Syria crosses a red line

Or is it the US?

So time finally comes for America to partake in yet another (mis)adventure in Arabia. And rather than Assad using chemical weapons, the red line was crossed when his forces started making meaningful strategic advances, in particular retaking Qusayr and shutting rebel smuggling routes out of Lebanon. Hezbollah’s participation, of course, implying more power to Iran, only added to the urgency. Yet in finally choosing to ‘lead from behind’, which these days means providing advanced weapons and installing no-fly zones, Obama too has crossed a red line, and runs the risk of rebels in turn crossing yet more dangerous red lines.

While exact modalities of this particular indulgence are yet to be made clear, there is that haunting feeling that we’ve been here before. Washington’s paralysis so far, so disliked by the Syrian opposition and EU capitals, owed to concern that high potency weapons might end up with Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, whose throat-cutting, head-grilling, heart-eating (literally) mercenaries have made by far the most impressive advances on the field. How the CIA will maintain deployment integrity, with little or no boots on the ground, has never been explained. And considering the overlapping state of dozens of insurgent outfits, there is practically no way of keeping a checklist. Sooner rather than later some, if not most, of these weapons will be bought or just taken by radicals simply because of their overriding strength within the opposition. That will not only end any designs of establishing a people-friendly democratic system after Assad, but also endanger Israel.

Then there is the Saudi-GCC equation. Riyadh has been waiting patiently for just such an opportunity. Those familiar with the fabled Soviet jihad will remember how Saudi intelligence matched the CIA dollar-for-dollar for the first few years, before doubling their aid to the mujahideen. America’s participation means their weapon warehouses on the Turkish border will begin supplying rebels inside Syria, preferably before fighting renews around Aleppo. And despite popular concern about arming radicals, the international media has never really questioned just how al-Nusra and friends have been so well armed so far, and if there is a link between their presence in Syria and the Saudi madrassah system that portrays Iranian Shia, Syrian Alawis and Israeli Jews as apostates that merit only cleansing. If there is indeed a contingency arrangement to check arms finding their way to extremists, the Americans should make it clear, especially if their Gulf friends are seen facilitating the transfer.

There’s also another parallel with the recent past, not so vague, something the Russians have pointed out quite forcefully. Moscow is not impressed with the red line justification, and concerned this is a throwback to Saddam’s WMD smokescreen that preceded the march into Baghdad. How that continues to erode American credibility is, of course, no secret; just last month about 1,500 Iraqis were killed in predominantly Al-Qaeda violence. And as regards Hezbollah, and how its involvement must be answered, the Americans have never really acknowledged thousands of jihadists from almost 40 countries whose presence effectively forced Hezbollah’s entry into the war. Now more American/GCC/EU involvement will invite Russian/Iranian/Hezbollah escalation, and the region will cross the dreaded red line into open sectarian conflict.

America has had more failures than successes in the Arab world and its lessons from Lebanon’s civil war, the Iran-Iraq war and the ill-fated 2003 Iraqi invasion have not been learned too well. Syria portends far graver danger, unlocking sectarian hatred that has at best remained uncomfortably contained in a region teeming with discontent. There is one red line between arming rebels and keeping weapons from Al-Qaeda, another between al-Nusra and Israel, and yet another between Syria’s war and igniting a sectarian death rattle across the Levant and beyond. It’s as if America has pushed Syria itself across a red line.

The writer is Middle East Correspondent, Pakistan Today, and can be reached at [email protected]