If there are any doubts about a global double standard when it comes to West Asia, then the reaction to the bombing of Yemen by Saudi Arabia and its partners will put them to rest. Here is a situation, where fighter jets of a Saudi-led coalition are pounding the capital of another country, Sana'a, without seeking any international mandate, and there is absolute silence from those who should object. Leaders in Washington, London, Paris and Berlin have not appealed to the United Nations nor have they asked for an end to the bombing of civilians in an effort to stop the advance of rebels. Despite the question of sovereignty — of more than 100 air raids in which dozens of civilians have died in the capital, human rights violations and even the basic worry of these raids helping al-Qaeda and the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) in Yemen — there has been not one word of censure from them. In fact, Washington is backing the strikes, France and the United Kingdom are giving them “all possible” technical help, and Egypt, Turkey and even Pakistan plan to help with the “ground offensive” to back the Yemeni President, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, against Houthi rebels.
- For Western introspection
For
those who say this is a justified attack to support a legitimate ruler, stop,
think and rewind to 2012-2013, when the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad,
faced the most difficult pressure from armed Free Syrian Army fighters and
Jabhat Al-Nasrah rebels (IS took control later). What would have been the
Western reaction had Iran sent jets into Aleppo, Homs and Hama to back its
ally, Mr. Assad? Wouldn’t these countries have set up a counter-attack within
24 hours, or at least convened the UN Security Council for a Right to Protect
(R2P) mandate to do so? The rank duality in dealing with the situation in Yemen
is not just the subject of some hand-wringing; it is the single largest reason
why the war against IS and even its successor organisations will be unwinnable for
these countries. Despite 3,000 air strikes by a United States-led coalition of
62 countries that began operations last August to counter IS, IS continues to
control more than an estimated 55,000 square kilometres of area in Iraq and
Syria. That IS is an evil terror group displaying unprecedented brutality is
undoubtable. That it is a threat to every country in the world should be
obvious from the way the group has targeted every nationality: beheading
American, British, Japanese and Egyptian citizens alike, burning alive a
Jordanian national, and broadcasting its terror worldwide in the most bestial
way. It poses the biggest threat to the next generation as well, recruiting a
record number of child soldiers, and training children as young as five to
kill. If the coalition, which represents nearly a third of the world, which has
the resolve, the firepower, and the experience of fighting terror groups in
every part of the world, is unable to counter such a group, deep and searching
questions must be asked about why that is.
- Down to logistics
To
begin with, there is a basic problem of logistics. Despite the most
sophisticated drones and surveillance of the region, an air strike on an IS
target is ineffective without an accompanying ground force in place. Even if
the U.S. and its coalition are able to strengthen
Iraqi armed forces to conduct ground operations, it is meaningless until they
are also able to enlist Syrian armed forces to launch a pincer-like action on
the group that straddles both countries. Without the ground forces, all
victories over IS territory are, essentially, pyrrhic. This was evident in the
Syrian town of Kobane along the Turkish border where the U.S. Alliance drove IS
out in September 2014 after two weeks of sustained bombing and 600 strikes. As
journalists were allowed into the city, their cameras bore out the tragic
truth: all that was left of IS-controlled areas was a vast wasteland. The
reason that the U.S. coalition has been unable to engage the Syrian regime for
help on the ground is of course the reason why it ignored the rise of IS in the
first place. The West’s preoccupation with the removal of Mr. Assad and the
funding and arming of the groups that opposed him since 2011 led to complete
surprise at the rapidity with which IS fighters have taken over Syrian and Iraqi
towns. In October last year, U.S. President Barack Obama finally conceded that underestimating
IS’s rise had been a major “intelligence failure.” But it was more than that.
It was the determined effort to ensure that “Assad must go” that led the
Western and West Asian countries ranged against Mr. Assad to ignore his
warnings about the nature of the fighters his army was battling. As a result,
and in another example of the double standard, the 62-member coalition now routinely
bombs areas that it wanted to stop Mr. Assad’s forces from bombing.
