‘Plan B’
– Not an Enigma: Why the West is Keen on Dividing
the Arabs
By Ramzy Baroud
March 03, 2016
"Information
Clearing House"
- When Arab streets exploded with fury, from Tunis
to Sanaa, pan-Arabism seemed, then, like a nominal
notion. Neither did the so-called ‘Jasmine
Revolution’ use slogans that affirmed its Arab
identity, nor did angry Egyptian youth raise the
banner proclaiming Arab unity atop the high
buildings adjacent to Tahrir Square.
Oddly, the
Arabism of the ‘Arab Spring’ was almost as if a
result of convenience. It was politically convenient
for western governments to stereotype Arab nations
as if they are exact duplicates of one another, and
that national sentiments, identities, expectations
and popular revolts are all rooted in the same past
and correspond with a precise reality in the
present. Thus, many in the west expected that the
fall of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia,
especially since it was followed by the abdication
of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, would lead to a domino
effect. “Who’s
next?’ was a pretentious question that many
asked, some with no understanding of the region and
its complexity.
After
initial hesitation, the US, along with its western
allies, moved quickly to influence the outcome in
some Arab countries. Their mission was to ensure a
smooth transition in countries whose fate had been
decided by the impulsive revolts, to speed up the
toppling of their enemies and to prop up their
allies so that they would not suffer a similar fate.
The outcome
was real devastation. Countries where the west and
their allies – and, expectedly enemies were involved
– became infernos, not of revolutionary fervor, but
of militant chaos, terrorism and unabated wars.
Libya, Syria and Yemen are the obvious examples.
In a way,
the west, its media and allies assigned themselves
as gatekeepers of determining, not only the fate of
the Arabs, but in molding their identities as well.
Coupled with the collapse of the whole notion of
nationhood in some Arab countries –
Libya, for example – the US is now taking upon
itself the responsibility of devising future
scenarios of broken down Arab states.
In his
testimony before a US Senate committee to discuss
the Syria ceasefire, Secretary of State,
John Kerry revealed that his country is preparing a
‘Plan B” should the ceasefire fail. Kerry
refrained from offering specifics; however, he
offered clues. It may be “too late to keep Syria as
a whole, if we wait much longer,” he indicated.
The
possibility of dividing Syria was not a random
warning, but situated in a large and growing edifice
of intellectual and media text in the US and other
western countries. It wasarticulated
by Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institute
in a Reuter’s op-ed last October. He called for the
US to find a ‘common purpose with Russia’, while
keeping in mind the ‘Bosnia model.’
“In similar
fashion, a future Syria could be a confederation of
several sectors: one largely Alawite – another
Kurdish – a third, primarily Druse – a fourth,
largely made up of Sunni Muslims; and then a central
zone of intermixed groups in the country’s main
population belt from Damascus to Aleppo.”
What is
dangerous about O’Hanlon’s solution for Syria is not
the complete disregard of Syria’s national identity.
Frankly, many western intellectuals never even
subscribed to the notion that Arabs were nations in
the western definition of nationhood, in the first
place. (Read Aaron David Miller article:
Tribes with Flags) No, the real danger lies in
the fact that such a divisive dismantling of Arab
nations is very much plausible, and historical
precedents abound.
It is no
secret that the modern formation of Arab countries
are largely the outcome of dividing the Arab region
within the Ottoman Empire into mini-states. That was
the result of political necessities and compromises
that arose from the
Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916. The US, then, was
more consumed with its South American environs, and
the rest of the world was largely a Great Game that
was mastered by Britain and France.
The
British-French agreement, with the consent of
Russia, was entirely motivated by sheer power,
economic interests, political hegemony and little
else. This explains why most of the borders of Arab
countries were perfect straight lines. Indeed, they
were charted by a pencil and ruler, not organic
evolution of geography based on multiple factors and
protracted history of conflict or concord.
It has been
almost one hundred years since colonial powers
divided the Arabs, although they are yet to respect
the very boundaries that they have created.
Moreover, they have invested much time, energy,
resources and, at times, all out wars to ensure that
the arbitrary division never truly ends.
Not only
does the west loathe the term ‘Arab unity’, it also
loathes whoever dares infuse what they deem to be
hostile, radical terminology. Egypt’s second
President, Jamal Abdel Nasser, argued that true
liberation and freedom of Arab nations was
intrinsically linked to Arab unity.
Thus, it
was no surprise that the struggle for Palestine
occupied a central stage in the rhetoric of Arab
nationalism throughout the 1950s and 60s. Abdel
Nasser was raised to the status of a national hero
in the eyes of most Arabs, and a pariah in the eyes
of the west and Israel.
To ensure
that Arabs are never to unite, the west invested in
their further disunity. In 2006/07, former US
Secretary of State,
Condoleezza Rice, made it clear that the US
would cease its support of the Palestinian Authority
shall
Fatah and Hamas unite. Earlier, when, resistance
in Iraq reached a point that the American occupiers
found unbearable, they invested in
dividing the ranks of the Iraqis based on
sectarian lines. Their intellectuals pondered the
possibility of
dividing Iraq into three autonomous states: Shia,
Sunni and Kurdish.
Libya was
too broken up after NATO’s intervention turned a
regional uprising into a
bloody war. Since then, France, Britain, the US
and others have backed some parties against others.
Whatever sense of nationhood that existed after the
end of Italian colonization of that country has been
decimated as Libyans reverted to their regions and
tribes to survive the upheaval.
A rumored
‘Plan B’ to divide Libya to three separate
protectorates of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan
was recently
rejected by the Libyan Ambassador to Rome.
However, Libyans presently seem to be the least
relevant party in determining the future of their
own country.
The Arab
world has always been seen in western eyes as a
place of conquest, to be exploited, controlled and
tamed. That mindset continues to define the
relationship. While Arab unity is to be dreaded,
further divisions often appear as ‘Plan B’, when the
current status quo, call it ‘Plan A’, seems
impossible to sustain.
What is
truly interesting is that, despite the lack of a
pan-Arab vision in Arab countries that experienced
popular revolts five years ago, few events in modern
history has brought the Arabs together like the
chants of freedom in Tunis, the cries of victories
in Egypt and
screams of pain in Yemen and Syria. It is that
very collective identity,
often unspoken but felt, that drives millions of
Arabs to hold on to however faint a hope that their
nations will survive the ongoing onslaught and
prospective western division.
Dr.
Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East
for over 20 years. He is an
internationally-syndicated columnist, a media
consultant, an author of several books and the
founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include
‘Searching Jenin’, ‘The Second Palestinian Intifada’
and his latest ‘My Father Was a Freedom Fighter:
Gaza’s Untold Story’. His website is:
www.ramzybaroud.net. |