Conspiracy in Syria and India’s Task

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK

In mid-May, the official representative of the US State Department, Victoria Nuland, acknow-ledged that Washington, which provides the Syrian Opposition with non-military aid, is well informed about the arms supply to it; this, she asserted, fell within the “CCASG countries’ right” thereby justifying such assistance on the part of the external forces.

The “Syrian National Council”, which offers political cover for the aggression against Syria, and the “Free Syria Army” (FSA) are financed by an NGO—the “Islamic Initiative in Support of the Syrian Revolution”—set up in Istanbul last April. The main objective of the SNC is to get petro-dollars from Saudi Arabia and Qatar injected into the Syrian “revolution”. As for the media support to the “Sunni Islamic Revolu-tion”, it is being conducted by Al-Jazeera that has long lost its original reputation as an unbiased mass media; according to New York’s Daily News, this broadcasting company is an “Arab propagandist organisation controlled by the Qatar regime”.

The massive deadly attacks that launched aggression against Syria coincided with the vast financial and arms supply by the CCASG countries to the Syrian Opposition. The FSA militants began to conduct sallies on Syrian territory secured by the Turkish military heli-copters unhesitatingly violating Syrian airspace. Numerous former jihadists of the Al-Qaeda have come from Libya. Yemen, Saudi Arabia and several other countries; and they are coordinating the rebels’ activities.
Riyadh and Doha harbour certain specific expectations from the collapse of the Syrian regime. They feel Bashar al-Assad’s downfall will not just weaken Iran but also help open new routes for carbon export avoiding the Tehran-controlled Strait of Hormuz. The ruling upper echelons of Saudi Arabia and Qatar are discussing the construction of Mediterranean Sea pipelines through the Syrian territory (presently over-whelmed by bloodshed) only because these can be easily controlled. That is how Riyadh and Doha are seeking to gain their extensive presence, obviously with full US backing and indulgence, in the European Energy Market.

It must be understood that these sovereign Arab states, where the voice of the people at large is throttled, will stop at nothing to over-throw Bashar al-Assad and put loyal Islamists in power in the country, the ‘loyalty’ being extracted by circumscribing post-Bashar Syria’s independence of thought and action. Western diplomats have not failed to note that the recent terrorist strikes on UN observers were evidently aimed at the Kofi Annan Mission so that it is unable to function and carry out its assignment. Syria is being actively drawn into a civil war wherein the Sunni radicals are bound to prevail over the Shias, Christians and temporal powers. The “Jabhad al-Nusra” group, which has emerged in the country, happens to be a branch of the Al-Qaeda with the existing number of foreign jihadists. It is this organisation that has owned up responsibility for the much-hyped terrorist attacks. It has also threatened more such acts to take revenge for the “shedding of Sunni blood”. Thus in response to Damascus’ efforts to impose order, external forces—which are working overtime to destabilise the Syrian situation —have evolved an effective strategy to terrorise the society and bring about a kind of chaos in the country that, however, will not be allowed to spin out of control. As a consequence the current situation in Syria appears to be a repetition of the terrorist war launched in Iraq under the Al-Qaeda’s guidance and actively sponsored by the Gulf states. This is further testified by the fact that hundreds of jihadists from the pro-Al-Qaeda outfit, the “Islamic State of Iraq”, have been redeployed into the region, that is, in and around Syria.

The conspiracy hatched by external regional forces and the sole surviving superpower with the Al-Qaeda in Syria can only lead to total disaster engulfing the whole area and not merely the Syrian nation. This plan can be thwarted and the outcome prevented through extension of worldwide support to the Kofi Annan Mission and by initiating peaceful and comprehensive negotiations between the Syrian Government and Opposition without resorting to force. Those who are relentlessly arming the Opposition from outside by blatant interference in Syria’s internal affairs in flagrant violation of the nation’s sovereignty have the objective of provoking that Opposition to embark on a dangerous path which would inevitably result in civil war with the potential to defeat the Kofi Annan Mission.

India, which is against the process of Sunni radicalisation in Pakistan and does not relish the enhancement of the Islamic fundamentalist influence within the local Muslim community, must necessarily oppose militarisation of the Syrian conflict with all the strength at its command. At the same time New Delhi needs to join and actively cooperate with other BRICS member-states in order to resist the attempts to frustrate the International Observer Mission leading to its cessation on account of provoca-tions from the armed Opposition instigated and materially assisted from outside the country’s borders.

June 27 Analyst