines them within the conceptual walls of their own subjective world view and reality. All of this would be innocuous were it not for the fact that - as the Thomas theorem goes - "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences" (Thomas & Thomas 1928: 571-2). In other words: If a party to a conflict believes that the enemy is "really" neither willing nor able nor worth to negotiate, then the reality will be shaped accordingly: there will be no negotiations (even if the enemy were willing and able).
 
= Do Governments Need Therapy? =
== Agonal Autism as a Problem of Communication ==
What we have called by the provisional name of agonal autism seems closely related to the phenomenon of so-called ''discrepant punctuation'' (Watzlawick et al. 1967), i.e. a narrative that reconstructs a sequence of events in a conflict in favor of the narrating participant. Just think of two children reporting their fight to their parents: each one will tend to ascribe responsibility for what has happened to the other one, claiming that he/she had only reacted to what the other one had done: "He started it all - he left me no choice!").  


= The Phenomenon of Discrepant Punctuation =
Why people develop such a perceptional and interactional self-centeredness is not really difficult to understand. It is a function of self-preservation. Even extreme self-centeredness is a natural phenomenon. At least in developmental psychology. There, narcissism is the dominant trait during the first months of a human baby's life. As development proceeds, narcissism is being refined and reduced and ends up as a healthy "ego-ideal" in the adult (just like the super-ego can be seen as what is left in the adult person of the earlier Oediupus conflict).
Why people develop a perceptional and interactional self-centeredness is not really difficult to understand. It is a function of self-preservation. Even extreme self-centeredness is a natural phenomenon. At least in developmental psychology. There, narcissism is the dominant trait during the first months of a human baby's life. As development proceeds, narcissism is being refined and reduced and ends up as a healthy "ego-ideal" in the adult (just like the super-ego can be seen as what is left in the adult person of the earlier Oediupus conflict).


Of course, there are all kinds of risks and hazards on the way to what is considered a well-balanced adult. In developmental criminology, some theorists (e.g. Kaplan 1980) contend that the need for a defense against low self-esteem (brought about by low performance in school) can be seen as a motivating factor for delinquent behavior (with defensiveness operationalized as a discrepancy between scores on measures of high conscious self-esteem and low unconscious esteem).
Of course, there are all kinds of risks and hazards on the way to what is considered a well-balanced adult. In developmental criminology, some theorists (e.g. Kaplan 1980) contend that the need for a defense against low self-esteem (brought about by low performance in school) can be seen as a motivating factor for delinquent behavior (with defensiveness operationalized as a discrepancy between scores on measures of high conscious self-esteem and low unconscious esteem).


In social psychology, a certain self-centeredness in the service of the defense of self can be seen manifesting itself in dyadic conflicts between individuals, such as in long-standing conflicts between husband and wife. Here, each partner tends to have his/her own narrative of who treated whom unfairly first. This is what interactionist communication researchers have come to refer to as the phenomenon of ''discrepant punctuation'' in a sequence of events (Watzlawick et al. 1967).
In social psychology, a certain self-centeredness in the service of the defense of self can be seen manifesting itself in dyadic conflicts between individuals, such as in long-standing conflicts between husband and wife. Here, each partner tends to have his/her own narrative of who treated whom unfairly first. The fundamental reason why different narratives about conflicts exist has to do with the fact that - in any longer chain of events - every item in the sequence can simultaneously be seen as stimulus, response, and reinforcement. As Bateson & Jackson (1964: 273-4) explained: "A given item of A's behavior is a stimulus insofar as it is followed by an item contributed by B and that by another item contributed by A. But insofer as A's item is sanwiched between two items contributed by B, it is a response. Similarly A's item is a reinforcement insofar as it follows an item contributed by B. The ongoing interchanges, then, which we are here discussing, constitute a chain of overlapping triadic links, each of which is comparable to a stimulus-response-reinforcement sequence. We can take any triad of our interchange and see it as a single trial in a stimulus response learning experiment. - If we look at the conventional learning experiments from this point of view, we observe at once that repeated trials amount to a differentiation of relationship between the two organisms concerned - the experimenter and his subject. The sequence of trials is so punctuated that it is always the experimenter who seems to provide the 'stimuli' and the 'reinforcements', while the subject provides the 'responses'. These words are here deliberately put in quotation marks because the role definitions are in fact only created by the willingness of the organisms to accept the system of punctuation. The 'reality' of the role definitions is only of the same order as the reality of a bat on a Rorschach card - a more or less over-determined creation of the perceptive process. The rat who said 'I have got my experimenter trained. Each time I press the lever he gives me food' was declining to accept the punctuation of the sequence which the experimenter was seeking to impose."  
 
The reason why different narratives about conflicts exist, is, for one thing, the fact that - in any longer chain of events - every item in the sequence can simultaneously be seen as stimulus, response, and reinforcement.
 
:"A given item of A's behavior is a stimulus insofar as it is followed by an item contributed by B and that by another item contributed by A. But insofer as A's item is sanwiched between two items contributed by B, it is a response. Similarly A's item is a reinforcement insofar as it follows an item contributed by B. The ongoing interchanges, then, which we are here discussing, constitute a chain of overlapping triadic links, each of which is comparable to a stimulus-response-reinforcement sequence. We can take any triad of our interchange and see it as a single trial in a stimulus response learning experiment. - If we look at the conventional learning experiments from this point of view, we observe at once that repeated trials amount to a differentiation of relationship between the two organisms concerned - the experimenter and his subject. The sequence of trials is so punctuated that it is always the experimenter who seems to provide the 'stimuli' and the 'reinforcements', while the subject provides the 'responses'. These words are here deliberately put in quotation marks because the role definitions are in fact only created by the willingness of the organisms to accept the system of punctuation. The 'reality' of the role definitions is only of the same order as the reality of a bat on a Rorschach card - a more or less over-determined creation of the perceptive process. The rat who said 'I have got my experimenter trained. Each time I press the lever he gives me food' was declining to accept the punctuation of the sequence which the experimenter was seeking to impose. - It is still true, however, that in a long sequence of interchange, the organisms concerned - especially if these be people - will in fact punctuate the sequence so that it will appear that one or the other has initiative, dominance, dependency or the like" (Bateson & Jackson, 1964, pp. 273-74).


