What a clusterfuck.

Who do you chose to support when Syrian warmonger Erdogan faces a revolt by CIA linked Fethullah Gulen with both the Anatolian oligarchs and the Deep State military moving to pick winners?

I don't see this ending well. At least it will take Syria out of the news.

Posted by: Colm O' Toole | Jun 6 2013 13:59 utc | 1

Where is Obama urging a no fly zone over Turkey? Where is the arming of peaceful civilians?

Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 6 2013 14:00 utc | 2

Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 6, 2013 10:00:27 AM | 2
where are the jihadis to answer the call to free turkey from a real ruthless tyrant?

Posted by: brian | Jun 6 2013 14:07 utc | 3

Posted by: Colm O' Toole | Jun 6, 2013 9:59:01 AM | 1

just support the people in the street...not sociopathic politicians

Posted by: brian | Jun 6 2013 14:08 utc | 4

France cooking up new lies, not even the western-led UN weapons team, could validate the so called "evidence" given by France.
Whats wrong with these lying warmongers?

http://presstv.com/detail/2013/06/06/307473/un-questions-french-wmd-claim-on-syria/

Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 6 2013 14:08 utc | 5

Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 6, 2013 10:08:54 AM | 5
france under socialist Hollande or neo-liberal Sarcozy...whats the difference?

both are not called 'democractic leaders' by the MSM: both pursue policies little different to Hitler

Posted by: brian | Jun 6 2013 14:19 utc | 6

One thing working in Erdogan's favor is that Russia Today is under DDoS attack and down for the third day in a row. Normally RT would be the primary English language source of news on the #OccupyGezi protests.

I am not sure the attack has anything to do with the Manning trial; more like supporting Erdogan.

Who is this AntiLeaks anyway? CIA or the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn, Estonia? (It may be worth reading what their manual has to say on the issue. )

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Jun 6 2013 15:30 utc | 7

RT is working just fine here in Miami. Erdogan has lost all legitimacy be must step down and allow international peacekeepers into the country. While we're at it please add a no-fly zone, I'll have that with fries if you don't mind.

Posted by: Fernando | Jun 6 2013 16:34 utc | 8

To pick up Noirette's question from another recent threat.

Why support Assad but not Erdogan?

In short: consent of the governed

At the beginning of the "Arab spring" I once wrote why I did not think an "Arab spring" would come to Syria. The Syrians were very much in consensus about Syria's foreign policy. There was no large opposition against it. In Egypt (and Tunisia) the regime's foreign policy was one point most people hated.

In interior policies many Syrians did not agree to the slight neoliberalism that was creeping into the country. A few got rich on it, some more products were available but many also suffered. But all told Syria was and is still much less neoliberal than Turkey or even Egypt.

The real problems Syria had in its internal policies were none that any system could have handled differently. There was the Iraq war with created a huge wave of refugees who had to housed, fed and integrated. There were three recent years that lacked rain and a lot of agricultural land was not usable. Turkey is also building dam after dam and tacking the water that would otherwise flow through Syria and Iraq. A lot of poor country folks had to move into the city slums because the countryside could not sustain them anymore.

No other government could have prevented that and Assad at least tried to keep everyone fed and schooled.

When demonstrations started some of the demand were just and Assad took them serious. The emergency law was canceled, the one party system was dissolved, new elections were held. Assad did this despite resistance from his father's old guard. At the same time he had to fight the bloody insurgency that was instigated and supported from outside.

Assad had, I believe, and still seems to largely have the consent of the governed. Some 70+ is my guess. Not all of these would vote for him if there were competitive elections. But they do support the general direction Assad is going.

Erdogan is not running on consent of the governed but on a sharp identity policy which gives him his core slightly Islamist base plus a lot of business support because he brings money into the country that lets businesses thrive. His support is probably 50% of the governed (currently likely less).

Now Assad is not elected in the sense that there was much competition. I can't call that democratic. Erdogan was elected against some (incompetent) competition by slightly less than 50%. That is somewhat democratic.

But Assad has in my view the consent of the governed while Erdogan does not have it. That is why is failing as a ruler and that is why I would rather support Assad than Erdogan.

Posted by: b | Jun 6 2013 17:29 utc | 9

well said b!!!!!!Syria is the only arab state to have a free education,in fact most of the pseudo dissidents were sent to study abroad on the expenses of the state.Health care is free so all the lebanese from the poorer north region(Akar) went to Syria for medical care .Medicament is extremely cheap and was available to all before the "pacifists"destroyed most of the factories where they were produced.Bread and other basics are heavily subsidized .Still now in a war contest Syria is probably the cheapest country of the region in term of food,electricity,petrol etc..Yes the starting of the neoliberal process was a mistake but one has to see it in context e.g. during the Bush period and the extraordinary pressure Syria had to endure.History will show how brilliant Assad has been notwithstanding the humanitarian left!!!
I always thought of Assad as the prodigy child of the syrian sunnis urban class,the beloved child of an extremely resilient ,tough and wise middle class who digested a multi millenarian History.

Posted by: Nobody | Jun 6 2013 21:04 utc | 10

b #9

A fascinating comment (as always). But I do have two questions and I would very much appreciate it if you could answer them.

"In interior policies many Syrians did not agree to the slight neoliberalism that was creeping into the country. A few got rich on it, some more products were available but many also suffered. But all told Syria was and is still much less neoliberal than Turkey or even Egypt."

b, in your view, how much of the fact that Syria has agreed to neo-liberalism only "slightly" (much less than Turkey and Egypt)
has been the result of a deliberate state policy as opposed to the West not being helpful in the process? I believe for example that Iran would be very eager to join and had it not been for the interference of USA, it would have joined long ago.

"Now Assad is not elected in the sense that there was much competition. I can't call that democratic. Erdogan was elected against some (incompetent) competition by slightly less than 50%. That is somewhat democratic."

What's your take (b's) on the Iranian elections, and how democratic do you find it in general and the 2013 elections in particular?

