Nicholas A. Biniaris
"Which is the plan, which is the appropriate shoe for the
road?" Aristophanes: The Birds
One more military strike is debated against one country of the
much-aggrieved Middle East. There are arguments pro and against this new
adventure into the unknown. This time the analysts are reluctant to declare
victory as they did in Iraq or to proclaim a democratic Syria free of evil
Assad. I shall argue that this is just an episode in the long and bloody saga
of the Muslim world in transformation and at the same time torn between
acceptance and denial of the world as it is. I also want to suggest that this
episode is another trap for the West which is only bound to lose money,
influence and its cohesion to the glee of fanatics, Russians, Chinese and
assorted Satraps all over the world. This trap opened with the Iranian
Revolution, and went on with the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
This historical event which coincided and probably contributed to the fall of
the Soviet Union created a psychological trap for the West, that of
invincibility. That led to the first Gulf War and insidiously and cumulatively
developed into a direct threat to the West slowly dragging us into a vortex of
barbarity, self-deception and degradation of political life.
The pro-strike arguments range from our moral obligation to protect
innocent people to the loss of credibility of the USA and its President.
Shocked viewers of horrific images are totally justified to express their indignation.
However, indignation, as Spinoza remarked, must turn to understanding, and this
I suggest should lead to a rational plan to redress the cause of
indignation. Do governments have such a
plan? It may be argued that perhaps President Obama had a plan: leave the area
and don't engage in it. His view was correct as long as he carried it through
thick or thin: stopping the fearful Satraps' from spreading pernicious
Salafism; having seriously come to terms with Iran; having ceased to condone
Israel's conflictual plans for the area and address only its legitimate
security problems; having curtailed the rampant megalomaniac aspirations of
Erdogan's Neo-Ottomanism and last but not least recognizing that Russia has
legitimate interests and influence in the area. Indeed all these were a tall
order to fulfill. For various well documented reasons this was not done and at
this juncture an incoherent policy will lead to a bigger political, economic
and social chaos than ever.
What we, skeptics and students of history think, is that moral arguments
in the midst of a civil war is at least dubious. In post-modern rich liberal
states, politicians actually lead by stealth and leaks through the press. These elected executives try to sell cheap
moralism, not morality in any way, while they know that when the going gets
tough the state will break every rule and use any means to survive since states
have interests which must be defended or served at all costs. The NSA scandal
is the starkest example. Terrorism brought about an ad hoc abrogation of our
rights to privacy and circumvented legality for the sake of a great good,
notional security.
The pro-strike side also argues that the West has a legal right to lunch
a punitive assault against the perpetrators of the crime. They base this on the
Kosovo's intervention in1999; the case which Diane Johnstone in her book Fools'
Crusade has debunked as a totally illegal one. The strike on Syria is illegal
even if Congress give its approval for the strike. In this case at least Obama
tried to conform to the American form of government. He should be commended for
this. However, according to international law the right to protect does not
offer a legal framework to attack another country without a mandate from the
Security Council.
The arguments against the attack
range from the hypocrisy of the West to the possible dire consequences of a
strike.
The hypocrisy view examines all the previous behavior of the West in
similar cases. None complained against Saddam's use of chemical weapons against
Iran. Israel has developed nuclear weapons and so did Pakistan and North Korea.
Egypt has most probably chemical weapons. Another question rises about the
providers of these lethal weapons and it seems that western firms and
governments have fulfilled this role.
The dire consequences arguments spin various scenarios about possible
failures if the wrong targets are hit, civilians are killed or even if Assad
continues to use chemicals since he is punished but still survives. Should the
Protectors strike again and again? What if Assad/Hezbollah retaliates against
Israel? They have no chance of success but they have the chance to turn the
Arab street in their favor. What if Iran gives him a helping hand to attack
Western hardware? What if Iran decides that this attack is a preamble against
it? In that case it may be more than willing to punish in several ways the
Protectors.
There are more considerations to be countenanced. Russia may become more
committed in an anti-western stand. China may similarly decide to go for a more
assertive foreign policy if it observes the West committed to ad hoc policies
of use of hard power.
Is seems that the pro arguments have won and as all predict the strike
will go on. Is it the morality argument, or the credibility and interest's
argument which would sway the leaders for a pro-strike decision? These
interests though must be made visible and explicit to the citizens so that at
least an act of war can be justified in their eyes. Nothing of this sort has
happened up to now. We know that chemical weapons were used repeatedly but we
don't know who gassed whom. However, if Assad reveals tomorrow that he
possesses two A-bombs and that if he is attracted he is going to drop one on
Tel-Aviv and the other on Ankara, then the West would have to start
negotiations as he is doing with North-Korea.
The gist of this argument is that entertaining moral arguments for war
independently of power is irrelevant since war is a function of power and
interests. The West is, relatively speaking, all-powerful and hence it tries by
subterfuge to present power as moral responsibility to protect. The punitive
expedition against Syria is war. War though presupposes rules and conditions
about prisoners, non-combatants and most importantly a tenable purpose, and
finally a treaty of capitulation which enforces the will of the victor. It
seems that even war in our times has lost its character!
