The deadly triangle of freedom, sectarianism and terrorism

The Arab masses demanded their lost freedom and sought to restore their lost dignity five years ago. It was a strange scene at the time, as Zine El Abidine Ben Ali disappeared from the public eye and fled; Gaddafi, the head of all the Arab leaders, was brutally killed; President Hosni Mubarak spent some of his retirement days behind bars; and President Ali Abdullah Saleh was forced to step down from his position.

They were tsunami waves of revolution that surprised everyone, including the Arab elites who were blown away by the intensity of what was occurring — as they had always accused the Arab nations of being backward, incapable, lazy and negative — as well as the local and international intelligence agencies, which were shocked. Not one month went by without a revolution in one country or another; astonishment prevailed.

Some supported the “revolution”, while others complimented it with a cold smile, fearing the effect on themselves. The situation remained the same until the “revolution” knocked on the doors of Damascus. At that point, it seemed that the “revolution” had hit a hard rock, especially when the Arabs and the rest of the world were divided regarding the course of the changes occurring in Syria. The naturally kind and well-mannered Syrian people did not give in to the resistance of the regime to change, or its bloody violence. They took up arms after six months of peaceful protest in defence of their dignity and freedom. They are not lesser mortals than any other people who have gained their imagined freedom. Their fate was to fall between the hammer of the regime and the anvil of the international conspiracy against their demands for freedom.

While the first year of the revolution was motivating for the masses and shocking for the regional regimes, the second year was enough for the Arab states and international capitals to regain their balance and take charge in confronting the popular movement. The focus was on two capitals important in the course of history and change: Damascus and Cairo.

The idea of freedom was one of the most dangerous variables confronted by the traditional and inherited Arab regimes, which represent the majority, whether monarchies or republics. This is because freedom means the rejection of guardianship and the creation of a future with a new popular agreement, far from the political inheritance ruling the Arab region for the past hundred years. This posed a serious threat to many Arab regimes and the international governments sponsoring them, so their priority was to destroy the morale of the region’s nations and distort the idea of their desired freedom.

Washington and Europe (supported by the Arab regimes) worked on two approaches. The first was by drowning the Syrian people in their own blood and destroying the country by maintaining the status quo so that neither side would or could win. Washington controlled the quantity and quality of the weapons reaching the Syrian opposition and so deprived it of deciding the battle. It also arranged, along with the Syrian regime, for the government to remain weak and exhausted, at which point Iran and Hezbollah were summoned to rescue their ally in Damascus. This was an American-Israeli ploy to exhaust what was known as the axis of resistance. This then led to the intervention of Russia, a country looking for a place to confront the US.

Over the past five years, the issue delivered a harshly-worded message to the Syrian people — to all nations in the region, in fact — that, “You are not ready for freedom and have not reached the level of maturity needed for it, and the best evidence of this is the opposition’s fragmentation, and the diaspora which has spread from Turkey to Canada. All you can do is long for the guardianship regime, which will soon become a security regime that will be hard to reach in the face of the civil, regional and international wars which have all thrown hell onto your heads.”

The second approach is that Washington, along with the scheming and agreement of the leaders of the Egyptian army and some Arab regimes, surrendered deliberately to the storm of revolution in Egypt, allowing the Islamists to rise to power and sit on the throne of the corrupt and bureaucratic deep state. The purpose of this was to plant the seed of conflict between the Islamists and left-wing and nationalist revolutionary forces, which actually happened, and then to cause the revolutionary political experience to fail, along with the failure of the Islamists’ experience as a potential alternative ruler in the region. It did so by tempting the Muslim Brotherhood to rule unilaterally, and then exhausting the movement by means of the five-tentacled monster that controls Egypt — the army, security agencies, judiciary, media and big business — before overthrowing the Islamists as the inevitable result of their failure. This was intended to create frustration in the souls of the Egyptians and despair at the idea of change and freedom.

According to Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, it was the European Special Envoy, Bernardino Leon, who was the planner behind the military coup against Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. “What happened was the exact opposite to what I signed off on,” explained ElBaradei. “I signed off on early presidential elections and the honourable exit of President Morsi, and to reach a comprehensive approach that the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamists would be a part of.” He added that although he “agreed to the plan set by Bernardino Leon, who is now trying to do the same thing in Libya… everything I signed to was thrown out the window, and the violence began. There was no longer a place for someone like me, and there was no political horizon.” (ElBaradei: Bernardino Leon planned the coup against Morsi, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, 5 July 2015)

There is no doubt that the Brotherhood’s lack of political experience and its good intentions were the movement’s downfall. It was a victim and was used for the coup of another party against the revolution demanding freedom.

In exchange for distorting the peoples’ demands for freedom and making it a reason to shed blood in the region, the US deliberately made room for Iran and its allies to expand in the Arab world. It did not do so to surrender to Tehran, but out of its desire to escalate the sectarian issue in the Sunni-majority region. This is evidenced further by Washington’s weak position towards the Yemeni Houthis’ control over Sana’a and its support for Operation Decisive Storm, led by Saudi Arabia. It is as if the US is pushing for a Shia-Sunni sectarian conflict in the region.

It is in this context that the Islamic alliance has now been formed, again led by Saudi Arabia, consisting of 34 Arab and Sunni Muslim countries, to confront “terrorism” and the Shia alliance led by Iran. This was under the watchful eye of the US, whose President, Barack Obama, has referred repeatedly to the importance of the Arab, especially Sunni, countries to play a role in Syria and to confront terrorism and Daesh.

As such, there is an American policy that aims to create rival or opposing regional axes, clashing with each other around sectarianism which will take the region far from the origin of the popular uprisings which had a humanitarian basis through which the people sought their freedom. There is a desire for bloody sectarian wars to be the focus of this phase in the region, and for them to be used as a tool in the growing conflict between NATO, led by Washington, and Russia (which dreams of a historical and organic czar-like leadership). Meanwhile, Washington (just like Moscow and some Middle East countries, including Iran) has succeeded in promoting the idea that radical Islamic “terrorism” and Daesh are the threats that must be confronted as a priority on everyone’s agenda, including the Shia and Sunni alliances, despite their differences regarding the issues in Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. Of course, none of this answers the question of who is responsible for the presence and spread of terrorism and Daesh in the first place.

They are trying to say that the problem is not with the Syrian or Egyptian governments, or any other governments, but with “Islamic terrorism” which fights freedom, and the loosely-defined terrorism which is “dressed up” with any accusation that would achieve the local, regional and international political objectives. The price for this is paid by the Arab nations in the form of their freedom.

It is worth noting that most of the Islamic trends and parties have been accused of terrorism, even those regarded as “moderate”, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been put on the terrorism agenda by many governments, especially in the Arab world. It is also worth noting that the “Shia” axis and the “Sunni” alliance have gone under the Russian and American umbrella in terms of acceptance and guidance. This has reached the point of Hezbollah praising Russian support for Bashar Al-Assad and the Syrian opposition praising America’s support, while both the Americans and the Russians are allies of the Israeli occupation. It is a deadly triangle of freedom, sectarianism and terrorism.

Translated from Alkhaleejonline, 27 December, 2015.

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