Large signage placed in the Chamishko IDP camp near Zakho for displaced Yazidis. The imagery includes Masoud Barzani’s face above the Yazidi Sharfeddin Temple in Sinjar, scenes from the Yazidi Genocide, and Peshmerga with the Kurdistan flag. The Kurdish text reads: “For the commemoration of the Shingal Genocide—Shingal, through its tragedy, has brought forth the spirit of humanity and proved its Kurdishness.” (Click for full image) Photo: Bradley Brincka, May 2017

By Matthew Barber

The long struggle of the Kurds to achieve liberated status in a region that has oppressed them for generations has inspired many around the world who have sympathized with and supported the Kurdish cause. For those of us who have long believed in the right of Kurds to attain the same dignity deserved by all human beings, a referendum on Kurdistani independence should be a joyous occasion. But unfortunately—and sadly—the upcoming referendum is tainted by deceptive political agendas. The referendum is not simply about Kurdish independence; it is being used as camouflage for an attempted land-grab of minority regions that are not part of the Kurdistan Region.

Some of these minorities are not Kurdish, such as the Christians of the Nineveh Plain whose homeland is now being targeted with annexation. Others are Kurdish-speaking but do not consider themselves proponents of Kurdish nationalism, the particular identity markers and language of which are articulated or appropriated by dominant political parties. What these different minorities have in common is their rejection of being annexed into the KRI and ruled by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).

The hope of Kurds is that independence will be a moment of healing after a long legacy of suffering in which Kurds, as a minority in Iraq, were targeted with tremendous political violence and oppression.

But of course, Kurds are not a minority in northern Iraq, where other minorities are now targeted by Kurdish security forces in ways that are reminiscent of the oppressive measures previously used against the Kurds themselves.

This is the tragic fact of today’s political situation in Iraq: The legacy of Kurdish suffering is dishonored by the unethical tactics used to crush minority opposition to assimilation into a Kurdish political order.

At camps for displaced Yazidis, the KDP asaish often restrict visitation of foreign journalists and researchers, arrest Yazidis engaging in peaceful demonstrations, evict families if a member joins a rival political faction, and erect signage such as that seen in the above image. This begs the question: can a fair vote among Sinjar’s Yazidis in the upcoming Kurdistan independence referendum really be conducted?

Nechirvan Barzani Exploits Yazidi Genocide Commemoration to Attack Baghdad

The beginning of this past August marked the third anniversary of the Yazidi Genocide. In Dohuk on August 3, 2017, KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani gave a speech at an event commemorating the Yazidi Genocide.

Nechirvan Barzani speaks at Yazidi Genocide commemoration, Dohuk, August 3, 2017 — Photo: Rudaw.

In the speech, Nechirvan attempted to shift responsibility for the abandonment of Sinjar from the Peshmerga onto the Iraqi army. In the process, he made a number of false and misleading statements that sidestepped some uncomfortable realities about the Genocide—problems that will not disappear but which will become part of the historical memory of that fateful day.

Revisiting the heartbreaking moment when the Peshmerga vacated Sinjar as the jihadists approached, Nechirvan repeated the tired claim that the Peshmerga were not sufficiently equipped to defend the Yazidi people, because they lacked adequate weaponry.

Nechirvan should be asked how it was possible that handfuls of Yazidi farmers with hunting rifles were able to prevent IS jihadists from conquering certain parts of the mountain. In 2015 and 2016 I met and interviewed many Yazidis in Sinjar who live off herds of sheep and goats, or wheat, barley, and vegetable farms, who showed me how they were able to keep the jihadists out of a number of little villages—tiny enclaves nestled into the foothills of the mountain. If local people with no combat training, military equipment, or advanced weaponry were able to use the high ground to prevent the jihadists from taking the mountain, imagine how much more effective the defense could have been if the Peshmerga had stayed. Even if the Kurdish commanders felt unable to defend the larger Yazidi communities in the plains near the mountain, they could have remained on the edges of the mountain and provided cover to fleeing civilians, keeping IS away while facilitating the evacuation of the many thousands of fleeing families.

Instead, they fled the entire region and left the civilians defenseless, after promising to protect them.

In his speech, Nechirvan focused on the collapse of the Iraqi army, and avoided drawing attention to the fact that it was the Peshmerga who controlled Sinjar, not the Iraqi army, prior to the Genocide. He also emphasized that Iraqi weapons fell into the hands of IS after the Iraqi army collapsed, which he says made it impossible to defend Sinjar, but he failed to mention that many of these weapons likewise fell into the hands of the Kurds. If fact, entire weapons depots in Nineveh were seized by Kurdish forces. Further, the Peshmerga in Sinjar had looted the weaponry and vehicles of sections of the Iraqi army stationed in the Sinjar area, as well as those of Iraqi troops who did not dissolve, but who stayed and defended Tal Afar until eventually being forced to withdraw. The “we had no weapons” excuse is baseless and a lie.

Nechirvan also didn’t mention that on August 2, 2014—the day before the Genocide—the local Yazidis asked Peshmerga and asaish leaders whether they should evacuate the area. They were told to remain in their homes, promised that they would be protected, and in some cases those who decided that despite these assurances they still preferred to leave were even prevented from evacuating. Survivors from some families reported that after they loaded their cars with supplies and their children, the asaish or Peshmerga guarding their village entrances would not allow them to leave, but instead mocked them: “Don’t you feel cowardly and ashamed to be running away from your land when we are here protecting you?”

Nechirvan blamed the inferiority of Peshmerga weapons for the withdrawal. This makes one wonder why the Peshmerga then refused to leave any behind for the Yazidis, many of whom were committed to remaining and fighting to protect their families. On the south side of the mountain, a large group of Yazidi men—armed with only their personal weapons—held off the IS advance for hours, until it appeared that IS might give up trying to attack that area, but were finally defeated because they ran out of ammunition. If the Peshmerga felt that they had to leave the area because of inadequate weaponry, why did they refuse to leave behind any of those sub-par weapons to the Yazidis who were begging them to leave anything that would help them defend their families?

As I have written about before, the IS attack was not a surprise, but was well-known in advance. The Peshmerga withdrew once it was known that Sinjar would be attacked, but too late for civilians to properly evacuate. The Peshmerga took their weapons with them because the withdrawal was planned and organized, not a spontaneous, haphazard collapse that might have occurred if the enemy had been engaged and proved too powerful. As Yazidis begged them to leave weapons behind, and asked why the Peshmerga refused to do so, Peshmerga commanders responded, “This is against our orders.” In Zorava, a Yazidi town on the north side of Sinjar Mountain, several Yazidi men—desperate for weapons to protect their families—tried to seize some Peshmerga guns as the Peshmerga were heading back to Kurdistan. The Peshmerga fired upon them, and at least two Yazidi men were killed. It is a tragic fact of the Yazidi Genocide that on August 3, prior to the IS slaughter that would ensue, Yazidis had already been killed by the Peshmerga responsible for protecting them.

The Mechanic Who Saved a Mountain

Just as farmers were able to keep IS out of a number of little enclaves in the foothill of the mountain, the mountain itself never fell to IS. If it had fallen, not only would the displaced Yazidis who fled there have been slaughtered, but IS might still hold that defensible territory. The mountain was saved, in part, because of an accident.

As the Peshmerga withdrew, one of their vehicles broke down on the main road leading from Sinjar City up the mountain. The vehicle had a heavy weapon mounted on the back. The Peshmerga just left the vehicle sitting in the road. Later the same day, as the jihadists began pursuing the Yazidi civilians who were fleeing up the mountain road, a poor Yazidi mechanic with no military background climbed into the vehicle, took hold of the gun, and aimed it at the ascending IS forces. Because of the high-ground advantage, this single weapon was enough to halt the ascent of the jihadists, buying time until US airstrikes helped guarantee that IS was not be able to advance on the mountain itself. The mechanic may have single-handedly saved the mountain from IS.

Qasim Derbo

Sinjar Mountain was saved by a weapon left behind by the Peshmerga, not in response to the pleas of the Yazidis, but because the Peshmerga did not have time to fix a vehicle. If handfuls of farmers can keep jihadists out of mountain villages, and if a mechanic with one gun on the back of a broken-down pickup truck can stop the IS army from climbing the main road up Sinjar Mountain, imagine how much more effective the defense would have been if the Peshmerga had stayed and fought alongside the local Yazidi people.

Later, the KDP put the poor mechanic, named Qasim Derbo, on their payroll, as they typically do, and made him a “commander.” Rural people with no feeling of personal power, no education, and no voice in politics can be easy to intimidate or control. A common KDP tactic is to try to convert any person of influence or popularity—a religious figure, tribal leader, renowned fighter—to the party in order to attempt to create legitimacy in the eyes of the people. You can imagine how, after Qasim Derbo’s act of heroism, he would have been a prime target for such a tactic.

Once Qasim Derbo was assimilated into the KDP collective, they then built a monument to the incident, memorializing the vehicle and placing a large image of Masoud Barzani next to it.

Two combined images showing the monument to the incident of Qasim Derbo’s heroism with the adjacent Barzani signboard. (Click for full image.) Photo: Bradley Brincka

Such is the brazenness of this hypocrisy: Presenting an instance of cowardice and negligence as the selfsame group’s bravery and heroism.

The Broken Logic of Blame

In the first couple of years after the Genocide, the KRG would not use the language “Yazidi Genocide” (which is still often the case within the country, as the first image in this article, of the sign in Chamisko Camp, demonstrates). In previous commemorative events on the Genocide’s anniversary, officials called it “the Sinjar crisis” or the “Sinjar genocide.” Though it is nice to see the Prime Minister now calling the event the “Yazidi Genocide,” the ongoing attempts to avoid responsibility do not help.

Together, Nechirvan’s statements comprise the following logic (main ideas are followed by actual example quotes from the Aug. 3, 2017 speech):

1) The central government did not provide the Peshmerga with the weapons they needed:

“The Iraqi government never gave weapons to the Peshmerga as part of the Iraqi defense system.”

2) Because of this, it was impossible for the Peshmerga to defend Sinjar:

“When ISIS came with those weapons they were more advanced than our Peshmerga. And with the old weapons they had in their hands there was no way the Peshmerga could defend Shingal.”

