by Dr. Mordechai Kedar
Translated from Hebrew by Sally Zahav
The situation in Syria these days is amazingly similar to this pastoral picture of death: the state is dying, and an entire flock of birds is beginning to peck at it in order to consume what is left, while quarreling with one another over various parts of the state.
Anyone who travels in the hills of the Galilee or the Golan Heights is familiar with the magnificent spectacle of a flock of ravens, eagles, kites or hawks circling in the sky over one point for many hours. We know why this happens: beneath the rotating circle is a cow, sheep or other animal, whose movements testify to the approaching moment of death when its body will become immobile. The birds of prey track the vital signs, and the weaker they become, the lower the birds fly. The moment the animal stops moving they invade to tear pieces of its flesh with their sharp beaks.
As long as the birds are in the air they circle, one behind the other, each one keeping a safe distance between them. But the moment that they pounce on the carcass they begin to quarrel with each other over the most desirable parts, especially if their collective appetite is larger than the size of the animal’s carcass.
The situation in Syria these days is amazingly similar to this pastoral picture of death: the state is dying, and an entire flock of birds is beginning to peck at it in order to consume what is left, while quarreling with one another over various parts of the state.
The first bird is the Kurdish minority, which resides in northern Syria, which was liberated from control of the state during 2012, and established an autonomous regime for itself with its own small military force, obtaining weapons, ammunition and training from their brothers-in-arms, the Peshmerga, the army of Iraqi Kurdistan. They are aware of the fact that the Turks are against the establishment of an autonomous Kurdish territory and therefore their spokesmen have said again and again for the four past years that they are not trying to secede from Syria and the only thing they demand is that the state recognize their cultural and linguistic needs.
However, the more time passes, the more the Kurds understand that the state of Syria is becoming a thing of the past, and the developing reality in Syria – especially since the Islamic State began to take control on the eastern part of the state – imposed upon the Kurds the situation where they must take responsibility for their own fate; that they must establish an entity to defend themselves, both from the Islamic State in the South or from the Turks in the North. Such an entity could be called a “state”, even if it is not declared as such, and would be similar to that which exists in northern Iraq - and this drives the Turks mad.
The second vulture comprises a long list of Syrian militias, some of which have an Islamic-jihadist character (the most prominent among them being Jabhat al-Nusra) and some of which have a nationalist character (especially, the Free Syrian Army) or a local character. These militias began their operations in the poor neighborhoods of Daraa, Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo, and have won the generous support of the Gulf countries, especially Qatar. Later, for the entire year of 2013, they took control of the border crossing points to Turkey and Iraq and enabled the jihadists to pass freely into Syria. Today they control wide areas of the northern part of the state in the area of Aleppo-Idlib and are progressing westward toward the area of the coast populated by Alawites, while openly declaring their intention to physically destroy this infidel minority, which numbers about two million men, women and children. In the South as well, opposite the Golan Heights, they control a wide area and threaten Damascus from the South.
The opening of the borders to jihadists has hastened the deterioration of the Asad regime but has also planted the seeds of the next calamity, because the flow of jihadists into the state has enable them to join the Islamic State – the third vulture – which invaded Syria in mid-2014. This state, which was founded in Iraq in the year 2004 as a branch of al-Qaeda, following the invasion by the Western coalition and the fall of Saddam Hussein, became increasingly radical, in the ideological-Islamist aspect as well as the operational-jihadist aspect, imposed the strictest form of Islamic Sharia law on the territories that it had conquered in Iraq and Syria and brought the filming of executions by beheading into fashion.
Today, the Islamic State rules sixty percent (!) of the territory of Syria, in Iraq, it controls territory in the eastern and the central part, which is a sparsely populated desert region, but it threatens to spread westward and take over Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo, whether it is fighting the Kurds, for example the cities of Kobane and Hasakah, or Jabhat al-Nusra. We must bear in mind that Jabhat al-Nusra was part of the Islamic State for two weeks, in June of 2004, but disassociated from it as a result of disagreements over how to relate to non-Muslims. In my opinion, it is possible that Islamic State will “convince” Jabhat al-Nusra, with ways that we have become familiar with, to join it, especially in light of the very broad common denominator that exists between the two organizations.