Every party to a conflict tends to see the other party as the cause of the grievance, and its own actions as a reaction to the other party's misbehavior. According to Watzlawick et al. (1967), disagreement about how to punctuate a sequence of events is at the root of countless relationship struggles:  
Every party to a conflict tends to see the other party as the cause of the grievance, and its own actions as a reaction to the other party's misbehavior. According to Watzlawick et al. (1967), disagreement about how to punctuate a sequence of events is at the root of countless relationship struggles:  
Zeile 34: Zeile 53:
The evident function of clinging to one's own version of the sequence of events is - again - the defense of the worth and integrity of one's own self. The longer and the more costly those discrepant punctuations of sequences of events become, the more it will turn into a threat to a common good (the existence as a couple as such). In such a situation it is good to reach out for a third party (a therapist) who can observe the couple from a meta-level of communication and devise methods of cautious interventions with the goal of slowly opening both partners to the perceptions of the other.
The evident function of clinging to one's own version of the sequence of events is - again - the defense of the worth and integrity of one's own self. The longer and the more costly those discrepant punctuations of sequences of events become, the more it will turn into a threat to a common good (the existence as a couple as such). In such a situation it is good to reach out for a third party (a therapist) who can observe the couple from a meta-level of communication and devise methods of cautious interventions with the goal of slowly opening both partners to the perceptions of the other.


= Do Governments Need Therapy? =
Nothing is more tempting than to transfer the image of the husband-wife-conflict with its mutually exclusive narratives about causes and responsibilities ("you started it all, I only react to what you are doing to me") onto the level of international conflicts.
Nothing is more tempting than to transfer the image of the husband-wife-conflict with its mutually exclusive narratives about causes and responsibilities ("you started it all, I only react to what you are doing to me") onto the level of international conflicts.


During the Cold War, there was much talk about that. It went something like this: If one could reveal the blind spots of both sides' views of East-West conflict during the Cold War, one might help governments to overcome those perceptual limitations and prejudices, and conflicts could be resolved in almost no time at all. The hottest candidate was Carl Rogers' person-centered talking therapy. Did not Rogers himself propagate that? And even if this might be a false memory, it is a proven fact that Watzlawick himself did apply the concept of discrepant punctuation to the case of the East-West arms race (Watzlawick et al. 1967), implying that - given a third party to help them climb the meta-level of communication - things could be easily resolved. And it is not implausible at all that such a thought was behind more recent attempts to apply the concept of discrepant punctuation to the interaction sequences between the United States and Al Qaida in the War on Terror. Thanks to Malick's (2011) analysis, it can be treated as an established fact that there are indeed mutually irreconcilable narratives in the Al Qaida conflict - and it would come as a great surprise if the same were not true in the case of Syria that we are dealing with today.
During the Cold War, there was much talk about that. It went something like this: If one could reveal the blind spots of both sides' views of East-West conflict during the Cold War, one might help governments to overcome those perceptual limitations and prejudices, and conflicts could be resolved in almost no time at all. The hottest candidate was Carl Rogers' person-centered talking therapy. Did not Rogers himself propagate that? And even if this might be a false memory, it is a proven fact that Watzlawick himself did apply the concept of discrepant punctuation to the case of the East-West arms race (Watzlawick et al. 1967), implying that - given a third party to help them climb the meta-level of communication - things could be easily resolved. And it is not implausible at all that such a thought was behind more recent attempts to apply the concept of discrepant punctuation to the interaction sequences between the United States and Al Qaida in the War on Terror. Thanks to Malick's (2011) analysis, it can be treated as an established fact that there are indeed mutually irreconcilable narratives in the Al Qaida conflict - and it would come as a great surprise if the same were not true in the case of Syria that we are dealing with today.


== The March-of-Folly Hypothesis==
== Western Policy as a March of Folly ? ==


The question does not seem to be "If" there is a cognitive distortion in the Western narrative, but "Why". How is it possible that the world's only remaining superpower comes up with such a distored narrative? How can it be so blind to its own mistakes, and how can it be following such a stupid strategy that kept on excluding all possible negotiating partners for a lasting peace deal in Syria? Such questions have been asked before with regard to other similarly compellin g paradoxes of American History. Why is it that governments pursue policies contrary to their own interests - from Vietnam over the counterproductive War on Terror all the way to Syria?
The question does not seem to be "If" there is a cognitive distortion in the Western narrative, but "Why". How is it possible that the world's only remaining superpower comes up with such a distored narrative? How can it be so blind to its own mistakes? How can a government follow an evidently self-defeating policy even though it knows that there is an alternative path of action? Such questions have been asked before with regard to other similarly compelling politica paradoxes. Why is it that governments pursue policies contrary to their own interests - from Vietnam over the counterproductive War on Terror all the way to Syria?


In the tradition of Barbara Tuchman's book on The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam (1984), it has been the dominant response of more or less well-meaning liberal critics that sometimes, decision-makers are just too ill-informed and ill-tempered, so they take foolish decisions that they (and others) will later regret.
In the tradition of Barbara Tuchman's book on The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam (1984), it has been the dominant response of more or less well-meaning liberal critics that sometimes, decision-makers are just too ill-informed and ill-tempered, so they take foolish decisions that they (and others) will later regret.


The lesson to be learned is clear: let us elect more intellectually capable leaders, or, if that does not work, let us at least try to educate those in power to the highest degree possible with the best adivsors imaginable. And maybe, one or the other of our leaders could see a talking therapist.
The lesson from this kind of thinking leads to a simple conclusion even if that may be hard to realize in practice: let us elect more intellectually capable leaders, or, if that does not work, let us at least try to educate those in power to the highest degree possible with the best adivsors imaginable. And maybe, one or the other of our leaders could see a talking therapist.