Posted by: Pirouz_2 | Jun 6 2013 21:34 utc | 11

Regarding my previous (#11) comment:

I wrote:

"I believe for example that Iran would be very eager to join and had it not been for the interference of USA, it would have joined long ago."

it should have been:

I believe for example that Iran would be very eager to join WTO and had it not been for the interference of USA, it would have joined it long ago.

Posted by: Pirouz_2 | Jun 6 2013 21:48 utc | 12

#9, In short b is saying that Erdogan has lost his mandate from heaven, while Assad has not.

The Chinese have used this saying for over 2000 years and, no, it is not believed literally, but is used as a metaphor to describe that point when a dynasty has lost its ability to govern.

Posted by: ToivoS | Jun 6 2013 22:40 utc | 13

Erdogan knows how to unite people. His dollars in the brown paper bag.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jun 6 2013 22:46 utc | 14

b

"The real problems Syria had in its internal policies were none that any system could have handled differently. There was the Iraq war with created a huge wave of refugees who had to housed, fed and integrated. There were three recent years that lacked rain and a lot of agricultural land was not usable. Turkey is also building dam after dam and tacking the water that would otherwise flow through Syria and Iraq. A lot of poor country folks had to move into the city slums because the countryside could not sustain them anymore."

These internal problems and the others you mention were real, but you do not mention the two most important ones. The first is that the country was run as a police state. The second is that this police state had a sectarian dimension; namely, despite a representative formal state, the deep state was overwhelmingly Alawite. The social and political processes which led to this state of affairs are well documented by scholars such as Hanna Batatu ("Syria's Peasantry", Patrick Seale "Asad", Volker Perthes ("The Political Economy of Syria"), Raymond Hinnebusch (Syria: Revolution from Above"). In short, during the 1930s-1960s the army and security services were avenues of advancement for the rural poor (especially the socially excluded Alawites). The praetorian politics of the late forties - late sixties with continual military coups led to the ascension of a large clique of predominantly Alawite officers. Then, with the regime consolidation of Hafez al-Assad, the dominance of a deep state, not necessarily sectarian minded but unquestionably mainly from one sect, became entrenched in an era of neo-patrimonial politics, favoring close ties (especially family and clan ties, but also sectarian) in recruitment to real power.

Such a system could not survive without a police state. A democracy would throw up a completely different sort of leadership. An open public sphere could not be allowed because the system depended on observation of the taboo against thinking in terms of sect, precisely because the system did have a sectarian dimension. Any discussion of the opposition's sectarianism, can't lose sight of the sectarianism of the society and the regime itself.

"When demonstrations started some of the demand were just and Assad took them serious. The emergency law was canceled, the one party system was dissolved, new elections were held. Assad did this despite resistance from his father's old guard. At the same time he had to fight the bloody insurgency that was instigated and supported from outside."

Canceling the emergency law was meaningless. The one party system was dissolved? On paper. The Ba'ath has always tolerated a few little token opposition parties as long as they are useless and very well behaved. This case was no different. The elections were the usual charade. None of these "reforms" have any practical meaning. Meanwhile, what about the one 'reform' that might have made a difference? Listen to Assad's speeches from early on in the crisis. Not once does he say anything like "Just to be clear, no member of the security forces has the right to use live ammunition against demonstrators, and any member of the security forces doing so will be punished". Instead, one can easily understand from the speeches that use of force is in order against any opposition and not just armed gangs. Were there conspiratorial provocations, sponsored from the outside? Very likely, but events would not have gained momentum without the regime's constant readiness to up the ante with violence, to equate opposition with terrorism, and refusal to present a serious reform plan. Assad did not table even the most minor political reforms until the end of August 2011, long after events spiralled out of control, and in the event they amounted to nothing.

70% support for the regime? That might be true in downtown Aleppo and Damascus, definitely not in rural villages and poor slums, where the poor, conservative and Sunni bulk of the population lives. If the regime could command that kind of popular support, why have they been afraid of competitive elections for 40 years?

Posted by: Kieran | Jun 6 2013 23:31 utc | 15

You may be right b but considering Turkey on the basis of historical precedent, I reckon the AKP split won't fully happen until the party is out of power.
Power is the glue that holds groups much more fractious than the AKP together.
We have to be careful not to fall into the trap of wishful thinking and instead look at the situation objectively based upon what we know to be true and how the sociopathic greedheads & power addicts who comprise assemblies of 'peoples representatives' actually behave when external pressure is put upon them.

This applies equally to the 'Anatolian businessmen' who are well aware of the value of a bird in the hand as opposed to 57 in the bush.
If those self interested entrepreneurs consider Egypt or Tunisia, two states which did manage extra-constitutional regime change via mass protest, they won't be enamoured with the result.
Business took a big hit for the duration of the disturbances and when the ship of commerce was righted once more, major changes had occurred in the make-up of the senior officers.
The AKP backers are conservatives who hate change, they pay off pols to ensure stability not revolution, & invested in their puppets for the long haul. They will pressure their proxies and try to force a reconciliation.

Posted by: debs is dead | Jun 6 2013 23:35 utc | 16

Now Assad is not elected in the sense that there was much competition. I can't call that democratic. Erdogan was elected against some (incompetent) competition by slightly less than 50%. That is somewhat democratic.

But Assad has in my view the consent of the governed while Erdogan does not have it. That is why is failing as a ruler and that is why I would rather support Assad than Erdogan.

Posted by: b | Jun 6, 2013 1:29:30 PM | 9

hown much competition is there in France UK US etc? when its always a two party system with Obama being little different to mcCain. a real competitive system would compete a capitalist party with a real socialist one, then see who the people want

Posted by: brian | Jun 7 2013 0:47 utc | 17

@Kieran,
If you look at the religious belonging of the syrian military ,intelligence apparatus you will find that the majority of them is sunni,including the government.You should not take for granted western academical works on the subject because the west has always had a great enmity toward Syria being over decades the only non compliant state in the region.We have been subjected for decades to a very hostile propaganda against Syria which pits a "narrative"against reality and in this lies the core of the western defeat in this country.They never tried to understand this state but mirrored their prejudices in taking decisions.

