Discovering MENA and other thoughts

¿Cuánto tiempo puede funcionar un país sin gobierno? ¿Y sin presidente? El Líbano parece el campo de experimentación perfecto para responder a estas cuestiones si el país no implosiona antes, claro está. El pasado mes de febrero, tras meses de riñas políticas e incontables rondas de negociaciones el país árabe finalmente se dotó de un nuevo primer ministro – el líder sunita Tammam Salam, elegido prácticamente de forma unanime por todas las fuerzas políticas – y de un nuevo gabinete. La primera tarea del nuevo gobierno de interés nacional fue emitir un esperado comunicado en el cual se reafirmaba en su responsabilidad de preservar la soberanía, la independencia y la integridad territorial del Líbano a través de todos los medios legítimos a su alcance, y afirmando el derecho de los ciudadanos libaneses a resistir a la ocupación israelí y a liberar a los territorios ocupados del país. . Esto permitió que el Parlamento les concediera un voto de confianza que garantiza la in...

Tracking the events in Iraq - in the whole region, actually - might be a colossal task. Particularly so during the Summer, when it is sometimes even difficult to grasp a single headline. We all are aware about something called ISIS - or IS, as of lately - that seems to be messing around from Lebanon to Iran. A group of bearded man that scares everybody, the only ones able to force Obama to reconsider his mantra of non-intervention and to make Assad look like a harmless puppy. We've read about them, we've seen tons of maps showing their advance, we've heard rumours and conjectures. In case you've missed half of it, there go a few basic things you need to know about them. And yes, they are creepy!

Syria officially opened its presidential campaign on Sunday May 11th, and the cities and towns under the regime's control are filled with billboards and posters presenting portraits of President Bashar Al-Assad. Others, such as the ones hung in Thawra Street in the center of the capital, show either his portrait dressed in a grey suit and blue shirt or the Syrian flag overlaid with the word "together" and the President's signature. In Damascu's Sabaa Bahrat neighbourhood, one billboard proclaims: "We won't close our eyes until we have said yes to the ophthalmologist" - Assad is an eye specialist by training - "We vote for you, 2014". Elsewhere, posters read "our Bashar, we will not accept a president other than you. We have chosen you, you have our loyalty". The campaign is also flooding online media with messages of support for Assad - by the first morning, the Facebook account had garnered 65,000 likes and the Twit...

Link in Spanish: Miradas de Internacional There is no doubt about it. A presidential election will be held on June 3rd in Syria and Bashar Al Assad is going to win. The only question is by how much. Regardless of byzantine debates about whether this vote should take place or not, the truth is that the electoral scenario in Syria could be compared, with a pinch of salt, with the scenario in Egypt. The regime is perfectly capable of rigging the results, but it won’t need to, as a sizable majority of the population is looking forward to seeing the strong man elected.

Sometimes, it seems as though the only factors which contribute to sketch the future of the Middle East, most of them I laid out in this article , are out of the control of the citizens: sectarianism, repression, foreign intervention, coups (or non-coups)... However, and even though democracy may (still) not be seen as the key strength of the region, several elections are taking place in many of its countries. Concretely eight, nothing less, and in what many consider key countries that do have a say in regional - and often international - issues. This is why, although many may feel tempted to dismiss those events as procedural or even cosmetic moves, we all should take a closer look at the previous steps and the outcome of these votes.

Talking about politics in Lebanon is always tantamount to wondering about the status of Hezbollah (meaning "Party of God"). Hezbollah is, at the same time, as The Economist likes to call it, a party-cum-militia, created within the Shia community and funded by Iran during the country's civil war - in 1982 - with the main aim of offer resistance (muqawama) to the state's self declared biggest enemy that had just (taking advantage of the ongoing chaos) invaded the country: Israel. Its paramilitary wing is still regarded as a resistance movement throughout much of the Arab and Muslim worlds. Several countries and organizations in the West and elsewhere (U.S., Netherlands, France, Gulf Cooperation Council, U.K., Australia, Canada, the European Union ) classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, be it in whole or in part.

