By G Parthasarathy
New Indian Express and Sunday Standard, 28 Sep14.
The decision by the Obama administration to challenge the writ of the ruthless and extremist Islamic Sate of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) in Syria and Iraq is fraught with dangers of further destabilisation in the Islamic world. The Obama administration has declared that it will use its air power to attack ISIL in both Iraq and Syria. Its armed forces chief, General Dempsey, has indicated that he would not hesitate to seek presidential approval for sending in ground forces to fight side by side with the Iraqi forces and Iraqi Kurds to eliminate ISIL. The US has constituted a “coalition” of around 50 countries, ranging from Saudi Arabia and the UAE to the UK and Australia, which have pledged to back the Americans with air power and economic support. None of these countries have offered ground forces and some have not even publicly acknowledged their “support”.
What has made this entire effort seem strange is that while Iraq has supported the Shia-dominated Assad regime in neighbouring Syria to fight its opponents, including ISIL, the US has stepped up support for anti-Shia opponents of President Assad, like the “moderate” Sunni “Free Syrian Army”. Paradoxically, while the US seeks to fight ISIL in Syria, it simultaneously destabilises the Syrian government, which controls the best equipped and motivated armed forces in Syria. Moreover, the Americans have deliberately not invited the most powerful regional power, Iran, which is a close ally of the Syrian and Iraqi governments, to join its “coalition”.
There are already rumblings against US policies in the powerful Shia militias that back the Iraqi government. There is also unease in Sunni-dominated Arab Gulf countries to make common cause with a Shia-dominated Iraqi government. While both the US and Israel are hostile towards Iran, neither has a clear strategy for co-opting regional powers like Iran to confront ISIL. Moreover, given its close relations with the Assad regime in Syria and with Iran, Russia will not agree to grant international legitimacy to US actions through approval by the UN Security Council. Military intervention in Libya by the US, UK and France has led to the fragmentation of the country, which is now ruled by regional warlords, some of whom have virulently anti-American agendas. There are growing fears of similar Balkanisation, as the Americans wade into Iraq and Syria,
Oded Yinon, an Israeli intelligence analyst, envisaged the “dissolution of Lebanon”, following its invasion by Israel in 1982, as the forerunner for the dismemberment of Iraq and Syria. He predicted that Syria would fall apart into a Shia-Alawite dominated state along its coastal area and two Sunni-dominated states in the Aleppo area and around Damascus, with the Druzes dominating the Golan. A war-torn Syria is already broadly divided on these lines. Yinon also held that in Iraq “three or more states will exist around the three major cities of Basra, Mosul and Baghdad. Shia areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north”. He concluded: “The entire Arabian Peninsula is a natural candidate for dissolution due to internal and external pressures.”
The Yinon scenario seems to be playing out in the Middle East, largely due to American interventions, covert and overt, in Iraq, Syria and Libya. The exclusion of Iran from the coalition designed to confront ISIL could well produce scenarios involving disintegration along sectarian and tribal lines. The Kurds in Iraq are moving towards virtual independence, getting arms from abroad and exporting oil directly through Turkey. India cannot remain unconcerned if these developments reach the borders of the Gulf Arab states, where six million Indians live and from where we get 70 per cent of our oil imports. While urging regional reconciliation and preparing contingency plans for the safety and welfare of its nationals, India should avoid getting drawn into the vortex of emerging sectarian and civilisational rivalries in the Islamic world.
New Indian Express and Sunday Standard, 28 Sep14.
The decision by the Obama administration to challenge the writ of the ruthless and extremist Islamic Sate of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) in Syria and Iraq is fraught with dangers of further destabilisation in the Islamic world. The Obama administration has declared that it will use its air power to attack ISIL in both Iraq and Syria. Its armed forces chief, General Dempsey, has indicated that he would not hesitate to seek presidential approval for sending in ground forces to fight side by side with the Iraqi forces and Iraqi Kurds to eliminate ISIL. The US has constituted a “coalition” of around 50 countries, ranging from Saudi Arabia and the UAE to the UK and Australia, which have pledged to back the Americans with air power and economic support. None of these countries have offered ground forces and some have not even publicly acknowledged their “support”.
What has made this entire effort seem strange is that while Iraq has supported the Shia-dominated Assad regime in neighbouring Syria to fight its opponents, including ISIL, the US has stepped up support for anti-Shia opponents of President Assad, like the “moderate” Sunni “Free Syrian Army”. Paradoxically, while the US seeks to fight ISIL in Syria, it simultaneously destabilises the Syrian government, which controls the best equipped and motivated armed forces in Syria. Moreover, the Americans have deliberately not invited the most powerful regional power, Iran, which is a close ally of the Syrian and Iraqi governments, to join its “coalition”.
There are already rumblings against US policies in the powerful Shia militias that back the Iraqi government. There is also unease in Sunni-dominated Arab Gulf countries to make common cause with a Shia-dominated Iraqi government. While both the US and Israel are hostile towards Iran, neither has a clear strategy for co-opting regional powers like Iran to confront ISIL. Moreover, given its close relations with the Assad regime in Syria and with Iran, Russia will not agree to grant international legitimacy to US actions through approval by the UN Security Council. Military intervention in Libya by the US, UK and France has led to the fragmentation of the country, which is now ruled by regional warlords, some of whom have virulently anti-American agendas. There are growing fears of similar Balkanisation, as the Americans wade into Iraq and Syria,
Oded Yinon, an Israeli intelligence analyst, envisaged the “dissolution of Lebanon”, following its invasion by Israel in 1982, as the forerunner for the dismemberment of Iraq and Syria. He predicted that Syria would fall apart into a Shia-Alawite dominated state along its coastal area and two Sunni-dominated states in the Aleppo area and around Damascus, with the Druzes dominating the Golan. A war-torn Syria is already broadly divided on these lines. Yinon also held that in Iraq “three or more states will exist around the three major cities of Basra, Mosul and Baghdad. Shia areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north”. He concluded: “The entire Arabian Peninsula is a natural candidate for dissolution due to internal and external pressures.”
The Yinon scenario seems to be playing out in the Middle East, largely due to American interventions, covert and overt, in Iraq, Syria and Libya. The exclusion of Iran from the coalition designed to confront ISIL could well produce scenarios involving disintegration along sectarian and tribal lines. The Kurds in Iraq are moving towards virtual independence, getting arms from abroad and exporting oil directly through Turkey. India cannot remain unconcerned if these developments reach the borders of the Gulf Arab states, where six million Indians live and from where we get 70 per cent of our oil imports. While urging regional reconciliation and preparing contingency plans for the safety and welfare of its nationals, India should avoid getting drawn into the vortex of emerging sectarian and civilisational rivalries in the Islamic world.
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