Vultures On Syria: The Syrian Revolution Was An Opportunity For Turkey, Qatar And Saudi Arabia To Expand Their Power

One of the things that plagued the Western world (more specifically the United States), in the time from the fall of the Soviet Union to the fall of Saddam, to the fall of Gaddafi, to the beginning of the Syrian revolution, and until the period we are living in now, is hubris. This overly indulgent arrogance was witnessed in the United States and the European Union, as they both pushed for the toppling of the Assad regime, even when they ignored the more astute intelligence coming from American, British and French diplomats more familiar with Syrian society. The Atlanticists thought that Syria was like Egypt , where the the US oversaw the overthrowing of Mubarak. Egypt’s military was overly dependent on American aid (Egypt today is still amongst the top receivers of American funds) and so, when the Americans said, ‘Jump,’ the Egyptians asked, ‘How high?’

The dependency led to disloyalty amongst Egypt’s soldiers. This was now the case with Syria, where Assad packed the military with hardcore loyalists (most of whom were Alawis, the Islamic sect to which Assad belongs). Even though Assad protected himself from a military coup, and regardless that many Syrians supported Assad, many powers outside Syria were overly certain that Assad’s government would easily crumble with enough pressure and support for rebels. They saw the Syrian revolution as an opportunity to work and expand their own power and forge the Middle East into their sphere of influence. Saudi Arabia and Qatar wanted to use the Syrian chaos for their own power gains, in that they sought to help the rebels overthrow Assad to remove an Alawite ally to the Gulf Arabs’ biggest threat: Iran, and replace with a Sunni proxy under their leverage. So the Arabs of the Gulf decried that the Assad regime was violent towards protestors, but the Arabs only used the Arab Spring when it was to reap geopolitical power. When the Arab Spring was a threat to the Arabs, they were swift to squash it. For example, Saudi Arabia condemned both of the Arab Springs in Tunisia and Egypt, in fear that the revolutionary hysteria would spread to the Arab Peninsula. The biggest example of the Gulf’s selective outrage was in Bahrain. Three days after Mubarak was overthrown in Egypt, protests broke out in Bahrain, where the majority of the people are Shia, the very sect of Islam that Saudi Arabia’s archenemy, Iran, believes in. If Bahrain had successfully revolted, it would mean a Shiite state, and thus an Iranian foothold, right next to the Saudi kingdom. Since Bahrain was under a Sunni minority government, the Kingdom needed to back their religious kinsmen to secure its sphere of influence. The Shiite protestors amassed into huge crowds of around 150,000 people, which meant the protests were bound to metastasize into a serious revolution. On March 14th of 2011, one thousand Saudi soldiers and five hundred Emirati troops crossed into Bahrain and crushed the protests. Al-Jazeera did not cover the story, while Qatar (which was a serious backer for the Syrian rebels), supported the military intervention in Bahrain to end the Shiite unrest.

Even the United States — which endlessly decried the Assad regime, was silent. Why? Because America’s remonstrances had (and still have) nothing to do with democracy, supporting protestors or stopping tyranny, and everything to do with geopolitics, or maintaining a sphere of influence. “Democracy,” or revolution in Syria would mean the ousting of an Iranian, Chinese and Russian ally in the Middle East. This is what matters to the Americans. Not democracy, not fighting tyranny, but empire. This is the goal of the US. A revolution in Bahrain would have meant the rise of an Iranian ally and a decline of American/Saudi power in the Gulf.

Moreover, the oil rich regions in Saudi Arabia are where the kingdom’s Shia minority reside. What terrible luck for the Saudis. Their entire economy is dependent in oil, and the people who live on the oil-rich lands are Shia, people who Iran could use as a proxy to attack the Kingdom. Perhaps, in the future, Iran will declare that the Saudi Kingdom must be destroyed in order to protect the Shia living in Arabia.

