The delivery of a battery of Patriot missiles and F-16 Falcon fighter planes to Jordan by the US (STRATFOR: 03/06/13) as a countermeasure against a potential spill over from the Syrian civil war into Jordanian territory, is unnecessarily provocative. Firstly, should such a spill over occur, it would occur through the uncontrolled movement of guerrilla fighters from Syria into Jordan, something that neither Patriots nor F-16s could deter or physically counter. If viewed in terms of pure symbolism, while King Abdullah of Jordan is a very close ally of the United States, the idea of beefing up Jordan’s air defences says more about potentially preparing Jordanian territory as a staging base for a no-fly zone/s over Syria, than it does about anything else. The Syrian Air Force is currently preoccupied with carrying out strikes against rebel forces geographically located within Syria proper. It has neither the will nor the technical capability of challenging regional air forces, as its impotence against recent Israeli airstrikes on Syrian targets clearly demonstrated (early May 2013). Israel, Jordan and Turkey share US military technology so it makes sense that this regional triumvirate, along with US assistance, may very well form the base of an internationally sanctioned no fly zone arrangement over Syria to finally close down Syrian Air Force operations against rebel forces. The recent controversy over the delivery of Russian weapons to the besieged government forces of Bashar Al-Assad adds to the perception that bolstering Jordan is in preparation for something more dramatic since the actual threat posed to Jordan by the Syrian Air Force, even under these dire circumstances, is miniscule. More worrying, however, is recent talk from a former Israeli intelligence chief who suggests that a massive Israeli aerial campaign on Syrian forces could topple the Assad regime. While possibly true, the problem is that such a strike may also incapacitate much of Syria’s remaining governing assets, thereby undermining Damascus’ capacity for central authority and leading to the possible fragmentation of Syria proper. Then, there’s the thorny question of whether the Syrian Rebels would feel gratitude for this sort of unilateral Israeli assistance, or simply take whatever opportunity avails them before turning their guns on the Jewish state.

By Dr. John Bruni, Director SAGE International

News from Turkey indicates that the Turkish people’s experiment with ‘soft political Islam’ as represented by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), is becoming an unmitigated disaster. To be sure the AKP has presided over a period of impressive Turkish growth and development, but much of the foundations of this economic miracle pre-dates the AKP’s political victory back in 2002. Erdogan’s growing autocratic streak stems from his confidence in his ability to tap the wellspring of political Islam throughout rural Turkey. Having purged the senior military ranks of Kemalists (2011), officers sworn to uphold Turkey’s secular constitution, Erdogan and the AKP believe, perhaps rightly so, that they could stage massive pro-government rallies to rival the spate of anti-government protests spreading from Istanbul to other areas of the country. Let us hope that he is not put to the test. The level of anti-government anger on the streets of Turkey is dangerous and the threat of staging pro-government rallies amidst these protests will likely lead Turkey down the path to revolution or civil war. There are enough players within the Turkish body politic eagre to see the removal of the AKP in its entirety – through violence if necessary. While presently the opposition can be considered a minority among the urban elites, (much of the AKP’s popularity resides in the countryside), careful management of social media by protesters may over time change this equation. They need only to look through the pages of the Arab Spring playbook. Erdogan’s confidence in discrediting and crushing dissent against his rule will depend on his abilities to co-opt and persuade the bulk of his opposition to accept his vision for Turkey – unfettered inner city development with no apparent love nor appreciation for Turkey’s long, heterogeneous cultural heritage. The more time passes with no clear change in Erdogan’s dismissive attitude towards the concern of the people, the more likely that he might unwittingly dismantle his political success and that of his party, which may in turn put a halt to Turkey’s stunning economic progress in recent years.

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P.S. 03/06/2013 Turkey’s stock market plunged 10.5 percent as a consequence of anti-government rioting, leading the Turkish government to apologise for the use of excessive force 05/06/2013.

By Dr. John Bruni, Director SAGE International

With the USS Eisenhower moving closer to the Syrian coast, the whiff of an international military intervention in the Syrian civil war seems a possibility, though still a distant one.

The Eisenhower battle group, according to recent reports, has some 8,000 US military personnel ready to do combat with the Syrian Army, and by extension, any Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Basij paramilitary ‘volunteers’ in-country giving succour to Assad’s forces.

Some 8 carrier-based fighter squadrons – easily enough to deal with the entire Syrian Air Force which has up till now operated against Syrian rebels with impunity, also stand ready to carry out air-to-surface strikes on Syrian Army positions as well as intercepting Syrian fighter planes. With NATO approving the deployment of Patriot surface-to-air missiles to the Turkish-Syrian border, the stage is being set for something. What that something is, may not be clear for a while yet. The deployment of foreign forces does not necessarily mean that they will be used. It does mean, however, that international forces are seeking to influence those within Assad’s inner circle to come to a negotiated settlement. This could mean any number of things. Assad being ‘convinced’ to take the option of exile; an Alawite coup against Assad, with Assad being offered up to the international community to stand trial for war crimes, or being killed outright; Assad being ‘taken out’ by his inner circle so that those involved can retire to the Alawite homeland of Latakia province and declare their independence, or, reach a political settlement with the largely Sunni anti-government resistance. The latter possibility seems the least likely, considering that too much blood has been spilled on both sides.