3) This is just another reason why we Kurds cannot work with Baghdad any longer and need to vote on independence now:

“This is what makes us lose hope that Baghdad could ever solve the Kurdish issue, this is what makes us not trust Baghdad again. … Unfortunately, we have no hope that Iraq could get better. We tried every way with Iraq but we have completely lost hope. Our past experience with Iraq has led us to this conclusion that there is no way we could defend ourselves and our rights in Iraq. … Therefore, in order to maintain and protect our peace and coexistence we will have to show our ambitions to the whole world in a referendum.”

4) Sinjar’s participation in our independence referendum gives it legitimacy:

“The voice of Shingal in this referendum is very important because it is the voice of the Anfal genocide and the voice of the pains of our people. It will be a call for freedom from subjugation and slavery.”

Nechirvan’s statements are offensive to the survivors of the Genocide. Whether a calculated decision or simply sheer cowardice, the Peshmerga withdrawal allowed the Yazidi Genocide to take place. Everyone knows the truth about Sinjar, and the excuses that KDP officials continue to repeat are downright embarrassing.

Yazidi survivors of genocide do not need more empty and false excuses—they need a genuine apology. That KRG officials cannot honestly face up to these facts continues to be a painful thorn in the side of those who lost everything.

Yazidis of Sinjar Cannot Vote in the Independence Referendum

Claiming that Sinjar will somehow meaningfully express its will regarding the Kurdistan independence referendum belies the fact that it is impossible to conduct a vote among the scattered Yazidis now inhabiting camps in the KRI, Syria, Turkey, Sinjar, as well as among those who have taken refuge in Europe, Australia, and North America. Since Sinjar is a disputed territory, and not part of the Kurdistan Region, it is unclear why or how the people of that area would be able to weigh in on Kurdish independence—no referendum has ever been held to allow the people of Sinjar to vote on whether they want to join the Kurdistan Region or remain under Baghdad’s administration. (The widespread rejection of KDP influence in Sinjar following the Genocide indicates that if such a vote were to be held—and held fairly and inclusively—it is most likely that Yazidis would vote to remain separate from the KRI.) Furthermore, since political competition over Sinjar has kept the area unstable these past three years, inhibiting Yazidis from returning, conditions for conducting a vote of any kind in the area are unfavorable.

Nechirvan also omitted that it is the KDP—not Baghdad or another party—that has actively prevented the return of Yazidi IDPs to Sinjar. Yazidis have repeatedly asked the international community for support in creating their own nonpartisan security and local administration, but nothing has been done to facilitate this. Instead, Yazidis have now begun their fourth year living in camps while political parties with militias vie for control of Sinjar. Yazidi emigration from Iraq continues, as discouragement regarding Sinjar’s chances of seeing restored stability sets in.

It is unethical to use the independence referendum and the instability of Sinjar following the Genocide—while its people are still far from having recovered from the trauma—to unilaterally force the annexation of Sinjar, a disputed territory, to the KRI. Western officials should hold the KRG accountable for this unscrupulous approach and ensure that Sinjar can be protected from these ambitions. The disputed territory of Sinjar needs to be dealt with fairly and separately from the issue of Kurdistan’s independence, with local people having the opportunity to legitimately choose their leadership and future.

Nechirvan used his commemoration speech as a political platform to attack Baghdad ahead of the KRI Referendum, rather than using the Genocide’s anniversary as an opportunity to approach the Yazidi people with humility. Instead of helping Yazidis return to Sinjar and build a secure future, their Genocide is still being exploited for political gain. This is disrespectful to the survivors of the Genocide and only causes more pain.

The 9/11 attacks gave birth to a Manichean world which is, as I write this, being played out in Syria and Iraq amongst other places. With this world in mind and the upcoming 9/11 anniversary, Professor Theo Farrel’s Unwinnable is a timely reminder of the consequences of the War on Terror in terms of lives, treasure and more; thousands of Afghan migrants clustered in Calais and Dunkirk hoping to cross the English Channel, and the phenomenon of British Muslims who travelled to Afghanistan, some for aid work some to fight creating a pattern of behaviour for future conflicts in the Muslim world.

Zeeshan Siddiqui, a young SOAS student, after hearing of the 9/11 attacks, knew that Afghanistan was going to be hit. He wasn’t sad that the Twin Towers had fallen, he was swimming in a milieu that celebrated the Afghan Jihad, the Arab contribution to Bosnia, Bin Laden’s exploits against the USS Cole, Emir Khattab’s fight against the Russians. According to a source, Zeeshan went to fight the coalition; one of his friends, Abdur Rahman also known as Anthony Garcia, went with al-Qaeda; others preferred to go with the Taliban. Those who went with the former did ‘madness’. As for Zeeshan, this highly eccentric character was sold to Pakistani intelligence officers by an Afghan for a bag of rice, he was allegedly tortured to extract information with the knowledge of British intelligence agents. Siddiqui then returned to the UK and was put on a control order. He was sectioned for mental illness. He escaped and stayed in the house of a Libyan man who took him in. Zeeshan lived in the basement teaching Quran to his children for seven years before escaping to Somalia where he was purportedly killed in the ranks of al-Shabab. Zeeshan’s story shows how immensely complicated the story of the Afghan invasion is. It shows how no one in the story, from the British, Pakistani, Afghan and indeed Zeeshan himself does not come out clean in this story. How did we get there? This is where Farrel fills us in on the intricacies.

Farrel relays extensive research spanning for over half a decade, incorporating British, US as well as Taliban sources. He tells the story of the invasion of Afghanistan effortlessly flitting to the invasion of Iraq, the dingy cabinet room in Cabinet Briefing Room A (COBRA), to the shady games played by the ISI and the CIA, to displays of venal corruption of warlords to the civilians facing the option of destroying their poppy crop or starvation. Farrel’s account is a British perspective for sure, but he doesn’t hide from the ugly bits whether that be torture or the document plagiarised from the internet, Downing Street issued as their casus belli for invading Iraq; he tells the tale with fairness and verve. The ease in switching from weapons specifications to various fields of operation and countries is remarkable. But then again Professor Farrel has over forty books on the subject of war and conflict. The notes alone for this tome is over a hundred pages.

The first few chapters dealing with the road to war are perhaps the most compelling but that is well trodden ground. Lawrence Wright’s Looming Tower comes to mind. Farrell shows Blair to be statesmanlike in his approach and in full support of invading Afghanistan, interestingly less so Iraq. He believed that the Islamic emirate of the Taliban was responsible for harbouring al-Qaeda and should have complied to the demands of the US in handing over Osama bin Laden. In this respect Farrel says that the attack on Afghanistan was a-strategic. It was not necessarily a rational decision but a response was warranted. On the other hand, he notes that the Taliban was making overtures for negotiation. The 9/11 attacks was a surprise even to the Taliban who found out about it on the news. Had the US taken into account the Afghan customs of hospitality instead of giving non-negotiable terms such a costly invasion could have been avoided.

At the time though the Taliban and al-Qaeda were viewed as one and the same. In any case, attacking Afghanistan was seen as a way to finish off the Taliban, a group that looked like a throwback to the Stone Age who repressed the educational development of women, demanded men to grow facial hair and destroyed, not unlike IS, the Buddha statues of Bamyan- a testimony in fact, to Muslim tolerance.  But in taking such a decision the US and the British had set a dangerous precedent: this was violating notions of national sovereignty. Blair believed that in an increasingly globalised world humanitarian interference was necessary. Some likened it to a ‘white man’s burden lite’ if you will, and it was this idea that complicated matters further.

For once the Taliban and al-Qaeda had been defeated the British should have left, the initial war objectives had been achieved, the Taliban’s spine had been broken and al-Qaeda was in disarray.  Whilst the US administration cared little for nation building and stabilisation, for the British, Afghanistan was about nation building and stabilisation. Blair believed that nation building and stabilisation were the key in Afghanistan in order for the Taliban or al-Qaeda not to make a return. That of course meant development of infrastructure.  From the squaddies’ perspective there seemed to be some justification to development, for when an Afghan governor defecates in front of your barracks as an expression of his contempt it becomes difficult not to view the populace as being in need of development. 

But these aims were not necessarily shared by its coalition partners. For the US it was all about counter insurgency, it was about tough marines cracking Taliban heads, whilst Rumsfeld eyed up Iraq. The Germans and the Dutch were only willing to take part in peace keeping. Having no clear war aims, a mass of British brigadiers wrangled with politicos and war lords and ex-mujahideen- the role of the coalition appeared more and more like occupiers. The coalition failed to grasp the sheer complexity of the country; its tribal politics, patronage systems and the culture itself. Thus night raids by special forces might have been successful in the short term but it violated Muslim and tribal honour. It put innocent Afghans in Guantanamo even though they didn’t have any connection with the Taliban or al-Qaeda whatsoever: the rival sub-tribe sold people out to the Americans. There were few men like Michael Semple who knew Pashto and Dari and their customs and knew Aghanistan’s ways and mores.

Whilst the Marines and British might have fought the good fight, the Taliban too made a steady return, fighting doggedly often bolstered by well-trained foreign fighters and with the support of Pakistan’s Intelligence services. Morale for the Taliban was undiminished as Farrel makes clear: to the Afghan fighting the invading kafir, or infidel, and dying in battle meant paradise. But on the ground, the squaddie, the soldier in the Afghan national army and above all the civilians paid a heavy price. Stabilisation meant at times, coalition forces losing their reason for being in Afghanistan, from Guantanamo, to murders in Bagram, to air strikes wiping out entire families, to fighting alongside warlords who raped kids and extorted the populace and flooded their own countries with heroin. It was no wonder that though many Afghans had been glad to see the back of the Taliban, the actions of the coalition had turned an insurgency into a popular uprising and the Taliban became resurgent.

Despite having two capable US generals in the guise of Petraus and McChrystal concentrating like never before in defeating the Taliban, the latter understood and drew strength from a ‘myriad of local conflicts between rival kinship networks over resources and state funds’. Moreover, the ramshackle poppy eradication scheme pushed the local populace in to the arms of the Taliban who had previously been successful in eradicating it. It is as one of the elders in Farrel’s book says all that the British has brought with them is death.

