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= A March of Folly? = | |||
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]. | |||
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. | |||
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.'' | |||
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. | |||
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. | |||
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. | 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.” | 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 | 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. | 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. | ||
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*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). | *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 = | = 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.). | 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.). | ||
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== 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. | ||
*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. | ||
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*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 | *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. | ||