Posted by: Nobody | Jun 7 2013 1:48 utc | 18

Communist Party Of Turkey - TKP
PROVOCATEUR IN THE PROTEST IN HATAY IS FSA MEMBER

A man who opened fire on police and tried to provoke the protestors last night in Hatay is reported to be a member of the Free Syrian Army. The protestors, who were alarmed by his unusual behaviors, revealed the identity of the provocateur. The Free Syrian Army is an armed group supported by the Turkish government against the Syrian regime.

Parliamentarian from Hatay, Hasan Akyol, spoke to soL newspaper and said that the people surrendered the man to the security forces.

The provocateur is holding Syrian identity card. He stayed at the camps of the Free Syrian Army. It is not known yet whether the police have started legal investigation on the issue or not. (soL)

Posted by: brian | Jun 7 2013 9:16 utc | 19

The Push to ignite a Turkish civil war through a Syrian quagmire
Through its much-touted ‘zero problems with neighbors’ doctrine, the Turkish government had set out with a realistic chance of being everyone’s friend. It has now made itself everyone’s enemy, including its own, by embracing policies that have put it on a collision course with disaster. By being duped into burning its bridges with Syria - Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya explains - Ankara has laid the foundations for the destabilization of the Turkish republic at the hands of the very same powers with which she is currently colluding.
etc
http://www.voltairenet.org/The-Push-to-ignite-a-Turkish-civil

Posted by: brian | Jun 7 2013 11:44 utc | 20

@pirout_2 b, in your view, how much of the fact that Syria has agreed to neo-liberalism only "slightly" (much less than Turkey and Egypt) has been the result of a deliberate state policy as opposed to the West not being helpful in the process?

I can't say. I suspect that the old socialist Baath guard had a foot on the brake.

What's your take (b's) on the Iranian elections, and how democratic do you find it in general and the 2013 elections in particular?

The Guardian council should have let Ahmedinajad's candidate Mershai run. He has some significant following. Rafsanjani was too old. His disqualification is justified.

I can't say much of the other candidates as I don't follow their process in detail. My hunch is that after the first round the "reformist" Rezaee and the mayor of Tehran Ghalibaf will be off to race against each other. Ghalibaf looks more likely to win.

Whoever wins. There will be little change in foreign policy. A reformist might try to talk more with the "west" but it is the "west" that is blocking things, not Iran. I don't know the economic policies of the candidates. Someone who follows Ahmedinjad's strain on it (without the mistake of keeping the exchange rate too high) would be fine in my view.

Posted by: b | Jun 7 2013 12:12 utc | 21

@Kieran #15

Excellent post, and a good antidote to the increasingly bizarre cheerleading for the Syrian police state around here. Note b's heavy emphasis on foreign policy as a driver of revolution in Egypt and Tunisia. This is a good indication of an outsider's perspective that has failed utterly to imagine that a poor Sunni from Homs might ever consider something other than Assad's anti-Israel rhetoric when judging the government that rules him.

And it is just rhetoric, after all. As constantly noted in the Western press, the incidents since the Syrian civil war began are the very first to take place on the Golan cease-fire line since 1973. Syria's opposition to Israel has long been limited to fiery speeches, proxy fighting and limited direct skirmishing in Lebanon, and support of Palestinian groups fighting Israeli occupation. The latter is not only de rigeur for any but the most fawning of pro-Western governments in the area, but also has often been counter-productive, as witness the Assad dynasty's grooming of the PFLP-GC as its favored Palestinians, a group that exists essentially as arms-length puppet gendarmes to control Yarmouk and the other camps in Syria, and has no presence or support in Palestine itself, and hasn't done a damned thing against the occupation in ages. Not for nothing do Israelis refer to Assad's Syria as "our favorite enemy".

What's going on here is willful blindness to the very possibility of resistance to the Assad government on a popular basis, because of a first-world activist mentality that cares about opposition to Israel (even if only on paper) above all. No Palestinian expat that I know has the slightest illusions about Syria's willingness to do anything but talk on Palestinian issues. The one Syrian I know, while very far from representing the rural-to-slums poor classes, believes that whatever immunity from criticism the Assads bought with their hard stance on Israel evaporated over a decade ago, when Syria proved disappointingly eager to take the Sadat-Hussein option, and abandon Palestine in return for the territory lost in 1967.

As pointed out upthread, Syria is much less neoliberalized than post-conquest Iraq, or post-Camp David Egypt, but that was not for lack of trying. The bullshit about a "Damascus Spring" when Assad fils inherited the family demesne had nothing to do with letting a few overeducated bourgeois prattle on in their webzines, but with the eagerness of the Syrians to adopt the neolib line and join the international capitalist system. The unwillingness of Tel Aviv to return the Golan coupled with the usual fawning on Israel in Washington to scuttle this. What "reforms" have been implemented have had their usual effect on the poor and unconnected. Assad is not a Nasser, but more like Abu Mazen, eager to sell out but unable to find a willing buyer for his unneeded goods.

And so what we end up with is the weird specter of a bunch of lefty mostly-first-worlders sitting here and embracing a sectarian police state that wishes it were able to pull of what Ghaddafi did in 2004, while denigrating an elected government in Turkey that pulls its support from the conservative-populist masses of poor Turks driven off the land and into the slums over the past two generations. And why? Because Erdogan has proven annoying in his foreign policy, and because his solid mass base allows him to cuddle his domestic capitalist class.

Erdogan's base is the same as that that made the Islamic Republic in Iran--domestic capital and lower-bourgeoisie and displaced rurals. They are appealed to in the same way as well, with a mixture of independent-minded foreign policy and nationalism, social conservatism directed at the Westernized elite haut-bourgeois, and economic populism and protectionism.

The tone here has gotten rather disturbing. Celebrating the military victories of a third world dictatorship over a foreign-directed resistance that (at least used to) have real roots in popular discontent, while enjoying schadenfreude at the expense of an elected populist government facing what looks very much like a classic bourgeois "color revolution" scenario in Turkey is awful to see in a place like this. The breathless militarism embodied in posts that hypothetically explore all the wondrous bloodshed to be had if the Russians send warplanes and pilots to deter an intervention is no different from old-style "warblogger" militaristic jock-sniffing of the worst kind. Our Gracious Host will probably not like hearing this, but as a long-time follower of this blog (and the Whisky Bar before it), I am too appalled not to say something.