In the end, British ambition was so staggering that it was akin to the Enlightenment and the Marshal plan and set with in the challenges of the Hundred Year War. Farrell’s book is immensely valuable both in its detail and lessons learnt; parallels can no doubt be found in the current conflict raging in Syria and Iraq even though its peoples and customs are different. The conflict in Afghanistan, as Professor Farrel rightly concludes, is unwinnable; initial successes turned into a quagmire – diplomacy and reconciliation seems to be the best way forward.

by Aron Lund

On June 29, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, OPCW, published its final report on events in the Syrian city of Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017.

As you’ll recall, President Donald Trump struck a Syrian air base a few days later in retaliation for what the United States and allied nations, as well as the Syrian opposition, say was an attack by President Bashar al-Assad’s air force. The Syrian government denies involvement and has variously said its jets accidentally bombed a rebel chemical storage or blamed a rebel false flag operation backed by Western intelligence services. Russian diplomats have backed up Damascus and lobbied hard to discredit the OPCW investigators in international fora and in the media. Western nations, too, have played some rough politics on this issue, and the whole debate has turned incredibly toxic and divisive—which is ironic, since all involved claim to want to uphold the international ban on chemical weapons.

The OPCW Fact Finding Mission has confirmed the use of sarin, a banned nerve agent, in the Khan Sheikhoun incident, but it did not assign responsibility to either side. Why? Because that wasn’t its mission.

Instead, another team of investigators known as the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism, or JIM, are now taking over to try and name the perpetrator. It won’t be an easy job, at least not if they are to produce evidence that would hold up in court. It might also be a very dangerous mission, especially if they try to get to Khan Sheikhoun itself. The city is run by hardline jihadis and it is close to one of Syria’s most anarchic and violent frontlines—and for all the lingering question marks, we know one thing for sure: whoever was behind the April 4 killings has a very strong interest in preventing the investigators from getting safely in and out.

In a new report for The Century Foundation, I try to walk readers through some of the obstacles, problems, and possible surprises that the JIM investigators face. They’ll be working under tight time constraints and are up against what could very well turn out to be impossible odds, but their work is of the greatest importance not just for Syria, but for the global ban on chemical weapons and for international law.

An interim report may arrive in September or even as early as August, but the JIM’s final report, which may or may not name a perpetrator, is scheduled for release in October. That’s just weeks before the JIM mandate runs out. The investigation will be forced to swim the veto-infested waters of the the UN Security Council to win an extension in November.

It is not a lot of time, and the JIM leaders are already complaining about obstructions and pressure, including foot-dragging by the Syrian government and constant interference from state actors telling them how to do their work. To be sure, the JIM has hired a highly competent bunch of experts and investigators, but in this environment and on that time frame, it’s anyone’s guess if they’ll be able to put all pieces of the puzzle together before the clock runs out.

Read the report here. Much more will certainly be written in the coming months.

– Aron Lund

Topography of Khan Sheikhoun. Source: OPCW.

Terminating CIA Support for Syrian Rebels Sounds Death Knell for Western Attempt to Roll Back Iran and Russia in Syria.
By Joshua Landis
For Syria Comment – July 20, 2017

Trump’s termination of CIA funds to Syrian rebels signals the death knell for Western efforts to roll back Iranian and Russian power in the Levant.

The reassertion of Assad’s control over much of Syria underlines the success of Iran’s policy in the Northern Middle East.

Western efforts to overturn Assad and bring to power a Sunni ascendency in Syria have failed as have efforts to flip Syria out of Russia’s and Iran’s orbit and into that of the United States and Saudi Arabia.

The cut off of CIA funding for Syria’s rebels is the raggedy ending of America’s failed regime-change policy in Syria and the region at large.

President Trump called the wars in the Middle East “stupid wars” during his campaign. He called America’s policy of regime-change a “failed policy.” This is his effort to concentrate narrowly on eliminating ISIS and ending Washington’s effort to drive Assad from power by force of arms.

He believes that by working with the Russians, the United States will destroy ISIS more quickly. It should be added that Syria’s military, with Russian backing, has killed hundreds of ISIS fighters in the last several months. It has driven ISIS from territory twice the size of Lebanon in the last two months alone. Further efforts to weaken or destroy the Syrian Army will only slow ISIS’s demise.

This decision by the security establishment has been a long time coming. As it became clear that Assad would not fall or step aside, particularly after Russia jumped into the conflict in Sept 2015, the arming of rebels to overthrow Assad became a vestigial policy. President Macron articulated this position for the EU, when he declared that it was unrealistic to believe that Assad would go.

Support for arming rebels has been waning since radicals began setting off bombs in European capitals.

Trump’s decision to stop support for Syrian rebels will be the final nail in the coffin of those factions which draw salaries from the CIA.

More radical groups, such as those historically connected to al-Qaida and Ahrar al-Sham will also suffer from this decision. The radical militias prey on the weaker ones. They extort arms and money from the CIA-supported factions. The porous Syrian border with Turkey can now also be shut more tightly. The need to push resources to the CIA-vetted militias, kept border crossings open to all rebels, including al-Qaida. Factions merge and regroup with such regularity, that border guards could not know who was fighting for what end.

This is the last gasp for America’s policy of regime-change which has so compromised its efforts to promote democracy and human rights in a part of the world that needs both.

This article was published July 13, 2017 by NRT, a media service in Iraqi Kurdistan. The original article is available here. Photos and Images have been added to this re-post that were not present in the original.

A new billboard in Erbil with Masoud Barzani’s image reading: “YES—for Kurdish independence and statehood”

by Megan Connelly and Matthew Barber

Contested Lands

Last month, talks led by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) at the presidential residence, Seri Resh, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) led to a decision to hold a referendum this September on Kurdistani independence. Though the obvious assumption would be that only residents of the area seeking independence (i.e., the Kurdistan Region) would be able to vote on a decision to secede from Iraq, this referendum is being presented as a vote in which residents of Iraq’s disputed territories will also participate.

The disputed territories are areas in Iraq over which both the Iraqi Federal Government (IFG–based in Baghdad) and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG–based in Erbil) claim administrative rights. Currently, the Kurdistan Region is an autonomous jurisdictional entity that is part of a federal Iraq but which has its own government, armed forces, immigration laws, administrative bureaucracies, and so forth. Prior to any discussion of potential independence for the Kurdistan Region, it should be understood that the disputed territories are parts of the Nineveh, Salah ad-Din, Kirkuk, and Diyala governorates over which the respective governments of Baghdad and Erbil have been locked in conflict since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Even if the KRI was to not seek independence, the status of each disputed territory as a domain of the Federal Government or the Regional Government must be resolved. Kurdistani independence, therefore, involves more than the question of whether the inhabitants of the KRI desire independence; it also requires determining which disputed territories (all of which are outside of the official boundaries of the KRI) would be included in the KRI, and ultimately within the new independent state.

For years, the disputed territories have been exploited for their deposits of oil and natural gas, but have often been neglected amid a state of political and administrative limbo between Baghdad and Erbil. Many disputed territories have been under Kurdish military or administrative control following the US invasion of Iraq, even though services and infrastructure in many of these territories continue to be funded through the IFG budget. Now, as Kurdish security forces, Hashd al-Sha’bi, and other ethno-sectarian militias seek to consolidate their territorial gains with the liberation of the remaining Islamic State (IS) enclaves in the disputed territories, it is urgent the IFG and the KRG establish clear jurisdictional boundaries by peaceful means—to not do so could spell their eventual delineation in battle. Therefore, Erbil and Baghdad must revisit Article 140, the transitional provision of the Iraqi Constitution that mandates the normalization, census, and referendum processes that must occur to determine the future status of each disputed territory, individually. This will resolve whether the territories will become part of the KRI or will remain within the IFG’s system of governorates.

Why the Referendum Does Not Provide a Solution for the Disputed Territories

Acting KRG President Barzani has declared that the referendum will be a solution to the ongoing Article 140 dispute. But according to Hemin Hawrami, Senior Advisor to the acting president, the sole question that will be posed to voters in the referendum is: “Do you want an independent Kurdistan?”

No one disputes the fact that the vast majority of Kurds desire independence. One Kurdish researcher framed this observation as follows: “Kurdistan does not need a referendum because the history and geography and 100 years of struggle have answered this question for the whole world.” The referendum’s question, therefore, would seem almost superfluous for the KRI. But while the referendum’s proposed question may nevertheless be appropriate to direct at residents of the KRI, it is a premature question for inhabitants of the disputed territories. Whether or not voters want independence is not a relevant inquiry as regards the complex geographic, demographic, and political realities in the disputed territories, where the question that should be posed is: “Do you want your district to become a part of the Kurdistan Region?”

The idea that populations living outside of the Kurdistan Region could participate alongside residents of the KRI in a vote that would establish a basis for the statehood of a region whose future borders are not yet determined is simply confusing for Kurds, Iraqis, and outside observers alike. It is clear that at least two questions—not one—must be answered by separate groups of Iraqis.

Manipulating Patriotism

The phrasing of the referendum’s question is indicative of ethnic outbidding. By asking voters if they “want independence,” as opposed to inquiring, for example, as to whether voters approve of a parliamentary motion to declare independence, the KDP is playing a semantics game designed to force voters to deliver a “patriotic” or “unpatriotic” response, a tactic to rally broad nationalist support behind the KDP’s drive for political dominance while discrediting the domestic opposition by casting doubt on their supporters’ kurdayeti.

Beyond the realm of mere words, Kurdish authorities have already begun arresting dissenters and shutting down media centers that publish literature that “uses inappropriate language in connection with the referendum,” as well as harassing and assaulting journalists and writers who have expressed opposition to the referendum.

To garner support for the vote, the Kurdish nationalist parties—and the KDP in particular—have been aggressively fueling  Kurdish irredentist sentiments and issuing provocative statements, such as KRG PM Nechirvan Barzani’s affirmation that the “disputed territories are no longer disputed,” the acting president’s assertion that opposition to the referendum would be met with a “bloody war,” and a KDP MP’s call for the legal prosecution and punishment of the political opposition to the vote. Moreover, the KDP has linked issue of Kurdish statehood with that of Masoud Barzani’s continued leadership and his defiance of Parliament’s attempts to limit presidential power.  The alarming tone of this discourse rose to a crescendo this week when Barzani, before the European Parliament, accused opposition MPs of concocting an “attempted coupt d’etat” against him in Parliament prior to its dissolution by the KDP, and of being responsible for the deaths of children in the 2015 riots in the Sulaimaniyah Governorate.