Turkey, the fourth bird of prey, has invested great efforts into toppling Asad and his regime, because it is led by an infidel group, the Alawites, and because of the genocide that was carried out against Sunni Muslims, who opposed the rule of Asad’s father ever since he took control of the state at the end of 1970. Erdogan was infuriated when Bashar began to walk in his father’s path, slaughtering demonstrators starting in March 2011; therefore Turkey has supported anyone who opposed Asad for the past four years. However, to its surprise, Syria fell victim to two birds of prey that Turkey is not at all interested in having on its border: the Kurds and Islamic State. Therefore, in recent days, Turkey has begun vigorous activity, both in the military sphere and the political-diplomatic sphere, in order to create a “security zone” within Syria, for the length of its border with Turkey. The explanation for external consumption is that this zone is supposed to protect the Syrians who are fleeing from the battles, instead of entering Turkey and joining the almost million Syrian refugees who are already there, but the true Turkish intention is to take control of part of Syria in order to prevent the Kurds from establishing a Kurdish entity on its southern border.
The fifth bird of prey is Hizb’Allah. This Shi’ite organization watches with anxiety as Syria falls prey to the Sunni birds, and it fears, very much fears, that they will not stop at the border, a border that they do not recognize, and will continue westward in order to separate Shi’ite heads from their necks. Hizb’Allah already has taken control of areas of Syria that abut the border of Lebanon in the areas of Arsal, Hermel, Qusayr and Homs, in order to stop the ranks of jihadists while they are still in Syria and before they enter the Lebanon Valley where many Shi’ites live, in the vicinity of the city of Baalbek.
The sixth bird of prey is the Druze in southern Syria. After many years spent as part of the regime, they wake up one day and see that it is collapsing, with the military units that had been encamped in southern Syria disappearing in order to protect areas that are more sensitive and important to the regime, such as the capital Damascus and the Alawite area on the coast; and so the Druze are abandoned to their bitter fate meted out by the Islamists’ knives. The Druze increasingly understand that only a political, independent, armed and determined entity, trained for battle, will be able to defend them, both in the Druze Mountain and the Khader enclave on Mount Hermon. Israel and Jordan stay in the background and aid the Druze as much as they can.
The seventh bird of prey is the Iranians. In Syria there are thousands of fighters belonging to the Quds Force, which belongs to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and on two fronts – Idlib and Qalamoun Mountain – the Iranians are the ones who are waging the war and giving the orders to the Syrian and Hizb’Allah military units. General Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Quds Force, is on the scene, and he draws on the rich battle experience that he accumulated in the Iran-Iraq War during the eighties and from supporting the Shi’a militias in Iraq in their war against the coalition forces led by the U.S. beginning in 2003. Despite the fact that his hands are smeared with American blood, he suits the U.S. quite well since the U.S. hopes that the Iranians in Syria will do something serious against the Islamic State. This also partially explains the American eagerness to come to a nuclear agreement with Iran.
There are reports that the Iranians have begun to transfer families from Iran to the Alawite territory, but these reports must be seen as dubious. Nevertheless, we must not forget that in Syria there are sites that are holy to Shi’ite Islam, so Iran could take over of parts of Syria claiming to be “guarding the holy sites”. Why not?
The eighth bird is the Russians. They will do anything they can to help Asad, especially with the weapons that flow from Russia via the port of Tartus to his depleted forces. Russia will not see a single penny from all of its investments in Syria, and it might lose access to the last seaport that it has in the Mediterranean Sea. It may be that Russia will take control, “temporarily”, of Tartus and Latakia “to protect the population”, meaning, to protect its interests in these port cities.
This is how Syria is now falling prey to the various vultures. These days the American government has named a new envoy to Syria, Michael Ratney, a polished, Arabic speaking diplomat, who has filled many roles in the Middle East, including general consul in Jerusalem. Ratney’s most important task will be to make some order among the birds of prey, to assure that something of the Syrian carcass will also remain for the American eagle.
Dr. Mordechai Kedar
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