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发帖数: 29846 | 1 By Neil Snyder
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is a cruel dictator. He believes that
killing his own citizens is collateral damage associated with governing, and
he's not alone. Arab countries have been ruled by people like Assad for
millennia. Yet the Arab Spring is changing the status quo in the Middle
East, and today's shocked Westerners may, in due course, wind up longing for
the days when the Assads of the Middle East were in charge.
A few days ago, President Assad said, "Syria is the hub now in this region.
It is the fault line, and if you play with the ground you will cause an
earthquake." Some interpreted his remark as a threat, and it probably was -
- at least in part. According to Reza Kahlili:
Two of the Middle East's dictators, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, want to form a united front
against NATO ally Turkey for what they see as dangerous meddling in regional
affairs.
Believing that it has blunted Saudi Arabia's influence in the Middle East,
Iran is now turning its focus on Turkey in an effort to establish Iranian
hegemony in the region.
Politics makes for strange bedfellows. Iran is ruled by Islamists, and it's
a state sponsor of Islamist terrorism globally. Syria is a secular Muslim
nation now threatened by the very forces Iran seeks to unleash. At this
moment, Assad needs Iran's support. Next week, things may be different, and
his willingness to cooperate with Iranian leaders could evaporate in the
blink of an eye. In that sense, Assad's comment may have been sage advice
from an experienced hand. He knows better than Western leaders what it
takes to control the Islamists of the world, especially those in the Middle
East. Simultaneously, Assad coddles and fights with Islamists. He's been
doing it since the day he took office. For example, he uses groups such as
Hamas and Hezbollah to apply pressure on Israel and Lebanon, but he doesn't
hesitate to deploy Syrian troops to deal with Islamist elements in Syria who
challenge his authority. The Muslim Brotherhood is a good case in point.
Reports of the number of deaths in Syria associated with Assad's ongoing
crackdown vary widely, but roughly 3,000 Syrians have been killed thus far.
As staggering as that number is, it pales against comparable incidents in
the past. For instance, in 1970, in an operation that has come to be known
as Black September, mild-mannered King Hussein of Jordan, King Abdullah's
father, put down a rebellion in his country by the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) by killing between 10,000 and 25,000 Palestinians in one
month and evicting the PLO from Jordan. Under the guidance of Yasser Arafat
, the PLO fled from Jordan to Lebanon, where they set up shop and helped to
foment the Lebanese Civil War, which eventually cost the lives of more than
100,000 Lebanese. Similarly, in 1982, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad,
Bashar's father, crushed a Sunni rebellion in the town of Hama by
slaughtering more than 20,000 of its citizens. By those standards, Bashar
al-Assad has shown remarkable restraint during the unrest in Syria
associated with the Arab Spring.
Given his current predicament, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
probably wishes he had ignored President Obama and other Western leaders
when they urged him to step aside and let "democracy" prevail. As high-
minded as that advice sounded at the time to ideologues in the West, in the
Middle East it opened the door for Islamists to crawl out of the woodwork
and begin the process of taking control. Having been emboldened by the Arab
Spring, they are busily preparing for the Arab Winter, and what they have
in mind extends far beyond the borders of the Middle East. With help from
Iran, they hope to wipe Israel off the map and spread their violent version
of Islam across the planet. Their first victims will be women, Muslim women
specifically, followed closely by Jews, Christians, Hindus, other religious
groups, and atheists. Interestingly, Islamists reserve their most intense
hatred for their fellow Muslims who don't buy into their philosophy. That
includes people like Bashar al-Assad under normal circumstances, and that's
why a "moderate voice for Islam" is hard to find. Most Muslims who aren't
radical are afraid to speak out because they understand the consequences.
The late King Hussein of Jordan, the late President Hafez al-Assad of Syria,
and his son Bashar have at least one thing in common. They know their
enemies, and they know how to deal with them. The militants involved in the
Arab Spring aren't ordinary citizens. They're Islamists who want to rule
the world and impose Sharia law, and they are on the verge of taking control
in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia. They seek to overthrow the existing
political order in the Middle East and use it as a springboard to conquests
around the world. It's obvious that Iranian leaders are spearheading the
global initiative. They see Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğ
an as a threat to their regional hegemony. At this juncture, Bashar al-
Assad is their ally, but again, things change.
In October, Dr. Jack Wheeler was called upon to advise a GOP candidate for
the Republican nomination for the presidency, and this is what he said about
Islam:
The next president should make a clear and public distinction between Islam
the religion and Islamism the political ideology masquerading as a religion.
That Islamism will no longer be accorded the respect due an actual
religion but treated with the contempt due any fascist ideology such as
Communism or Nazism.
The next president should draw a distinct line between all variants of
Islamism, such as Wahhabis, Deobandis, Khomeini Shias, and other forms of
Jihadi and Sharia Islam, with peaceful and tolerant forms of Islam such as
practiced by Sufis and Ismailis. It is with the latter that the future of
Islam lies.
And for any Moslem in the US who agitates for Sharia law, he is welcome to
do so -- in a country that practices it, not in America. As for Islamic
terrorism, its practitioners should receive a drone strike -- a policy of
the current president that should be continued.
The current president has, however, utterly failed to champion the rights
and religious freedom of Christians in the Moslem world. A truly American
foreign policy would do so.
Wheeler is right. The time for pampering Islamists in the United States is
over. They threaten everything we hold dear. Like tentacles from a rapidly
spreading cancer, Islamists have established footholds in every country of
the world, and they are fomenting unrest in hopes of bringing down every
leader who doesn't pay homage to them and their cause. In the end, their
goal is to eradicate the existing world order and replace it with one over
which they have control. Western leaders ignore these facts at their own
peril.
Neil Snyder is a chaired professor emeritus at the University of Virginia.
His blog, SnyderTalk.com, is posted daily.
His latest book is titled If You Voted for Obama in 2008 to Prove You're Not
a Racist, You Need to Vote for Someone Else in 2012 to Prove You're Not an
Idiot. |
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