Regardless of how Assad’s downfall is being hatched in the halls of power, either in the West or on the fields of battle within Syria itself, two things are likely to emerge. Iran’s strategic footprint will be rolled back from the Levant – something that will be welcomed by Sunni Arab interests, both within Syria and throughout the Arab world. This can only intensify the confrontation between the West, Israel and the Gulf Arab states on the one hand, and Iran on the other. There is also the possibility of a Sunni-led genocide against Alawites and their Christian and Druze collaborators who helped keep the ‘republican dynastic’ Assad family in power for 41 years. This latter possibility is likely to destabilise Syria, with the international community turning against any Sunni Syrian leadership that enables such a scenario. Will Israel be a beneficiary of this new strategic situation? Perhaps. But only if Syria quickly reverts to the ‘pragmatic stability’ that characterised the Assad years. Should Syria fragment into a genocidal mess with jihadists in control of Damascus and bent on revenge against survivors of the former regime, then Israel’s security profile along its northern borders will look less certain.

The increasing spate of so-called green (Afghan government forces) on blue (foreign ISAF forces) violence in Afghanistan is something that speaks to the futility of maintaining an indefinite Western military presence in that strange, alien place. Why strange, why alien?

Unlike countries of the Western enlightenment tradition, Afghanistan has never enjoyed strong political and social institutions nestled in the fabric of a stable, centralised state. Yes, there have been times in Afghan history when various warlords rose to power and created nascent kingdoms and empires. But they were ephemeral occurrences, generally lasting for a few short generations before disintegrating into internecine tribal/ethnic warfare or becoming the plaything of external imperial powers. The Afghan people are trapped by their geography and their history. The disconnected societies that evolved from amongst the many isolated valleys and mountains of Afghanistan, means that ‘Afghan’ might be a broad definition signifying a local identity, a differentiator from foreign people and influences, but this definition never grew into a national consciousness as the West would understand it. Indeed, the fact that ISAF personnel are still trying to develop a ‘nation building program’ in a country that is largely devoid of nationalism, seems like a fool’s errand. Local Afghans still identify themselves in terms of their religion, their village, their family and their ethnicity; rarely do they identify themselves with their ‘country’. Only those who live in their own foreign-sponsored bourgeois cocoon in Kabul, (the Afghan capital), believe that with a foreign military presence and enough foreign aid, the fiction of a modern Afghanistan can be maintained indefinitely. But the denizens of Kabul are not representative of Afghanistan proper. In Kabul, the political elite is well educated and has daily contact with foreigners either dispensing aid, or developing ‘capacity building’ programmes for the national government. Some have travelled outside of Afghanistan, but they are the minority. The vast bulk of Afghanistan’s population has little contact with the outside world and what little contact they have, they find unacceptable to their religious duty, their way of life and their ethnic loyalties. So what are we, the West, doing there? We initially went in to dislodge the Taliban who gave sanctuary to Al Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the US. This was a rational strategy and the tactics used against the Taliban and Al Qaeda ingenious. For relatively little expenditure of finance, arms and men, the US and its allies (Afghan and foreign) changed the political equation of Afghanistan by ousting the Taliban from power. That’s arguably where the Western mission should have ended. People understand revenge and the US needed its vengeance against Mullah Omar and bin Laden. The subsequent mission creep, with no end in sight, was a bad political choice based on a wilful ignorance of Afghan realities. Continuing to push a Western agenda is, again, a bad political choice with tragic outcomes as we have seen over the past few days.

As long as we in the West believe it to be our God given right to interfere in the politico-social affairs of others, we should not be surprised when bad things happen to our military personnel sent to far-flung places to do the bidding of the chattering classes.