= The Spectre of a Higher Rationality =
An alternative approach would suggest that what seems self-defeating, dumb, and ineffective might look irrational at first sight only, but reveal a certain sense and rationality if seen in a larger context. Seemingly irrational phenomena in politics might turn out to be rational as part of a larger scheme. That is the idea of George Tsebelis in his book on ''Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics'' (1990).


s in the White House and beyond. of seemingly paradoxical and ill-informed government policies leading to self-inflicted defeats", by the somehow tautological idea that those in charge are sometimes too stupid to do the right thing, even though they know that there are alternative paths of action.  
Tsebelis asks why actors confronted with a series of choices sometimes do not pick the alternative that appears to be the best, but rather a more or less evidently irrational or outright foolish one in which there is a less than optimal correspondence between ends and means. The secret is, according to Tsebelis, that there is often not only just one two-sided game that is being played, but that there are often two or multiple arenas as well as different games in these arenas with variable payoffs. To make it more complex: there are also games in which the payoffs of the game in the principal arena are influenced by the prevailing conditions in another, secondary, arena. In other words: there can be a dominating game and a subgame, and mutual influences determining differential payoffs.  


For a neutral observer, the U.S. narrative shows a clear cognitive distortion, also  the application of the concept of discrepant punctuation to the arms race. In a way, though, such a focus on faulty communication tends to belittle the relevance of socio-economic interests, power structures, and legitimizing discourses. To say that conflict parties just do not talk enough and that they do not talk enough because they have different perceptions of  who started it all and who is responsible for the conflict ("discrepant punctuation") simply does not grasp the fact that international politics are not governed by naively distorted perceptions, but that - as a rule - they at least contain a large portion of strategic modelling for purposes of generating sufficient support on the home front. In the end, the official political discourse and the mainstream media discourse might look very similar to the one-sidedness of a husband's narrative in a couple conflict, but while the husband may be given the benefit of naiveté, the White House Syria (or Iran) narrative should be given credit for having been more carefully constructed to serve the foreign policy interests as defined by those in that House.
Applied to the Syrian conflict, a reconstruction may look like this:


In other words: political actors in asymmetric conflicts are all too often not really unable to develop communicative strategies, but rather unwilling to do so for rational reasons.  
(1) In the Syrian arena itself the game is "who owns Syria?". U.S. policy did neither bring peace to Syria nor well-being for the Syrian people. Much to the contrary, it further hurt the U.S.' reputation and interests in and around Syria, strengthening jihadist propaganda, recruitment and terrorism. Verdict: U.S. policy is irrational and foolish.


===The rationality of irrational action ===
(2) In the Near East arena at large the game is "who owns the Near East?". A realistic view sees U.S. interests best preserved  by reliance on powerful elites (instead of "Arab Spring movements"). Nuclear regional powers, strong military rulers and highly armed autocrats are seen as best friends. To legitimized this alliance, it is good to have terrorist organizations as "suitable enemies" (Nils Christie). It may be both necessary and fruitful to engage in an endless war against such enemies. The longer it lasts, the more deviant governments can be eliminated on the way - see Qatar - and the more stable and friendly the whole environment will be in the completely transformed region that will be characterized by, among other things, an effective incapacitation of all shiite governments, movements, populations, and organizations.  
In a couple conflict, the inability of spouses to reach a meta-level of communication and to have a distant look at what is happening, can prevent mutual understanding, self-reflection, and a negotiated peace accord. In the Syrian conflict, it may seem that it is exactly the same thing that is lacking, but the difference is that in the latter, there are institutions and elaborate policy bodies that should be able to extensively check options and rationally chose the best one sine ira et studio. Therefore, an assumption of a higher rationality should be justified - even though such an assumption leads directly to a new riddle - the paradox of higher rationality and low-quality outcome.  


(3) In the World arena that game is "who rules the world?". Security and prosperity of the West can either be guaranteed by cooperation in a multi-polar word, or it can be pursued maybe more effectively by a hegemonic strategy of preventing the formation of any power or coalition of powers able to challenge U.S. supremacy. The hegemonic strategy would stress military and economic supremacy, while the multipolar cooeration strategy would invest in creating markets by spreadig economic buying power over the globe's population. A hegemonic strategy can afford and even strive to destroy government structures and social fabric in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and other potential troublemaker countries, since it gives the more reliable regional powers space to breathe and act as they wish. Even an "endless war" in the Near East and other parts of the world is better than reconstructing countries that - due to their traditions and interests - can only be regarded as potential troublemakers.


Seen from the nested games perspective, a famous Shakespearean line come to mind: Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't. What liberal thinkers see as the equivalent of a declaration of intellectual bankruptcy suddenly appears as highly rational. One just has to admit that there is more than just one game, and that the destruction of a few countries in the Near East can fit a calculation of ends and means in another arena where there is a game being played that promises much higher payoffs than any peace deal.


This is not very satisfactory, and this is where a bit of game theory can do some good. What seems irrational to informed observers of the Syrian conflict - the West's refusal to talk with the Iranian leadership to solve the Syrian conflict, e.g.  - may not appear so irrational at all when the Syrian conflict is not regarded in isolation, but as just one "game" among others. The theory of nested games
To sum it up: to the neutral observer, the U.S. narrative shows a clear cognitive distortion. In a way, though, such a focus on faulty communication tends to belittle the relevance of socio-economic interests, power structures, and legitimizing discourses. To say that conflict parties just do not talk enough and that they do not talk enough because they have different perceptions of  who started it all and who is responsible for the conflict ("discrepant punctuation") simply does not grasp the fact that international politics are not governed by naively distorted perceptions, but that - as a rule - they at least contain a large portion of strategic modelling, and be it only for securing popular support in the electorate. While the political and the media discourses might look similar to the one-sidedness of a husband's narrative in a couple conflict, one should not rush to conclusions. While the husband may be given the benefit of naiveté, the White House discourse on Syria should be given credit for having been more carefully constructed to serve the foreign policy interests as defined by those in that House. Instead of being unable to prevent cognitive distortions in their perceptions and discourses, political actors in asymmetric conflicts are normally unwilling to refrain from distoring facts because they calculate that to do that kind of talking and to pursue  that kind of walking will serve their most important objectives best. What they need, then, from those who believe in the power of justice and solidarity, is not therapy, but resistance.  