Posted by: Algie | Jun 7 2013 12:46 utc | 22

Freedom of press á la Turkey

Seven (AKP friendly) papers with the same headline "Democracy demands sacrifice"

pic

Posted by: b | Jun 7 2013 12:53 utc | 23

19) brian, the information is useless. You never now who people are working for until archives are opened. And even then you cannot be sure if - at that specific moment - they were acting on order or not.

This case is from German history - the killing of Benno Ohnesorg in an anti-Shah demonstration was the iconic start of 1968 protests in Germany - iconic because of a photograph taken at the scene.

Now it turns out the policeman shooting the student Ohnesorg actually worked for East Germany's Stasi.

Posted by: somebody | Jun 7 2013 15:00 utc | 24

Looter's ballet in Gezi park - music by Carl Orff :-))

Posted by: somebody | Jun 7 2013 15:12 utc | 25

Algie: yours is a very dated Cold War analysis.

It has this in common with much of the thinking which has prompted sections of the, rapidly crumbling, left to become NATO camp followers: they haven't had an original thought since the late sixties when their, now deceased, retired or demented, 'theorists' made an adjustment from the extreme anti-Stalinism which turned half of the Trotskyists into liberal imperialists (including the neo-cons) and the rest of them into quondam Cliffites.

The world much of the "left" inhabits is still dominated by the Cold War, that is why they were able to cheer while Yugoslavia burned and Ghadaffi was being murdered.

Their theory was that Moscow was just as bad as Washington-which was very crude idealism comparing not the power and policies of the Soviet Union and the US Empire, but the sort of characters running them. They found the image of JFK preferable to that projected, in the media, by Nikita Kruschev and therefore inclined to equate US and Soviet policies towards Cuba.

In fact, of course, their 'theories' were merely ex post facto, the underlying reality was McCarthyism in all its forms: to seem to favour Soviet over US policies was to kiss goodbye to any hopes of patronage from the bourgeois state: no more University posts, no more civil service pensions, no future in the Trade Unions. Even artists, the licensed fools of class rule, found life infinitely easier if they were 'apolitical.' And pickings on the blacklist were thin indeed.

By any rigorous and honest measure Soviet foreign policy was almost always preferable to that of the US and its allies, who spent the post war period wiping out the remnants of the war time resistance to fascism. That is what Malaya, Vietnam, the Phillippines and Korea were all about. That is what all the colonial wars in Africa, Latin America (not to mention Guyana and Jamaica) and Asia were about. Through them all the "left" were constantly handicapped by the fear of being red-baited. And not just by the bourgeoisie: Tony Cliff made a movement by picking out a delicate path between the Soviets and the US. His followers included many who left less diplomatic and acceptable trotskyist and marxist formations to get themselves out of the crossfire between the CIA and the KGB.

It was thus that many on the left learned to analyse the world in such a way as to politely ignore the presence within it of that 800 pound gorilla, with its vast military power, which is bent on obtaining the submission of the entire planet to its rule. During the Cold War they at least had the actual existence of the Soviet Union to exaggerate and puff up into a threat. Since then they have seen things entirely in terms of ideas: the "west's" democracy versus authoritarianism (almost inevitable in the face of imperialist aggression). And the "west", not coincidentally liberal social democracy's home, is always the lesser evil.

The lesser evil, maybe in terms of ideology, ideas,(a realm in which nobody lives) but by far the greater evil in terms of real power and actual aggression. In the real world the imperial appetite for killing and enslavement is masked, as it has been for centuries, under a veneer of enlightened liberalism. But the graves the death squads fill are shallow. And there is no excuse for not noticing them.

Thus it is that Algie equates the Syrian government, (whose mere survival since the 1940s, when the CIA first came knocking, is anomalous) with the imperial forces marching against it.

To the idealist who, as it were, begins by asking himself which of Assad and Obama would make the more acceptable dinner guest, bicycling companion or employer, what is going on in Syria is nothing more than a contest between two bad guys. One representing imperialism, 90% of the world's armaments, unlimited financial resources and every neighbouring government and the other, "just as bad" a baathist system hanging onto power by its fingernails thanks only to the fact that the Syrian people prefer it to any of the proffered alternatives. To the idealist, living in a city which is never shelled, the differences between them are of no consequence.

Or would be were it not "obvious" that the result will be the defeat of Syria and the victory of the empire. Which is where the idealism morphs into realism and the great question becomes not whether Al Qaida and zionism shall rule in the Levant, on behalf of the empire, but whether it is not better, given that they inevitably will (because Uncle Sam is unbeatable), to 'keep our powder dry' and our jobs at SOAS, the UN or wherever so that we don't have to allow our subs to Socialist Worker and Le Monde Diplo to lapse and our kids to starve.

This left, "Algie's" left, is above all eclectic: it cobbles together a theory from the bits of socialism and marxism that it likes and leaves out the difficult parts. The ones that made so many martyrs and involved such difficult struggles, and gave the Red Flag its colour.

Algie's attitude of thin lipped superiority, to the enthusiasm to which victories over the imperialists gives rise, is not novel it is that of the spineless dilettante in occupied Paris who sneered at the spontaneous reaction that the masses had to the news of Stalingrad or Kursk or El Alamein or the invasion of Sicily. Stalin was a nasty piece of work, so was Churchill therefore... nothing, nihil, back to self. And to dignify it, call it "revolutionary defeatism."

The truth is that the significance of Syria is that the "west" is a paper tiger and can be defeated. It's a reminder that we need not consign our descendants to a life of submission to the criminal gangsters who run the United States and want to take over the rest of the world.

If baathist Syria survives not only will it be an enormous setback to the juggernaut of empire it will, more importantly, mean a transformation in and around Syrian society itself. It will mean the end of "algie's" 'police state' for the same reasons that the Red Army's victory signalled the end of Stalinism in the Soviet Union which would have been overwhelmed in a "thaw" had Stalin's alter egos, Truman, Acheson and Churchill not rushed to his rescue.

