A New Coalition And Old Illusions: Assad Chemical Weapons killed 1,400 - Women And Children
31 August 2013
By Abdullah Al-Otaibi
What happened in Syria a few days ago—the horrible
massacre that took place in eastern Ghouta,
Damascus—was a catastrophe. That massacre, where the
Assad government used chemical weapons, killed nearly
1,400 people, the majority women and children.
The Syrian crisis is marking time internationally, as
there have been no changes of note in international
policies. Regionally, however, Syria's real friends,
such as Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, began
to take more effective measures on the ground and also
politically.
In view of the current events in the region, a new
regional bloc has started to appear on the horizon:
All the Gulf states save one, led by Saudi Arabia and
the UAE, are trying to bring in a stronger and stable
Egypt, after it was freed from a group that sought to
hijack it from its strategic Arab position, and throw
it into the hands of a regional axis which is an enemy
of Arabs. We can metaphorically say that the road to
Damascus has begun in Cairo.
In the midst of such major events, the president of
the most powerful country in the world seems perplexed
and bewildered. He draws red lines, and when they are
crossed, he changes their color to green, and draws
new red lines.
US president Barack Obama allowed Russia to rise as a
new international power. Later, and following an
individual incident (the Snowden affair), Obama
disapproved of Russian president Vladimir Putin's use
of Cold War terms.
In fact, the latter had long ago embarked on this
trend by adopting international policies to make his
country a key player in the international arena at the
expense of the US. Obama should have been angry at
that, rather than at the expressions Putin used.
Obama had committed a strategic mistake that will show
its impact in the future. He has, whether consciously
or not, allowed the use of chemical weapons in a major
conflict, something which could restart the production
of chemical weapons again, in a larger scale, and to
be used in major regional and international conflicts.
The volume of rapid international and regional change
necessitates a type of thinking that is unique, cool,
precise and deliberate. Moments of major change are
not a place for verbal or rhetorical speculation.
Rather, they call for a great deal of meditation and
careful considerations of interests.
The Saudi and Emirati stance towards Egypt is a
historic one. It is based on the real strategic
interests of their states and people, as well as the
interests of Egypt, the strongest strategic ally, with
all the weight it carries, at both regional and
international levels.
International alliances are always open to change, one
way or another, whereby relations are rearranged,
interests are reassessed and policies formed. There
are many reasons that cause such changes, including
the discovery of the weakness of allies among the
superpowers, or when their interests become different,
when their view of the situation becomes suspect, the
weakness in communication, or when the regional powers
that are indifferent to the interests of their allies
are being backed, or when strategic mistakes are being
committed repetitively. This latter example is
manifested by the stance towards Iraq in 2003, the
stance towards Iran, and in assessing the gravity of
the situation in Syria and Egypt, apart from other
examples.
Sometimes, there is a rise of the economic power of
some regional states who feel that the protection of
their interest is not correlated with the interest of
major allies, unless it serves the interests of those
regional states. Thus, regional states tend to search
for the best ways and means to protect and develop
their new strength and apply them politically by
taking up decisive stances towards pressing regional
issues.
Furthermore, these states are establishing themselves
as key players in the region and the world, and are
rejecting the strategies of their allies that may
attempt to create new power centers that could seek to
rise at the expense of these states. In the meantime,
numerous illusions grow to massive size at the time of
crises, and the demand on legends and conspiracy
theories becomes greater. In fact, mixed and chaotic
scenes prompt one to be carried away by such scenes
and even submit to them whereby these mixed scenes
move from reality to the mind, and so one becomes
totally dispersed. One level of the spread of
illusions is the level of perception. In fact,
perceiving what is happening usually depends on the
ability to collect and sort information, avoid their
contradiction and scrutinize them to separate the
correct ones from the incorrect ones.
Then comes the description level. Some are distressed
and become taken in by illusions: Was what happened in
Egypt in January 2011 really a revolution, or was it
just a popular uprising? Have the people fulfilled
their dreams by themselves or by the assistance of the
army that sided with them? Without a doubt, it was not
a revolution, but a major uprising that achieved a
success with the assistance of the army that sided
with the masses. The same rhetoric applies to what
happened in Libya. Events began there when an armed
struggle erupted between two armed wings within the
regime, one of which emerged victorious thanks to the
military intervention of NATO.
Then comes the analytic level. This level is based on
correct perception and accurate description in order
to come up with a comprehensive view that brings
politics together with history, culture together with
the society, and the civilized course with the
reality.
Finally, we come to the result level. This is the
level in which awareness expresses itself, each
according to its location; a politician would express
himself by his decision and strategy, whereas an
intellectual would use his vision, and a writer would
use his expression, and an economist would do so
through his domain, and so on.
The shortcoming that could exist in any of these
levels could result in a graver shortcoming in the
succeeding stage. As a result, some are confused, but
each in his own way; some confuse the logic of the
state with values of human rights, whereas others are
driven by their own wishes into giving inaccurate
descriptions, whilst others are overcome by their
emotions and sentiments in analyzing political
stances, although this must be governed only by
interests, as can be evidenced by many examples.
In the selection of their own illusions, people could
take several routes and follow disparate courses.
Whilst some incline to recall old legends such as
dream or heresies and narrate tales of the Day of
Judgment, others incline to use up-to-date legends
such as conspiracy theories. For example, some view
what is happening in Egypt as an international Masonic
conspiracy aimed at hitting Egypt to the advantage of
the Muslim Brotherhood. Others write that all members
of the new government are Masons, according to a
recent article by one of those writers.
Finally, to set one example of all these illusions, it
is enough to review the stances of numerous
politicians from around the world and from the Arab
region and view the opinions of numerous intellectuals
and writers about what used to be termed "the Arab
Spring," and discuss with them the name and idea of
the words "Arab Spring," and you would discover how
some elites could be deceived by illusions.
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