The Syrian National Coalition (SNC), the one and only body considered as representative of the Syrian opposition by the international community (despite its lacklustre state and its problems with the rebels on the ground, many of them having refused to recognise its authority and rejecting the idea of negotiations) has agreed to participate in peace talks with the regime that will take place in Geneva, what pundits like to call "Geneva 2 talks". The helter-skelter body has however outlined certain conditions for its attendance that will need to prove the Syrian regime's goodwill and predisposition, particularly a guarantee that relief agencies would be given access to deliver humanitarian assistance and that political prisoners would be released. In this sense, many considered as a very good omen a deal whereby a blockade on the rebel-held town of Qudsaya, near Damascus, will be eased.

One of the unforeseen consequences of the much bragged about Russia & U.S. backed deal on Syrian Weapons of Mass Destruction has been casting light on one key stakeholder which nonetheless was trying to remain on the sidelines as of lately, Israel. Indeed, Assad´s regime immediate reaction after relinquishing and accepting to give up its weapons (and therefore admitting their being in possession of them) was to point its finger to the eternal usual suspect when it comes to WMD in the region. A suspicion that might have been clarified by a 1983 C.I.A. paper that has been recently declassified whereby the Hebrew state has for decades amassed this kind of arms. Israel has however always acted with ambiguity and never acknowledged having nuclear weapons, even though many amongst its authorities have hinted they have the right to assemble and stock them in order to defend themselves (and by themselves, without having to call for outside intervention) from all these danger...

I found a good article underlining why Syria's situation is not the same as the one in Kosovo back in 1999 whereby "apples are being compared not to oranges but to cobras". In view of these arguments, do you think intervention might be still justifiable?

Everything suggested an American attack was imminent ... until Putin and his five-star Foreign Minister made magic and amazed us all by buying Assad a little more time. While never-ending debates about intervention were still invading the media and after the UK Parliament threw a bucket of cold water on the idea of a Libya-style Western-led operation, President Obama decided the US congress would have the last word on any eventual attack. It appeared the Republicans supported this move and, even though a vote has not still been cast, it seemed only the moment and exact target were still to be decided.

Via The Arabist, in turn via WINEP

It seems a  US  strike on  Syria  is now imminent. Presumably without the backing of a United Nations Security Council resolution. Apparently, Assad has trespassed the red line President Obama spoke about a year ago. As if more than 100,000 deaths and nearly 2 million refugees were not convincing enough a reason. A horrifying attack with chemical weapons on the  Damascus  suburb of Ghouta that allegedly left behind more than 1,000 dead has set itself up as the most probable turning point of a conflict that has already ravaged the country and the whole region for more than two years. 

You know I'm not the pessimistic kind of person, but the opposite. Nonetheless, every time I take a glance at what is happening in Syria, I am increasingly disheartened. For months the conflict has been dragging on, with hundreds killed each day and thousands fleeing towards neighboring countries (or worse still, returning to Syria out of desperation at the sight of the outrageous conditions the gigantic refugee camps put them in). Let's not forget about the xenophobic feeling towards Syrians citizens that is mounting throughout the region, particularly in Lebanon and Jordan, tiny countries truly incapable of giving shelter and providing staples to the ravaged families that get to their countries. Xenophobia out of sectarian hatred, xenophobia out of fear of spillover, xenophobic out of anger at what they consider is putting stability of the whole region under threat. People talk about a lost generation in Europe. Try figuring the future of a generation whose children cannot g...