- Misreading the Arab Spring
The
other flaw with the West’s strategy is the pursuance of regime change, focussed
on one leader as the single purpose of its wars in West Asia. Recent history should have taught the U.S.,
the U.K. and others that the removal of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qadhafi
haven’t been the end of the conflict; they have merely marked the beginning of
a more diabolical and deadly version of the conflict. Hanging Saddam and
lynching Qadhafi hasn’t led to peace in Iraq and Libya, nor would the possible
ouster of Mr. Assad do that. Instead, it has led to an erosion of what were
once “secular” regimes, where minorities and women enjoyed a higher position than
they do in other countries of the Arab world.
Another
blunder has been the misreading of the “Arab Spring” by the West. While many of
the crowds that poured into Arab capitals, from Tunis to Damascus and Sana'a, demanded
democracy and positive change, many just wanted regime change. Democracy is
better effected through the ballot box than it is through the crowding of main
squares, which is a powerful image, but a misleading representation of the “people’s
will”. “We no longer refer to it as the Arab Spring,” admitted a senior NATO
military official at the “Brussels Forum” conference last week, where
trans-Atlantic discussions on IS were held. “It is now seen as the Arab uprising
instead,” he concluded. Interestingly, the countries in the West that rejoiced
at the thought of democracy in the countries of the so-called Spring missed the
most significant point: all the countries that saw their leadership change —
Egypt, Syria, Libya, Yemen — were republics, whereas none of the eight
monarchies — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, the Emirates, Jordan and
Morocco — were destabilised. This skew, particularly towards the Sunni monarchies
of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan, who are more focussed on fighting the “Shi’a
crescent” of Iranian influence in the region, has led to another problem. The
West has turned a blind eye, and even assisted these countries in the funding,
training and arming of Sunni extremist groups to carry out attacks in Syria.
They have been doing this by trying to draw a fine line between the groups they
support — including the Free Syrian Army and Jabhat Al-Nasrah — and with IS.
Anyone who sees the distinctions between the groups has to only read the account
of the American journalist, Theo Padnos (now Peter Theo Curtis), who was taken
hostage in Syria in 2012 and finally released by al-Qaeda in August 2014 in a
deal brokered by Qatar. Padnos was handed over from one group to another in
Syria, and found few differences between them. When he asked why his well-armed
captors trained in Jordan by U.S. marines were holding an American hostage
despite promises they would only target Assad’s regime, they answered: “Yes, we
lied.” If it is naivety that allows the U.S., France, and the U.K. to continue to
enlist their Arab allies in the war on terror and hope they will cut off
finances and oil revenues to al-Qaeda and IS, despite evidence that they play
both sides of the war, it is a very costly innocence that the world has paid
for.
- Joining IS
Finally,
there is a need for introspection inside Europe, the U.S., and even Australia, which
have seen growing numbers of their citizens get through Turkey to join IS.
While the brutality of the Assad regime and economic distress in the region
have been blamed for the thousands of Arab youth taking up arms for IS, what
explains the hundreds of citizens joining it from the U.K., France and the
U.S.? According to the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, 3,400 of the
20,000 IS foreign fighters are from Western countries. Why are British and
French girls becoming jihadi brides, schoolboys and young doctors learning to
kill, and teenage Americans travelling all the way just to join IS ranks? Could
it be that in the early years of a push for regime change and sanctions against
Syria, Western governments themselves promoted the propaganda against Mr. Assad’s
government, allowing many of their Muslim citizens to think they had not just religious
but national sanction to join the war? Significantly, some of the West’s actions
are now being rethought. While concluding another round of P5+1 talks with Iran
in the Swiss town of Lausanne last week, the U.S. Secretary of State, John
Kerry, suggested that the U.S. is now open to talks with Mr. Assad if need be. “If
he is ready to have a serious negotiation about the implementation of Geneva I
(2012 agreement), of course,” he said. “What we’re pushing for is to get him to
come and do that,” he added, in an interview to CBS. But talks will only solve
part of the problem in West Asia. If the West genuinely wants to fight terror
and promote a peaceful future for the region, it will also have to confront its
selective silence and dual standard on the serious challenges that threaten the
region today.
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