*The war in Syria opened a window of opportunity for ISIL. Hama sunnites were looking for help against the shiite government forces, and ISIL saw a chance of toppling the shiite regime in Damascus. In 2012 and 2013, ISIL became active in Syria: holy scripture saying that the final victory will be handed to sunni moslems north of Aleppo close to the Turkish border at Al-A'maq or Dabiq against 42 armies (Lüders 2015: 88).
*To keep Iran under pressure, even though the country would be a natural ally against the sunni extremists, is ideologically motivated nonsense and a result of an erroneous solidarity with Israel and the Gulf states. ... To get out of the dead-end street, Western governments would have to include all stakeholders, including Russia and China. This will not happen, because the US policy follows a path of hegemonial reasoning that does not accept the idea of a world balance of powers, but that wants to defend and strengthen US global supremacy. Chances are that this lack of pragmatism will finally accelerate the downfall of this superpower(cf. Lüders 2015: 100).
= Role of the USA =
The USA proclaim Western values, but they only accept election results of their liking. See: Algeria 1992, the coup d'état against Mursi 2013. They did not object the nullification of the Egyptian elections 2011/12 by the highest court still loyel to Mubarak. - Whoever resists the imperial will of the USA is subjected to sanctions: Iran, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Russia ... - When necessary, the USA wage dirty wars, often carried out by soldiers of fortune and always chasing terrorists: drone wars in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Iraq, and increasingly Syria. In Afghanistan this kind of warfare has been estimated to have killed 10 000 people during the occupation years (2001-14), mostly civilians counted as collateral damage" (Lüders 2015: 112).
Verbündete der USA sind vorzugsweise Diktatoren und Feudalherrscher. Aber auch terroristische Organisationen. Das Ideal ist der "delegierte Krieg": andere bis hin zu guten Dschihadisten übernehmen, gewissermaßen im Franchise-Verfahren, Ordnungsaufgaben im Sinne der USA. (112 f.).
Amerikas Freunde sind Ägypten und Saudi-Arabien, Kuweit und die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate sowie - vor allem Israel. Sie bilden eine reaktionäre Heilige Allianz à la 1815, die im Namen der Terrorbekämpfung jeden Ansatz demokratischen Aufbegehrens in der Region zu unterdrücken sucht.


Elemente des agonalen Autismus:
Die Parteinahme für reaktionäre Autokratien beruht nicht zuletzt auf der Annahme, sie würde freiheitliche und liberale Werte gegenüber den Muslimbrüdern verteidigen. Man glaubt, dass sich die religiösen Überzeugungen von Islamisten nicht vereinbaren ließen mit der Respektierung von Demokratie, Pluralismus und Frauenrechten. Vor allem aber haben die Islamisten bestimmte vage Vorstellungen von einer arabischen Welt, mit Selbstbewusstsein und Unabhängigkeitsstreben - was man von den Allianzpartnern der USA glücklicherweise nicht zu befürchten hat. (vgl. Lüders 2015: 127 f.).


    Ursachen-Narrativ selbstbezogen und selbstgerecht (diskrepante Interpunktion).
Wer den Wahabismus, Al-Qaida oder den IS geschwächt sehen möchte, tut gut daran, in den Muslimbrüdern eine Alternative zu erkennen. (130). Westliche Politik begeht aber den Fehler, sich immer enger an die wahabitischen Saudis und an das Dreieck Saudi-Arabien, Ägypten, Israel anzulehnen und (ausgerechnet) die Muslimbrüder als Bedrohung zu sehen. Richtig wäre es andersherum.  
    Eskalation im Vertrauen auf den totalen Sieg.
    Dämonisierung des Feindes
    Regellosigkeit der Gewalt


== Chances for peace ==
Der zweite große Fehler besteht in dem Glauben, eine sunnitische Koalition aus Golfstaaten und Türkei könnte den IS besiegen. Das kann aber nicht gelingen. So laufen die USA und Europa Gefahr, "in einen Krieg der Golfstaaten gegen die Schiiten im Irak und im Iran hineingezogen zu werden" (134).
*[http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/naher-osten/michel-aoun-im-f-a-z-gespraech-es-ist-kein-fruehling-es-ist-die-hoelle-12020554.html Es ist kein Frühling, es ist die Hölle, FAZ 11.01.2013, Interview mit Michel Aoun]: "Es ist ein großer historischer Fehler, das Angebot Assads zu Verhandlungen über die Zukunft Syriens nicht anzunehmen. Schon zu Beginn des Aufstands vor fast zwei Jahren hat er sich bereit erklärt, über die Sonderrolle der Baath-Partei zu reden, weil sie nicht mehr in der Lage ist, das Land zu dirigieren. Auch der Gründung neuer Parteien hat er zugestimmt."
*[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/15/west-ignored-russian-offer-in-2012-to-have-syrias-assad-step-aside west ignored Russian offer in 2012 The Guardian sept. 2015]
:“We should have prevented this from happening because this is a self-made disaster, this flow of refugees to our countries in Europe,” Ahtisaari said. “I don’t see any other option but to take good care of these poor people … We are paying the bills we have caused ourselves.”


