Why Saudi Arabia has emerged as a haven for foreign diplomacy against Syria?

Before the second ‘Friends of Syria’s meeting was going to be held in Istanbul on 1st April, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was busy globetrotting in Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The aim was to enhance diplomatic efforts against Bashar al Assad, fact that has become the burning topic of G-8 Summit, BRICS meeting and Arab League’s propaganda.

Interestingly, apart from Turkey which hits the limelight for garnering support against Assad, Saudi Arabia has evolved into a new haven. Hillary Clinton met Saudi King Abdullah and the Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal. Apparently, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have been arming the rebels of Syria against the Army- a fact that was confessed after these nations mustered the courage to accept it internationally. Another objective of Hillary Clinton was also to attend the Gulf Cooperation Council-US strategic cooperation forum. Turning away from Syria, this aimed to target Iran and its nuclear power ‘development’. Behind the disguise of bilateral and regional issues, exists the Joan Of Arc narrative to declare ‘Iran and Syria’ as the new axis of evil.  Somewhere perhaps, President Bush might be having the last laugh.

This Friday Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is going to hold diplomatic talks with Saudi’s King Abdullah about ‘Iran’ and “Syria’. Both Turkey and Saudi Arabia are predominantly Sunni Muslim majority countries. While Turkey has revolutionised its identity for the sake of joining the EU, Saudi Arabia stands to be audaciously dominating the population of its kingdom, denying them liberties and democracy.

Theories of international relations state that democracy enlargement does not mean ‘regime change’- the aim of US and Western allies. Endorsing a proxy government, endowing ‘popular’ democracy rather than ‘Representative democracy’ is not the right deal. Perhaps, all these leaders should learn from Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez who has implemented grassroots reform and never forgot the main cause that made him win- the fight for the better livelihood of the poor.

Eventually, the entire episode in Syria, even after the acceptance of the 6 point peace plan in Syria, is nothing but a manipulated game, or perhaps an already fixed cricket match. The peace plan puts no pressure on Assad to abdicate and hence, it does not change anything. The constitution was put to referendum and Syria is going to have its parliamentary elections soon. Kofi Annan, who never questioned the illegal NATO bombing in Bosnia is suddenly looked up as a ‘Messiah’ just because he admitted to BBC that Iraq invasion by US was illegal. Mind you, he was not looking for second term as UN Secretary General then as he was during the time of Kosovo.

In a nutshell, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are just flaunting their imperialist agendas under the mask of Islam which might not give them anything in the end. Certainly, not the lives of innocent civilians who are dead in Syria. A number that rose to 9000 according to UN, recently.

Arab League in Iraq, BRICS Summit in India and Kofi Annan in China: New Failures for Syria

Political diplomacy and democracy enlargement touches new boundaries with the Arab League, BRICS and UN Envoy Annan, all discussing about ‘Syria’ this week.

Recently, President Bashar al- Assad agreed to adopt the 6-point peace plan forwarded by UN -Arab League Envoy Annan. No doubt, it was an intelligent move, as the statement is not a UN resolution, it does not demand Assad’s departure and no immediate date has been mentioned when this plan should be implemented. One can witness history repeating itself when the US Senators start the chorus of arming the opposition in Syria and UN Humanitarian Chief Navi Pillay states that there is ample evidence to arrest Assad. The same happened in the case of Libya when ICC issued arrest warrants against Colonel Gadaffi while David Cockburn revealed that both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch do not have evidence. No doubt, its not a conscientious choice to support Assad. But then again, we have to realise that at present, he is the one who is actually controlling Syria. If he goes away, who will take the responsibility that Libya does not shatter into a civil war.

Arab League Summit in Iraq

As far as the Arab Summit is concerned, its more of a long awaited opportunity for Baghdad to enter the limelight again. Unfortunately, only seven out of the 22 member states are attending the meeting. Qatar and Saudi Arabia have declined to join it. In fact, the Emir of Kuwait is the sole representative from Gulf countries to be present in Iraq. Sectarian issues are predominant here. Grudges against Sunni Arab majority being dominated by the Shiite government is unacceptable to Qatar. Nothing is more evident than the fact that Iraq’s PM Nouri al-Maliki has a lot of struggle to go through. No doubt, just like the ‘Friends of Syria‘ conference that took place in Tunisia last February, this Arab Summit is also not going to yield any specific results. Syria is no longer a part of Arab league and its Foreign Ministry is not going to accept any decision marked in this conference.

