A Hopeful Development

[Lord Jim]

Turkey mulling Nato ties over Syria shelling

Turkey is considering invoking the Nato alliance’s mutual defence treaty over “outrageous” Syrian shelling along its border, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said yesterday.

“Turkey is considering formally invoking Article Four of the North Atlantic Treaty,” Mrs Clinton said, at a meeting in Paris of senior envoys from countries seeking to pressure Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime.

Article Four states that members “will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened”.

It is less strong than Article Five of the Nato treaty, under which members invoke the right to “individual or collective self-defence”, but would be a step towards a collective response to alleged Syrian aggression.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/vi ... ing.416319

I saw Hillary talking about this on the news a couple of days ago, and my immediate thought was, "Thank God. We're finally laying the predicate for NATO action to deal with Assad without having our actions hamstrung by the 'big thugs trying to save little thug' problems we've had with the Russians and the Chinese, that have made the Security Council useless for dealing with this"

Frankly I'm surprised that Assad was stupid enough to start lobbing shells into Turkey. But now he's provided us with the justification to get rid of him.

We don't have to send in troops, but we can now provide full air support to destroy his capability to attack innocent civilians and rebel forces, just as we did in Libya ; we can train, equip, and support rebel fighters from over the Turkish border until they're ready to move on Damascus.

And we don't need the approval from the thugocracies in Moscow and Beijing to do it.

I have to believe that the only logical reason for Clinton to be employing this kind of language is because the Obama Administration has decided to seek a NATO solution to this. If this is the case, I applaud and support the decision.

[Lord Jim]

If it becomes clear to Assad that NATO is going to dislodge him, I doubt that he'll put up the kind of nihilistic fight Gaddafi did. Bashir Assad is not a hardcore revolutionary figure; he's a Western educated second generation thug; he'll skedaddle...

Serious NATO action would in all likelihood cause his military command structure to crumble in short order, and he and his top commanders would be looking for any way out that involved a retirement in the south of France, rather than three hots and a cot at The Hague....

ETA

The Syrian people will be rid of this murderous clown, and The West will be rid of an Iranian stooge regime in the Mid-East ; the fall of Assad will represent the greatest set back to the expansionist aims of that rogue regime since 1979.

[Lord Jim]

A democratic Syria will not be an exercise in Jeffersonian democracy; but it will be a far better Syria, both for it's people and for The West, than the Syria that exists today....

A democratic Syria is not going to turn around and kiss Israel full on the mouth; any Syrian regime would insist on the return of The Golan Heights; it's a matter of national honor to them...

But a democratic Syria would no longer play stooge for the Iranians, ( the vast majority of Syrians are Sunnis, Assad an his cronies come from a small Shiite sect...one of the main themes of The Uprising has been the desire to toss off the Iranian connection) and a democratic Syria would be much more co-operative with The West (particularly if we come to their aid) and far less inclined to provide support to Hamas and Hezbollah, ( since a democratic Syria would have to see improving the quality of life for it's own people as a larger priority than supporting terrorist organizations)

[Sue U]

But a democratic Syria would no longer play stooge for the Iranians, ( the vast majority of Syrians are Sunnis, Assad an his cronies come from a small Shiite sect...one of the main themes of The Uprising has been the desire to toss off the Iranian connection) and a democratic Syria would be much more co-operative with The West (particularly if we come to their aid) and far less inclined to provide support to Hamas and Hezbollah, ( since a democratic Syria would have to see improving the quality of life for it's own people as a larger priority than supporting terrorist organizations)

The religious angle is not really all that clear. The Alawite relation to various streams of Islam is murky and complicated at best, and whether they are properly "Shi'a" or something else entirely has long been a question; Islam is an extremely diverse religion, even within its major branches and schools, and the Alawite version of Islam may incorporate some views and practices considered heretical (or at least, highly unorthodox) by other sects.

Moreover, Syria's relationship wth Iran canot be so easly dismissed as religious affinity of the Alawite political leadership. To the extent that Syria has very deep interests in Lebanon specifically, and as a regional power generally, the Iranian connection with Lebanese Shi'a and their proximity to Syria is important and mutually benefcial to all involved. Similarly, with the decline of Soviet/Russian financial and military support, Syria and Iran are more interdependent than ever before. Breaking off that relationship may cause more internal disruption in Syria, especially if the alternative requires turning to Turkey, given the historical ethnic and political difficulties between the countries.

ETA:
I did some poking around this afternoon, and found here a very brief but useful introduction to being Alawite in Syria.

Here's a somewhat deeper piece with more historical context from the NYT.

And of course, if you want to know what's actually going on in the Middle East, no one does it better these days than Al Jazeera.