*"Die beiden großen Syrien-Konferenzen der UN, im Juni 2012 und im Januar 2014 in Genf, sind gescheitert, weil die 'Freunde des syrischen Volkes' auf einer Übergangsregierung bestanden, der Assad und idealerweise das gesamte Regime nicht mehr angehören sollten. Warum hätte er sich, warum hätten sich Russland und der Iran darauf einlassen sollen? Zur ersten Syrien-Konfernz war Teheran gar nicht erst eingeladen worden. Bei der zweiten suchte UN-Generalsekretär Ban Ki-moon, diesen Fehler zu korrigieren und lud die iranische Führung ein  , um sie kurz vor Konferenzbeginn in einem beispiellosen Akt der Demütigung auf amerikanischen Druck hin wieder ausladen zu müssen. Die Politik der USA zwischen beiden Konferenzen war wesentlich darauf fokussiert, immer wieder Moskau und Peking zu geißeln. Vor allem Außenministerin Hillary Clinton tat sich hervor mit verbalen Angriffen: Russland und China würden ihre Unterstützung Assads 'teuer bezahlen', beider Verhalten sei 'verabscheuungswürdig', sie betrieben 'Obstruktion' und 'missbrauchten' die Vereinten Nationen, und so weiter. Im Übrigen wurden weitere Sanktionen gegen Damaskus verhängt, drohten die USA wiederholt mit militärischem Eingreifen, sagten aber die allseits erwartete Intervention nach dem Einsatz von Chemiewaffen im August 2013, mutmaßlich durch das Regime, überraschend ab. (...) Fehlende Diplomatie udn Kompromissbereitschaft im Umgang mit Russland und dem Iran haben ebenso wie das Festhalten an der vermeintlichen Alternative einer 'gemäßigten' Opposition den Weg geebnet für den weiteren Staatszerfall und den Vormarsch des 'Islamischen Staates' auch in Syrien. Gleichzeitig wurde Syrien neben dem Irak zum Schlachtfeld eines Stellvertreterkrieges zwischen Saudi-Arabien und dem Iran, eines zunehmend gefährlicheren Showdowns zwischen Sunniten und Schiiten, dessen Folgen noch gar nicht abzusehen sind." (Lüders 2015: 73 f.).
Der dritte große Fehler ist die Iran-Politik: seit 1993 "dual containment" against Irak and Iran. Auf Israel-Lobby zurückzuführen. Hat auch mit der israelischen Hizbollah-Obsession zu tun. Hatte Israel nach langer Besatzung (1982-2000) zum Abzug genötigt. Israel und AIPAC April 1995: Comprehensive U.S. Sanctions Against Iran: A Plan for Action.. - AIPAC verfolgt zwei geostrategische Ziele: Iran politisch und wirtschaftlich zu isolieren und Gründung eines palästinensischen Staates verhindern (135). Reformer Chatami (1997-2005) läuft gegen eine Wand. Nach 11. September 2001 geht Bush von Containment zur Strategie regionaler Transformation über: Regimewechsel in Irak und Iran. Nachdem Iran 2002 zur Achse des Bösen kam, erschienen 2003 reihenweise Artikel, die auf einen Krieg gegen Iran und regime change hinarbeiteten. Mit erstaunlichem Erfolg überzeugt Israel die USA und Europa, dass eine Atommacht Iran mit allen Mitteln verhindert werden müsse (136). Ahmadineschad (2005-2013) war Wasser auf die israelischen und amerikanischen Mühlen. El Baradei beschreibt, wie die USA vielfach in letzter Minute eine Einigung im Atomstreit verhinderten und stattdessen die Sanktionsschraube weiter andrehten (136-138).
*Dem "Wehklagen, wäre Assad rechtzeitig gestürztworden, hätte es auch den Siegeszug des 'Islamischen Staates' nicht gegeben, sei entgegnet: Das Gegenteil ist richtig. Die Absicht, Assad um jeden Preis zu stürzen, hat den IS in Syrien erst stark gemacht. Und wäre der Diktator tatsächlich gestürzt worden, wären heute in Damaskus die Gotteskrieger an der Macht" (Lüders 2015: 78 f.).


*The war in Syria opened a window of opportunity for ISIL. Hama sunnites were looking for help against the shiite government forces, and ISIL saw a chance of toppling the shiite regime in Damascus. In 2012 and 2013, ISIL became active in Syria: holy scripture saying that the final victory will be handed to sunni moslems north of Aleppo close to the Turkish border at Al-A'maq or Dabiq against 42 armies (Lüders 2015: 88).
Der vierte große Fehler ist der Glaube, dass wir die Guten und die anderen die Bösen sind. Wir übersehen dabei, dass ein Großteil der Menschheit ein Leben in Ohnmacht führt, vielfach entrechtet und ohne Chance. Wir begreifen nicht, dass es an der Zeit ist, die Selbstgerechtigkeit und den heuchelnden Moralismus abzulegen. Wenn Menschenrechte dazu dienen, eigene Machtpolitik zu tarnen oder unliebsame Politiker anzugehen, während sie sonst - man denke an die Verbündeten Ägypten, Saudi-Arabien u.a. - keine Rolle spielen, werden sie zu Worthülsen und machen den Westen nicht gerade zum Lieblingskind derjenigen, die das Spiel durchschauen.


