The morbid reality of Arab civil war. By Hisham Melhem. Al Arabiya, July 25, 2013.
Melhem:
In the
last few weeks and months I have engaged in a daily morning morbid ritual;
reviewing the harvest of blood by compiling the number of victims of the Arab
civil war raging in Syria and Iraq with its occasional visits to Lebanon,
Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain. The statistics are frightening: more than 5000 people
a month are being killed in Syria. More than 450 people were killed this month
in Iraq. In Egypt more than 150 people were killed in the political violence
that followed the June 30 overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi. In Lebanon more
than 50 people were killed last month.
In
Iraq, Syria and Egypt a virulent, atavistic strain of terrorists in the mold of
Al-Qaeda are waging a savage war on everything modern, civil and moderate.
In
Syria state institutions are fraying, society is fragmenting and the
continuation of the fighting means that Syria could reach a state of ‘soft
partition’ where its sectarian and ethnic components will continue their
existential struggle for a long time. In Iraq the security situation has
relapsed to the previous hell of 2006 and 2007 and the country is slouching on
the road to sectarian and ethnic partition. In Egypt large swaths of Sinai are
not under the control of the government and the political and religious
polarizations have reached unprecedented levels; with each group demonizing
their opponents with astonishing zeal.
Arab cold war turns hot
In 1965
the distinguished academic Malcolm Kerr (born, raised and assassinated in
Beirut) published a short classic study titled The Arab Cold War: Gamal Abd
al-Nasir and His Rivals where he analyzed the state of inter-Arab relations in
the late 1950’s and early 1960’s , particularly the interplay of
political/ideological rivalries for the leadership of the Arab world between
the camp of “progressive” Arab nationalists led by Egypt and the camp of
conservative Arab monarchies led by Saudi Arabia and the personalities
dominating that period, particularly that of president Nasser of Egypt. In
subsequent editions Kerr carried the saga until Nasser’s death in 1970. This
Arab cold war was a subtext of the wider cold war between the United States and
the Soviet Union.
In this
Arab cold war the competition was among states and it was waged on the
political/ideological plain and was not based on sectarian or religious basis.
Yet, there was a military dimension to this war where the competitors opted to
fight each other by proxy in the limited hot conflicts that occurred in
Lebanon, Jordan and particularly Yemen. The role of the major non-Arab regional
players; Iran, Turkey and Israel in the Arab cold war was very limited. In the
current bloody Arab civil war we see a more assertive Turkey and Iran competing
vociferously to shape the future of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and even Egypt. There
is a harsh geo-political reality that drives many Arabs into a state of denial:
Eastern Arabs live in the shadow of their non-Arab neighbors.
In the
various theaters of the Arab civil war of today, we see some Arab states in
addition to Iran, Turkey (and occasionally Israel), along with radical
Islamists, providing arms, material and men, and playing an active role in the
Syrian and Iraqi conflicts which have morphed recently into one civil war
fought on a wider front including Lebanon. What makes this civil war especially
dangerous and likely to rage for a long time, is the fact that it began in the
wake of the Arab uprisings and after a tremendous and popular mobilization that
did not exist before. In this new environment, populism, which is always
worrisome, became more deadly when it was infected with the raw and primitive
strain of sectarianism that almost demolished the political boundaries of the
supposed sovereign states of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
The new
Arab civil war has pushed the Arabs on the trail of a long journey into the
night, where there is no dawn in sight. Some see this as the inevitable birth
pangs of a new political order characteristics of transitional periods. There
is no doubt that the best description of the complexities and pains of
transitional periods was the one given by the brilliant Italian Marxist
philosopher Antonio Gramsci: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that
the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum, a great
variety of morbid symptoms appear.” Morbid indeed.
4,500 Year Old Settlement Uncovered in Egypt. The Archaeology News Network, July 25, 2013.
Why Egypt Matters. By Sallama Shaker. Yale Global, July 25, 2013.
Containing the Fire in Syria. By Ryan Crocker. Real Clear Politics, July 24, 2013. Also at Yale Global.
Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations: Déjà-vu All Over Again? By Adam Garfinkle. The American Interest, July 25, 2013.
The value of Mideast “talks about talks.” By Michael Singh. Washington Post, July 23, 2013. Also here.
Kerry’s Peace Process: Smart Diplomacy or a Complete Hash of Things? By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, July 27, 2013.
What makes John Kerry think he can secure peace in Israel? By Aaron David Miller. Washington Post, July 25, 2013. Also find it here.