Furthermore, the language of the referendum announcement itself does not acknowledge that disputed territories are “disputed,” instead referring to them as “Kurdish areas outside of the KRG’s administrative area.” This language does not recognize the presence of the very populations whose existence is the origin of the disputed territory dilemma: Arabs, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians, Turkoman, certain Yazidis who do not identify as Kurds, and others.

In addition to validating aggression against Kurdish domestic opposition, this kind of antagonistic, nationalist campaign will do nothing to assuage the fears and mistrust of minorities and non-Kurdish populations with competing claims to self-determination in the disputed areas. This could ultimately provoke violent reactions with armed sectarian and partisan militias, with their various regional sponsors poised to intervene.

Ahead of Referendum, Yazidis Targeted for Supporting Baghdad

In the last few years, observers have become increasingly familiar with how intimidation is employed to pressure minority populations of the disputed territories into political submission. Recent punitive measures against Yazidis who favor IFG rather than KRG administration for Shingal (Sinjar in Arabic) are a characteristic—and unsurprising—case in point.

A new Human Rights Watch report has this week exposed a tactic that the KDP asaish are using to deter Yazidis from aligning with Baghdad: expelling displaced Yazidi families from the IDP camps in Dohuk and evicting them from the KRI, if a family member joins the Baghdad-supported Hashd al-Sha’bi forces in Shingal. This tactic is unsurprising, as the KDP asaish already expelled (from the same camps in 2015-2016) displaced Yazidi families if a family member joined the PKK-affiliated YBŞ, a local Yazidi force in Shingal that challenges KDP hegemony.

The Yazidis of Shingal are a perfect example of the challenge of Iraq’s disputed territories. This population has long stymied KDP attempts to smoothly incorporate Shingal into the KRI. Yazidis are independently-minded, have repeatedly been victimized by external parties vying for control of their areas, and as a result are mixed as to whether they even identify as Kurds. Unlike Yazidis from villages inside the KRI, many Yazidis from Shingal resolutely identify only as “Yazidi,” maintaining that it is not only their religious affiliation but also their ethnic identity. The vast majority resent Kurdish politics and would prefer a quiet form of local governance. This hasn’t stopped the KDP from insisting that Shingal’s population wants to be included in the KRI, and they always have an array of token Yazidi mouthpieces ready to authenticate this claim.

The displacement of the majority of Shingal’s Yazidi population to the KRI during the Yazidi Genocide stirred fears among much of the community that they could be subjected to attempts to be resettled in the KRI rather than helped to return to Shingal and rebuild their lives. A KDP-enforced economic blockade of Shingal (implemented all of 2016 and early 2017) deliberately slowed the returns of Yazidi IDPs to Shingal. One motivation for this measure appears to have been to try to starve the YBŞ of resources and prevent a larger civilian support base for the YBŞ from growing in Shingal. Despite this measure to inhibit civilian returns, the KDP did not hesitate to evict families from the camps and return them to Shingal when their family members joined the YBŞ. Though many families wanted to return and rebuild in areas that had been freed from IS, other families were not yet ready to do so, and this punitive measure placed pressure on families to beg their young people to not join those forces.

For about two years, the KDP has branded the PKK affiliates as “foreign” entities, not acknowledging that their rank and file are comprised of local, Shingali Yazidis. The “foreign” argument is even less applicable to the Hashd al-Sha’bi: Yazidis are effectively being criminalized for the choice to work with their own federal government. Nevertheless, the asaish’s current expulsions follow the same pattern as the earlier YBŞ evictions: Though Yazidi families ultimately hope to return to a secure Shingal, many are not ready to leave the camps—for economic reasons as well as out of concern regarding the now three-way political standoff in Shingal. Targeting vulnerable families with forced evictions is therefore a powerful political deterrent.

Shingal is now divided by three political competitors, each having its own Yazidi militias on the ground: KDP-affiliated Peshmerga, PKK-affiliated YBŞ, and the Baghdad-affiliated Hashd al-Sha’bi. Two out of these three factions (with their associated civilian supporters) obviously do not favor inclusion into a KDP-dominated KRI. Most of Shingal’s Yazidis, therefore, do not oppose Kurdistani independence, but simply view it as none of their concern since they hope to administer Shingal locally and separately from the KRI. This should adequately illustrate how a single-question referendum on Kurdistani independence is entirely incapable of resolving disputed territory issues.

Practical Problems with Holding the Referendum in Disputed Territories

The proposed date of September 25, 2017 for the referendum initially gave the KRG less than four months to raise and allocate money, resources, and personnel to ensure that residents of the disputed territories would be represented. Facilitating the participation of people from the disputed territories will be extremely difficult, and quite costly, due to high rates of internal displacement. So far, only $6 million have been ear-marked for the referendum and the KRG can expect no financial support from its neighbors and international supporters, virtually all of whom have come out against the referendum. Even Turkey, one of the closest allies of the KDP, has spoken out strongly against the referendum. Additionally, none of the KRG’s international partners or the United Nations have thus far expressed a willingness to monitor the referendum. In fact, the United Nations recently issued a statement emphasizing that it “has no intention to be engaged in any way or form” in monitoring the independence referendum due to its commitments to the territorial integrity of Iraq. Therefore, aside from repeated assurances from Erbil that the process will be fair to ethno-religious minorities in the disputed territories, the KRI has not announced any plan to accommodate them or hold separate referenda on their preferences.

Rudaw has recently reported that as of yet, no preparations have been made for the referendum in Kirkuk, the most populated of all disputed territories. Typically, funding for elections would come from the Independent High Electoral Commission of Iraq (IHEC), but the Commission’s Kirkuk office has denied that it has a budget or a plan for the referendum. Since the referendum was initiated unilaterally, not through mutual discussion with Baghdad, the KRG cannot expect to receive support for the referendum from the IFG. The President of the Kirkuk Provincial Council, Rebwar Talabani, has proposed that Kirkuk prepare on its own for the referendum without relying on funding from the IHEC, but with just another two and a half months to prepare, there has been no consensus in the Provincial Council on how the referendum should be funded, or even regarding the legality of holding the referendum in the province.

Holding the vote for the people of Shingal could be even more difficult. Shingal’s Yazidis are now divided among the many thousands in the IDP camps of Dohuk; thousands more in IDP camps in Syria and Turkey; tens of thousands of recent migrants to Europe (most of whom would prefer to return to a secure Shingal); others who have migrated to Canada, the US, and Australia; IDPs in camps on Shingal Mountain administered by PKK-affiliated institutions; returnees to damaged/destroyed areas in KDP-administered areas north of Shingal; returnees to Yazidi villages south of Shingal now under the control of Hashd al-Sha’bi. What is the KRG’s plan to make sure that all of these people are able to freely and fairly vote in the referendum?

Mahama Khalil, unelected mayor of Shingal (Sinjar)—Photo: Kirkuk Now

In a recent interview with Kirkuk Now, Mahama Khalil (appointed by the KDP to act as unelected mayor of the Shingal District) also said that no preparations had been made to conduct the vote in Shingal. In the interview, he also exhibits a certain confusion as to the proper legal channels through which to conduct the vote and stated defiantly that the PKK and Hashd al-Sha’bi will not be able to disrupt the freedom of Yazidis to vote in the referendum. But the real question should be: What will guarantee that the KDP does not apply pressure on the voters? If the KRG intends to facilitate the Shingali people’s free, democratic decision as to the future of their district, things are off to a bad start with their asaish already punishing and intimidating those who express a desire to see Shingal remain under Baghdad’s administration.

Opposition to the Referendum within the KRI

Beyond the anticipated debacle of trying to hold the referendum in the disputed territories, the Kurdish mainland may also temper the success of the referendum. Though the vast majority of Kurds support the principle of Kurdish independence, there is significant anxiety among many in the KRI as to whether this referendum is being pursued in the right way and for the right reasons.

Contrary to assertions that this referendum has the backing of a broad political coalition, this has not been the case. The June 7 meeting at Seri Resh that resulted in the decision to hold the referendum did not include Gorran or the Kurdistan Islamic Group. The Gorran-led political opposition regards the referendum as a vote on the legitimacy of the KDP’s monopolization of power, Masoud Barzani’s unilaterally-extended presidency, and the abandonment of parliamentary democracy. Their sense is that the referendum would effectively make the KDP the vanguard of the nationalist movement and discredit the opposition, which insists upon institution-building or at least having working democratic institutions prior to statehood. Together, Gorran and the Kurdistan Islamic Group constitute 25% of Parliament. The Kurdistan Islamic Union has also announced its refusal to back the vote without parliamentary approval.

Billboards and signs associating Barzani’s presidency with independence now appear everywhere in Erbil

It is also unclear the degree to which the PUK supports the referendum. Despite the participation of PUK Leadership Council members in the Seri Resh conference on June 7^th, the issue of holding an independence referendum has divided the PUK. In general, the PUK supports the reactivation of Parliament prior to holding an independence referendum. However, while some have backed the KDP’s proposal to reactivate the legislature with the current Speaker, Dr. Yusuf Muhammad, for one session, thirty-four out of fifty-five PUK Leadership Council members  support^[1] not just reactivation, but “normalization”—i.e. Gorran’s argument that Parliament must be reactivated and remain active until the next parliamentary elections (with Dr. Yusuf as Speaker)—and oppose the nomination of a PUK delegate to the Referendum Committee prior to Parliament’s reactivation. KRG Vice-Prime Minister Qubad Talabani and Kirkuk Governor Najmaddin Karim’s attendance—in defiance of the wishes of the majority of the Leadership Council—at the Referendum Committee hearings and at the KRG’s delegation to the European Parliament this week (to garner support for the referendum) prompted outrage within the PUK politburo. Mahmoud Sangawi, a member of the Leadership Council and General Commander of the Germian Region, lashed out at Talabani and Karim: “They are not representatives of the PUK. They represent only themselves.”