*Den Iran "auf Distanz zu halten, obwohl er ein natürlicher Verbündeter gegen sunnitische Extremisten wäre, ist ideologisch motivierter Unsinn und falscher Rücksichtnahme Israel und den Golfstaaten gegenüber geschuldet (...) Die Lage ist so verfahren, dass westliche Regierungen mit allen Beteiligten reden und verhandeln müssten. DAs schließt Russland und China ... mit ein. Geschehen wird das gleichwohl nicht, weil die amerikanische Politik einer hegemonialen Vernunft folgt, die nicht auf ein Gleichgewicht der Kräfte abzielt, sondern die politische und wirtschaftliche Vorherrschaft der USA weltweit zu sichern sucht. Vermutlich wird dieser fehlende Pragmatismus am Ende den Niedergang der Weltmacht noch beschleunigen." (Lüders 2015: 100).  
= Weblinks and Bibliography =
*[http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/naher-osten/michel-aoun-im-f-a-z-gespraech-es-ist-kein-fruehling-es-ist-ie-hoelle-12020554.html Aoun, Michel (FAZ 11 January 2013) Es ist kein Frühling, es ist die Hölle. Interview mit Michel Aoun]
*Blom Crocker, Terri (2015) The Christmas Truce: Myth, Memory, and the First World War. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
*[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/well-put-bin-laden-out-of-business-says-us-523771.html Buncombe, Andrew (The Independent, 20 January 2006) We'll put Bin Laden out of business, says US].
*[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronik_des_Bürgerkriegs_in_Syrien_2011 Chronik des Bürgerkriegs in Syrien 2011, in: de.wikipedia.org]
*Clausewitz, Carl von (1966) Meine Vorlesungen über den kleinen Krieg, gehalten auf der Kriegs-Schule 1810 und 1811, in: Clausewitz, Carl von: Schriften, Aufsätze, Studien, Briefe, Bd. 1, hrsg. von Werner Hahlweg, Göttingen: 208-599.
*[https://www.thelocal.ch/20170306/genevas-syria-talks-end-on-more-positive-note Geneva's Syria talks end on 'more positive' note. AFP 6 March 2017]
*[http://www.bpb.de/apuz/26279/krieg-und-politik-im-21-jahrhundert?p=all Hoch, Martin (2002) Krieg und Politik im 21. Jahrhundert. Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte B 20/2001]
*Kaplan, Howard B. (1980) Deviant Behavior in Defense of Self. San Diego: Academic Press.
*Lüders, Michael (2015) Wer den Wind sät. Was westliche Politik im Orient anrichtet. München: C.H. Beck.
*[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2199749/Gentlemen-skies-The-German-flying-ace-shot-British-World-War-I-pilots--risked-life-deliver-letter-telling-superiors-alright.html Seamark, Michael (Daily Mail Online, 7 September 2012) Gentleman of the skies: German flew behind enemy lines to deliver letter from Brit he shot down]
*[http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/syria-civil-war-explained-160505084119966.html Syria's civil war explained from the beginning. Al Jazeera 16.05.2016]
*Thomas, William I. & Dorothy S. Thomas (1928) The child in America: Behavior problems and programs. New York: Knopf, 1928.
*[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War Syrian Civil War, in: en.wikipedia.org]
*Tsebelis, George (1990) Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics. Berkeley: U of California Press.
*Tuchman, Barbara W (1984) The March of Folly. From Troy to Vietnam. New York: Knopf.
*[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-zunes/congress-and-lebanon_b_107439.html Zunes, Stephen (HuffPost 25 June 2008, reposted from Foreign Policy in Focus 10 June 2008) Congress and Lebanon]




== 1980s ==
= Timeline =
*1982: Bashar's father, Hafez al-Assad, ordered a military crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, which killed between 10,000-40,000 people and flattened much of the city. That accounts for the Muslim Brotherhood's opposition to Bashar al-Assad.
In 1982, Bashar's father, Hafez al-Assad, ordered a military crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, which killed between 10,000-40,000 people and flattened much of the city. That accounts for the Muslim Brotherhood's opposition to Bashar al-Assad.


== 2011 ==
== 2011 ==
Zeile 135: Zeile 173:
== 2015 ==
== 2015 ==
*September: Russia launches a bombing campaign against what it referred to as "terrorist groups" in Syria, which included ISIL as well as rebel groups backed by western states. Russia has also deployed military advisers to shore up Assad's defences.
*September: Russia launches a bombing campaign against what it referred to as "terrorist groups" in Syria, which included ISIL as well as rebel groups backed by western states. Russia has also deployed military advisers to shore up Assad's defences.
*September 7: Nikolas Busse criticizes the West for inaction in Syria. "Krieg in Syrien. Bewährungsprobe für die EU. Iran und Saudi-Arabien liefern sich auf syrischem Boden einen Stellvertreterkrieg. Die Europäer müssen nun ihre diplomatische und militärisch Strategie überdenken, um vereint Druck auf diese Regierungen auszuüben. Zu den großen Versäumnissen der Europäer gehört es, dass sie den syrischen Krisenherd anderen Akteuren überlassen haben. Seit Jahren ist bekannt, welche Gefahren und Belastungen für die EU vom Bürgerkrieg in diesem Land ausgehen. Aber weder diplomatisch noch militärisch haben sich die Europäer bisher sonderlich um eine Stabilisierung Syriens bemüht. Die politischen Verhandlungen führen die Vereinten Nationen; der Fortgang des Krieges wird maßgeblich von den Vereinigten Staaten, der Türkei, den Golf-Staaten, Iran und Russland beeinflusst – über Waffenlieferungen oder durch direkte Interventionen. Die Interessen dieser Länder decken sich aber nur zum Teil mit denen Europas. Für die meisten stehen geostrategische Aspekte im Vordergrund, von Flüchtlingsströmen sind sie (mit Ausnahme der Türkei) kaum betroffen. Frankreich will das durch einen Eintritt in den Luftkrieg nun ändern. Ähnliche Überlegungen gibt es auch in Großbritannien. Grundsätzlich ist ein stärkeres europäisches Engagement zu begrüßen, allerdings stellt sich schon die Frage, ob gerade Luftschläge dazu das geeignete Mittel sind. Es ist ja nicht so, dass es der von Amerika geführten Allianz gegen den „Islamischen Staat“ an Flugzeugen mangelt. - Woran es in Syrien fehlt, sind westlich orientierte Bodentruppen, die sowohl gegen den IS als auch gegen das Assad-Regime vorgehen könnten. Die Amerikaner sind mit dem Aufstellen einer solchen Truppe bisher nicht weit gekommen. Die Entsendung von Bodentruppen schließt Präsident Hollande aber kategorisch aus. Deshalb sollte man sich von seinem Vorstoß nicht allzu viel erwarten. Die geplante Fokussierung auf den IS könnte sogar noch Assad in die Hände spielen, der militärisch derzeit in großer Bedrängnis ist. - Wenn die Europäer ihre Passivität gegenüber dem Hauptherkunftsland der Flüchtlinge endlich überwinden wollen, dann sollten sie ihre gesamte regionale Diplomatie überdenken. Die beiden wichtigsten Protagonisten sind Iran und Saudi-Arabien, die sich auf syrischem Boden einen Stellvertreterkrieg liefern. Wenn die Europäer beginnen würden, vereint Druck auf diese Regierungen auszuüben, statt getrennt ihren geschäftlichen Interessen nachzugehen, könnte das durchaus Wirkung entfalten. Auch das ist eine Bewährungsprobe für die EU.
*Busses Schelte wird in einem [http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/europaeische-union/krisenherd-syrien-bewaehrungsprobe-fuer-die-eu-13789874.html Leserbrief von Dietrich Weise] widersprochen:
:...es ist durchaus nicht so, daß die EU in syrien passiv das geschehen verfolgt. es gibt die gegen das land syrien mit seiner rechtmäßigen regierung verhängten sanktionen. es gibt die einseitige unterstützung dubioser bewaffneter verbände durch die sogenannten "freunde syriens" [inklusive der EU-staaten] gegen die rechtmäßige regierung syriens etc. pp. die jetzige fluchtbewegung ist nicht zuletzt folge dieser politik - die schuld einseitig den USA zuzuweisen, greift da wohl zu kurz. ich kann mich auch noch an die festnahme einer zweistelligen anzahl französischer geheimdienstoffiziere durch syrische behörden erinnern - das war noch vor der aufnahme der abkürzung "IS" in den duden. und die britische regierung berichtet heute im unterhaus über einen bereits erfolgten militärischen angriff auf syrischem staatsgebiet. das zusammen ist jedenfalls kein "nicht-engagement". und die anwerbung der gebildeten syrischen mittelschicht als flüchtlinge auch nicht.


