Syrian Myths and Clichés

“The Syrian crisis is big enough to burn the entire Middle East. Therefore, this crisis should be dealt with most delicately.”

True. At a first glance, it is possible to claim that Syria encompasses the majority of the current crises of the Middle East. A potential military intervention does not mean intervention only in Syria. An intervention will also mean interfering with those actors who want to carry out their own calculated strategies on Syria. Nevertheless, the omen that such developments would “burn the entire Middle East to the ground” does not go beyond exaggerated fortune telling. Claiming the first move of actors who have refused to fight with each other for centuries will be fighting each other over Syria is nothing but an empty scare tactic. Indeed, sectarian tensions are dangerous and difficult to manage. However, it is not very likely that the anticipated big war should happen over Syria, where the crushing majority belongs to one sect, when it did not even break out over Iraq. Clearly, this does not mean that regional tensions will not be experienced. 

“The uprisings are being used as pretexts for launching the intervention the West (and Israel) demands.”  Interestingly, this claim is voiced by Iran and Russia, who have been “an organic part of the Syrian Baath regime.”

The above mentioned claim of these two countries, who are the current external intervening factors in Syria, has been already negated by the lack of interest in the West.  

“By overthrowing the al-Assad regime in Syria, they want to break the frontier of resistance.” 

What is meant by this “frontier of resistance” is the organizations struggling against Israel. However, it must be remembered that support for the Palestinian cause in the Arab World is offered regardless of religion, sect and ideological tendencies. We are talking about a unified support that renders the distinctions such as Egyptian Christians, Iraqi Shiites, the Saudi government and the different groups in Lebanon, meaningless. There is no meaningful correlation between the al-Assad regime’s character and the support it offers to the Palestinian cause. On the contrary, for all dictatorships in the region, Palestine is a short cut to legitimacy. Furthermore, the simplest evidence for the collapse of the “band of resistance” theory is the withdrawal of Hamas from Syria in the face of the massacres committed by the Baathist regime.  “Israel wants to get rid of al-Assad in order to break the frontier of resistance” 

Israel wants regime change in Syria, as much as it wanted a change in Egypt, the heart of the Camp David order, of which the Syrian regime is branch. Any place Hamas is forced leave is a place close to Israel and far away from the “resistance axis.” 

“There will be chaos after the Baathist regime, the minorities will be massacred and the country will be swept by a civil war.” 

First of all, approaches of this kind immorally utilize predictions of potential future disasters as pretexts to hide the massacres happening today. Proclaiming doubts about social harmony after the so-called regime, having ignored the skewed social and political order maintained for decades by a sectarian family government-turned-gang, is nothing but a cheap manipulation tactic.

Hurriyet Daily News (13.04.2012)