At the end of it all, the Saudis and the Qataris were using the Syrian revolution as a means to pave a path for their own power in the Middle East. Qatar did this with the Libyan revolution; it was the first Arab country to recognize the National Transitional Council. Qatar also sent six fighter jets into Libya, and forged relations with Islamist fighters there. Gaddafi being brutally murdered actually ‘boosted’ Qatar’s confidence, and it saw itself as a major geopolitical player. Qatar, deceptively, presented itself as an ally of Assad, but in a matter of months, Qatar unmasked itself as an enemy of the Assad regime, which means that it was never a friend to begin with. Qatar supported the crushing of the Shiite unrest in Bahrain because that was the prevention of another Persian ally rising up. Why would Qatar have been a friend of a major Iranian ally, Syria? Hence why Al-Jazeera, which is Qatar’s media outlet, aired speeches of the Muslim Brotherhood imam, Yusuf Qaradawi, against Damascus.

Qatar proposed “reforms” for Assad to implement in his country, but Syria rejected them. What did these “reforms” entail? Sharing the government with the Muslim Brotherhood, the terrorist organization with a long history with the CIA. Assad was being an irrational despot, but level-headed. Who in their right mind would share power with an existential enemy?

Turkey also saw the Syrian revolution as an opportunity to advance its power in the Levant. The Turkish border became the main spot for transferring supplies to the rebels. Turkey’s Prime Minister at the time, Ahmet Davutoglu, became an ideologue for Turkey’s foreign policy, seeing his country (in the words of Christopher Phillips) “as a bridge between east and west but as a centra country that should project influence, and saw the Islamic world and the Middle East as a key route to this.” In other words, Turkey wants to project empire. Turkey pushed Syria to hold elections, but Turkey (like Qatar) was trying to twist the arm of Assad to share power with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Did not the United States back the Egyptian revolution which led to the Muslim Brotherhood taking power? Why would Assad be expected to become a tool under the boot of NATO by sharing power with a Turkish and Qatari terrorist proxy? Turkey and Qatar proposed “reforms” and then acted outraged when Syria rejected their proposal. Since they could not pressure Assad to acquiesce to their demands, they sought to force him through violence by backing the Islamist revolution. They proposed something they knew Syria would reject, and then they bankrolled and armed a grand jihad. Its like what Austria did to Serbia before invading it in 1914; they proposed to the Balkan country: let us take your sovereignty or else we will invade you. Everyone knew what Austria was doing, that it was giving Serbia a proposal that it knew the Serbs would reject, to create the pretext for an invasion. Before the Serbia war broke out, British Prime Minister Asquith wrote in a letter: “Austria has sent a bullying and humiliating ultimatum to Serbia, who cannot possibly comply with it and demanded an answer within forty-eight hours — failing which she will march.” This is what Qatar and Turkey did to Syria: except Muslim Brotherhood rule (masked as “reforms”) or else we will back the rebellion.

On August 9th of 2011 Davutoglu spent hours in Damascus and the next day Erdogan announced: “He [Assad] told us that the tanks began to leave the city. Our initiative is producing results.” But the Syrians never stated that they had done this, with the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reporting that Assad “will not be tolerant in pursuing the armed terrorist groups for the sake of protecting [the h]omeland’s stability and citizens’ security.” Turkey’s duplicity is obvious; it pushed for co-rulership with the Muslim Brotherhood, and when this was rebuffed, over a week later, on August 23rd, the rebel Syrian National Council was formed in Istanbul, and it was dominated (with Ankara’s blessing) by the Muslim Brotherhood. It was obvious from the beginning that Turkey’s intention was to have the Syrian government get taken over by the Brotherhood.

All of the machinations were done with the conspicuous goal of expanding power. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey all used the Syrian revolution for their own ends. For Qatar and Saudi Arabia, it was about removing an Iranian ally. Even before the outbreak of the 2011 revolution, the Saudis wanted to remove the Assad regime, and they saw the Sunni rebellion as their long awaited opportunity to do this. Turkey saw the revolution as a window to expand itself, hence why Turkish troops are in Syria. Revolutions are never solely about the mobs who do them, but about the figures that back them.

But, Assad is still in power, and is now in the back burner of international concern (everyone is talking about Israel and Ukraine), and this is thanks to the massive disunity of the rebels, the loyalty of the Syrian military, and the help of Russia. What this means is that the unipolar world of America is no more, and Pax Americana is dead.

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