There seem to be three levels to the Syrian conundrum.<\/p>\n
On top is the conflict over who is to rule Syria, the Assad minority Shia, 13%, mainly Alawite–or Baath rather, more secular, socialist–dictatorship respecting other minorities–Christians, Armenians, Assyrians, Druze, Kurds, Turkoman, or<\/i> a majority Sunni, 73% dictatorship with no such respect.\u00a0 Both groups fight with brutality, the list of crimes on both sides is long, and the world is watching the unbearable suffering of the Syrian people, even from nerve gases.<\/p>\n
Then, in the middle, is the usual geopolitical game of states and regions.\u00a0 In the background are huge alliances, the 28 mainly small NATO countries against the 6+ SCO-Shanghai Cooperation Organization countries with two enormous members.\u00a0 The five veto powers of the UN Security Council are openly involved–USA, UK, France, Russia and China, and Turkey, for their economic, military and political interests, paralyzing the UN Security Council (like the USA blocking a UNSC resolution after the February 2013 Damascus bombing).<\/p>\n
And then, at the bottom, feeding into it all, two cultural, religious fundamentalisms.\u00a0 There is Islamist fundamentalism in the Shia-Sunni divide, with Iran-Hizbollah.\u00a0 But, possibly more important, is the anti-secularist-socialist\/Baath position of Arab monarchies. And there is the Judeo-Christian idea of Chosenness<\/i> afflicting Israel and the USA, with not only the right but a duty to impose their God-given will on others. They are two of the same kind, united in that faith, with the tail wagging the dog and Obama as the tail-dog link; protecting not only Israel-Jordan but also its own exceptionalism.<\/p>\n
How do we approach this overwhelmingly complex conflict for solutions that could be acceptable and sustainable?\u00a0 How do we think?<\/p>\n
Conflict fundamentalists will say: handle the fundamentalist center of the conundrum, the bottom, first, and the rest follows.\u00a0 Make Islam more tolerant; make Israel-USA less exceptionalist.<\/p>\n
Others will say we do not have the time; in the meantime the power struggle inside and over Syria, and the suffering, continues.<\/p>\n
Enters Putin and with a stroke of genius spreads some light over the whole complex: focus less on who did it, more on the gas itself. Get rid of it, by destruction and-or storage in a safe place, manages the incredible: geopolitical cooperation across the board, a focus on weapons and violence more than on the actors–usually one as evil–paving the way for a ceasefire in Syria.\u00a0 But, the fundamentalisms?<\/p>\n
He explicitly addresses US exceptionalism–and dishonest US empire-builders, badly wounded, try to hit back referring to him as KGB. But Putin is telling the intractable bottom level by handling the top and middle level: Look, your violent approach does not work!<\/p>\n
The UN Secretary General, had he not been a US puppet, should have said this long time ago.\u00a0 A Hammnarski\u00f6ld might, a U Thant.<\/p>\n
But, there are problems.\u00a0 That the Assad regime has chemical arms deposits to be declared, inspected, handled as parts of a multilateral, verifiable process is obvious.\u00a0 But there could be other deposits in other hands, also in neighboring countries, easily smuggled in. Are we to believe that the Assad regime ordered a gas attack, well knowing the red line, the White House producing no compelling evidence? Or that somebody else launched that attack to unleash massive anti-Assad retribution?\u00a0 The latter seems more likely, so any rational approach to eliminate the gas would have to cover both in talks behind closed doors.<\/p>\n
The Russian focus on the gas got the USA off the hook.\u00a0 There is no support for a US attack except from Israel that wants Syria cut into four parts and the Shia part occupied.\u00a0 Not from NATO, not from US public opinion, not US top military, not the US Congress unable to unite on almost anything tormenting the USA right now, not “special relation” UK with the Parliament against, 285-272.\u00a0 The McNamara thesis: the USA does not want to act alone, like White House alone.<\/p>\n
Where in the amazingly complex history of the region with present day Syria carved out by Western imperialism do we find the inspiration for a solution?\u00a0 Every power left their marks, faiths, their nations behind, in what became a rich crossroad, for Christians on the road to Damascus (Saulus = Apostle Paul), for Muslims on the road to Mecca (the hajj<\/i>). An incredible history.\u00a0 The Umayyad khalifate was short-lasting, 661-750, but became the largest empire of its time and one of the largest ever, expanding east and west along North Africa into Spain till 1492, spreading Islam everywhere. But in 750 they were overthrown by what became the Abassid khalifate centered in Baghdad, itself overthrown when Baghdad was sacked by the Mongol Hulegu on February 10 1258.\u00a0 Thus, a majority Sunni Syria next to majority Shia Iraq also revives historical rivalries the Baath party tried to mend.<\/p>\n
That light comes from four centuries of Ottoman rule, 1516-1916, till the Western betrayal.\u00a0 They were Sunni Muslims respecting Arabic and the religious minorities: at the time Shia Muslim, Greek Orthodox, Maronite, Armenian and Jewish–each constituting a millet<\/i> with much autonomy.\u00a0 Human rights long before the human rights.\u00a0 Erd\u00f6gan would have done better had he taken less of a position in the geopolitical game, basing himself more on Ottoman sophistication.\u00a0 And even more so now that the Nabucco pipeline from the Caspian to Southern Europe, bringing fossil fuels certified as non-Russian and non-Shia through Georgia and Turkey, with huge transition fees, seems to be crumbling.<\/p>\n
This column has for years been arguing for a two-chamber parliament in Syria having an upper house with eight or so nations\u2014like the Ottoman millets–and a coalition government. Very far from US “progressive solutions,” ours are based on criminalizing rather than killing the regime, with Assad for the International Criminal Court (Americans ruled out), etc.<\/p>\n
Do that, and what remains is the whole Syrian conflict. Build on the two lights, and the roads to solutions are no longer hidden in the dark.<\/p>\n
__________________________<\/p>\n
Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU<\/a>. He is author of over 150 books on peace and related issues, including \u2018<\/i>50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,\u2019 published by the TRANSCEND University Press-TUP<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgment and link to the source, TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS, is included. Thank you.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This column has for years been arguing for a two-chamber parliament in Syria having an upper house with eight or so nations\u2014like the Ottoman millets–and a coalition government. Very far from US “progressive solutions,” ours are based on criminalizing rather than killing the regime, with Assad for the International Criminal Court (Americans ruled out), etc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}