Is the Referendum Actually Binding?

While acting President Masoud Barzani has promised that the referendum on independence would be “binding,”  Barzani and others, including KDP executive and former Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, have qualified this by saying that independence will not be declared immediately after the vote, but rather that the vote would give the KRG a mandate to open independence negotiations with Baghdad.

In fact, it is doubtful that the KRI would benefit politically or financially from declaring independence. With a budget shortfall of over $25 billion, the KRI has had extreme difficulty paying public salaries and pensions, providing services, and maintaining infrastructure in its administrative areas. A declaration of independence would mean that the KRI would not only be responsible for providing salaries to KRI employees, but also for public servants that are currently paid by the IFG, as well as providing utilities, water, and other services to the disputed territories. The KRI’s Ministry of Natural Resources, along with the provinces of Kirkuk, Nineveh, and Salah ad-Din also have production-sharing agreements (PSAs) with the IFG to extract and market Kirkuk crude that provide for significant infrastructure development in the disputed territories, the salaries of KRI civil servants, and healthy dividends for KDP- and PUK-linked production and marketing firms and the KDP-led Ministry of Natural Resources. Moreover, the announcement on the referendum came less than two weeks after the KRG Central Bank announced that it agreed to be taken over by the Iraqi Central Bank and the Iraqi Oil Ministry announced plans to finance the construction of a new oil refinery in Kirkuk to the tune of $5 billion.

With all of the above in mind, it seems that participating parties in the Referendum Committee are more interested in gaining leverage against the IFG and their domestic political rivals, and in maximizing the political and financial gains of the KRI’s two dominant parties (the KDP and PUK).

Whether the KRG actually intends to declare independence or not, the referendum campaign itself could nevertheless stir violent tensions among the various populations and political factions contending for the disputed territories. The referendum’s lack of planning, preparation, legal definition, or multilateral participation sets a dangerous precedent and may also be perceived as anticlimactic by many Kurds who have long struggled for independence.

The Solution

To ensure the stability and security of Iraq and Kurdistan, both the Federal and Regional governments must revisit Article 140 and make a concerted effort to determine once and for all the status of the disputed territories. Of course, implementation will be even more difficult now than it was twelve years ago, mainly because demographic normalization (which must precede the execution of a census and referendum) has been disturbed by population displacements in the wake of the IS invasion. With so much at stake and so many competing territorial claims to evaluate and negotiate, it will be extremely difficult for two governments that doubt each other’s good faith to commit to this long and arduous process. Yet, continuing to avoid the Article 140 process, as the pressure continues to build on all sides, will yield severe consequences for both governments as well as for their international allies.

Most analysts agree that the international community, particularly the United Nations and the United States, must step up its involvement in order to help stabilize Iraq’s post-IS landscape and adopt a framework to address the challenges posed by the jurisdictional conflicts in the disputed territories. Currently, the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI)’s mandate is limited to humanitarian and diplomatic assistance at the request of the Government of Iraq. Furthermore, the mandate’s scope is overly-broad, expressing the UN’s intention to promote economic and institutional development throughout Iraq, but without any clear focus on addressing the territorial disputes between the KRG and the IFG. Therefore, the UN will need a mandate specifically tailored to the mediation of the Article 140 process that will provide for the necessary resources for resolving territorial and property disputes and completing the normalization (or de-Arabization) process, conducting censuses, and referenda.

More than simply revisiting Article 140, the mandate must also address the effects of civil war, population displacements, and genocide that have occurred since the passage of the Iraqi Constitution. It will be necessary to secure KRG and IFG cooperation to reconstruct and provide adequate services to recently liberated cities like Shingal and Jalawla. It should also bring community leaders, regional and federal officials together to respond to the requests of small, territorially concentrated ethnic minorities for local administrative autonomy. Finally, but most importantly, the mandate should include the deployment of armed peacekeepers to prevent the eruption of clashes that could sabotage progress on the diplomatic and humanitarian end. Indeed, research has shown that multi-faceted missions (those that include diplomatic, humanitarian, and security provisions) are more likely to have successful, long-term outcomes than missions with a purely humanitarian or security focus.^[2]

Although such a mission will depend on the KRG’s withdrawal of the present referendum proposal, independence for the KRI should not be off the table. Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi has even conceded that the Kurds have a right to self-determination, up to and including their own state. However, if the Kurdish parties truly intend to secede from Iraq, the UN and Iraq’s international partners should condition their support for the independence process on the KRG’s commitment to the peaceful resolution of territorial, energy, and water disputes with the IFG, as well as its observance of the Region’s own laws and the authority of its own legally established Regional decision-making bodies. For example, the UN should require that the KRG reactivate its Parliament, hold legislative and presidential elections, and encourage the passage of a motion in Parliament authorizing the formation of a high committee to plan an independence referendum before it agrees to monitor the vote. Likewise, by obtaining guarantees from the international community to support a future independence referendum that is conducted in accordance with the above conditions, Barzani could save face domestically while withdrawing the current referendum.

Although UN peacekeeping missions do not have a stellar success rate, this can be partly attributed to the difficulty of the missions that the UN accepts, the lack of willingness on the part of host nations to give the UN the flexibility it needs to succeed, and a lack of cooperation from regional and international partners. While resolving territorial disputes will invariably be a grueling process, a mission to carry out Article 140 can still succeed if domestic, regional, and international partners are committed to it. Of course, a UN peacekeeping mission would be a bitter pill to swallow for both Baghdad and Erbil. It will be costly, it will require a long-term commitment, and parties will have to accept compromises that they may perceive as sub-optimal. Ultimately, the value of peace for both sides will outweigh the value of the benefits that either side would expect to gain from continuing down the current path, which will inevitably lead to armed conflict, whether by design or miscalculation. The diplomatic efforts of Iraq’s neighbors and international partners, particularly the US, will be crucial in raising the IFG and KRI’s perceived costs of noncompliance (such as threatening a withdrawal of military or financial support from the KRG and/or IFG) and reducing their perceived costs of compromise by offering incentives for both to accept UN conditions. Additionally, US influence will be necessary to secure the resolution from the Security Council to authorize a multi-faceted peacekeeping mission in the disputed territories.

Conversely, the UN must obtain guarantees of cooperation from the potential regional spoilers Iran and Turkey, as well as the United States. This will also require mutual assurances and recognition that a peaceful resolution of the Article 140 disputes is the optimal outcome and that all parties will commit their resources to that end. However, with the Iranian-backed Hashd al- Sha’bi making gains along the Syrian border and the mobilization of Turkish armed forces in the KRI (as well as Turkish air strikes against PKK and YBŞ positions in Shingal), regional actors appear to be on a war footing in Iraq. So is the US. With a weakened Department of State, a newly-empowered Pentagon, and an Ambassador to the UN who recently bragged about cutting the peacekeeping budget by over half a billion dollars, hope of US support for peacemaking in Iraq may prove illusory as well.

—

Megan Connelly is a PhD candidate with the Department of Political Science at SUNY University at Buffalo, concentrating in civil war, peace-building, and power-sharing studies with a focus on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. She can be followed on Twitter: @meganconnelly48

Matthew Barber is a PhD student studying Islamic thought and history in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, who has conducted research on the Yazidi minority. He was working in Kurdistan when the Yazidi Genocide began and later led humanitarian and advocacy projects in the country for one year (2015-2016). He can be followed on Twitter: @Matthew__Barber

Rollback? Trump’s Iran claims not just flawed but dangerous.
Steven Simon argues that Trump’s view on Iran is not only analytically flawed, but also dangerous.
July 5, 2017
Previously published on IISS blog
By Steven Simon, John J. McCloy ’16 Visiting Professor of History at Amherst College, and Contributing Editor to Survival

The Trump administration, for all its disarray, has a clear and consistent policy toward the Middle East. In other theatres, administration policy seems to lack organising principles – in Europe, for example, where the United States’ commitment to NATO has been both derided and valourised, and in Asia, where China is a threat one minute and an ally the next.

Washington’s approach to the Middle East, by contrast, is distinguished by its clarity. The organising principle is that Iran is the root of all evil.

There is no doubt that Iran is the root of some evil, but Mr Trump’s totalising claim and the exculpation of other regional states’ role in the current instability is not just analytically flawed but dangerous, leading ineluctably to hazardous policy objectives.

During the Cold War, American hardliners demanded ‘rollback’ of Soviet power from Eastern Europe. They viewed containment, the prevailing strategy toward the Soviet Union, as strategically and morally obtuse. The problem with rollback, however, was that the Soviet Union had an asymmetrically greater interest in holding on to Eastern Europe. These states were the mostly flat plain through which Germany had funneled an army that killed millions. Moscow was not going to surrender this vital bufer easily; a US effort to wrest Eastern Europe from Soviet rule might, therefore, escalate uncontrollably. Rollback never really gained traction, until the Soviets, under Mikhail Gorbachev’s leadership, came to trust West Germany enough to be relatively relaxed about dissolving the Warsaw Pact.

After Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia and renewed focus on Iran, it is hard not to think of the Cold War rollback debate. Even the language of neo-rollback advocates recalls the apocalyptic wars of the twentieth century. Iran, they contend, wants land corridors to the West to strengthen Hizbullah and launch a second front against Israel while keeping the Assad regime alive.

Strengthening Hizbullah and using it to harass Israel have long been Iranian goals, but in the Trumpian rhetoric they have been transformed into a sinister plan for regional dominion. Phrases such as ‘land corridors’ mimic the geopolitical language of the interwar period, implying an equivalence between the fascist threat to European security in the twentieth century and the Shia threat to Middle Eastern security in the twenty-first. How much of this just bubbles up from the subconscious and how much is sly reference is hard to say. But the effect is to convey urgency and existential danger.

In reality, the Iranian behaviour that has catalysed talk of rollback has not changed since the 1980s, when Israel’s assault on Palestinian militants in Lebanon spurred Shia resentment and ambition, opening the door to Iran. Fighting between Syria and Israel forged a convergence of interest between Damascus and Tehran. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. And that was 35 years ago, before many advocates of Iran rollback were born.

