It’s an interesting opinion about the situation in the Middle East.
http://katehon.com/
Originally appearedat Katehon, written by Ahmed Rajeev
“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”
– Sun Tzu (544- 495 BCE); The Art of War.
Near past:
The west supported the color revolution in the Middle East for their own gain of globalization and global hegemony, and unfortunately such reckless western foreign policy caused great divisions between the locals who had their own historical understanding of Middle Eastern society and its organic sustainability. Gradually the Middle East turned into a place for nursing racial and ideological hatred with violence and terror.
Though historically, the west began to arm those Wahhabi terrorists who wanted to spread indescribable violence back in soviet-afghan war in 80’s. Now, the history is being artificially repeated by the west in the Middle East. In Iraq, Syria and other places, the Ultra-Religious terrorist groups emerged with many names but with the common old goal of spreading terror and panic in a politically vulnerable society, such thing happened in Afghanistan back in 80’s too.
But the west committed a big mistake when they activated their same old Ethno-Religion-political violence programs against Syrian president Bashar al Assad. Since the Syria and its state systems have very deep economic, diplomatic and military relation with Federal Russia and Iran. One is global super power and another one is regional super power. So the west failed to understand that, the Syrian crisis cannot be solved without the Russian and Iranian consent.
Meanwhile the amount of aggression by those terrorists had been increasing to threat the whole Europe when the world saw the Charlie Hebdo and other loner wolf terrorist attacks taking places on European soil. And the security situation of Middle East then began to challenge the European security through terrorism and refugee crisis. Since then, the conscious world had been looking for a getaway from this crisis.
Indirectly, the west and their local Middle Eastern partners have been using the ‘Ethno-Religion-political violence’ or the terrorism or ‘the proxy hybrid forces” against politically established states for their own geopolitical and local gains. Though, readers must know that some of the regional ethno-Religious-Cultural-political disputes are nearly century’s years old. But in the near past days, there were cultural and economic harmonies, there were hard times but there were places for organic sustainability for certain historically rich societies. But the caustic greed and negative ambitions of the west towards someone else’s wealth and the transport roots of the trade can destroy any natural craft of social order. To understand the obvious threat of terror upsurge that can harm other societal fabric, Russian president Vladimir Putin wrote an article in 2013, published in New York Times on the date of September 11. Putin Wrote, “Mercenaries from Arab countries fighting there, and hundreds of militants from Western countries and even Russia, are an issue of our deep concern. Might they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria? “
“The cuckoos remain silent for a long time until they are able to sing sweetly. “
– Kautilya Gupta (350-225 BCE), Nitishashtra
Near Present:
On September 30, Russian aerospace force started to bomb the terrorist dens in Syria. Later Syrian armed forces pumped up their ground battle. The hi-tech precision bombing and ground advancement significantly destroyed terrorist positions. On the other hand, the irresponsible US bombing on MSF hospital that killed 22 civilian victims in Kunduz raised many important questions. Such as, does the west have the sophistication to fight terrorism? Were they doing the same kind of irresponsible bombing during their so called long war on terror in Afghanistan and other places? Does the west really have the true intension to fight terrorism?
There is an interesting fact that if the bombing was not happened over the pro-west hospital, the incident would not get such main stream media exposer. On the contrary, from the very beginning of the Russian bombing in Syria, the western media and some of their Arm-chair diplomats have been blaming that Russian strikes are killing civilians and west backed innocent rebels. Though, they have not given any clear evidence on their claims. On the other hand, some of the west funded propaganda machines are being exposed for their inauthenticity and negative intentions, such as the one man show propaganda house” Syrian Observatory of Human Rights” and George Soros funded NGO, “The white helmets”.
The western backed propaganda machines are still working full throttle to make a global consent of negative Russia. According to them, Russia is Ruthless; they are killing Arab Civilians. Though, on the other hand Russia is providing sufficient information and images of their pinpoint surgical bombings into the dens of terrorists. In recent days, Russia and the allies sent a huge amount of relief goods as well for the long war affected civilians in Syria.
Some Middle East based regional propaganda machines of the west have been expressing a view that, Russia is waging a war on Islam or particularly on Sunni Islam. Let me quote what Russian president said about that in Valdai Discussion Club on 22th October, 2015; Putin said, “The aim of Russia’s military operations and diplomatic efforts in this area is to fight terrorism and not to mediate between representatives of the different currents of Islam. We value equally our Shiite friends, our Sunni friends, and our Alawite friends. We do not make distinctions between them.” So, Putin cleared up everything related Russian war on terror and social divisions, if there was really such a question of religious crusade.
There is a western propaganda shared by some western pundits who say, Russia is waging an empirical war on Syria; which is completely a false claim. If some terror affected country asks for military help from its friend-country, and in reply the both friends try to destroy the terror, how can someone call it an empirical war?
