By Jamal Kanj
The defection on 6 August of Syrian Prime Minister Riad Farid Hijab was a public relation blow to the regime of Bashar Assad but had no other significance. In Syria, power is in the hands of a security apparatus controlled by the Assad clan.
Despite months of street protests, the Assad regime – a typical specimen of autocratic systems – proved incapable of reforming. It is simply against the laws of nature for a totalitarian system to transform itself into a democracy.
What started as a civil uprising and a genuine extension of the Arab Spring has now been transformed into a full blown military conflict. The ruthless killings from both sides are polarizing Syrians across ethnic and religious lines and pushing the country further into the abyss of dissection.
The militarization of the civil protests has also resulted in a shift of power from the streets of Syria’s towns and cities to foreign capitals. Obviously, unlike home-grown local leaders, outside leadership is more disposed to the influence of external forces and foreign interests.
As a result, Syria has become an open field for rival foreign powers challenging or supporting the Assad regime, each vying for its interest but with little concern for the Syrian people’s aspirations and desire for freedom.
Assad, supported by Russia, China and Iran, is living a delusional state of popularity, while the foreign-based leaders are competing with one another to trade Western support for Syria’s future political positioning in the Middle East. Both – Assad failing to realize that foreign backing cannot supplant national legitimacy.
Meanwhile, through the US, Israel is pursuing a two-pronged strategy: regime change in Syria intended to weaken Iran and the Lebanese resistance on the one hand, while destroying Syria by dismantling it along ethnic and religious lines.
Israel’s obsession with maintaining a domineering, unchallenged regional position has long envisaged the breaking up of neighbouring states across religious lines as indispensable for its survival as a theocratic state.
The invasion of Iraq was the Zion-cons’ first successful Israeli proxy war using American forces to invade and occupy another country based on proven fabricated tales.
In 1982, almost 20 years prior to the invasion of Iraq, former Israeli Foreign Ministry official Oded Yinon wrote in Kivunim (Directions), the journal of the department of information of the World Zionist Organization, that Israel’s future priority should be “The dissolution of Syria and Iraq … into ethnically or religiously unique areas…”
On Iraq he wrote: “Its dissolution is even more important than Syria. Iraq is stronger… Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to … breaking up Iraq into … provinces along ethnic/religious lines…”
“Israel’s obsession with maintaining a domineering, unchallenged regional position has long envisaged the breaking up of neighbouring states across religious lines as indispensable for its survival as a theocratic state.”
On Syria, the Zionist strategist called for dividing the country into an “Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus … and the Durzes … in the Hauran and in northern Jordan…”
Obama’s recently-revealed approval of an intelligence “finding” authorizing a CIA role in the Syrian conflict may signify now a new liberal Zionist Israeli proxy war in Syria. Israel’s dominion obsession is a menace endangering the stability of the region and world peace.
The current unwinnable “inter-Arab confrontation” is fragmenting Syria and providing a pretext for the regime to ruthlessly crush the opposition.
Widespread civil disobedience exposing the brutal Assad regime and shifting the centre of power back to the home-based opposition is Syria’s last hope for genuine emancipation. Violence will only replace a thug with another minion dictator; it will not lead to genuine democracy.
– Jamal Kanj writes frequently on Arab issues and is the author of Children of Catastrophe, Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America. His articles can be read at www.jamalkanj.com. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact him at: jkanj@yahoo.com. (This article was first published by the Gulf Daily News newspaper.)