Israel rightly points to Hizbullah’s inventory of Iranian missiles as a serious threat. These stockpiles, however, were created without a land corridor. Weapons were flown into Damascus and trucked into Lebanon. The possibility of a land corridor exists only because Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq – the sturdiest possible barrier between Iran and the Levant – was toppled in 2003.

Neither Israel nor the US has devised a way to sever the umbilical link between Hizbullah and Iran, or to split Syria from Iran. There was hope in early 2011, when Bashar al-Assad supposedly agreed to abandon Iran in return for the Golan Heights. This was allegedly curtailed first by Israel’s disinterest, then by war in Syria. Iran’s costly defence of Syria since then has been consistent with their deep reciprocal reliance.

The US has run hot and cold on Iran ever since the Islamic Revolution. The CIA was still passing intelligence to Iran in late 1979. A wish for rapprochement led the US to sell weapons to Iran in the 1980s. That turned into a failed arms-forhostages deal and a renewed tough line toward Tehran. Yet even after Iran-backed suicide bombers killed US marines in Beirut, and Iranian mines blasted a US warship and other vessels under US protection, the Reagan administration declined to escalate militarily.

George H.W. Bush subordinated US hostility towards Iran to the war against Saddam in 1991. The Clinton administration anathematised both Iran and Iraq. Although Iran was complicit in the 1996 Khobar bombing, Mohammad Khatami’s election as president produced a thaw; the US never retaliated. After 9/11, the US and Iran cooperated in Afghanistan, followed by another swing against Iran as part of an ‘axis of evil’. The Obama administration embraced toughened multilateral sanctions, cyber war and sabotage, but entered into successful diplomacy after the election of Hassan Rouhani. Given this cyclical pattern, renewed assertiveness and anxiety is no surprise.

The nuclear deal with Iran partly explains the current push for rollback. Israel and the Gulf states have pocketed the deal’s ten years without a nuclear-armed Iran in their neighbourhood, moving the goalposts to what they see as the linked threat of Iranian regional aggression: weapons transfers to Houthi rebels in Yemen; support for a seriously wounded Syrian ally; influence in Baghdad; and a close relationship with Lebanese Hizbullah. It is a remarkable imaginative leap to believe that these concerns, however nettlesome, outweigh the threat of a nuclear Iran, but this calculus does appear to drive Saudi, Emirati and Israeli policy.

The locus of the Iranian challenge is an area in southern Syria where the borders of Jordan, Iraq and Syria meet. Two towns constitute the flashpoint, al-Tanaf and al bu Kamal, straddling the Baghdad–Damascus highway. This trade route has been closed for a long time. Whether it will reopen under US control or under the Assad regime is uncertain. American forces are increasing there, rather than in the areas where the Islamic State is strongest. New powerful artillery systems have been deployed. And the US has been firing on Iranian-led pro-Assad militias extending their tentacles toward al-Tanaf and al bu Kamal.

A long-term US presence, in a bleak desert surrounded by hostile tribes, for the purpose of blocking Iran’s quest for a land corridor is now being contemplated. For the administration, this is where rollback begins. But as in the Cold War, someone needs to be asking where it ends. A version of this post will appear as the Closing Argument in the August–September issue of Survival.

A version of this post will appear as the Closing Argument in the August–September issue of Survival.

by Aron Lund

Half a year after expelling the city’s anti-regime rebels, the Syrian government continues to face problems in Aleppo. Though civilians have trickled back to the eastern neighborhoods – there’s now more people living there than under rebel rule – reconstruction of the bombed-out areas has been sluggish at best, and though Assad’s control is no longer in dispute, question marks remain about basic stability.

In particular, citizens of all political stripes have complained about the lawless behavior of some of the many pro-government  militias that are active in the city.

While most of Assad’s armed forces have moved on to man the temporarily frozen frontlines against Turkey-backed rebels in Idleb and fight the Islamic State near Raqqa, Aleppo is still home to a large number of local militias and so-called popular committees. Some of these groups have become infamous for plundering shops and homes in the former opposition areas, extorting traders at checkpoints, and abusing civilians who object to their behavior.

Though these groups are hated by the opposition and often deeply unpopular with government loyalists, too, they are often protected by high-ranking contacts in the intelligence services. The government continues to rely on their services and, in many cases, officials profit from their criminality. Therefore, despite growing popular resentment, the authorities in Aleppo have mostly turned a blind eye to their behavior. Sporadic police clampdowns and attempts by the Aleppo Security Committee of Lt. Gen. Zaid al-Saleh to enforce rules on checkpoints and smugglers have been stop-gap measures at best.

In early June, Aleppo witnessed a string of particularly brutal and meaningless militia crimes, including the accidental killing of a respected Syrian-Armenian dentist and the senseless murder of a thirteen-year old boy, Ahmed Jawish. The murder was widely reported and condemned across Syrian media, including by stalwart government loyalists, and it seems to have catalyzed a change in the central government’s attitude.

Bashar al-Assad has now sent one of his top intelligence officials to Alepp: State Security director Lt. Gen. Mohammed Dib Zeitoun. He has been tasked by the presidential palace with overseeing a crackdown on organized crime and reining in the militias, and local authorities – including Lt. Gen. Saleh’s Security Commitee, the provincial police chief Lt. Gen. Essam al-Shelli, and the local Baath Party branch of Fadel al-Najjar – are now busily reorganizing the security sector.

The success or failure of Dib Zeitoun’s crackdown could tell us a lot about the Baathist government’s ability to stabilize and restore normal governance to areas of Syria where the rebels have held sway – and you can be certain that both Syrians and foreigners are keeping a close eye on what happens in Aleppo right now.

* * *

I have written a three-part series for IRIN News about how Aleppo has fared since major combat ended there in December 2016. For more on these issues, you can read them all here:

• The fall of eastern Aleppo (Dec. 2016) [Français] [العربية]
• Eastern Aleppo under al-Assad (Apr. 2017) [العربية]
• Aleppo militias become major test for Assad (Jun. 2017) – New!

– Aron Lund

Farewell to Ibrahim “Abe” Soliman: A Syrian-American Who Worked for Peace between Syria and Israel
By Geoffrey Aronson
For Syria Comment – June 10, 2017

Abe Soliman, Jeff Aronson in middle, and Alon Liel at the Bnot Yaacov Baily bridge over the Jordan River

“Hey, it’s Akiva. Who was the old guy with you?”

The “old guy” was Ibrahim “Abe” Soliman.  He and I had just finished a meeting with Ron Prosor, director general of Israel’s foreign ministry, in a nondescript Tel Aviv café. The two of us were exiting to the street when Akiva Eldar, senior correspondent for Ha’aretz, just happened to drive by.

“Oh he’s just a friend, “ I replied. “No one you would know.”

Abe was in Israel during a secret visit in April 2005, part of our quiet dialogue in support of an Israeli-Syrian rapprochement. Together with Alon Liel, a former ambassador and top foreign ministry official, we toured the Golan plateau and walked across the Bailey Bridge across the Jordan River north of the Sea of Galilee Heights.  Abe met with the widow of Eli Cohen and his daughter to discuss the prospect of repatriating her husband’s remains. It’s impossible to keep a secret in Israel. The fact that we were able to keep Abe’s visit out of the press was a testament to the seriousness with which our efforts were viewed … and no small amount of luck.

Eli Cohen’s daughter and widow with Abe Soliman and Jeff Aronson

Some months later we were able to agree upon a “non-paper” outlining the creation of a “park” in the Golan Heights. (link to the Carnegie document). The understanding, drafted with Liel and Uri Saguy, remains the only example of a successful  “track one and one half” engagement between Israelis and Syrians. Eldar’s chance drive by threatened to blow up our three-year effort in mid-course.

Abe died late last month of complications following a stroke. I last saw him only a few days before the debilitating attack. We were making laborious efforts to reconcile opposing combatants in Syria — efforts that, after many frustrating months, had begun to show a hint of promise.  At our last meeting, as Syria’s descent into self-destruction continued, Abe continued to see an opportunity to revive discussions between Israel and Syria on the Golan’s future.

Abe Soliman was all but unknown to the lay public, but he has been a familiar figure to diplomats on three continents who have toiled in the barren vineyard of Israel-Syrian diplomacy for almost three decades.

Beginning with his successful effort to win Syrian approval for the emigration of Syrian Jews in the early 1990s, Soliman worked to improve Damascus’ and the Assad regime’s relations with Washington. And as the Assad’s road to the White House often passed through Jerusalem, this meant that Soliman dedicated time and resources in the last decades to solving the crisis in relations between Israel and Syria.

Abe’s particular role, his effectiveness and its limits, is a reflection of the idiosyncratic exercise of power and authority during the Assad era. Young, Alawi, and dirt poor, Abe was befriended by Hafez al Assad, who had served under the command of Abe’s older brother. Abe tells this evocative story in his self-published memoir, “My Grandfather’s Tree: A Syrian Immigrant’s American Adventures, Friendship with Dictators, and Quest for Peace in the Middle East”

Abe emigrated from Syria to the United States in the late 1950s. After establishing himself as a US citizen – a life-changing consequence of a chance friendship with a USFSO whom he met as a young boy  — Abe maintained business ties with his ancestral homeland and continued his close familial relationship with the ruling family and its inner circle.

Syria is a small country steeped in relationships tied to family, geography and religion. Abe was a good businessman and he provided valuable training to woefully ill-equipped members of a new and growing Syrian governing and administrative class. But the real source of his entre was a relationship of trust forged with the Assads, rooted in a shared history that transcended politics or business, and a deeply ingrained belief that quiet understandings reached between men of influence were the key to diplomatic progress.

Abe was intimate with the regime and its shadowy leadership.  But he was not of the regime. Throughout the years he was determined to maintain his independence, including financial independence, from Damascus, and even to risk its displeasure. He understood better than his friends in Damascus that he was more valuable to them and an abler and more effective interlocutor if he stayed outside the wide circle of those who owed everything to the regime.

The gutters of Middle East diplomacy are littered with poseurs and braggarts of all stripes claiming, usually without foundation, privileged access to those in power.