In addressing the debate on the pros and cons of foreign intervention in Syria, there are many parallels that might be found between the Syrian situation and the dilemma faced several Western powers before the Spanish Civil War. George Orwell said that " the outcome of the war in Spain was decided outside of the country and one year afterwards, any realistic observer knew that the democratic government would not be able to win unless there was a radical change in the European situation. " The picture was complicated: firstly most states clung to the need to appease Hitler's Germany, and at the same time, many had mixed feelings regarding the communist forces. Paradoxically, the ultimate goal was to avoid a general war in Europe with, like the Spanish war and the Syrian conflict, deeply ideological roots. The position of the international community in the conflict was finally based on the non-intervention principle, but this postulate was openly mocked by Nazi Germany...

Obsessing over the Syrian conflict, as I usually tend to do, I figured it might be useful to compile the main reasons why the already all-out war is at a standstill or, in other words, how come is Assad's regime so resilient?  Sectarianism, along other minor factors, is the reason why the civil war in Syria merely started as an uprising (although mainly spearheaded by Sunni leaders) eager to bring down Assad's authoritarian regime, but has progressively taken on religious and ethnic characteristics. Assad's father was able, at the expense of thousands of people dead and millions of ravaged families, to quell the Muslim Brotherhood rebellion three decades ago. This time, the dissent, rage and hatred were deeper and more disseminated and above all were fanned by the optimist winds of the Arab Spring,  The composition of the army and the higher echelons of the regime, built up across sectarian lines since Hafed Al-Assad and his Baathist allies seized power fi...

Incredibly useful information taken from here  (the rest of the analysis is quite interesting, too): "'Alawi" is the term that 'Alawis (also called 'Alawites) usually apply to themselves ; but until 1920 they were known to the outside world as Nusayris or Ansaris. The change in name - imposed by the French upon their seizure of control in Syria - has significance. Whereas "Nusayri" emphasizes the group's differences from Islam, "'Alawi" suggests an adherent of 'Ali (the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad) and accentuates the religion's similarities to Shi'i Islam. Consequently, opponents of the Asad regime habitually use the former term, while its supporters use the latter. 'Alawis today number approximately 1.3 million, of which about a million live in Syria. They constitute some 12 percent of the Syrian population. Three-quarters of the Syrian 'Alawis live in Latakia, a province in the northwest of Syria...

Throughout the week, a lot has been said about Israel attacking Syria. The news was about Israel carrying out airstrikes in and around Damascus, targeting missiles Iran intended to smuggle into Lebanon through Syrian soil. The final addressee was Hezbollah, which would in turn have later used this "game-changing" weapons to attack Israel. Even though Israel did not confirm the military move at the beginning (the first information came from US intelligence sources), many officials (including an Israeli ambassador acting as guest speaker in a conference on the Southern Mediterranean I had the honour to attend) have commented on it, affirming that Israel is not looking forward to intervening in Syria, but has drawn its particular "red line", that is, Iran providing the Shiite militia with powerful arms that will put in danger both the stability in the region and Israeli citizens' safety. As a matter of fact, and in anticipation to some kind of counter-attack, I...

For months, the Syrian opposition has been accusing Hezbollah of waging a war against the Syrian people. Reports increasingly acknowledge the presence of Lebanese fighters, fighting alongside Assad´s army, on Syrian soil, namely in Shiite villages along the border between Syria and Lebanon. Even though the extent of the implication of Shiite group in Syria cannot be verified, it was clear the cum-militia had, in some measure, blood in their hands. This was confirmed when, in a televised speech, the leader of the Lebanese organization, Hassan Nasrallah, said they are ready to protect the Syrian regime. Nasrallah affirmed Syria has true friends in the region and the world that won't permit Syria to "fall in the hands of America, Israel, and Takfiris [jihadist group linked to Al Qaeda]". He added that members of Hezbollah were "providing appropriate aid" to Syrian government forces. He however denied Iranian forces are deployed in Syria, although he acknowledged ...

The minaret of Aleppo's Umayyad Mosque  (built between the 8th and 12th centuries and designated as a UNESCO world heritage site ), has been destroyed during clashes between government troops and opposition forces. The destruction comes just a week after the minaret from Omari Mosque was destroyed in Daraa. Look at how beautiful it was.