Syria kills over 100 protesters

[Bassman62]

What do you mean by 'First it was Israeli terrorism'? What has Israel got to do with Syria shooting dead their own protestors? Are you now trying lay Arab brutality on the Israelis?

Everything bad in the Middle East is down to the Israelis, if Alis camel gets a hump puncture CZC3000 will blame the IDF.

[Total Chaos]

Why are we involved in Libya (apparently 'protecting' civilians), but not elsewhere ? - is it right we're helping one set of people but not another ?And mapleboy, I'm sure it was your good self that wanted threads on what's happening in the ME (besides Israel).

 

Where there is oil,there will be involment from us and uk.

Edited August 17, 2011 by esme
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[Bassman62]

First it was Israeli terrorism, now it's Syrian terror.

So who was Israel (GCP) terrorising when they've just been attacked by Muslims on the Egyptian border leaving six people dead and several muslim terrorists killed?

[Jeffrey Shaw]

But we'll still have the Israeli crackpots to deal with

And exactly which 'we' do you mean? How did the 'we' appoint you as their spokesman, too?

[esme]

Mod Note

 

Posts containing insults have been removed.

 

Keep it civil please.

[callippo]

as usual just about all the posters, because they can't see the wood for the Jews, are missing the whole point of the Syrian protests in particular and the Arab spring in general. It has very little to do with tiny Israel at all and everything to do with the far wider intra-Muslim Middle East power struggle.

 

historically there are five major power centres in the Middle East - Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, Ankara (formerly Istanbul), and Tehran.

The first three of these are presently weak. This propels the last two, Turkey and Iran, into greater prominence - and into a collision course. Competition between Ankara and Tehran over Damascus and Beirut is on the rise.

 

it's Turkey, not even an Arab country, that has been caught off-guard the most by the Arab spring.

 

Since the Israeli operation in Gaza (2009), Turkey has been trying to become a leader in the Islamic world by using populism to impress the Arab streets (like it impresses the Turkish streets]. Erdogan's slam at Davos, the flotilla incident, visits from Hamas and Ahmadinejad were all parts of that populism (which also contributed to domestic populism of boosting Ottoman nostalgia). They yearned for the time when Turkey was a mover and shaker, a regional superpower.

 

when protests broke out in Tunisia and Egypt, it was simple for Turkey, because their leaders were considered corrupt Western puppets and stooges. Turkey supported these protests in order to play for the "Arab/Muslim street" to boost their influence and Neo-Ottomanism.

 

Then the Arab spring reached Bahrain, Libya and Syria. Suddenly, things got much more complicated.

 

supporting the protests in Bahrain meant offending Saudi Arabia and possibly other Sunni countries which feared Iran's growing influence. Supporting the government, or ignoring it meant offending their new buddy, Iran, who they'd got onside with their newfound anti Israel rhetoric. They weren't sure how to play it.

 

In Libya, Turkey had big financial interests - many Turkish construction companies were working in Libya. And they couldn't say Gadaddi was a western puppet beccuase Gaddafi was just not the Western puppet type, having survived American bombings that might have killed him in the past, even if he did cooperate with the West after 9/11, because he feared retribution. Going against him was jeopordizing the Turkish interests in Libya and the security of Turks there. Then the NATO intervention came and Turkey found itself again, divided in a messy role of a "big brother of Arabs" and "NATO crusaders". Now Turkey have officially recognized the Libyan rebels, putting their bets on the rebel side. If Gaddafi wins, the Turks can kiss a hell of a lot of investment goodbye.

 

but Syria was the place where the cookie really crumbled for the Turks. Here's how :

 

1) Syrian revolt is good for Israel, bad for Iran.