It is all very well to tell us, as if there were any mystery about it, that the Syrians have been very low key, submissive in their resistance to zionism for the past forty years.
We knew that. But not being idealists we understood the reasons (apart from personal cowardice and other flaws in the characters of the baathist rulers) why this was easy to understand. Not to justify, necessarily, but to understand. In much the same way that Ghadaffi's obeisance to the "west" after 2003 was easy to understand: the poor paranoid sap thought that the imperialists were after him. Had he kept his subscription to "International Socialism" or its French equivalent he would have been better informed no doubt. And things would have ended...in exactly the same way.
After seventy years of defeats the marxoid left has almost disappeared, except as a useless appendage to the Academy. Its epitaph will be something to the effect that it never learned anything from its mistakes because it never recognised that it had made any.

If Syria survives it will have been transformed in the crucible of war: the country will be full of well trained, well armed militias, self confident and politically conscious. Well may the fascists among the zionists fear the future. The existential threat they face is not nuclear but popular: the Resistance multiplied enormously. An Arab world without fear, a people governed not by the formal faux democracy promoted in the west by the real democracy of an armed, awakened people.

Small wonder that these victories make some of us happy: we are on the same side as the soldiers who win them.

Posted by: bevin | Jun 7 2013 15:50 utc | 26

25 - just that the confrontation is completely artificial and stupid. Basically people are needlessly pitted against each other - for - loose loose.

This from Israel

So it came as a shock to many when, in May, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released a report showing that, of the world’s thirty-four economically developed countries, Israel is the most impoverished. With a poverty rate of twenty-one per cent, Israel has a higher percentage of poor people than Mexico, Turkey, or debt-ridden Spain and Greece. The report’s findings made front-page headlines in Israel, and officials there scrambled to sound both indignant and unconcerned. They had some explaining to do: How does a nation with double the average growth rate of other countries in the developed world have a fifth of its population living in poverty?

One answer is that it may not. The O.E.C.D.’s report examined relative poverty, using as its yardstick the percentage of each country’s population earning less than half of that country’s median wage. By contrast, in the U.S., poverty is typically measured in absolute terms—a given household’s purchasing power. Some critics have suggested that this discredits the report, since, by the O.E.C.D.’s standard, even if everyone in the country were suddenly made ten times richer, the poverty level would remain unchanged. And yet even when measured in absolute terms, by Israel’s National Insurance Institute, twenty-two per cent of Israelis were still deemed to be living in poverty in 2011, the last time the N.I.I. conducted the survey. (The poverty rate in the U.S. that year was fifteen per cent, according to the Census Bureau.)

“There’s the story we tell the world, about Israel as a ‘start-up nation,’ and it’s a very nice story, but it only applies to about five per cent of the population,” Guy Rolnik, the founding editor of the Israeli financial newspaper TheMarker, told me. “When you look at the labor market, our economy is backward. We have a very low productivity rate.”

and this is Lebanon

RD:You speak even [as] if the change doesn’t take place. Even [as] if you feel the change will never take place. One day, hopefully (laughs). The question we are asking is: where do the poor fit in with the national agenda? The STL is on the agenda, justice is on the agenda, the resistance is on the agenda. 30 percent of the Lebanese population is poor – if you include the refugees and the migrant workers it is 40-45 percent. Close to half of your population lives at the poverty level and it’s not on your national agenda? That’s our point.

The core of this is saying “we need to dream of a different society and what is it?” Foreigners like us are part of that discussion, but the Lebanese need to have that discussion. Where is the discussion about integrating the Bedouins into Lebanon? There isn’t that discussion. Where is the discussion about any of it?

People want to live. Politicians who do something else should be get rid of.

Posted by: somebody | Jun 7 2013 16:24 utc | 27

This is really wishful thinking in place of analysis. Erdogan/AKP are not going down and its silly to compare with Syria, Egypt.

Erdogan is the most popular figure in the country by far. Turkey has had a good economic performance over the last decade (though has slowed over the last year.) Also AKP has generally broadened freedoms and democracy. Again, there are many issues in the last two years, but 10-20 years ago, Turks were gunned down in the streets for engaging in these types of protests. AKP is conservative in many senses, but it has truly transformed the country in 10 years and brought immense and positive change in many spheres.

Also, no AKP split is coming. It is a one-man show. The idea of Gul challenging him is ludicrous on its face, even Gulen couldnt possibly interfere significantly for many reasons. I personally wish this were not the case, but it is. Erdogan is weaker but he has a long way to go before losing his utter dominance of the Turkish political scene.

Also, Turkish political culture is authoritarian, illiberal, patriarchal and Erdogan's harsh words are very common for Turkish political discourse and resonate with most voters.

Posted by: jskyler | Jun 7 2013 17:04 utc | 28

28) what was true yesterday might not be true today.

Posted by: somebody | Jun 7 2013 17:30 utc | 29

actually football fans make a great difference in the atmosphere of a political protest

They are chanting "tear gas hooray ..."

Posted by: somebody | Jun 7 2013 17:46 utc | 30

Breathless? Who's breathless?

"Celebrating the military victories of a third world dictatorship over a foreign-directed resistance that (at least used to) have real roots in popular discontent, while enjoying schadenfreude at the expense of an elected populist government facing what looks very much like a classic bourgeois "color revolution" scenario in Turkey is awful to see in a place like this."

Posted by: ruralito | Jun 7 2013 17:56 utc | 31

Kieran and Algie:

Let's be clear here. The United States has been coordinating the arming of a civil war in Syria from the beginning. The United States is imposing a civil war on Syria because the United States believes Assad was having an extremely negative impact on the region - this negative impact on the region consists entirely of supporting popular anti-Israel movements and policies.

