If Hizballah’s overt interference in the
ongoing war in Syria on the side of the regime and its fighters’ decisive role
in recapturing Al-Qusayr town and its surrounding areas from the opposition
forces were a major turning point then the Doha meeting of the “Friends of the
Syrian People” that was held the day before yesterday (Saturday) constitutes
another turning point in this conflict that is no less important. This
meeting’s decisions, if implemented, might ignite a regional war and unleash
waves of terrorist revenge that target the Arabian Gulf area in particular.
It is obvious that the Gulf countries participating
in this meeting are now worried by the failure of the United States, France,
and Britain to intervene militarily directly and therefore have decided to
gamble on throwing all their weight behind the armed Syrian opposition and
supplying it with sophisticated state of the art weapons and in particular
shoulder-carried antiaircraft missiles to end the regime’s control of the air
space.
We assert for the last time that Qatar and the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in particular would not have got involved in the war in
Syria had their leaderships realized that it would last two years and that the
Syrian army would stand fast and continue to support President Bashar al-Asad’s
regime.
The Gulf countries, and 150 other ones, took
part in the Friends of Syria’s first meeting in Tunis and then in Istanbul
under US leadership. They made a terrible mistake in their calculations when
they believed that the Syrian regime would collapse quickly within weeks or
months at most and that they would be safe from any internal or external
repercussions.
Supplying the armed Syrian opposition with
antiaircraft and anti-armor missiles means overturning the military balances on
the ground in its favor and will put the Syrian regime is a very critical
position because all the victories achieved by its army on the battlefronts in
the past three months, the last of which was in Al-Qusayr, will evaporate and
it will therefore consider this dangerous armament step tantamount to a
regional “declaration of war.”
It might useful to recall that the “MANPAD”
[man-portable air-defense systems] missiles that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
has sent to the Free Syrian Army will play the same role as that of the
American antiaircraft “Stinger” missiles that changed the balances of power on
the ground in Afghanistan in favor of the Afghan Mujahideen and inflicted a
humiliating defeat on the Soviet forces.
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister
Sheikh Hamad Bin-Jasim announced at a press conference he held in Doha at the
conclusion of the Friends of Syria meeting (notice how they shrank from 150 to
11 countries only) that “sending weapons to the Syrian opposition is the only
way for ending the war”, adding that “force is necessary for establishing
justice and sending weapons is the only way for achieving peace in Syria.
These sophisticated weapons might not move the
war from its current battlefields within the Syrian borders only but also take
it to neighboring countries and the entire Arab region because the “Friends of
the Syrian regime” who were probably forgotten deliberately or not might not
stand with folded hands if the regime’s aircraft started to be shot down by
these modern weapons’ accuracy and power. We hope we are wrong because we want
to stop this war, not expand it.
The start of the Arabian Gulf countries’
deportation of Lebanese Shiite citizens accused of loyalty to the Lebanese
Hizballah is clear evidence that these countries are expecting terrorist
actions on their territories and against their interests in the near future and
fear that some of these are sleeping cells in view of the mutual and escalating
sectarian incitement.
If some news reports published in the Arabian
Gulf countries’ newspapers saying there are 4,000 Lebanese Shiites on the
deportation list are true then this means the start of the countdown for the
war or terrorism, or both of them. Kuwait’s announcement that it is
disassociating itself totally from arming the Syrian opposition is probably an
alarm bell.
The question that imposes itself powerfully is
that the Gulf countries’ governments can deport Lebanese Shiites but what will
they do with their own citizens who have the same faith and make up more than
half the population in some of them like in Bahrain and a third or more as
unofficial Kuwaiti statistics say?
The coming days and weeks are worrying because
the regional and major international powers on the Syrian territories are now
placing their interests above those of the Syrian people and their aspirations
for freedom and democracy. These are the interests for whose sake their
uprising broke out and they will therefore fight till the end.
Russia which was defeated by the American
“Stinger” missiles in Afghanistan will probably not allow the “MANPAD” ones to
defeat it and its allies in Syria. As to the Syrian regime that is officially
accused by America and Britain of using chemical weapons against its people,
what harm would befall it if it used them extensively since the accusation has
been pinned on it and no one believes its repeated denials?
All the parties in Syria are arming themselves,
the regime and opposition. Almost all of the countries are intervening in this
afflicted country: Iran, Hizballah, and Russia on one side and America, Jordan,
Turkey, and the Gulf countries on the other. The jihad calls to mobilize the
fighters to fight in Syria has become the common factor between the Sunni and
Shiite doctrines these days. It is a magical prescription for the catastrophe
creeping in the region at a record speed.
What is most dangerous is yesterday’s call by
French President Francois Hollande during his visit to Doha urging the armed
Syrian opposition to regain control of the areas under the control of the
jihadist Islamic groups, saying this (the retaking) has more priority than
retaking the areas controlled by the Syrian Arab army.
The French president’s argument for justifying
the expulsion of these groups is that they are giving the Syrian regime the
reasons for continuing the killings it is carrying out at present and the
expulsion operation, if successful, would serve the Syrian opposition and
people.
Holland did not tell us where he will expel
these groups. To Jordan or Turkey, the two countries from which they had
infiltrated, or from the original countries from where the fighters came for
jihad in Syria such as Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen, and the list is
long?
It is a plan for a new sedition between the
Free Army and its companions in arms to be added to the inflamed sectarian
sedition. Under cover of this bloody labyrinth, some are talking about a
political solution and Geneva-2 conference and believe that sending state of
the art weapons to the opposition will lead to peace.
Al-Quds al-Arabi
Online in Arabic
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