Dr Pramod Pathak
On April 4 the world witnessed gruesome pictures of people and kids in Khan Sheikhoun town, under the control of Syrian rebels, gasping for breath after being bombed by forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. They were suffering from the deadly poisonous gas Sarin to die horrible death. Some eighty people, including dozens of children, died in the attack. These were very grim pictures and evoked strong condemnation from all over the world. Here was a strong case for pulling Bashar al-Assad to the international court of law to try him for war crimes. It was not for the first time that Syrian army had done it. Way back in 2013 the Syrian army had attacked the civilian population with chemical weapons evoking worldwide condemnation. But the culprits could not be fixed, nor were the victims given justice by bringing to the book the perpetrators of the crime. Barack Obama, the then US President, was urged to take action against the regime in Syria. He dithered. It is to be noted that then known as one among the billionaires, Donald Trump had tweeted in Sept 2013, “President Obama, do not attack Syria. There is no upside and tremendous down side. Save your ‘powder’ for another (and more important) day.”
It was after this incident that Russia entered the fray backing Assad. Since then both, the US and Russia,have deployed their military experts to guide different factions fighting on the ground against each other in the Syrian war theatre.
Within hours of the chemical attack by Syrian forces, now in the President’s position, Donald Trump has got active. He roped in his administration and advisers to go into the plan of action as pictures of suffering children and babies gasping for breath weighed on his mind. Within three days of the gruesome incident, two US warships moved to the Mediterranean and attacked the airport of Al-Shayrat from where the planes attacking Khan Sheikhoun took off and where the chemical weapons were supposed to have been stockpiled. The objective of the attack was to render the airport unusable for further attacks. The action by President Trump was lauded by many allies of US, including Saudi Arabia, while it was condemned by both, Russia and Iran.
However it was a totally misguided attack in many respects. The fired missile count is given to be 59, too much for the airport system to be disabled. As the results showed, only 23 out of 59 Taomahawks hit the target. From the tactical point of view, this is a bad
performance. The airstrip of at Al-Shayrat is reported to be usable. Where has the accuracy of the target fixing gone? Or did the US use this opportunity to test new mechanism? It is known that earlier Russians used Syrian soil to test-fire the newly developed missiles from the naval ships in Caspian Sea. Some nine
civilians, including four children, were killed during the US attack. It can’t be justified in any way. It is after all a loss of human life. US did inform before-hand many nation heads about the attack. Syrians too were informed about these attacks. So it did not come unexpected.
As it emerged, this attack was to shake the position of Bashar al-Assad and embrace the regime change in Syria. As Nikki Haley, US representative at UN said, Syria will not know peace as long as Assad is in power. She said, “It just – if you look at his actions, if you look at the situation, it’s going to be hard to see a government that’s peaceful and stable with Assad”. Well! There is no difference of opinion about it. Has US any viable alternative to offer after Assad? It was the bloody mess in post Saddam Iraq created by US, where the resulting chaos led to formation of ISIS. Russia has accused US for breaking the pact on air attacks and vouched unstinted support to Assad. In fact this attack has helped Assad to consolidate his position against the stand taken by US to remove him. Russian Defence Minister ascertained to strengthen the air defence system of Syria. Russia sent a frigate to a port call and froze agreement with US to coordinate activity in the Syrian air space. This step by Russia will make it difficult for US to take any impromptu action on Syria and might result in escalation of the conflict.
The situation in Lavant, the region that extends from Egypt, Greece to Syria has been under boiling since the Arab summer in 2010. This bastion of Islamic people divided in different nationalities is in conflict with its own people for different reasons. It started with rebellion against the despotic dictators but took turn for the internecine sectarian conflict. It is aided and abetted by two major sectarian players Sunni-Wahhabi Saudi Arabia and Gulf associates and Shia Iran along with Lebanon and Palestine. As long as US and Russia were not directly confronting each other, the conflict remained confined to the warring sectarian forces. However with the above missile attack, it has brought US and Russia in direct
confrontation with each other. At the same time the arch-enemies Saudi Arabia and Iran stand second behind these super powers.
The root cause of the conflict lies in the dictatorial mind set of the Islamic society that a sole dictator, a substitute for Caliph is more acceptable to them than the pluralistic democratic set up. Secondly, these Islamic societies have been nurtured on the staple food of
kafirphobia since the very beginning till today. So long as these tendencies are there in the Islamic societies, there will be no reconciliation in sight. The super powers are likely to exploit the inherent weaknesses of these societies and will engage the major Shia-Sunni factions against each other. The conflict in Yemen has taken war at the door of Saudi Arabia. Active
participation from Iran can’t be
overlooked in the conflict there.
Neither Russia nor US is now dependent on the oil resources from the region and there is no need to keep OPEC countries under the non-conflicting situation. So also both US and Russia have no appetite to put boots on the ground and commit for casualties as it happened in Afghanistan and to a certain extent in Iraq. There is likelihood of intense conflict within the Islamic
societies starting from the mythical site around Megiddo, the Jewish Armageddon as revealed in the “Revelation” chapter of the New Testament. In the mythical story there was invasion from the East as the river Euphrates dried; the history appears to repeat in near future threatening the Islamic society as a whole. Russia and Iran are likely to make inroads in the land of Levant and final battle ground could be around the ancient mythical location of Armageddon. The fertile delta of Euphrates and Tigris has been the burial ground for civilisations since millennia. Each faction fighting in the region is branding other warring faction as kafirs and the world is witness to kafirs dying on either side. While ISIS Caliphate is on the way out, US attack has sparked other conflict that will have unprecedented impact on Islam. Will it change Islam? Will the Islamic societies be introspecting to do away with kafirophobia? Will they overcome the longing that has enamoured the Islamic youth to the ephemeral ISIS Caliphate? It is high time for the non-Islamic societies to initiate the debate on reforms to be brought in Islam.
(The writer is a scholar of comparative religions)
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