Abe, in contrast, was the real deal. More than one government in the region was satisfied that Abe did indeed have entre to Assad’s inner circle, if only because they could see the star treatment he received upon arrival in Damascus and meetings he arranged for others with the president or his top staff.  Over the years, a parade of US officials made their way to Abe’s modest home outside Washington to sit with senior Syrians around his dining room table.

If on the one hand Abe stood apart from the regime, he well understood that his value to interlocutors from Ankara to Jerusalem and Washington was as an authoritative link to the government and its interests.

He was also well aware that his value to the Assads lay in his ability to articulate their views — not his own  — discreetly and secretly in such a way as to elicit something of value that could maintain or excite interest in Damascus.

Then as now, the regime operated in the dark. The leadership is most at home with the curtains drawn, jockeying for influence among the shadows. Transparency is to be avoided at all costs. Public efforts are all but useless for transacting serious business. This is how power and influence are exercised in Syria.

Abe was a product of this system and a wily, able practitioner who exploited its advantages and was hobbled by its shortcomings. Secrecy was the signa qua non of any effective diplomatic engagement. He was extremely sensitive to the fact that a misstep on his part would not easily be repaired or forgiven by a regime intolerant of any such attempt, undertaken by design or in error. This proved to be the case when Abe arrived in Israel for a second, this time public, visit in April 2007, when he testified before the Israeli Knesset and made an emotional visit to Yad Vashem.

It could not be easy to manage these apparent contradictions — to represent the interests and views of the regime to outsiders while retaining his distance from it and to maintain his personal independence and ability not just to represent but also to influence the policies of Hafez the father and, after his death in April 2000, Bashar the son.

There was also the challenge of maintaining control over the various negotiating tracks that developed during the course of his encounters.  During our efforts from 2004-2007 for example, meetings in Zurich, sponsored by the Government of Switzerland, were only one facet of a multidimensional array of bilateral engagements –like the one with Prosor– some of which at times appeared to be more important to Abe — that is, Damascus –than the track one and one half dialogue with his Israeli counterparts that was nominally the heart of our efforts.  Like the spider at the center of the web, Abe endeavored to make sure that he was the only player with the full picture. I would bemoan this complexity but for Abe it was a natural and necessary state of affairs.

Abe was a son of Syria.  He was only too familiar with the manner in which power and influence were maintained and exercised in Damascus.  Outsiders could never hope to obtain the keys to this particular castle, and Abe was continually critical of the uncanny ability of Americans and others to misread the opportunities for progress.

He had few kind words for the Syrian opposition, especially its expatriate leadership, and many reciprocated his antipathy. But just as he could call upon his lifelong ties to the Assads, he remained a respected figure among some opposition figures whom he had known over a lifetime, and their children, some of whose education he had sponsored at American universities.

Not that he spared the regime. Particularly in these latter years, Abe lamented Assad’s missteps and repression. He despaired for Syria’s independence from Iranian and, less so, Russian designs. And he worried that in Syria, Washington would fall into the trap first opened in Afghanistan, when it succeeded Russia in a war that has yet to end.

End

For Jeff Aronson’s article, describing the Track II talks with Syria, see

Nationalism Between Europe and The Middle East
By Sam Farah
For Syria Comment – June 9, 2017

Steven Bannon, the man behind the nationalist policy in the Trump administration, is quoted as saying, “I think strong countries and strong nationalist movements in countries make strong neighbors. And that is really the building blocks that built Western Europe and the United States, and I think it’s what can see us forward”.

It is true that Nationalism was born in Europe, and is the foundation of the new modern state. However, what Bannon’s remarks miss is the fact that strong nationalist movements in Europe helped lead to the outbreak of World War I and World War II. It has also contributed to a great deal of strife and death in the Middle East.

Before the late 18th century there were no real nation states. Neither passports nor borders as we know them existed. People had ethnic and cultural identities, but these did not really define the political entities in which they lived. In 1800, almost nobody in France thought of themselves as French. At the time of the French Revolution in 1789, half its residents did not speak French.

Nationalism did not develop among the general population, it was a construct first developed among the intellectual elites of Europe. Johann Gottfried Herder, a German philosopher who believed that language determined national thought and culture, first coined the term “nationalism”. Nationalists expected patriots to then learn their nation’s language and raise their children speaking that language as part of a general program to establish a unique national identity. Poets and philosophers created folk epics and fairy tales, these epic legends and constructed narratives created imagined communities that gave rise to a sense of delusional, inflated self-worth. English Nationalists argued that England is the kingdom that, of all the kingdoms in the world, is the most like the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And the French believed that France had a special mission as representative of the most advanced form of western culture.

The idea that the boundaries of a nation should, as much as possible, coincide with only one culture, and the belief that a people who share a common language, history, and culture should constitute an independent nation set the stage for decades of war and border disputes on the European continent. The history of Alsace Lorraine is a microcosm of the turbulent years of nationalism in Europe and the rivalry between French and German nationalism. The area was a watershed for invading French and German armies and mutual annexation. The Germans pursued a Germanification policy in the Alsace that prohibited its residents from speaking French in public. A person could be fined even for something as innocent as saying, “bonjour”. Street signs, once displayed in French, were replaced with German signage. When the French annexed the Alsace, up to 100,000 Germans were expelled and German language Alsatian newspapers were suppressed.

The zeal of nationalism in Europe and the need to define an identity for these nations states culminated with the Nuremberg law. It added a racial element to the concept of nationalism, and ultimately contributed to the rise of Nazi Germany and the outbreak of World War II.

By the end of the 19^th century, as the sun was setting on the Ottoman Empire, Zionists, who were primarily European Jews, worked to create a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine. Young Turks, eager to modernize their state, and young Arabs intellectuals primarily from the Levant who also wanted to emulate the modernity of Europe embarked on a nation building quest of their own, all with irreconcilable claims and overlapping aspirational maps. This was the framework that set the stage for the endless conflicts in the Middle East that continue to plague the region. Today Kurdish nationalists are trying to establish their own nation state from parts of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Their ambitions have added another layer of complexity to an already intractable situation.

The trauma of the great depression, the threat of communist revolution, the rise of fascism and the ravage of World War II, made Europe search for an alternative to nationalism.

The search for a new framework for Europe was led by Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman. They worked to enmesh the economies and societies of Western Europe with one another. These new transnational ties were expected to create a permanent peace between France and Germany. The road to building this new post nationalist space that culminated in the creation of the European Union, was arduous. Many European politicians resisted the notion of ceding sovereignty to a supra nationalist entity. The project, however, achieved is intended objective, and Europe has enjoyed the longest period of peace in its modern history. In the mid 1970s, just 22% of Germans thought they had more in common with other Germans of different social class then with Frenchmen of the same class (Haas 1997). And Alsace is now a multi-lingual region, its inhabitants shop and work in both France and Germany. In the words of Angela Merkel, “The Europe that suffered from German hubris was transformed into a ring of friends organized around NATO and the E.U.”

The European post-nationalist experiment was not without its flaws. It seeded too many controls to Brussels. Like most hierarchical systems it became top-heavy, and incapable of responding to change. In addition, there were structural flaws in the way the Euro was established adding layers of popular resentment against the European project.

While Europe is grappling with reforms of its current framework and fending off rising nationalism, the Middle East is still in the thrall of its failed nationalist experiment, increasingly chaotic, with rising religious extremism and terrorism.

Moving Forward

How should the people of Europe and the Middle East organize themselves to achieve peace, stability and economic growth? Today, questions of identity, complexity and polity are the subject of research and a new field of study by complexity theorists, social scientists and historians. They believe that to have a peaceful world it may not be necessary to abolish the nation state as it remains the most effective body to write and enforce the rules, just to deemphasize it. What we need, they argue, are multicultural states with overlapping authorities, divided sovereignty, fuzzy borders, and the distribution of power to local communities.

The SSNP’s Military: The Eagles of the Whirlwind
By Jesse McDonald
For Syria Comment – June 5, 2017

Nusur al-Zawba’a and Some Figures from Syria Since 2016

The Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), like many political parties in the region, also possesses an armed wing.  In this case, the SSNP’s military wing is called Nusur al-Zawba’a which translates to ‘Eagles of the Whirlwind.’  The Whirlwind here (pictured below) is a reference to the vortex / hurricane-like symbol front and center of the SSNP’s logo.  More on the origins of the Whirlwind (zawba’a) in the piece immediately following this one.

SSNP’s emblem

Much has been written on the roles various militias and National Defense Forces (NDF) play fighting on Assad’s side.  The Eagles of the Whirlwind, being one of these groups fighting with the Syrian regime as well as Hezballah, also, deserves attention and analysis.  However, diving into the groups history and motives for fighting is beyond the scope of this article.  What will be touched upon is a brief overview of these fighters who have died since the beginning of 2016.  This article will point out which towns SSNP members were actively engaged in combat and areas with the highest casualty rates, what the average age was for those who have fallen, and when they joined the party.  Important disclosure: due to lack of information on several party members, this data is not fully complete.  Nevertheless, the intention is to offer a glimpse of recent trends and structure some type of background so the reader can better comprehend the SSNP’s combat role in Syria’s war.

Let’s begin with 2016:

Although active on numerous fronts, the year 2016 did not witness a particularly high mortality rate as a result of armed activities against rebels and jihadists (this is in no way downplaying any low figures or loss of life).  There were a total of eighteen deaths categorized into the following cities/governorates:

Aleppo- 1

Raqqa countryside- 1

Hama- 1

Douma- 2

Homs- 3

Latakia- 10

As one can notice, Latakia registered the highest casualty total out of any province in Syria during 2016.  Five of these ten deaths occurred on February 19 in Kinsaba- one of them being Adonis Nasr (known as ‘Ado’) – who led various media operations for the Eagles of the Whirlwind.^[1]  Such operations included recording fighters’ will or testimonials and preparing their autobiographies and ‘martyrdom’ posters.  He also helped run the party’s daily al-Bina’.   The countryside of Latakia was a particular hot spot for the Eagles Whirlwind in 2016, with many battles taking place in the mountains, strategically situated along Turkey’s border and also neighboring Idlib province.  The coastal highlands is crucial for Assad in blocking rebel-held supply lines, linking up to government controlled areas in Hama and creating a buffer between Alawite dominated cities in Latakia and Tartus (Assad’s heartland).  In fact, all but two of the ten deaths in Latakia countyside transpired in Kinsaba (the others died in Kubani).