A lot of people have died in Syria and will die in Syria in the future because outside forces are willing and able to arm an insurgency there. More than Bahrain, more than Turkey, more than Syria would have if the US believed Syria's foreign policy was not anti-Israel. The US bears a great amount of responsibility for those deaths, that it is causing on behalf of Israel, regardless of how much or little you think Assad threatened Israel.

http://mideastreality.blogspot.com/2012/02/barack-obama-and-united-states.html

Posted by: Arnold Evans | Jun 8 2013 0:02 utc | 32

Bevin is obviously arguing against something, but it certainly isn't me. I was born long after many of his hated enemies were dead or irrelevant, though I find it hilarious to be lumped with those liberal interventionists that cheered the West while Serbia burned. That's just...not accurate. Enough said.

As to Mr. Evans: I have no illusions whatever about the nature of the "resistance" in Syria. Neither am I fool enough to believe that the crowds that demonstrated against Assad before the GCC-paid mercs flooded in were each and every in the pay of the CIA and Mossad. It is clear that a real explosion of discontent driven by the economic and sectarian issues that have already been mentioned opened a window that the imperialists jumped through shooting. I believe that a great many who were on the streets two years ago have rallied to Assad in the face of the mercenary war on Syria by now.

And what has that to do with anything, really? Syria is destroyed. Assad gave nothing of consequence to the people, nor will he ever now. Whoever wins will win ugly, with probable ethnic cleansing and massacres no matter the victor. This may, indeed, have been the goal all along. The endgame now is either an insecure Assad, thrown back on Alawite and Christian support alone, with a sorely weakened military that required Hezbollah intervention to (barely) survive. Sanctions, imperial subversion, and all the rest will continue. Or Libya-in-the-Levant, with factional fighting, a Westernized and unrepresentative leadership unable to contain the Salafists that did all the actual fighting, and all the money and guns that got them there coming from Syria's geopolitical enemies.

Either way Washington and Tel Aviv win. While I understand the urge to celebrate setbacks for the imperialists, I save my sympathy for the innocents that continue to die. Assad is a rich, entitled aristocrat, handed a country to rule because of who fathered him. He's the Syrian people's problem, just as our lords and masters are ours. I will not cheer his armies because they are embarrassing *my* rulers. I would rather we solved our problems, and they theirs.

Posted by: Algie | Jun 8 2013 1:49 utc | 33

33) just that Assad also relies on Sunnis.

Don't you think that Syrian Sunnis would hate to live under a Gulf sharia?

Posted by: somebody | Jun 8 2013 2:10 utc | 34

"Assad gave nothing of consequence to the people..." save for his steadfast leadership.

"I save my sympathy for the innocents that continue to die..." Give that man a paper heart. For cheap sentiment, a cheap prize.

Posted by: ruralito | Jun 8 2013 3:49 utc | 35

We're not going to blame Assad for a $3 billion program coordinated outside of the country by enemies of Syria. There are people in every country who could be paid and armed to fight against their governments.

Erdogan is in a different situation from Assad. He's reforming a government that has historically been anti-populist and pro-Western. But as "right-wing" as he is, there is no organized opposition to his "left". His opposition, from whom he is in the process of taking power, is further "right" than he is. Hopefully a political competition will develop in Turkey where the winner will be the party that best reflects the values of the median person in that country, but that has not happened yet. Erdogan is much closer in values and view to the median person in his country than his predecessors, who once monopolized power. That does not mean Erdogan is closer to his country's median than Assad is. He might be, or he might not be. His policies don't seem to be polling well. Especially his foreign policy.

Either way 1) Assad's power is more legitimate than the governments of the pro-US colonial style dictatorships of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and others and 2) Assad had to manage the fact that the US is actively working to prevent representative governments from being stable and electoral processes, as they were in Iran in the 1950s, could be used by the US to help install another pro-US colonial style dictatorship in Syria.

Posted by: Arnold Evans | Jun 8 2013 5:25 utc | 36

good Turkey explainer by a Turkish student

We are fed up with being afraid

so it is a Turkish spring after all ...

Posted by: somebody | Jun 8 2013 8:07 utc | 37

Arnold Evans

What you say is true enough, on the level of geopolitics. Yes, Syria is the target of conspiracies - it has been since its creation. Yes, the US and its allies have invested heavily in destabilizing the Assad regime.

Geopolitics does not explain everything. If it did, it would make perfect sense to believe that Syria's crisis is all due to a "$3 billion program coordinated outside of the country by enemies of Syria". If you understood the internal factors at play (I don't mean to presume that you don't, but internal factors seem to play little role in your analysis) you would see that the present bitter civil conflict is something that could easily erupt without foreign fingers in the pie. Think about it. A country run by an arbitrary, unaccountable deep state. A deep state under the sway of a clique mostly belonging to an insecure minority group. A clique that has amassed enormous wealth in a poor country, with much of the 'private' sector really in its hands or those of its clients. An increasingly politically awakened, religiously inspired, communicative, assertive populace. That is a recipe for a social explosion even in the best of geopolitical circumstances. Conversely, even greater efforts have in the past been poured into destabilizing... say, Cuba, with little result, because the crucial internal factors were missing.

The regime blundered into causing that explosion largely under its own steam, from mid-March to mid-July 2011. Were there foreign fingers mucking about, creating provocations, incitement, encouraging militarization? Knowing the reckless immorality of US and allied foreign policies, I would be surprised if it were otherwise. Nonetheless, there were important steps that any remotely sane, humane and competent leadership would have taken to keep the crisis on the political level and avoid militarization. Explicitly forbidding the use of live ammunition on demonstrators. De-escalating situations arising from young hotheads grabbing their Kalashnikovs. Encouraging open discussion and debate (because jaw-jaw is better than war-war) and speaking with some honesty to the people (for instance, acknowledging the sectarian issue, mukhabarat abuses...) Putting forward a halfway convincing political reform program. Appointing opposition figures to the government. None of this meant surrendering the "resistance crown jewels", regarding which, ironically, most Syrians were in agreement at the time. Many Syrians, even people close to the leadership, were advocating such steps. Somehow, all the regime could come up with was bullets, tanks, and artillery. It is not difficult to see why. A political solution would have saved the country, but ultimately doomed the ruling clique as holders of absolute power. A military solution might doom the country to destruction, but it would keep the regime intact and supreme, in some form. This fact should be plainly obvious: since the beginning of the crisis the regime has consistently acted to preserve the regime, not the country.