*October: the US scrapped its controversial programme to train Syrian rebels, after it was revealed that it had spent $500m but only trained 60 fighters.
*October: the US scrapped its controversial programme to train Syrian rebels, after it was revealed that it had spent $500m but only trained 60 fighters.
Zeile 158: Zeile 192:
*At the UN Security Council, Russia has vetoed eight Western-backed resolutions on Syria, while China vetoed six resolutions.
*At the UN Security Council, Russia has vetoed eight Western-backed resolutions on Syria, while China vetoed six resolutions.
*US administration claims it found evidence of a crematorium in the notorious Saydnaya prison. According to the reports, the Syrian regime is using the crematorium to cover up the number of those killed in prison.  
*US administration claims it found evidence of a crematorium in the notorious Saydnaya prison. According to the reports, the Syrian regime is using the crematorium to cover up the number of those killed in prison.  
*According to the SDF, Tabqa and the adjacent dam were recaptured from ISIL, which leaves no other major ISIL-held urban settlements on the eastern road to Raqqa. EXPLAINED: Re-taking ISIL's capital
*According to the SDF, Tabqa and the adjacent dam were recaptured from ISIL, which leaves no other major ISIL-held urban settlements on the eastern road to Raqqa.
 
*In addition to Aleppo, the Syrian government currently controls the capital, Damascus, parts of southern Syria and Deir Az Zor, much of the area near the Syrian-Lebanese border, and the northwestern coastal region. Rebel groups, ISIL, and Kurdish forces control the rest of the country.
 
== The Syrian Government and its Supporters ==
*Iran and Iraq support Assad, as does Lebanon-based Hezbollah. Russia.
 
== The Revolutionaries and their Supporters==
*Since the Free Syrian Army formed in 2011, many new rebel groups have joined the fighting in Syria, including ISIL, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, Iran-backed Hezbollah, Iranian and Afghan fighters, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). The FSA has weakened as the war has progressed, while explicitly Islamist groups such as the al-Nusra Front became empowered. ISIL emerged in northern and eastern Syria in 2013 after overrunning large portions of Iraq. The group quickly gained international notoriety for its brutal executions and its energetic use of social media. The ranks of ISIL include a sizeable number of fighters from around the world. - al-Nusra Front leader, Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, announced in 2016 his group's name changed to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, or The Front for liberation of al-Sham, and severed ties with al-Qaeda. - The rebel group [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcons_of_al-Ghab Falcons of al-Ghab, in: en.wikipedia.org] (2012-15) associated with the FSA, after the killing of its leader in 2015 by Al Nusra Front, the group was dissolved and integrated into Jaysh al-Nasr (Army of Victory).
*Several Arab states, along with Turkey, have provided weapons and materiel to rebel groups in Syria. Sunni-majority states including Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and others staunchly support the rebels.
*Turkish troops and special forces backed by the Free Syria Army, launched in August 2016 operation " Euphrates Shield" against ISIL to liberate the strategic Syrian city of Jarablus on the border with Turkey and to stop the advance of Kurdish militia fighters. Turkey's government fears its large native Kurdish population may grow more restive and demand greater autonomy as a result of increased Kurdish control in northeast Syria.
*In March 2017, Turkey officially ended the Euphrates Shield military operation, but struck again in April against Kurdish PKK targets in the Karachok Mountains. Turkey's top officials have also criticised the US' decision to arm Kurdish fighters battling ISIL in Syria.
*Israel also carried out air strikes inside Syria, the latest of which on Damascus and Quneitra. Purportedly hitting Hizbollah arms deliveries. Israel and Syria are technically at war since 1948, but the border remained largely quiet since 1973. - WATCH: Syria: Under Russia's Fist (25:00). WATCH: US strike in Syria: Game changer or deterrent? (25:00)
 
== USA ==
Die USA verkünden westliche Werte, akzeptieren Wahlergebnisse aber nur, wenn der Gewinner genehm ist: Algerien 1992, Staatsstreich gegen Mursi 2013. Keine Einwände gegen Annullierung der ägyptischen Wahlen 2011/12 durch das Mubarak-treue Oberste Gericht. - Wer sich dem Hegemonieanspruch der USA widersetzt, wird mit Sanktionen überzogen. Iran, Syrien, Irak, Libyen, Russland ... Wenn ein Staat implodiert, antworten die USA mit unerklärten schmutzigen Kriegen, vielfach von Söldnern geführt, stets auf der Jagd nach Terroristen Drohnen in Pakistan, Jemen, Somalia, Libyen, Irak und zunehmend auch Syrien. "Über die Zahl der Todesopfer dieser offiziell meist geleugneten Einsätze lässt sich nur spekulieren, allein in Afghanistan sollen es i nden Jahren der Besatzung (2001-2014) über 10 000 gewesen sein, mehrheitlich Zivilisten, die meist als 'Kollatoralschaden' geführt werden (Lüders 2015: 112).
 
