Assad or ISIS? The Western Identity Crisis
giovedì 1 ottobre 2015 English 0 commenti
Il Giornale, 1stOctober 2015Fragile, intricate, dangerous: this is the state of affairs in the Middle East today. Assad or ISIS? If you pose this questions to the Syrians venturing on barges in despair, they would shudder thinking that now Assad will almost surely remain in power and move forward with a war which has already caused 240 thousand casualties. Sunnis and Christians are fleeing in a new frenzy, and Shiites are abandoning their own land conquered by ISIS. Putin and Obama have different ideas on how to address the situation, but Putin has decided with strong determination to fill the vacuum of the prudent policy explained with moral aspirations that Obama voiced at the UN.
Putin has been straightforward: “It is a preventive war, if we do not stop them, we will be assaulted in our houses”. Hence, after a few hours from the unanimous vote that Putin received from his parliament, the Russian fighter jets attacked “Syrian rebels” positions. In addition to the role of savior from ISIS, what is to be expected for Putin is the consolidation of Latakia’s base, which is a very important asset in the Mediterranean region. Perhaps, Assad will step down in the next months, but he will leave to his Russian friends the possibility to influence a crucial area in the long-term. While Moscow is taking on a new global role against the public enemy number one, the cutthroats of ISIS, the Russian airplanes are attacking the surroundings of Homs and Hama, protecting this way Assad's permanence.
In the meantime, also France has been carrying out raids for four days. One of the reasons of the French air strikes lies in the Paris attacks that, in rapid sequence, killed 17 people in January, including Charlie Hebdo editorial staff. Moreover, France has intense relations with the Sunni countries opposing the Iranian player, which is currently very much present on the ground in Syria.
In the backstage, there is the great European crisis caused by the arrival to our seashores of millions of desperates, who are running away from Assad’s terrorist war and from the Islamist squadrons. The press revealed that France and Russia had consultations to avoid air conflicts in the Syrian skies. And even if the talks have been kept secret, it is possible to gather that both the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Putin, during their meeting in Moscow, remembered the shooting down of a Russian-made Syrian airplane that violated the Israeli skies. An event not to be repeated, probably both the leaders thought.
But even though ISIS is nowadays the public enemy, the lines between the good and the bad can fade when blood is spilled, and intentions are not so well defined. Agan the question: Assad or Isis? An Assad with Hezbollah and Iran on the side... Russia knows that this is the real alternative and at the moment has chosen the second. The United States is stuck with the necessity, abandoned by Putin, to fight both the sides at war with each other: Assad and ISIS are both enemies, and this doesn't help any action. Also Putin, having chosen one side only, has problems: Assad is a despised as a genocidal tyrant, while Iran, who is supporting him with Hezbollah, is not the most wishable ally. At the UN General Assembly, the contradictory nature of the situation has been immediately highlighted by the fact that the two major world leaders, Obama and Putin, motivated the need to fight ISIS in a very different way: the former reiterated that Assad cannot be part of the solution, while the latter acknowledged Assad as a temporary partner. However, they both did not object to the presence of a really complicated road companion like Iran in the fight ISIS.
The Russian and French raids can certainly cause serious damage on ISIS, but its complete destruction needs time: Alexander Konovalov, President of the Institute for Strategic Assessments in Moscow, said that Russia, craving to put an end to its diplomatic isolation, is probably not considering that “we went to Afghanistan for 6 months and then stayed there for 10 years”. Moreover, the United States do not hide the conviction that what Putin wishes the most is keeping Assad in power instead of crushing ISIS, in order to ensure the traditional Russian presence in the Middle East.
Certainly, this new fracture will divide the European public opinion, in part with Obama, in part with Putin. And from the viewpoint of the Arab world: “A political solution for Syria if Assad stays in power would be inconceivable”, the Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir pointed out. He also stated that there must be considered that there is a moderate opposition fighting Assad and that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrein are all together. In sum, to the Sunni Arab states it is clear that, besides the fight against ISIS, the first concern is Iran’s hegemonic expansion which has its forces in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Syria.
A few days ago, the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar referred to the new coalition “4 plus 1”, where 4 stands for Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria and the number 5 is Hezbollah. Iran, who has been ruling Baghdad long since, makes here another important step forward in its frenetic post-agreement hegemonic growth. The brain of this new powerful alliance in the Middle East with a Shiite-Alawite background is said to be located right in Baghdad. Hence, the jets of Putin and Hollande are rumbling on a Middle East racked by great turmoil, and maybe they will not be able to stop the ongoing Shiite-Sunni war.