Syria is Another
Iraq, with Israel Thrown In (An Nahar, Lebanon)
“The reality is
that Syria - if one subtracts its border with Israel from the equation - is
exactly like Iraq. And since the West puts the security of the Hebrew state at
the top of its priority list when looking at the Middle East, Western military
intervention in Syria could turn into a long conflict involving Israel. … If a
Western military solution is used, it will open the region up to another hell like
the one unlocked by the Iraq invasion.”
After watching what the situation in Syria has come to, it
seems that no one has a magic formula to resolve it. What began as a demand for
reform has ended as a plea not to allow the country to slip into civil war. Those
who today warn of a sectarian civil war in Syria should have been aware from the
outset of the odd composition of the Syrian state and the diversity and multi-ethnicity
of Syrian society, as Hillary Clinton discovered just two days ago when she was
lectured to by students in Copenhagen.
If the Syrian regime is in crisis, then its Arab and Western
opponents are in a greater one. Because relying again on a military solution
opens the region up to the unknown, as did the war in Iraq.
America is mistaken if it thinks Russia’s position is the
only thing standing in the way of a speedy military operation in Syria and ensuring
the rise to power of the Syrian opposition - as was the case in Libya. A Libya-style
war in Syria would mean the outbreak of a civil war, and consequently, it would
be up to the West to deploy ground troops in order to prevent such a war, which
would inevitably lead to the occupation of Syria - as was the case with the U.S.
occupation of Iraq in 2003.
In other words, there are no guarantees that Western
military intervention in Syria won’t lead to the same result as intervention in
Iraq did. Perhaps the West is just prone to this sort of mistake, believing again
that rather than Iraq, Syria will follow the examples of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya
and Yemen.
But the reality is that Syria - if one subtracts its border
with Israel from the equation - is exactly like Iraq. And since the West puts
the security of the Hebrew state at the top of its priority list when looking
at the Middle East, Western military intervention in Syria could turn into a
long conflict involving Israel. Moreover, based on the world’s history of civil
wars, these types of conflicts soon spread to neighboring countries.
Posted by Worldmeets.US
Even if the West succeeds in neutralizing Russia, how will
it neutralize Iran, which will defend Syria, considering that losing Damascus would
be the greatest blow to Tehran’s strategy since 1976? When Syria falls, it will
facilitate Iran’s encirclement and the export of the “Arab Spring” to it, just
as U.S. officials called for the export of a “Spring” to Russia as punishment
for standing up against using the military option against Damascus.
The Syrian crisis has many ramifications. If a Western
military solution is used, it will open the region up to another hell like the
one unlocked by the Iraq invasion.