Verbündete der USA sind vorzugsweise Diktatoren und Feudalherrscher. Aber auch terroristische Organisationen. Das Ideal ist der "delegierte Krieg": andere bis hin zu guten Dschihadisten übernehmen, gewissermaßen im Franchise-Verfahren, Ordnungsaufgaben im Sinne der USA. (112 f.).
 
Amerikas Freunde sind Ägypten und Saudi-Arabien, Kuweit und die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate sowie - vor allem Israel. Sie bilden eine reaktionäre Heilige Allianz à la 1815, die im Namen der Terrorbekämpfung jeden Ansatz demokratischen Aufbegehrens in der Region zu unterdrücken sucht.
 
Die Parteinahme für reaktionäre Autokratien beruht nicht zuletzt auf der Annahme, sie würde freiheitliche und liberale Werte gegenüber den Muslimbrüdern verteidigen. Man glaubt, dass sich die religiösen Überzeugungen von Islamisten nicht vereinbaren ließen mit der Respektierung von Demokratie, Pluralismus und Frauenrechten. Vor allem aber haben die Islamisten bestimmte vage Vorstellungen von einer arabischen Welt, mit Selbstbewusstsein und Unabhängigkeitsstreben - was man von den Allianzpartnern der USA glücklicherweise nicht zu befürchten hat. (vgl. Lüders 2015: 127 f.).
 
Wer den Wahabismus, Al-Qaida oder den IS geschwächt sehen möchte, tut gut daran, in den Muslimbrüdern eine Alternative zu erkennen. (130). Westliche Politik begeht aber den Fehler, sich immer enger an die wahabitischen Saudis und an das Dreieck Saudi-Arabien, Ägypten, Israel anzulehnen und (ausgerechnet) die Muslimbrüder als Bedrohung zu sehen. Richtig wäre es andersherum.
 
Der zweite große Fehler besteht in dem Glauben, eine sunnitische Koalition aus Golfstaaten und Türkei könnte den IS besiegen. Das kann aber nicht gelingen. So laufen die USA und Europa Gefahr, "in einen Krieg der Golfstaaten gegen die Schiiten im Irak und im Iran hineingezogen zu werden" (134).
 
Der dritte große Fehler ist die Iran-Politik: seit 1993 "dual containment" against Irak and Iran. Auf Israel-Lobby zurückzuführen. Hat auch mit der israelischen Hizbollah-Obsession zu tun. Hatte Israel nach langer Besatzung (1982-2000) zum Abzug genötigt. Israel und AIPAC April 1995: Comprehensive U.S. Sanctions Against Iran: A Plan for Action.. - AIPAC verfolgt zwei geostrategische Ziele: Iran politisch und wirtschaftlich zu isolieren und Gründung eines palästinensischen Staates verhindern (135). Reformer Chatami (1997-2005) läuft gegen eine Wand. Nach 11. September 2001 geht Bush von Containment zur Strategie regionaler Transformation über: Regimewechsel in Irak und Iran. Nachdem Iran 2002 zur Achse des Bösen kam, erschienen 2003 reihenweise Artikel, die auf einen Krieg gegen Iran und regime change hinarbeiteten. Mit erstaunlichem Erfolg überzeugt Israel die USA und Europa, dass eine Atommacht Iran mit allen Mitteln verhindert werden müsse (136). Ahmadineschad (2005-2013) war Wasser auf die israelischen und amerikanischen Mühlen. El Baradei beschreibt, wie die USA vielfach in letzter Minute eine Einigung im Atomstreit verhinderten und stattdessen die Sanktionsschraube weiter andrehten (136-138).
 
Der vierte große Fehler ist der Glaube, dass wir die Guten und die anderen die Bösen sind. Wir übersehen dabei, dass ein Großteil der Menschheit ein Leben in Ohnmacht führt, vielfach entrechtet und ohne Chance. Wir begreifen nicht, dass es an der Zeit ist, die Selbstgerechtigkeit und den heuchelnden Moralismus abzulegen. Wenn Menschenrechte dazu dienen, eigene Machtpolitik zu tarnen oder unliebsame Politiker anzugehen, während sie sonst - man denke an die Verbündeten Ägypten, Saudi-Arabien u.a. - keine Rolle spielen, werden sie zu Worthülsen und machen den Westen nicht gerade zum Lieblingskind derjenigen, die das Spiel durchschauen.
 
== Weblinks and Bibliography ==
*[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronik_des_Bürgerkriegs_in_Syrien_2011 Chronik des Bürgerkriegs in Syrien 2011, in: de.wikipedia.org]
*Clausewitz, Carl von (1966) Meine Vorlesungen über den kleinen Krieg, gehalten auf der Kriegs-Schule 1810 und 1811, in: Clausewitz, Carl von: Schriften, Aufsätze, Studien, Briefe, Bd. 1, hrsg. von Werner Hahlweg, Göttingen: 208-599.
*[http://www.bpb.de/apuz/26279/krieg-und-politik-im-21-jahrhundert?p=all Hoch, Martin (2002) Krieg und Politik im 21. Jahrhundert. Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte B 20/2001]
*Lüders, Michael (2015) Wer den Wind sät. Was westliche Politik im Orient anrichtet. München: C.H. Beck.
*[http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/syria-civil-war-explained-160505084119966.html Syria's civil war explained from the beginning. Al Jazeera 16.05.2016]
Tiao
Bürokraten, Administratoren
31.738

Bearbeitungen

Abgerufen von „https://www.krimpedia.de/Spezial:Mobiler_Unterschied/77627...77670“