The Syrian crisis exploded into civil war largely because of the way the leadership handled the situation in the early months. Certainly, AFTER full scale civil conflict had erupted, in summer 2011, foreign powers piled in heavy and the issue became largely 'geopolitical'. That could only happen once Syrian society had been well and truly divided - a task accomplished not by foreign conspirators, but by the regime itself.

In response to those who have said that Sunnis are well represented in military/security forces. As reliable data is scarce I certainly welcome any new sources. However, the best data available to me, namely, the work of Western and Arab scholars (Syrianists, not think tank jockeys) as well as many conversations with Syrians who have served in the army, leads to the following conclusions. Before the crisis, Sunnis were well represented in purely numerical terms. However, the officer corps has always been disproportionately Alawite. There were even some rather amusing subversive references to this in Syrian comedies. When it comes to key units like the 4th division, Republican Guard, Special Forces the percentages go up dramatically. As for the most important personnel in the chain of command, we are talking mainly Alawites (often, in traditional deep state style, the 'senior' officer is a Sunni figurehead and the real power lies with the Alawite deputy without whose approval nothing moves). Through the 1990s the majority (60%) of military officers represented on the Central Committee were Alawites (Van Dam, Struggle for Power in Syria) - I don't have detailed recent data but anecdotally the pattern is said to have become even more pronounced. In the present conflict is said that many non-'elite' formations with large Sunni components are not trusted to take much of an active part. This tallies with the regime's frantic search for more infantry, whether Alawite irregulars, popular defense committees (heavily recruited from minority communities), or Hezbollah. I will admit that these conclusions rely heavily on anecdote, conjecture, and the scholarly work of Western imperialists, but I would like to know the sources of those who claim that most of the (effective, trusted, operational) military/security apparatus is composed of Sunnis. Certainly, there are some - hardcore secular Ba'athists, members of particular clans and tribes, groomed careerists fully integrated into the 'military-mercantile complex' - but I am skeptical that the percentage is high. You want to minimize the number of people who might get the idea to blow up your crisis cell meeting.

I lurk here because I do appreciate the astute deconstruction of the geopolitical morass. But you can't understand Syria just looking at it through the geopolitical lens.

Posted by: Kieran | Jun 8 2013 9:38 utc | 38

British Lib-Dem thinks there will be an AKP split.

Graham Watson is responsible for European policy.

Posted by: somebody | Jun 8 2013 9:39 utc | 39

38) - I agree with much of what you say about internal factors, I don't agree on the sectarian part of it.

Quite likely the core of the regime is family based Alawite and driven by Syrian minorities eg Christians - which is logical as minorities in their right state of mind would always support a secular state that emphazises that your religion or ethnicity is of no importance, to insist on religious sect would be a viable strategy for Sunnis only.
That does not mean that there is a united Sunni front in Syria, I am sure the middle class majority is horrified by Gulf practices.
If the rift between Sunnis and the rest was as clear cut as you describe they would have deserted the army - you do not need to be an officer to do that. They did not.

Posted by: somebody | Jun 8 2013 10:43 utc | 40

"Think about it. A country run by an arbitrary, unaccountable deep state. A deep state under the sway of a clique mostly belonging to an insecure minority group. A clique that has amassed enormous wealth in a poor country, with much of the 'private' sector really in its hands or those of its clients."

Careful, Kieran, this sounds remarkably like the U$A under the sway of you-know-who.

Posted by: Bob Jackson | Jun 8 2013 11:21 utc | 41

Kieran, it seems you really want to blame the victim. If Assad had made minor tweaks in his policy that you've identified in hindsight, there would be no (much more than) $3 billion foreign promotion of a civil war.

The bad actor here isn't Assad, it's probably a government you vote for.

Posted by: Arnold Evans | Jun 8 2013 14:16 utc | 42

somebody

"That does not mean that there is a united Sunni front in Syria, I am sure the middle class majority is horrified by Gulf practices." True, except that the "middle class" in Syria is a small percentage of the overall population.

"If the rift between Sunnis and the rest was as clear cut as you describe they would have deserted the army - you do not need to be an officer to do that. They did not." Well, tens of thousands have deserted to the FSA. Tens of thousands more have deserted in the form of going home/leaving the country. More tens of thousands have little appetite for the risks (including to family) of desertion but are not considered trustworthy to do more than sit around guarding bases. Complete units have not defected because of the sectarian-stacked command chain mentioned. Do you have any reliable data on the sectarian makeup of front line fighting units? I do not, but it would be a fair guess that Sunnis are a distinct minority.

Arnold Evans

"If Assad had made minor tweaks in his policy that you've identified in hindsight, there would be no (much more than) $3 billion foreign promotion of a civil war." Yes, except that de-escalation of violence, a conciliatory tone, and a credible reform plan are not some highly esoteric policy tweaks identified in hindsight, but completely bleedin' obvious 'tweaks' identified by myself and countless others with clear foresight.

Posted by: Kieran | Jun 8 2013 17:42 utc | 43

43) well this here is a sociologists and he does not consider the Syrian middle class small ...

