It means they don’t see their primary identity as being “Arab” or “Syrian” but as Muslim.
That’s why Muslim radicals aren’t as concerned with ethnic identity since from their standpoint all Muslims are brothers. That’s why the Arabs of Hezbollah swear their allegiance to the Iranian Supreme Leader.
It’s also why Hamas leaders have insisted they fight for all Muslims and are part of the Ummah while Al Quaeda is a veritable hodge-podge of nationalities.
As for what it means for Israel and the US both the Ba’athists and Islamic radicals have regularly made it clear they hate the Americans and Jews but contrary to the ignorant opinions of countless westernors, Islamic radicals when it’s in their interest have regularly collaborated with both the Jews and the Americans, though usually behind the scenes.
For example during the 80s and early 90s the Iranian regime collaborated with both the US and Israel when in their interests.
Your point? Should any country that has had 88 people die in state custody in six months have its government overthrown? Or what?
Look, BrainGlutton, you spent a lot of time in the Libyan thread just posting links, with an occasional brief description. You have not spent a lot of time explaining your views, for or against of the news contained in the links. Would you care to start, or would you prefer to continue your blog-like pattern?
The first Arab nationalist movement was the nahda current which pre-dated the baathists by about half a century. The Brothers in Egypt and similar groups are far more assertive of Egyptian influence in the region, especially in terms of the Israel situation, than Mubarak ever was and this is why the US and Israel don’t want any more countries becoming so assertive – call it Arab nationalist as a shorthand – in the region as Egypt has become since the fall of Mubarak. That’s the point I’m trying to make. Any government that manages to overthrow the Assad regime is going to be more assertive over the Palestinian problem, the Golan and any US/Israeli attempt at influence in Syria. The Assad regime is the devil we know.
It further illustrates the severity and brutality of the crackdown. How is it not relevant?
Of course the Libya thread got bloggy, I started it in February to debate whether anything was going to happen and it’s been tracking a civil war ever since and it’s not over yet. As for my views, I think it’s all a very good thing and the U.S. and NATO handled the Libyan situation just right: We didn’t start it, it couldn’t honestly be blamed on us in any way, we limited our involvement to the air support the rebels asked for, so there are no foreign occupiers to resent. So, after a civil war with very limited bloodshed considering its duration, the result might very well be a U.S-and-Western-friendly Arab democracy.
My views on Syria are that it would be a very, very good thing if we could pull off something like that in Syria, but I don’t know if it’s possible, or too risky. The question is open for debate. If I find the question interesting enough to state, I am not required to take a side. Based on what I’ve read in this thread so far, I still think the worst danger is not an even-more-anti-Israeli-and-U.S. regime, but ethnic/religious factionalization and strife.
If we hadn’t got imvolved then there’s zero chance other countries like britain and whoever would have tried to overthrow gaddafi themselves.
And pretty much any Arab democracy is going to be less US-friendly than any Arab dictator. Dictators like Mubarak could be bought off with money, QED. Any Libyan government which actually represents the will of its people, and I don’t expect to see one emerge in Libya, would not be US-friendly. America’s standing in the Middle East has declined steadily over the decades, reaching what we thought was a nadir when Bush unilaterally invaded Iraq. But America’s reaction to the events of the Arab Spring have caused America’s standing amongst Arabs to fall even lower than it was under the Bush regime.
What eventually emerges as a government in libya may indeed be US-friendly, at least compared with the Gadaffi regime, but that won’t represent the will of the Libyan people, especially as regards their natural resources and the new regime’s foreign policy in the region.
Oh yeah, this is Syria not libya we’re talking about in this thread. :smack:
I’ve been out of the office enjoying a mainly liquid lunch until now so that’s my excuse anyway.
OK, Syria. You’ve got a lot of competing ethnic groups in Syria and the groups they represent aren’t exactly US-friendly. If there’s any kind of unifying national issue, it’s the golan heights which Israel seized in 1967. Obviously the US slavishly backs Israel and israel don’t want to give them up, so Syrians aren’t going to be pro-American over this issue. There isn’t exactly going to be a seamless transition from the Assad regime to anything else.
The current power structure isn’t going to go down without a fight and will be backed by its ally Iran and also Iraq, who are currently supporting the Assad regime. The Saudis and us would probably support the Sunnis, most of whom would be people we were calling terrorists when theey were fighting against us in Iraq. If we did support one particular group to overthrow the Assad regime we’d probably end up with another lebanon.
The Assad regime have been concerned with nothing else but their own survival for at least thirty years. It’s likely that any new regime that emerged from a civil war would be in exactly the same situation sooner rather than later.
They may have been eager but they don’t have any military capability. Britain and france ran out of bombs and missiles after about two weeks of the war. Without US involvement the overthrow would never have happened :
Democracies don’t just appear because a regime gets overthrown, especially in countries with lots of oil. Just because you hold an election in a country doesn’t make it a democracy. Look at Egypt for instance. We’ve committed two billion on top of the two billion a year we already give them to back our favoured candidates in the forthcoming elections. that’s because we want a pro-US government in power there. We want the same in Libya, Syria, everywhere else in the region.
The US wants shall we say preferred access to Middle Eastern energy and compliant governments and ME governments to recognise and make peace with Israel. This conflicts diametrically with the will of the Middle Eastern people. See Egypt for example.
Here’s an actual poll which has been carried out for decades that shows the changing US sentiment in the region :
The US has been interfering in the region, overthrowing governments they don’t like and replacing them with dictators and propping up dictators they do like who keep tens of millions of Arabs living under hrrible repressive regimes. The events of the Arab Spring have confirmed to Arabs that the US prefers pro-US/Israel dictators to the will of the Arab people, so exactly why should the US be popular in the region? If you’d lived under a horrible repressive dictatoeship all your life that had been propped up by the US, why would you be pro-US? Why would you see the US as somehow representing freedom? Can’t you see why the vast majority of Arab people might not see America as representing freedom?
This is a big deal – the Arab League applying political pressure to a member to clean up its human-rights record. Or, put another way, putting itself on one side, at the beginning, of an inevitable civil war. But, either way, trying to solve this as a matter of regional interest without involving the Western powers directly. Is that a new development? Has it ever been done before?
What if the Free Syrian Army asks for U.S./NATO air support, like the Libyan rebels did? Should we still “let them get on with it on their own”?
Another possible – not sure how possible – scenario is where the U.S. and NATO stay out of it, but the Arab League states (that is, such of them as have good air forces – Egypt, maybe) give the Syrian rebels all the air support they want. That would be unprecedented, but so are the League’s recent decisions to suspend and sanction Syria. Any reason the West should have a problem with that? It might be the first step to the AL becoming a power in its own right, like the EU.
Syria’s Air Force is NOT launching air attacks on civilian or military targets. They are using snipes, and ground based cannon. This is not the same as a no fly zone. Syria has over invested in armor, as benefits it status as a soviet client in the 1980’s. Many Syrian tanks are at least 30 years old.
:rolleyes: Dude, if it’s not unfair for third parties to pick a side in a conflict, then it’s not unfair for them to support that side to, like, the exclusion of the other.
Conceivable scenario: There’s a civil war in Syria. As in Libya, the rebels win with outside support – but that of Turkey and the Arab League, not of the U.S. or NATO. Possible?
And, if Turkey were to attack Syria from the rear, would Greece help?