Photo from Adonis Nasr’s funeral in Lebanon

Five out of six locations mentioned above (where there have been casualties) are areas SSNP fighters have been heavily active.  The one exception is Raqqa’s countryside.  In June 2016, Syrian government troops alongside allied militias, briefly entered Raqqa province only to be repelled and pushed out shortly afterwards by the so-called Islamic State.  It is with this brief incursion a member of the Eagles Whirlwind perished.  However, similar to other examples, it appears this fighter, although an SSNP member, was fighting more with the Syrian army than a powerful SSNP contingent.

Are SSNP members fighting in Syria universally younger or older?  The average age of those who died fighting with the SSNP was around 28 years old.  The oldest, forty-two, was killed near Douma while the youngest was eighteen years of age and died in Homs.  Of the eighteen fighters mentioned, at least seven were thirty years of age or older.  However, I was not able to determine the age of five fighters.

Turning now to party membership.  Ten out of these eighteen SSNP fighters had a clear date as to when they joined the party.  Only two joined the Eagles of the Whirlwind before 2011 while the other eight were either in 2013 or some time after.  I mention 2011 in an attempt to discover whether a pattern emerges between the beginning of the war and overall length of party membership.  Several signed up as recently as 2015 (four people with the possibility of six), and thus, presents an interesting development for analyzing certain fighters on the front lines compared to their duration of time in the SSNP.  Out of the eight which could not be determined, two fighters were around the age of twenty when they died.  Assuming they enrolled in the Syrian army first at eighteen, it is most likely safe to say they joined after 2013 as well.  Albeit on a very small scale, this shows members are signing up to join SSNP’s ranks fairly recently (at least based on information from those who have died).  As opposed to those who have been party members for an extended period of time, prior to violence breaking out, losing their lives on the front lines.  Granted, this does not paint a complete accurate picture of overall party membership since just the fatalities are being examined.

There is debate surrounding to what degree the SSNP is a crucial fighting element for the Syrian army.  Adding to any confusion over just how independent the SSNP is from the Syrian army, half of SSNP fighters who died in 2016 only joined the Eagles Whirlwind after several military courses with the army.  Considering many weapons and vehicles in SSNP’s arsenal are courtesy of the Syrian army, and that the two fight side-by-side on several fronts, more analysis is needed to determine how much leeway members have in joining without first serving in the army.  Besides wearing seemingly identical combat fatigues at times, rendering them indistinguishable in appearance minus SSNP patches or flags, it is difficult to resolve how formidable their fighting prowess is outside of any Syrian army formations.  In stark contrast to the Tiger Forces or Desert Hawks and obviously Hezballah for example.  One of these SSNP members was still in the Syrian army reserves while another fought with the army where he was killed in Aleppo.  Hence, at times it appears the lines are blurred as to the sovereignty and independence of those wearing the al-zawba’a patch.  Another important disclosure: information on prior military service before fighting with the SSNP was not available for half of the deaths that occurred in 2016.

Finally, almost no one fought and died where they were born (including even geographically in the same province).  Granted, such data does not imply fighters were never active at some point near or in the same towns they were born.  This is mentioned because several speculations center around whether SSNP members are able to evade serving in the Syrian army, often times feared on front lines in distant provinces, to act instead as local protection forces in cities of their birthplace.  The SSNP’s Eagles Whirlwind are nevertheless engaged in very active battle zones throughout multiple regions in Syria.  Some of the more prominent or well – known areas and towns include the province of Hama- Salamiyah, Mahardah, Suqaylabiyah and Sahl al Ghab plains to name a few; Homs city, Sadad, al-Qaryatayn in Homs; the countryside of Latakia province-Jabal al-Akrad, Kubani, Kinsaba, Khammam and Salma; in addition to the cities of Aleppo, Zabadani; Douma; Suwayda; Quneitra; and the Qalamoun region.

Eagles Whirlwind in 2017:

According to official Eagles Whirlwind social media pages, three members have fallen so far this year in battle.  One fighter each from Salamiyah (Hama)—24 to 25 years old; Aleppo—39 to 40 years old and Douma—26 to 27 years of age.  The fighter from Aleppo seemed to be more of a symbolic presence alongside Syrian army troops and various militias while the other two died as part of operations with the army (one member who died in Salamiyah actually is said to have been within the army’s formations-adding to previously mentioned blurred lines).  Additionally, all three formally became SSNP party members within the last three years or so.

Interestingly, there is a split off branch from the SSNP’s Eagles of the Whirlwind also fighting with the Syrian army.  This group is called the Syrian Social Nationalist Party in the Syrian Arab Republic.  Apparently, Rami Makhlouf is their main supporter and members are more susceptible to Arabism.  One of these fighters was present when pro-regime forces advanced inside a de-confliction zone near the city of Tanf on the Iraq-Syria border.  The town hosts a base where U.S. and British special operations soldiers are training a rebel faction for future incursions into Syria’s eastern desert-near the town of Deir Ezzor.  Based on a SSNP social media site, this fighter ended up succumbing to his wounds on May 21^st after coalition jets struck the convoy on May 18^th.  He was a party member since 2008, and along with his brother who died in 2012, happened to be a founder of the NDF’s Idlib branch.  Pictured below is a “martyrdom” poster for this fighter killed near Tanf from SSNP’s group that broke away.  One can clearly differentiate between this and Eagles of the Whirlwind posters honoring their comrades.

SSNP in the Syrian Arab Republic member killed near Tanf

The majority of the eighteen fighters or so from the Syrian Social Nationalist Party in the Syrian Arab Republic who have been killed since 2016 occurred primarily in Palmyra and Aleppo.  It does appear more fighters in this group fought around the towns they were born and rarely ever experienced combat in cities Eagles of the Whirlwind fighters were present.  Additional analysis regarding this development will be key in gathering potential negative effects from a split and any coinciding repercussions the SSNP’s influence may suffer as the Syrian war drags on.  Has the Assad regime strategized to split up armed groups gaining influence? Possibly a smart maneuver in order to gain more control over these militias which could one day threaten the regimes power.  In specific areas where rebels and jihadists were defeated, vast amounts of unmonitored armed militias roam the streets, surely Assad is plotting for what comes next to secure his grip.

Lastly, patterns are difficult to detect in only a year and a half.  As such, analysis within that timeframe may cause speculation.  This is understandable.  Moreover, lack of information on certain fighters coupled with an overall low death count makes sweeping declarations mere hypotheses.  Nevertheless, the intention of this article is to act as a starting point for future studies while also laying a basic foundation to garner a better understanding of SSNP activities throughout the Syrian war.  SSNP fighters are very active on multiple fronts across Syria, witnessing some of the more strategic battles, and low casualty figures since 2016 should not mislead such a fact.  The year 2015 saw far more activity for the Eagles Whirlwind.  More on that in the next paper.

^[1] Appears he is the only SSNP fighter to have died since 2016 who was not born in Syria.  He was born in Choueifat, Lebanon.

— End —

The Source of SSNP Emblem or the Whirlwind
by Jesse McDonald

Following our previous discussion that sheds light on the Eagles of the Whirlwind in Syria since 2016, we turn to the emblem their SSNP party members display so proudly. Emblazoned with an eagle carrying the SSNP’s logo, the “whirlwind.” What is the inspiration for this symbol? A combination of a cross and crescent- signifying the unity and diverse makeup of the SSNP? Perhaps the Nazi swastika? Or perhaps something entirely different? The SSNP has vehemently denied any link between their emblem and the swastika used by the Nazis.

This photo shows the swastika on a Sumerian bowl from approximately 6000 B.C.
Now, I wish to expand on the early origins of al-zawba’a.

Symbols were often used throughout the ages in ancient cultures as a powerful form of expression. Spanning from South America to Europe and continuing to the Middle East, while also impressing India and China, such images were extremely meaningful and popular within these civilizations. They explained known facts while also depicting energy of the unknown (cosmic universe). It is from these early times the swastika symbol was revealed to the world.

Swastikas were a common geometrical pattern used in ancient art and did not have the same negative connotations it has today. The name swastika typically means “good fortune” or “well-being” in the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit. Illustrations of this symbol can be found all over the world dating back ten thousand years. Common to antiquity periods, symbols displayed in such a manner usually depicted energies of the universe fashioned around a center point. Notice the appearance of a whirlwind symbol in rotation along with an image of a swastika in the center below.

Photo shows the swastika on a Sumerian bowl from approximately 6000 B.C.
Moving away from the swastika for a moment. In this instance (SSNP), the universe is symbolized by a circle which is always moving. In the center is the mandala- a whirlwind that has a unique and close relationship with the circle. The center radiates towards the circle and the circle gives depth to the center. Why is this relevant? The SSNP believes this universe was centered in Syria when the land sprouted numerous advanced and powerful civilizations thousands of years ago.

Most of the Syrian legends revolve around various cosmic and human themes, most notably the emergence of the universe, creation, death followed by emancipation, conflict, construction, order, et cetera. Inheritance is the primary line, it is the indistinguishable energy and the symbol is the appearance of this energy. It is this focus on the centers energy, specifically marked by the universe and how everything radiates around it, the whirlwind image resonates with the SSNP. Fascination therefore does not appear to derive (although not ruling out any fascist inspiration considering the time period) from the Nazi swastika or a combination of a crescent and cross; both debated and contemplated in Western media publications.

The whirlwind inscriptions found throughout the Levant are also thought to be Phoenician. Antoun Saadeh chose the whirlwind as a symbol of the immortality of the Syrian nation, a symbol symbolized in more than a historical epic of the annals of Syrian history.

Saadeh expanded on the symbol when he said, “The symbol of the Whirlwind was found engraved on more than one fossil in Syria. It symbolizes the interaction of matter and spirit. It symbolizes life, survival, immortality and within the four corners of ‘freedom, duty, order and power.’”

It appears, contrary to popular debate, the SSNP logo derives from a symbol dating back thousands of years found throughout the Levant and Mesopotamia. All things considered, especially when examining their ideological outlook and affinity for ancient ‘Syrian’ civilizations who once dominated the region, this is actually not extraordinarily surprising.