Can’t shut our eyes to this Arab churn

When External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid visited Iraq from June 19 to 21, he was the first Indian Cabinet Minister to make a trip to the country in over two decades. While New Delhi had a friendly relationship with the minority Sunni-dominated Saddam Hussein dispensation, there were naturally some anxieties about how the new dispensation would react to overtures from India.

Khurshid was, however, warmly received by the Iraqi Government, which expressed warm feelings for India and readiness to expand cooperation in the energy sector, while recalling Iraq’s old connections with India, in areas ranging from education to defence.

Iraq, which has the second largest oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia, has set ambitious targets to increase oil production from its present 2.6 million barrels per day (mbpd) to 9 mbpd in 2019. With Saudi Arabia producing oil to almost its full capacity, Iraq, with its huge surplus capacity, will be a crucial player in meeting future demand.

But Iraq is located in a dangerous neighbourhood, where old Arab-Israeli rivalries are giving way to a deadlier Shia-Sunni conflict across the Muslim world.

Shia-Sunni divide

Under Saddam Hussein, sectarian differences were set aside, as Shia-dominated Iran and Iraq fought a bloody conflict.

Today, Iran and Iraq collaborate closely, as they confront an alliance of Sunni-dominated Turkey, which has joined hands with an alliance of Sunni Arab states, backed by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Government of President Morsi and Members of the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council, led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The epicentre of this bloody sectarian conflict today is Syria, where the Sunni majority has, since the 1970s, been ruled by the secular and modern-minded but ruthlessly authoritarian Alawite (Shia) minority, with Kurds, forming a 10 per cent minority, being discriminated against.

Both Israel and the US have viewed the strengthening ties between Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah militia with considerable concern.

Iran has been providing arms and members of the elite Revolutionary Guards to bolster the Syrian Regime. Iraq is providing over-flight facilities to Iran and strengthening its border defences with Syria, to block the movement of Al Qaeda-linked Sunni fighters endeavouring to reinforce the resistance to the Assad regime. To add to Israel’s discomfiture, the Hezbollah, the only Arab force to have successfully resisted Israel’s military might, has moved in significant numbers into Syria. In recent days, the Syrian regime and Hezbollah have scored notable successes in ousting Sunni insurgents from urban centres like the city of Qusayr.

Externally, the US has been reluctant to get directly involved in Syria; it has seen how military intervention without a clear political game-plan can produce disastrous results, like the Anglo-French misadventure in Libya. Even in Syria, European meddling has been largely orchestrated by the Anglo-French duo, with Germany and others reluctantly expressing token support.

Diplomatic efforts by the US to get the Security Council to condemn the Syrian Regime and call for its ouster, have been thwarted by Russia, discreetly backed by China. Russia, with a naval base in Syria, appears determined to ensure that it remains a player in developments in West Asia and to back a traditional ally.

Messy stalemate

The Syrian sectarian conflict seems to be heading towards a messy stalemate. While Israel has bombed supplies of Russian missiles being transported to the Hezbollah through Syria, even Israel, like the US, cannot be comfortable with the armed insurgency in Syria being taken over by al Qaeda-linked Salafi-oriented fighters.

The real challenge that the US faces is the prospect of the armed insurrection falling into the hands of the rabidly fundamentalist “Al Nusra Front,” made up of six to ten thousand foreign fighters from Libya, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Palestine, Kuwait, Chechnya and Bosnia.

The Syrian conflict thus appears headed for a messy stalemate, unless all parties display a sense of realism and statesmanship. Such a stalemate could involve a de facto partition of Syria, with the Alawite Shias controlling the coastal areas and Northern Syria coming under Kurdish control.

Ever since the Iranian Revolution and the emergence of Salafi-oriented, Saudi-backed armed groups in Pakistan, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan have been torn apart by continuing violence against Shias.

In Bangladesh, the fundamentalist “Hefajat-e-Islam,” has attacked the homes, businesses and places of worship of the Hindu and Buddhist minorities, demanded introduction of “Blasphemy Laws”, advocated curbs on the rights of women and called for adopting “Islamic Education”. These events were accompanied by demonstrations in Kolkata, where the secular Awami League Government in Bangladesh was denounced, with the slogan “Islam is in Danger in Bangladesh”.

India will not remain unaffected by sectarian rivalries and the growth of Salafi fundamentalism to its west.

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan. >blfeedback@thehindu.co.in )

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