BRICS Summit in New Delhi

Talking about BRICS and how all these countries should really kick off an enigmatic and prudent head start in Syria’s case, everything turns sarcastic immediately. This week, Yeshi, a Tibetian revolutionary set himself on fire in New Delhi. Tibetans have been protesting against China’s embark to India as police officials jail them in. So, on one hand, India is trying to play the role of a saint by talking the measures that should be taken to ease of the burden of Syrian opposition rebels. But look whats happening inside New Delhi itself? Its neither retributive nor restorative justice being imparted to Tibetans.

Kofi Annan in China

Turning to UN envoy Kofi Annan, it seems, quite superficially that here comes a man who can make transparent changes. This week, he was in Beijing to talk with Chinese PM Wen Jiabao. Well, China agreed to support the peace plan but is not very clear whether it means complete commitment till the very end or just a casual backing of the peace plan. Annan also visited Russia and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev raise the same noble concerns. Sadly, diplomacy does not work by paying high profile visits. It concerns me why Vladimir Puntin and Kofi Annan did not meet and if they did, why no press conference has been launched for it. Russia indeed is a crafty situation. Well, Russia might be taking slow cautious steps just as Syria did in recognizing Russian Federation after the collapse of USSR.

Eventually, Syria is not Somalia where anarchy persists and the private sector adopts careful and meticulous moves to sustain the economy. The Syrian economy, or perhaps more, the common everyday livelihood of a Syrian has been effected by the US and EU imposed sanctions. Leaving the economy aside, one after another, all the foreign moves like Arab League Summit, the BRICS Summit and even Kofi Annan’s visit would not reap any results and are completely helpless. Well, perhaps this is exactly the right time to ask oneself, anyways ‘what exactly is the result we are searching for’.

Arming of revolutionaries: A shrewd tactics in international diplomacy

Active promotion of revolutions has been very prominent right from 1790s when the French revolutionaries jumped on the bandwagon for internationalist diplomacy. Over the years, this process of ‘exporting the revolutions‘ has been used by super-powers to thrash the flawed government of developing countries and impose imperialism. They mostly express their impeccability when questioned about the clandestine manner in which they train outside revolutionaries, militants and rebels. But there are few who pay the price. For example, ‘By challenging the legitimacy of all foreign interventions, Bolsheviks invited all foreign governments to challenge their own.’ Interestingly, the Syrian uprising has provided an opportunistic platform to western powers to use their alliances and hegemony to overthrow Assad regime.

In a meeting of  Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Saudi Arabia has backed the arming of Syrian guerrilla groups. Riyadh has been transporting arms to Syria through the Sunni tribal ally groups in Iraq and Lebanon. As Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, Qatar’s prime minister has also backed the arming of Syrian rebels. FSA is being funneled with Russian Anti-tank missiles and sophisticated weapons system from various sympathizers from Assad’s military. Even Libyan interim leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil has supported Syrian rebels as around 600 Libyans have transported on Syrian soil to fight as volunteers.

The Free Syrian Army which is disorganized, cluttered into groups of rebels, has definitely become a fiction mailbox, pretending to reach out to innocent civilians. Marc Lynch has intelligently questioned if the process of arming FSA would lead to any immediate results. He predicts three outcomes out of this phenomenon. First, the rebels use the arms for their defence or secondly, they overpower the Syrian military and force them to surrender.  Finally, the rebels and the military can even out each other’s power and eventually negotiate. What most powers do not think about is that since FSA contains several groups, often splitting due to their lack of agreement. The entire rat race to get arms would cause severe competition in these armed gangs, leading to further chaos and militancy.

Unfortunately, Syria is not like China or Iran where the foreign interventionists and their real agendas can be filtered or understood. For example, the British Embassy in Peking was burnt by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution in 1967. The US Embassy seizure in Tehran in 1979 during the  Iranian revolution has permanently soured US-Iran relations. At the same time, history is replete with examples where the ‘Syria chapter’ has been repeated, on and on.

• Soviet provisions used to supply arms, training and advisers through Comintern to underground military units in communist countries.
• Chinese supported the Vietnam for opposition to France from 1950-1954.
• Cuba provided aid to Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua after 1977.
• People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen provided bases and trainings to arm guerrillas to Oman and North Yemen. After its establishment in 1967, it also deployed guerrillas for sporadic clashes with Saudi Arabia.
• Bolsheviks attempted to assist revolutionaries in Mongolia, Iran and Poland in the 1920s.
• Iran supported militants in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan.

