Arab League As An Anti-Arab Weapon
Elena PUSTOVOITOVA | 21.02.2012 | 00:00 |
Elementary arithmetic routinely
holds keys to much more complex political algebra. At the moment, for
example, it appears that fairly simple regards explain the bizarre
conduct of the Arab League which, contrary to reasonable expectations,
aligned itself with the West in destabilizing Syria and keeping Bashar
Assad under pressure.
It became clear immediately when protests erupted in Syria in March,
2011 that Washington would welcome serious arguments in favor of Assad's
ouster. The unrest in the country came as a predictable – and by no
means the last - phase in the sequence of revolts inspired by the US and
other countries in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Bahrain with the aim of
tailoring the maps of North Africa and the Middle East to the liking of
global heavyweights. Later on, the slogan of regime change in the name
of “democracy” similarly popped up in Algeria, Jordan, Morocco, and
Oman.
It did not evade watchers that mass protests in Syria began in the
southern city of Daraa and mostly took place on Fridays, at the Muslims'
post-prayer time. Due to the clearcut tendency, Syria's brewing revolt
was even dubbed “the Friday Revolution”. The unrest quickly spilled from
Daraa to other Syrian cities, with the protesters' agenda – the
abolition of the state of emergency law and the uprooting of the
decades-old regime – borrowed with minimal adjustments from the Tahrir
Square. Unlike Mubarak in Egypt, Syria's Assad lifted the state of
emergency right away, but the protesters evidently had much more
far-reaching goals in mind.
Syria, it must be noted, was among the founders of the Arab League: on
October 7, 1944, the protocol of intentions with a pledge to create the
organization was penned in Alexandria by representatives of Syria,
Oultrejordain, Iraq, Lebanon, and Egypt. The list of the Arab League's
stated objectives included political coordination and mutual assistance
in maintaining sovereignty among its members. In line with the above, in
1948 the Syrian Army fought in the Arab-Israeli war which the Arab
League declared on the Jewish state nurtured by Great Britain.
It is common knowledge that the relations between Arabs and Israel
dominate the entire realm of Middle Eastern politics. They could still
be perceived as a background theme in Europe or the US, but in fact
Washington and the European capitals have made it the cornerstone of
their strategy to skillfully capitalize on the region's enduring
conflict.
From its birth date and on, Israel plays the role of the West's –
mostly, Washington's – political instrument applied to fracture the Arab
world. The pan-Arab unification in the Middle East proved to be a
short-living process: Syria and Egypt merged within the United Arab
Republic on February 22, 1958, with Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser as
president and a number of Syrians holding key posts, but the marriage
fell apart three years later under pressure from the US secret
diplomacy. Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights became a reality six
years later. In 1973, Syria, in concert with other Arab countries,
started the Ramadan (alternatively, Yom Kippur) War in which the
situations at the Syrian and Egyptian segments of the front differed
beyond comparison. Israel suffered a considerable death toll in the
ferocious Quneitra fight occasionally referred to as Syria's Stalingrad,
but the Golan Heights remained under Israeli control even after 1974,
when UN peacekeepers were deployed to the region and a demilitarized
zone was established.
Inspired by the UN inability to reverse the occupation, in 1981 Israel
passed a piece of legislation proclaiming its sovereignty over the Golan
Heights. The same year the US Security Council annulled the annexation
in a special resolution, and the UN General Assembly reiterated the
point in 2008, but to no avail. As of today, the Golan Heights are an
economically prosperous region in Israel which is practically free of
unemployment and outputs over 50% of Israel's mineral water, around 25%
of wines, and up to 50% of certain types of fruits and produce. Mild
climate and historical landmarks attract a steady flow of tourists to
the region which also supplies a third of Israel's potable water. That
should, in particular, explain Israel's hate for Iran which has always
been backing Syria.
President Assad was re-elected in Syria for another seven-year term
slightly under four years ago, garnering 97.62% of the vote in a
referendum. The pertinent question is: why Assad who is evidently popular in Syria is figure totally unacceptable to the Arabs at the helm in the Arab League?
The Arab League lauded the West's new onslaught on the Middle East and
volunteered a blessing to unspecified “peacekeeping forces” that would
be dispatched to Syria to dislodge Assad. Who, under the scenario, would
take his place? Either the Arab League is moving too fast while the
Western intelligence services are unprepared to offer a candidate or
those leave it entirely to the Arab League to dispose of Assad. “I don't
see the way forward in Syria as being Western boots on the ground in
any form, including in any peacekeeping form. I think they would need to
come from other countries, rather than Western nations. Of course, if
such a concept can be made viable, we will be supporting it in all the
usual ways”, said British foreign secretary William Hague. Paris seems
similarly unsure, considering that French foreign ministry spokesman
Bernard Valero was quoted as expressing “strong support for the Syrian
opposition” and approving the decision to appoint a "special envoy" from
the Arab League for Syria, but stopped short of mentioning an
intervention under the peacekeeping flag.
Indeed, the Arab League's initiative to have third-party forces
sent to Syria to induce the transfer of power in the country from the
legitimate authority to the opposition should read as inviting an
intervention. This is, by the way, how things are seen from Damascus.
A statement released by the Syrian government said the people of Syria
hoped that the Arab League's secretary general and Arab countries'
ministers would condemn the blasts in Damascus and Aleppo and call for
stopping the instigations campaign or the financial support of
terrorists in Syria. The statement also made it clear that the Arab
League's meddling in the Syrian domestic affairs was indicative of an
anti-Syrian conspiracy and would not make the Syrian government abandon
the efforts to restore stability and security in the country.
Unlike the Arab League, Damascus has no chance to get heard in the
West. Considering that Syria was among the founders of the League, it
would be interesting to get an idea from whose name the group might be
speaking under current circumstances.
This is the point at which simple arithmetic should come into play. The
Arab League is a motley assortment of 22 countries. It counts on board
Qatar, the world's champion in terms of the per capita GDP drawing over
50% of it and 70% of the national budget from the oil and gas export.
Qatar's top oil and LNG clients are Japan, South Korea, and Singapore,
and all of them being US political allies. Kuwait, another Arab League
country, holds 9% of the global oil reserves, owes around 95% of its
budget revenues to the oil export, and ranks 7th in the world in per
capita GDP. Kuwait's list of buyers is more or less the same as above:
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the US, and Singapore. In Algeria, oil and
gas export accounts for 60% of the budget revenues. The export is mainly
absorbed by the US, Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Canada.
The core businesses of the United Arab Emirates are fuel re-export plus
the sales of crude and natural gas. The country extracts 2.2 bpd of oil
which mostly goes to Japan. The key trade partners of Morocco are Spain,
France, the US, Belgium, and Italy. Overall, the biggest Arab League
economies thrive on oil and, by virtue of energy export, depend entirely
on the West and its oriental allies. It is an easy guess that the Arab
interests do not top the priorities lists of those who sit on such
energy riches. At the same time, countries like Mauritania, where the
per capita GDP measures 185th on the global scale, most of
the foodstuffs come from France, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, and
the US, and 40% of the population are struggling below the poverty
level, or Somalia, which survives on piracy and semi-nomadic
cattle-breeding, naturally have almost no say in the Arab League's
affairs. The survey gives a perfect picture of how easily Washington can
direct the Arab League and use it as an anti-Arab weapon.
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