There are other western media pundits who are promoting another propaganda which states, Russia is in war for selling Arms and Ammunitions. And interestingly, those pundits reclaimed later that Russian Ammunitions are not modern, and those only kill civilians. The funny thing is, if they say Russian Arms are efficient and modern, eventually they will lose their own arms market.
When the mainstream western media is networking the propaganda against Russian actions in Syria, the western diplomacy is working in the ground to prolong the Middle East crisis into the abyss. There were reports of dozens of Middle Eastern Sunni clerics who jumped into urging Sunni Muslims to fight the so called Crusade. We saw Qatar’s ambition to send military supports for the terrorists. Turkey is playing a mysterious double role and waiting for their general election to take more steps into the Syrian crisis. In recent days, Syrian and Iraqi terrorist groups have got many military weapons too from the west and their regional partners. The US supplied huge amount of weapons to the unknown so called “moderate rebels”. There are reports of Saudi-Qatar-Turkey connections with some violent terrorist groups in that area. Recently, the Saudi military got weapons from Israel in relation to fight the Yemeni rebels. As the situation over Middle East is very suitable for terrorist recruitment for some known reasons, the weapons are flooding too into Syria and Iraq. We have seen that the terrorists are using hi-tech anti-tank weapons nowadays. They will be seeking to get Anti Air Craft weaponries as well near future.
On the other hand, the US declared recently that they want to escalate their military efforts in the Middle East by providing more ground troops and air strikes. The west has taken such decisions when they saw their factory made terrorists has been losing ground rapidly in their key points in Syria for Russian airstrike and Syrian ground attacks. This scenario emerged as the existential threat for the western foreign policy in the geopolitics of Middle East where the western hegemony has many political, diplomatic and military engagements. So, after running a disastrous foreign policy in the Middle East for decades, suddenly the west is pumping up their military actions in name of protecting Middle East. But this time, the US wants to save their so called ‘Conservative Islamic militias’ or the “Moderate rebels”. Though, except those different enthusiastic names, there was no other clear distinction between the “moderate rebels” or “post-moderate rebels” or terrorists in that particular war torn area. All the groups have been fighting with outmost terror against a legitimate government to destroy the state system.
“There are three types of war. Open war, Concealed war and the Silent War.”
– Kautilya Gupta (350-275 BCE), Arthashashtra
Near Future:
There is a fundamental difference between the west waged ‘wars on terror’ and Russian war on terror. The western waged illegal wars on terror should be treated as heinous attempt to spread western geopolitical and geo-military influences throughout the politically vulnerable worlds. In the name of war on terror the west waged a camouflaged war of illegal occupation, tyranny and unprecedented wealth-gain. It has many negative dimensions of global domination through military supremacy.
On the other hand, the Russian war on terror is completely legal, very precise and transparent one, where the only goal is to fight the global terrorists based in Syria. According to intelligence reports those terrorists pose real threats to the Russian federation interests and CIS countries. Responding to a request from the Syrian government, that gave the legality for the war, Russia has been showing the world the true intension of a state to fight against terrorism into its own ground with surgical precisions.
These two seemingly similar but completely opposite ideology of war on terror will unfold many truthful but uneasy phases in the near future of world politics. The relatively defeated western policy makers are now coming with the idea of ‘reconciliation, regroup and re-attack’.
The west will be renaming, redesigning, reshaping, regrouping and rearming their bomb struck terrorists with the regional supports from Israel, Saudi, Jordan, Qatar and Turkey. The terrorists will execute the same strategy of urban guerilla warfare that they have been practicing against Syrian government for last more than 4 years but this time they will come up with updated weaponries and faster mobility.
On the other hand, Russia and their allies in the Middle East will speed up their military and diplomatic efforts to avoid less bloodshed in coming days. The situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and some places in Caucasus are deteriorating in favor of the terrorists. There are possibilities that west may want to open too many terrorist fronts to handle for Russia by spreading terrorism into more places so that the west can easily confront the opposite economic and military blocs. But, like the economic sanctions on major economic power, the aggressive military strategy of confrontation on major military power, both are counterproductive. Though, the later one is so destructive in nature that the grand confrontation can easily sent the earth into dark ages by mutual destruction.
So, it is now an important duty for the conscious citizen of the world to work on the possible solutions on this crisis; though, we all know that, without solving the sectarian crisis, without the pacification between Syrian and Turkish governments, without the reconciliation between Palestine and Israel, without showing friendly gestures by the Gulf Cooperation counsel member towards the Iraqi and Syrian governments, without thinking of rehabilitation for the war affected people psychologically and physically, without the wise collective strategy of the stakeholders for Iraq, Syria and the Middle East, without giving sufficient organic cultural space into the population this gruesome crisis cannot be solved properly.