On the other hand, just like Russia is supporting arms supplies to Syria, USSR was also involved in arming China and Vietnam during 1950s, Cuba and Vietnam during 1960s and Angola and Mozambique during 1970s. Well, it was Cuba and Vietnam which caused US and USSR to drift apart, eventually dodging the nuclear war in 1962.

Therefore, this entire trend of arming the revolutionaries by powerful nations is not new. One can find the residue of  Marxist internationalist agenda of creating continuous and inevitable world wide revolutionary upheaval in such attempts. Very often, the thin defining line differentiating revolution from nationalism is erased.

In Syria, the uprisings are being used as an ‘instrument’ where the internationalism of western and Arab powers is being adopted for their own selfish interests rather than social justice and social order. There is an evident gap in the overlapping of revolutionary aspiration and capability because most of the Syrian rebels are fighting on abstract and anonymous grounds. It makes them vulnerable and eventuate into mortals fighting on lost cause.

Russia and China against UN’s draft resolution for Syria

As Syria is replacing Iran’s title of ‘North Korea in the Mediterranean’, the country witnesses 11 month crackdown with the death of 5400 civilians. The highly awaited meeting of UN’s Security Council in New York went as expected. Both China and Russia stated that they would veto against the Moroccan authored draft resolution, if accepted by the Security Council. Nabil Elaraby, the Secretary General of Arab League along with Sheikh Thani, the PM of Qatar have been quite vocal against Syria.

The current resolution gives 15 days to Assad for handing over the power to his deputy Farouk al Shaara, who is currently the vice president of the country. He has served as a Syrian Foreign Minister from 1984-2006. He is known for playing an important role in maintaining Syria’s relationship with Lebanon and Israel. Last July, Farouk held government meetings, speaking about the transition to a truly pluralistic democratic state.

Meanwhile, an Israeli newspaper Maariv has stated that farouk arrived in Moscow in December to discuss the possibility of providing political asylum to Bashar al- Assad and his family.

Arab League’s smart act

In a quite smart and diplomatic act, Arab League sent a 165 member mission to Syria. These international monitors revealed that 400 people have died since their deployment. These numbers created further chaos and blemished the image of Assad. The League still has 100 members in Syria, as an act to show the western world how they do care for the civilians in Syria but sadly, can not play an integral role in stopping the deaths. Hence, nothing is going to work apart from the draft resolution of the Security Council.

But is this a cunning step to turn Syria into another LIbya. The ‘Right to Protect’ Act was twisted by NATO in the Resolution 1973 which was passed by UN last year. The resolution was meant to protect the civilians and not to cause regime change, which eventually, it did. Both Russia and China, who had not been very vocal during the time of Libya, regretted their cowardice. They not only faced heavy economical losses but even the wide perception that their foreign policies and opinions do not matter in the western hegemony.

Russia and China’s support

Its not only communism which is common in both the countries. One must remember Stalin and how he butchered his own men before the Second World War. Also, one must not forget the Tianmen Protests in China in 1989, killing hundreds of protestors.

The same lineage can be scrutinised in Hama Massacre that took place in Syria when the then President Hafez killed thousands of Sunni Muslim protestors against his regime.

Perhaps, the Syrian tyranny gives power to both Russia and China.

The paranoia and sense of madness continues. Especially, if its the deciding point of elections. Both Russia and China are going to have elections this year. Vladimir Puntin, running for the Presidential elections has been criticising Medvedev for being a neutral spectator during Libya.

Also, Russia has its naval base at the port city of Tartus. Its the only passage for Russia to the Mediterranean. The Russian- Syrian trade relations value $4 billion dollars while the Chinese Syrian trade amounts to more than $1.8 dollars.

Russia has been selling fighter jets, anti-ship cruise missiles and fighters to Syria right from the start of Cold War.

China started its diplomatic relations with Syria from 1956 and continues to maintain it.

All of this can be seen as a subtle polarizing of the world into two political power associations.

Anti-Imperialism or For Sovereignity

The entire Arab uprising, creating chaotic dominoes effect, has become a struggle between foreign intervention and protection of a country’s own sovereignty. America continues with a soft power approach but ultimately its strong on ‘You are with us or against us’ principle.

One must know that Syria is also different from Libya from  a very interesting angle. In Libya, it was Gadaffi and the rebels. While, in Syria, it is Bashar al Assad, the rebels and a catalysing population of religious extremists and terrorists who are also involved in killing innocent civilians. Its difficult to say who trains them. There are rumours that western countries are training them, especially France in Lebanon and Turkey so that they can revolt against the government.

Hence, its a million dollar question if Assad would actually resign or might become another Gadaffi for Syria.