By Dr. John Bruni, Director SAGE International

The Alawites, Syria’s ruling minority, have arguably the most to loose should the international community continue to fully back the largely Sunni Syrian anti-Assad opposition. Indeed Bashar’s father, Hafez Al-Assad (Syrian dictator, 1971-2000) had a key ambition, and that was to never again see his people, the Alawites, be demoted to their historical status as Syria’s persecuted minority. Considering that politics in the Levant (the name for the part of the Middle East facing the Eastern Mediterranean) has always been a relatively brutal affair, with violence being the political tool of choice for both government and opposition parties, Hafez Al-Assad failed to create an inclusive political elite with enough pluralism to satisfy the minimal needs of the country’s multitude of sectarian, economic and political interests. Instead, the Assad dictatorship crushed internal dissent wherever and whenever it was challenged, and thus created a dynastic republican powerbase where politics was concentrated not just in the hands of the Alawites, but specifically in the hands of the Assad family. Over time, this legacy of state-directed political violence and manipulation left Syria’s disenfranchised Sunni majority with little option other than armed insurrection to contest Assad’s legitimacy. And, even with the backing of Christian, Druze, Shia and other minority groups co-opted into the Assad governing structure, this band of minority ‘outcasts’ simply did not have the ability to face-off against the Sunni majority once the latter decided to organise a national anti-Assad resistance. In days gone by, before the advent of the Arab media giants Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, before the advent of the Internet and of social media, the Alawites could have reverted to a brutal default setting and snuff out all anti-government resistance. Few cameras would have recorded atrocities and expose them to the world. Since the 2010 Arab Spring however, we have seen the pervasiveness of mainstream and social media undermine dictatorial regimes in the Middle East. It is as if ‘the people’ or ‘the oppressed’ have not only found their voice, but have at their disposal the tools to conduct their own ‘Information Operation’ campaigns against their staid and repressive governing elites. Does this mean that democracy will ensue? If events in Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia are any guide, then probably not. Civil society in these countries is still weak and political power still comes out of the barrel of the gun, rather than through free and fair elections. But with the steady gaze of the media, as well as the army of individual Bloggers and ‘crowdsourcing’ by people with smart phones, governments have fewer ways of averting international attention from their ‘bad behaviour’ unless they attack mainstream and social media at its source, as has been done by the People’s Republic of China.

So what of the unfolding tragedy in Syria? What are the possible outcomes of the current conflict?

The most likely scenario is that the fighting will intensify over the next few weeks, placing even more pressure on the Alawite elite and on Assad’s inner circle in particular. Assad’s Prime Minister Riad Hijab fled into exile to Jordan. Treason? Well that depends on which side of the fence one finds oneself. Meanwhile, Hijab might have dreams of a senior role in any post-Assad Sunni dominated government. Many who are still considered close to Assad will be calculating their leader’s days and actions to be considered. There will, at some point, be a critical juncture that may accelerate Assad’s demise. Perhaps an internal putsch by disaffected and fearful Alawite officers of the Syrian military, or, an assassination attempt on Assad himself. Such developments will change the situation on the ground, for without Assad in power, the path may be clear to serious negotiations between the Sunni opposition and the Alawites on new power-sharing arrangements. But the clock is ticking and the more blood that is spilled by the Alawite government in defence of Assad, the less likely an outcome of meaningful negotiations between Alawites and Sunnis, and a high probability that the current civil war will evolve into a full-scale Alawite pogrom.

By Dr. John Bruni, Director SAGE International

Things must be getting bad in Australian foreign policy circles when the perennial bug-bear, Australia’s relations with China, gets yet another run in what appears a never-ending public debate. A former Defence strategist (Hugh White) versus a former Prime Minister (Paul Keating), both trying to justify their respective position on Australian/Chinese/American relations. But ultimately Australia’s role in the Asia-Pacific is based on one truth – Australia is the only regional state with a majority European population, and relatively inclusive political and economic institutions. This presents Australia with a major problem. It can’t get close to Asian governments nor can it fully integrate with them. It is no wonder therefore, that while Canberra pays a lot of lip-service to its relations with Asia, these relations are primarily based on an acceptance that it is business and foreign investment flows that characterise Australia’s relationship with Asia, not a fondness for how the countries of Asia are governed. Even larger intakes of Asian migrants can’t fix this dilemma. Most Asian migrants to Australia want to be more Australian and buy into the political, social and economic inclusiveness that we’ve cultivated since federation (1901). Having more Chinese students or migrant communities springing up in inner city Australian suburbs might mean more and better Chinese restaurants, but it does not translate to better relations with China per se. Contemporary China is a totalitarian state and that will not change in the near future. Australia’s interest, as a market-driven democracy, is to ensure that the current Chinese political apparatus in Beijing keeps buoying our economy. Therefore, a willingness to foster the creative destruction necessary for China’s political elite to change to a more inclusive, democratic form of politics is, apart from the occasional motherhood statement, found wanting in our foreign policy documents. Our relationship with China is based upon fostering China’s internal stability, that means, keeping the status quo and managing any obvious awkwardness. Democratisation by its very nature would wreck havoc on the current friendly Sino-Australian business environment. No amount of speculation over China’s role in the world (many assuming that the Chinese politburo will simply keep power for the duration) can hide the fact that a debate about whether Australia should orientate to the ‘reality’ of Chinese hegemony in the Western Pacific, or tie itself closer to its traditional strategic ally, leads to one inescapable conclusion. America, as a European-derived market-driven democracy with political, linguistic, social and cultural similarities, will always be considered Australia’s ‘natural’ partner. Talk of Australia’s integration with Asian governments would only have merit if we reconcile ourselves with the reality that actual integration doesn’t simply require more Asian people, delicacies or goods. It would require Australia’s political elite to be more extractive and repressive. It would require Australia to become a place where a government’s hold on power becomes its central tenet. Only then could we see things from the so-called ‘Asian’ perspective and make peace with the much-lauded ‘Asian way’ of development.

By Dr. John Bruni, Director SAGE International