By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net,
To call the civil strife in Syria just a sectarian clash would amount to criminal over-simplification of history. The origin of the turmoil in Levant can be traced to the carving out of Lebanon from Syria by the colonial powers that also created Israel.
With about 43 % Christian and 57% Muslims–– Sunnis and Shias––as well as minority Druze population, this tiny country was designed as another future base for the western powers.
For representational purpose only (TCN file photo)
When the French left in 1943 they made an arrangement under which the President would be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni and Speaker of the Parliament a Shia. After the creation of Israel and expulsion of thousands of Palestinians the demographic balance tilted further in favour of Muslims.
In 1958 Lebanon plunged into chaos because the Muslims and several Left-leaning people, including Palestinians, started suspecting that Christian leaders were close to the West. However, uneasy truce was made.
All this happened much before the Iranian Revolution and the advent of Alawi President Hafez-al-Assad in Syria. Lebanon once again exploded into civil war in 1975 and it lasted till 1990. Israel and Syria played their proxy games.
In later years it turned into a multi-faceted inter- and even intra-religion bloodletting and massacres. After 15 long years and over 1,25,000 deaths the war ended following Taif Agreement in Saudi Arabia.
Iran got sucked into the politics of Levant after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. From the best friend of Israel during Raza Shah’s rule it became the biggest enemy of ‘the Zionist state’ as well as the United States.
The signing of a separate peace accord with Israel by Egypt in 1979 gave Tehran further leverage to play its role. It got general acceptability in the Sunni world, if not among rulers. Not only Iran, even other Gulf countries were left with little option but to back the otherwise Soviet-leaning secular President Hafez-al-Assad as Syria was the only formidable frontline Arab state pitted against Israel.
A siginificant irony of history is that Syria first intervened in Lebanon following the invitation by its Christian President Suleiman Frangieh in June 1976 after the Maronites were on the verge of defeat at the hands of Palestinians and Muslims. So in the initial months both Syria and Israel were on the same side.
The equation changed later. The Jewish state had been supplying heavy weapons and tanks to Christians. As Israel and other western powers were increasing their influence in Lebanon, the Iranian involvement after 1979 Revolution was somewhat natural.
At the height of civil war Israel invaded south Lebanon on June 6, 1982, exactly 25 years after the Six Day War of 1967 (June 5 to 10). This operation lasted for several days and hundreds of Palestinians and Muslims were killed.
The US, France, Italy and Britain sent their peacekeepers to that war-torn country. The Christian militia backed by the occupying Israeli Defence Forces carried out massacre of about 3,000 Palestinian men, women and children in Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps between Septemeber 16 and 18, 1983.
The retribution was quick and massive by Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shia group. On October 23, 1983 two trucks loaded with 2,000 kgs of explosives rammed into the buildings working as camps for the US and French soldiers in Beirut. In all 241 Americans and 58 French soldiers were killed.
Devastated by the blasts the West soon withdrew its peace-keepers. Though Iran was invaded by Iraq on September 22, 1980 and the battle lasted for eight years, Tehran never softened its stand against Israel.
Meanwhile, the Saudis and its Gulf allies, known for being pro-West, were taken aback by Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Till then the Iraqi dictator was their best friend, who fought for them against Shia Iran.
In fight against Iraq these Arab tyrants were once again compelled to take the help of pro-Left Syria. Thus, for one reason or the other, not only Iran, all the Gulf nations invested heavily in Syria and Lebanon. The end of civil war did not reduce the role of Israel and Syria. In 2005 the then Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri was killed in an explosion.
While Syria-backed Hezbollah was blamed for it, the Shia group instead held Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, responsible for the killing as the Jewish state wanted to force Syria out of Lebanon. Hariri, a Sunni, was very close to France and a darling to Saudi rulers. However, international pressure mounted and Syria was forced to withdraw on April 30, 2005, that is 29 years after being invited by Hezbollah’s enemy, Maronites. Israel tried to capitalize on this opportunity. In the summer of 2006 it launched a mssive attack on Lebanon. The Lebanese army could hardly resist, but Hezbollah fought back to stall the aggression. Though Israeli forces got a bloody nose in the land offensive, its air force carried out attacks on civilian areas killing several hundreds.
Since then Israel has carried out a couple of similar invasions in Gaza, where Iranian-backed Hamas, a Sunni Islamic group, fought back. Once again there was heavy civilian casualties. When the Arab Spring broke out in 2010-11 Syrian ruler, like those in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya etc, was taken aback by the nature of revolt. But in Syria the situation was complicated as the armed opposition groups were badly divided. They got embroiled in killing each other too. The Saudis and Gulf nations got an ample opportunity to fish in the troubled water. Though they had supported monarchs and dictators of Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Jordan etc here they started opposing Bashar-al-Assad, who still enjoyed the backing of Iran and Hezbollah.
But Saudis too were taken by surprise with the emergence of ISIS. On the other hand they ‘discovered’ a Shia ghost in Yemen too. Gradually the western media started painting all the power struggles in the light of the Shia-Sunni divide. Iran may be soft towards Syria because of the Alawis, who form just 10-12 % of Syria’s population. But there was at least consistency in Tehran’s policy in the region.
In contrast these oil-rich Arab rulers are known for flip-flop attitude. Saddam became the worst enemy and good friend Ali Abdullah Saleh suddenly turned out to be an Iranian-backed Shia. Saudi Arabia, which then ruled by Shah Faisal, used oil as a weapon after the 1973 Arab-Israel war. Now Riyadh is upset with the stand of Hamas against Israel.
While relationship between Sunni Egypt and Shia Iran grew strong during brief period of Muslim Brotherhood rule, Saudi Arabia brought back its ambassador from Cairo. Presidents Morsi and Ahmedinejad paid visit to each other’s country in that short period.
Later Saudi Arabia and Kuwait openly backed General Sisi’s crackdown on the first elected government in Egypt. Unlike in the past Islamic Turkey has emerged powerful. It too has high stakes in its former empire. It has adopted a balanced policy. President Erdogan last month paid a visit to Iran. Though he did some plain speaking on several issues he signed some important agreements with his Iranian counterpart.
These peninsular Arab Sheikhdoms have become overstretched and isolated. The Shia-Sunni factor may be working in some pockets, but the overall picture is going against the royals. They got a huge setback, when of all the countries, Pakistan––in which they had invested so much––refused to send troops to Yemen. This is so notwithstanding the fact that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, spent years in exile in Saudi Arabia.
The United States now does not need just Israel as regional police outpost as Saudi Arabia is playing its part well. It is not just Syria and Iraq, but dozens of Muslim––or Muslim-dominated––countries from Afghanistan to Libya and Nigeria, and Mail to Sudan, Yemen, Central African Republic, Somalia etc are in turmoil. Refugees are sailing to Europe in lakhs at the risk of getting drowned. There is no Iranian involvement in them. In fact policies of the western masters are responsible for it.
Related (By same Author):
Is Sunni world suffering from Shia phobia?
—-
(Soroor Ahmed is a Patna-based freelance journalist. He writes on political, social, national and international issues.)