General Anxiety and Uncertainty and the Fall of the Muslimat

Looking back on 2013 and the Arab world, it is disappointing to say the least.

The Syrian crisis, which is just three months short of its third year, has revealed a lot, especially arrogance, heavy-handedness and stupidity. Tomorrow, it is necessary to recognize that the Levant region in particular is facing a future open to many possibilities.

These days, the demonstrations are fed by growing feelings of injustice, fear and anger, combined with stubbornly creeping regional ambitions to dominate the Levant and Arab Gulf regions. Thus, we can see how the lack of common sense permitted the international community to convert its moral obligations regarding a popular uprising (which was eligible for its sponsorship and its pledges of a minimal deterrence in Syria) into “a global war on terror.” Just as the new Russian czar wanted, China has shared in the tireless quest to break the “unipolar” state that the United States of America has enjoyed since its victory in the Cold War.

As for “the unipole,” it seems that it is tired of the burdens of its position and that it has convinced itself that it is unqualified for it. If the United States chose to “resign” from its position, thereby abandoning its regions of influence, and invited others to join it in retirement, then how could it be convinced to do otherwise?

No one can change this situation except the American electorate. If the American people feel that the leadership is inadequate and inefficient, they will withdraw their confidence and vote for different people in the following election.

This is what the Americans did in the middle of the Cold War, when they considered Jimmy Carter a weak leader. They ruled that his idealism was closer to naiveté than wisdom with regard to external threats. Moreover, Carter — in my personal opinion — was a better and nobler leader than Ronald Reagan as a person and as a politician. Carter’s poor reading of the situation led to his suffering a bitter defeat and the Republican “hawks” assuming power. As we know, they succeeded for a brief period in bringing about the fall of the Soviet Union, after which America was dragged into a war of weapons spending over which Reagan had no power. America subjected Mikhail Gorbachev to a number of regional wars that handcuffed him and wore him down until he left office, lean and colorless. He unconditionally surrendered to Reagan. In the end, he oversaw the collapse of the Soviet countries whose development he claimed to desire.

In Washington today is a new copy of Carter: Barack Obama. He succeeded in winning a second presidential term because of two factors: First, America’s fear of the receding social and health “safety net,” which has covered them in the midst of the excruciating economic crisis; second, the tendency of the rival Republican Party to unruly extremist ideology, which has led to it being overrun by the reckless tea party group.

America, fatigued by the ferocity of the George W. Bush administration’s aggressive foreign policy, is favorably disposed to these two internal factors. They convinced Obama of the importance of abandoning any active role in the foreign political arena. The Levant is currently paying the exorbitant price for Obama’s policy. Through Obama’s “humanitarian ideology,” it is clear that he does not mean what he says — nor even believe in it at all.

Obama, in the famous January 2009 speech which he gave in Cairo, raised the banner of a “new beginning.” He promised a lot to the region. His listeners were really suspicious about whether the “ideal” of the man and his political culture were capable of adopting an approach that was deeply rooted in the problems of the Arab and Islamic worlds. However, he fell at the first hurdle before the rigidity of the Israeli Likud Party.

After that, the process stumbled, finally collapsing completely after a knotty secret deal with Iran, which probably included collusion about the fate of the Syrian people through the agreement with Russia. According to reliable sources, more than 220,000 people have been killed or are missing, and 10 million more have been displaced. According to the agreed-upon figures, more than 60,000 Syrians were killed in 2013 alone.

With a dwindling countdown to the Geneva II Middle East peace conference, Washington has ignored the escalation of the Bashar al-Assad regime’s destructive “scorched earth” policy. Washington was silent about Moscow’s repeated calls for making Geneva II a conference focused on “the war on terror,” rather than devoting it to implementing the agreements of Geneva I regarding the peaceful transition of power in Syria. What’s even worse is that Washington has turned its gaze completely away from Iran’s entering into a direct contest on Syrian soil through 25 Shiite organizations. These organizations come from different areas of the world and are headed by Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the fighters of 15 Iraqi groups, at the forefront of which are the brigades of Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas and Asaib Ahl al-Haq (who are marching to the drums of Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries). Naturally, to Israel’s satisfaction, Washington was relieved with the fate of Syria’s chemical weapons, which were shown to be used to kill Syrians. Syria’s decision regarding its chemical weapons stemmed from the efforts of both American and Israeli officials, who pushed for the survival of the Assad regime because Assad is the “best” to control the fundamentalist and jihadi groups in the country!

Allowing Assad to remain in power over the Syrian rubble and the corpses of his people is an option that Syrians, Arabs and Muslims will avoid at all costs. I argue that this direction will, sooner or later, lead first to the emergence of a desperate, extremist environment, which naturally fosters terrorism, and second to the region’s division and fragmentation.

What is happening in Syria, in conjunction with the return of a series of murderous crimes in Lebanon and the exposed sectarian practices of the Washington-supported Iraqi rule, confirms that the borders of the Levant, which were drawn in 1920, are shaking and fading. The fading of these borders will mean either the dominance of the “Iranian-Israeli joint guardianship,” or the plunging of the factional divisions into blood, tears and grudges.

All of this is because the current American administration does not distinguish at all between aggressive “ferocity” and responsible “leadership.”