 

Syria is a long and bitter enemy of Israel having been constantly in conflict with them since 1948. Assad is closely allied with Iran and Hezbollah. So it is in Israel's interest that Syria plunges into chaos. By standing with the protesters, Turkey jeapodises the "war effort" against Israel. The government in Syria is Alawite and protesters are representing the Sunni majority. Based on their sectarian differences and Iran's extensive support for Assad, it is a good chance that the bridge between Hezbollah and Iran may be broken if Assad goes and Syria returns to the Arab sphere of influence from the Iranian sphere of influence. Iran has already started making stupid propaganda that Turkey is acting as the agent of Zionists and Americans. The Syrian revolt alone is breaking Turkey's relations with Syria and Iran. What is good for Israel is bad for Erdoganian populism. However, ignoring the massacres also means the end of Turkey's big brother role to the Arabs. The Syrian protests has put the Turks between a rock and a hard place even more severely than in Bahrain and Libya, and with nowhere to go to remain credible.

 

2) What about the Kurds?

 

the Kurds are Turkey's achilles heel.

 

before Syria warmed up to Turkey this decade, Assad's father harboured PKK camps and their leader in Syrian territories during the 1990s (Syria wants to have the Arab majority Hatay province in Turkey back, so they thought it was a good idea to give them some trouble). Turkey and Syria almost went to war because of that. There is a significant Kurdish minority in northern Syria.

 

If Assad survives, he can return to harbouring and supporting PKK like his dad did, in an act of revenge. If it comes to a foreign intervention (very unlikely), the Kurds can improve their status with autonomy like they did in Iraq. Right now the PKK attacks on Turkey have re-escalated.

 

frpm some few years ago, Turkish politicians and the public started to want to see the world in a very simplistic, almost child-like, point of view. They fell into the Islamist trap. They thought they could create an international Islamic front with simple populist rhetoric of freedom for Muslims and death to Israel. But the relations between countries are more complicated than that, and hating Israel and the Jews, however useful it may seem and easy to whip up, will never be enough to promote real unity between rival nation states. Sleeping in their delusion of Ottoman nostalgia, the Turks thought that the Islamic world was waiting with open arms for the Turks to lead them back to the gates of Vienna once again. How dumb can you get?

 

now Turkey is in a much worse situation with its foreign policy than before. Reconciliation with Armenia failed. Kurdish violence re-escalated. They broke their previously good relations with Israel for nothing, because it turned out that their populist position in the Arab Spring tore down Turkey's recently founded good relations with Syria and Iran, which Israel feared. Now that they can see Turkey and Iran are practically at daggers drawn, the Israelis are laughing once again.

 

the Turks could have avoided this all if they had

simply done... nothing. They should have just stood back and watched the show like the neutral power they'd made such an excellent impression of being for decades. But no, their idealist dreamers had to chase ghosts of a long gone past when Turkey ruled supreme in three continents.

 

When will they understand that Islamism and the fantasy of the Muslim Ummah doesn't work except in their dreams?

Edited August 19, 2011 by callippo

[Bassman62]

It's about time Assad was offered exile to stop more killings, If Islam is to survive it has to stop living in the past and realise that it is just another religion that has no place in modern politics.

[Jeffrey Shaw]

And why shouldn't the Kurds have their own country anyway?

[Frank Sidney]

I don't think its owt to do with us. We should keep out of all these crazy overseas wars.

 

I've a mind that, unfortunately, in some of these backward countries like Syria and Iraq the government have to be harsh. Saddam was but the country was better before we got him killed.

 

If you watch the news they're a bunch of hot heads at the best and at the worst blood thirsty idiots. The only thing they understand is the big stick..

[Bassman62]

I've a mind that, unfortunately, in some of these backward countries like Syria and Iraq the government have to be harsh. Saddam was but the country was better before we got him killed.

How many more mass graves will they uncover, how many more would there be now, how many more villagers would suffer chemical attacks.

I understand to some degree what you mean and that is why Blair wanted the police and army left intact as we did with the defeated Japs in the Far East at the end of WWII under close supervision of course.

The US vetoed the idea that is why we're in the mess there we're in today.