I'll explain. The Syria regime is—there is an oversimplification as to the nature of this regime. Some say, oh, it's just a few family members of the Assad elite, they belong to a sect called the Alawites, and they rule by brute force. Well, that's an oversimplification. Brute force there is. Repression there is. Brutality there is. Imprisonment there is. Torture there is. But a regime could never survive just by that, especially the Syrian regime. In the past few decades, and especially in the last 10 to 15 years, the Syrian regime has succeeded in spreading its social base. There is an elite which is around the Armed Forces and the security forces. There is an elite which is around the merchant classes of Aleppo, where a lot of fighting is going on today, and the capital, Damascus. The merchant classes of the main cities, especially these two cities, are also supportive of the regime. And these merchant classes do not belong to one sect or anything. On the contrary, most of them belong to the majority Sunni sect of Syria. There is another layer, which is the upper middle classes and some sections of the middle class which enjoy social benefits, some economic, but some social, significantly, women in public life. JAY: Now, when you say "middle class", let's define that, 'cause in the United States they tend to use middle class instead of the words working class, but in some other countries middle class means professionals and such. So which way are you using? RAMADANI: No, no, I'm using it in the sense of the professionals here, the professional classes, lawyers, accountants, people who are in certain professions. But they are well-to-do people, yes? JAY: Right. RAMADANI: Now, the women sections of these or women members of families of these (and they are a large section of society) who do not wear the hijab have enjoyed relative freedom, socially speaking, in terms of women issues, women in public life. That is why today a lot of these women are dead against the armed opposition. They're frightened. They're frightened because of the Muslim Brotherhood and because of the Salafis and the extreme Muslim organizations and al-Qaeda. They're frightened that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are the main backers of the opposition, because, remember, Saudi society is the most brutal—and I use my words carefully €”the most brutal, socially speaking, towards women in the world on planet Earth. And a lot of Syrian women fear that. They don't necessarily love this regime, but they fear the consequences of an opposition that is backed by the Saudis and the Qataris, even Turkey. The Turkish government is a Muslim Brotherhood type government, and they tend to be socially less progressive than in Syria. Okay. And another aspect which relates to the nature of the armed opposition which has in a way strengthened the regime is the existence of a mosaic of ethnicities—Kurds, Yazidis, Druze. These are national ethnic-type groupings. And you have Christians. The Christians compose 10 percent of Syria's 26 million people. Some of the churches of Syria are older than Islam itself. They belong to early Christianity. They regard themselves as the truest Christians of this world, Orthodox Christians in Aleppo, in various parts of Syria, and Homs. Aleppo has some of the oldest churches in the world. They're terrified of the armed opposition. A lot of—in Homs, there were upwards of 80,000 Christians who had to flee the city of Homs because there were a couple of massacres of Christian families in Homs. Add all this together, apart from the Shia and the Alawites (the Assad family belong to the Alawite, and the Alawites are a sect within a sect of the Shia sect in Syria), you get a complex picture where the nature of the armed opposition—I repeat, armed, because as we said in the beginning, there is a democratic, peaceful opposition which wants complete, radical change and true democracy in Syria; they are against the militarization—it's the armed opposition which is calling the shots today which terrifies all these sectors of the population that I have mentioned.

He also makes the point of women's freedom - that is 50 percent of any society.

To think Saudi Arabia, Quatar or Turkey could be a model for Syria is .... wishful thinking. Though I do not understand who in their right mind could wish for something like that.

Posted by: somebody | Jun 8 2013 18:09 utc | 44

@33 "Assad gave nothing of consequence to the people, nor will he ever now. Whoever wins will win ugly, with probable ethnic cleansing and massacres no matter the victor. This may, indeed, have been the goal all along. The endgame now is either an insecure Assad, thrown back on Alawite and Christian support alone, with a sorely weakened military that required Hezbollah intervention to (barely) survive."

As far as I can tell, you're wrong on every point here. Assad clearly knew what was coming to Syria - a government run by a group of neo-liberal exiles, relying entirely on al Qaeda backed militias for their power and lives (and having to give those al Qaeda fighters their sharia law). Just as in fact you saw it, he saw that and he took a stand against the worst sectraianism.

You yourself say Syria faced "factional fighting, a Westernized and unrepresentative leadership unable to contain the Salafists that did all the actual fighting" with a rebel victory, and this is exactly the outcome the Syrian government is trying to prevent. But you paint a picture of the outcome of a victory by the Syrian government that seems completely at odds with the facts.

"Whoever wins will win ugly, with probable ethnic cleansing and massacres no matter the victor."

This is a big fat "guess" on your part. If Assad wanted to cleanse Syria, he'd have already done so, when he looked like he may lose and he'd have to protect his sect. He didn't do it then, and he surely won't do it now that victory looks possible.

Assad has been shortening the sentences for rebel fighters - mostly Sunnis - knowing full well they'll have to go home and become Syrians again. He's going to free them only to send them home to their slaughtered villages? There will of course be bloodshed as there has already been so much. But the Syrain police won't just be randomly rounding up Sunnis (counter that to exactly what the Salafists have been doing), but instead based on whether or not the fighters are willing to lay down their arms and become part of Syria again.

"an insecure Assad, thrown back on Alawite and Christian support alone"

This flies in the face of all evidence of still meaningful Sunni support in the cities and in the government.

"a sorely weakened military that required Hezbollah intervention to (barely) survive"

Again, the facts on the ground seem exactly counter to what you've stated. Instead of what someone here rightfully described as a "police state army", Assad now has hundreds of thousands of battle-hardened soldiers who know what a war is and are bound together by their sense of victory over a foreign backed foe. Add to this that Syria has a commitment from Russia for the most advanced military supplies available and probably receive combat training from Hezbollah and you have as powerful a military force in Syria since 1948.

Hezbollah intervention, such as it was, was only secured after the Syrian Army was a in position of having the "rebels" cornered near the Lebanese border. Syria is not Italy in 1943: a beaten "state" which has to be "occupied" by its "ally." It appears that if anything Hezbollah action was far more in the "moral support" and "logistics" realm than military engagement.

"Assad is a rich, entitled aristocrat, handed a country to rule because of who fathered him. He's the Syrian people's problem, just as our lords and masters are ours."

The difference is that he has lead his country through crisis, while our leaders continually put us into them. And our lords and masters are clearly not just our problem. They're the whole world's problem - mostly because we let them be. Your claims of how Assad ascended to power are true and reflect poorly on the old Syrian state, but he has proved himself now. Assad is the Syrian's problem, and they decided to stick with him and he with they. A rich aristocrat could have fled at first chance like Ben Ali. Assad didn't do that. He stayed to fight for his country.

****

I don't know, I read your first post and I thought that "this is a good, interesting warning. We should be careful not to let Assad's bloodying the nose of the CIA get him a pass for ruling badly." But the more I read your responses, the more I think Bevin has you dead to rights.

Posted by: guest77 | Jun 9 2013 19:37 utc | 45