Who is responsible for the chaos in the region?

Proponents of the Palestinian resistance and opposition are straining themselves in their attempt to analyse the events that are taking place in the region. They engage in intense conversations about the ongoing chaos and obsess over conspiracy theories. All of these discussions are aimed at exonerating themselves and condemning others. While one can agree with these individuals on various aspects of the chaos plaguing the region, and all the gains that have been in favour of US-Israeli imperialist ambitions, the main point of disagreement is in regard to their analysis of the main causes because what they aim to do is avoid taking any responsibility upon themselves. They choose instead to direct all blame towards others, whether they are organisations, institutions or groups.

This is especially true when considering how said individuals attempt to condemn the Islamic faction in its entirety, including moderates, who allied themselves with dogmatists for over two decades as they worked to repel Zionist and American attacks on the region. Not to mention so-called radical efforts, which were once welcomed in the context of warding off the American invasion of Iraq, intended to reshape the entire region. In fact, even current Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki was included in the resistance at one point in his career and evidence of this can be found in his threats aimed towards Bashar Al Assad, when he warned the Syrian leader that he would report him to the International Criminal Court for supporting Al Qaeda and terrorism in Iraq.

Some of these analysts, who are preoccupied with theorising about the chaos in the region, would prefer to classify the Arab Spring as a conspiracy that was formulated in some Zionist-American corridor. They are the very same individuals who welcomed the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen but began to hesitate when it came to Libya before finally deeming the Arab Spring a conspiracy when it reached Syria. One Iranian thinker was careful to deem the Arab Spring an “Islamic Awakening” rather than categorising it carelessly as a conspiracy only after Syria joined the number of Arab countries in revolt.

There is no doubt that the chaos in the Middle East has benefited Israel. Syria has lost its chemical weapons and Hezbollah and Iran are seeing their resources draining away, and Iran has lost out on its nuclear weapons programme. Moreover, there is an ongoing threat to Hamas and the distorted portrayal of the Palestinian issue, a peace agreement for which will affect the entire region. The chaos has even hit Turkey, which once aligned itself along the axis of opposition and resistance, only to revaluate its rhetoric concerning Israel. Although Turkey still deals with Israel on a number of practical issues, Erdogan continues to recite elegiac poems honouring resistance movements in front of his country’s intellectuals.

Do not even ask at this point about the Sunni Islamic faction that had once been one of the most important actors in the resistance axis. The attacks directed towards Sunni Muslims have pushed them towards normalising the enemy and affiliating themselves with leftists and nationalists, the likes of which had once been on the margins of political life.

In turn, America has also greatly benefited from the chaos in the region, although it still beats the Zionist drum. The US has regained some of its lost importance despite some Russian advancement, which was considering withdrawing from the region in order to confront the Chinese (and Pacific) threat.

If we are to consider the axis of opposition and resistance as an alternative axis, then the Syrian crisis has benefited it to some extent, even if only temporarily, because it speaks about progress and change. One can say that this axis is stronger than many others in the region, whether they are representatives, movements or political forces, all of which are undergoing a number of crises. The code that will unlock the mystery of all that is happening is Syria, not the Arab Spring as they claim. Let us imagine for a moment that what the Syrian regime is offering the Syrian people in the current negotiations were offered to them after the initial onset of the revolution; would it not have been possible to overcome this crisis without all these consequences? Would it not have been possible to overcome this crisis without draining Iran and Hezbollah, as well as Turkey and Islamic factions? Even if the regime were to fall, or follow in the footsteps of the Tunisians, Egyptians or even the Yemenis, the truth is that the reality on the ground would not change very much.

If the situation in Syria had remained coherent, then Turkey would be in a much better state. The same holds true for the Iranians and Egyptians, for the revolution would not have fallen and the counter-revolution’s grip would not be as strong. The coup authorities had a licence to do anything they wanted because of what is occurring in Syria and its superficial image of supporting the revolution, which frees it from dealing with the public’s internal and external burdens.

If Iran had stood with the Syrian people, at least partially, as Turkey did, they would have found a solution that would have pleased the majority; the Arab world and the Ummah would not have found themselves in this desperate situation of sectarianism that is draining everyone; it would have been possible for us to progress and continue the Arab Spring in the entire region, regardless of the predicted outcomes in each individual country. Solving the Syrian crisis would have given the Arab world the agency to respond to the encroaching threats of the Zionist project and Western politics alike.

This is not a dream, it is coming closer and closer to reality; however, Iran’s insistence on continuing its support of the Syrian regime has confused everyone in the region. The Iranian position is working in favour of Zionist interests and if all goes according to plan, Iran will soon have to come to terms with Western demands, thus forcing everyone to abandon the issue of opposition and resistance in general. This outcome will place many nations in the region in sharp conflict with the politics of state intervention.

While it is true that most of the region’s sectarian conflicts can be attributed to Iran’s support for Al-Maliki’s sectarian policies in Iraq, one cannot deny that reconsidering the Sunni faction without prejudicing Shi’a and Kurds would not be difficult to achieve in any case, especially since Iraq has long been the “barometer” through which one can measure Sunni-Shi’a co-existence in the Middle East as a whole. The bottom line here is that Syria destroyed the Arab dream at the height of its beautiful spring, due to Iran’s prominent role in the Syrian crisis, especially because everyone knows that the mobilisation of the Syrian people could not be deemed a conspiracy by any means, and was not directed at Iran in any way.

Iran’s arrogance of power, which led it to interpret the scene in the region blindly, will force it to pay a heavy price that will bring down the entire Ummah as it suffers an inevitable loss. Iran is paying a high price for its decisions in Syria, a country that will never be the same again regardless of whether or not this war continues for ten more years. Iran has entered into a frightening feud with the rest of the region, one that has left damaging traces on the Ummah between its Sunni and Shi’a populations. When it comes to Syria and Iran, anyone who stood with them is also responsible for the chaos in the region; such individuals have no connection to the revolutionaries and protesters who rose up against tyranny. The counter-revolution’s forces have always been in another camp entirely and no one could have expected any more from them than what they have already done.

This is a translation of the Arabic text published by Al Jazeera net on 10 February, 2014

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.