The optimistic plan is that after this strike the two warring sides will
be forced, by whom?- to find a political solution and stop destroying Syria and
its people. This is perhaps what is hidden behind Obama's move to ask Congress
to authorize the strike. Why didn't the 'Great Powers' twist the arms of the
combatants just after the armed struggle started? What actually happened was
that the West, Turkey, Russia, Iran and China were playing criminal games on
the back of the Syrian people. It is more than obvious that neighboring
governments didn't car for the thousands killed and tortured, of all creeds,
ethnicities and political views as they tried to implement their agendas. Three developments to be noticed: Israel's
acceptance of the strike, Egypt's refusal to condone it and Turkey's insistence
of toppling Assad. Israel is
ideologically pressed to strike because chemicals awaken a horrible past; Egypt
because Sisi has actually an Assad type agenda and Turkey because it wants to
shape the area and exclude any Kurdish aspiration for statehood.
The future hides in the past's shadows
Self-deception rules the West for
over twenty years since the demise of the Soviet Union. That historical change
filled the minds and hearts of our leaders and citizens of a fool's euphoria
about the West's historical mission for the future of mankind. This triumphalist
spirit seemed to realize the march of Geist to freedom. Old Hegel was back with
a smirk on his face. Freedom is not a given. It is historically reinvented by
us with new vocabularies as the late Richard Rorty would have said.
The Cold War left a host of legacies and traumas: NATO, Mutual
Destruction assurance, a reflexive hostility for Russia which has sidetracked
effective and multilateral policies in the Middle East and an epiphany that the
atheists and communists were struck down by God's scimitar. This last legacy
left also a spirit of triumphalism to the side of the victorious mujahedin. The
old issue of the role of religion in politics came back on the world stage by
default. The West may not be atheistic but it is immersed in the meta-modern
culture of the individual's self-realization and combined with its dominance in
shaping political processes globally symbolized immorality and oppression. These facts create new causes of conflict for
both victors; the Fundamentalists of nostalgia and the Fundamentalists of the
future. The Muslim ideology is under the spell of faith as a tool for reshaping
the world; the West under the spell of invincibility and moral superiority and
the thrust of Globalization.
All the above plus more tangible problems: poverty, inequality,
suppression, demographics, democracy as a given, pressed the Muslim world
towards a dramatic transformation. At the same time, as the late McLuhan had
observed, restructuring of social groups and processes go on as our science and
technology adventure is incessantly producing new extensions of our nervous
system and translates the world in different vocabularies. I would add that
these changes are not yet comprehensible to the slow thinkers called
politicians or for that matter to interest bound analysts and academics. If
McLuhan has touched part of the truth, this historical Gordian Knot becomes
even more difficult to untie with the sward for both contestants.
A civil war plus a religious sectarian war is the most barbaric of all
wars. If external powers take sides because of interests or ideology it is a
conflict without resolution in the minds of the warring factions in the spirit
of vengeance for the defeated and triumphalism for the victor. No defeated side
will acknowledge its defeat since it will ascribe it to the other's Protectors.
Immanuel Kant in his book Perpetual Peace had argued convincingly that outside
powers should never take part in a civil war.
In the midst of a clear political revolution the ugly sectarianism
raised its venomous head: Shiites, Sunnis, Alewites, Christians, Jihadists,
Salafists, Moslem Brothers go hand in hand with different ethnicities: Kurds,
Arabs, Assyrians, Hellenes, Armenians, and more. What do we know about all of
these conflicts, historical animosities and political power struggles? Very little and actually they don't seem to
be part of any coherent plan of ours.
A possible punitive attack against Syria in the immediate future is just
a chapter of the historical transformation of the area, more or less a minor
one since the tectonic plates of sectarianism, nationalism, fanaticism emergent
new ways of life and energy resources, the blood of the economy are colliding
with unpredictable force and cataclysmic repercussions for all of us. The first
is the millions of refugees seeking shelter in a Europe already saturated by
refugees of other wars. The opposition
in Syria, if it topples Assad and this may be realized sooner than later after
the strike, will be less than willing to accommodate western interests lest it
is branded as stooges of the West. No entity in the Moslem world is at the
present moment friendly to the West. It is not "politically correct"
to be pro-western in these countries. Even in Turkey, a member of NATO and a
"westernized" country for seventy of so years America and Israel are
considered the most dangerous countries for Turkey. The day after in Syria will
be no better than the day after in Iraq. It may even be worse for Christians
and Alewites. Look at Egypt; it is the Copts who are suffering the unintended
consequence of Sissi's coup.
9/11 opened a huge trap for the international security system since we
were foolish enough to accept security as a given (Europe is a consumer of
security) or as a simple task since we possessed the most advanced weapons ever
devised by man. This trap has ensnared us in the most chaotic way with
something we believe we can manage as we managed the Cold War. We cannot. All
other important problems of our societies , employment, education, Medicare,
loss of competitiveness and problems about the environment, the disarmament
from nuclear weapons, the economic cycles of boom or bust are sidelined in the
effort to deal with this historical phenomenon which neither our sociologists,
or social scientists or historians comprehend in full.
It seems foolish to believe that
solely with projection of air-power and action at a distance we can manipulate
the social forces of history. Our encounter with such a historical development,
actually a hot magma, creates conditions of osmosis with barbarism and contempt
for civilized behavior which prompts us also into similar actions and
psychology. We resort to barbarism (drones, production of new lethal weapons,
torture, Guantanamo); illegality (NSA scandal); loss of cohesion (British vote
in the House of Commons, Germany's abstention from hard power projection,
Russia's strong opposite views); stealth undeclared wars and last but not least
economic decline and bankruptcy. We are writing history all right but to our
expense.
