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War
Across the Borders
by Jonathan Spyer
PJ Media
March 28, 2014
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It has become a commonplace to claim that the unrest in the Arab world
is challenging the state borders laid down in the Arab world following
the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918.
This claim, however, is only very partially valid. It holds true in a
specific section of the Middle East, namely the contiguous land area stretching
from Iran's western borders to the Mediterranean Sea, and taking in the
states currently known as Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
In this area, a single sectarian war is currently taking place. The
nominal governments in Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut may claim to rule in
the name of the Iraqi, Syrian and Lebanese peoples. But the reality of
power distribution in each of these areas shows something quite
different.
In each of these areas, local, long suppressed differences between
communities are combining with the region-wide cold war between Iran and
Saudi Arabia to produce conflict, discord and latent or open civil war.
In each case, sectarian forces are linking up with their fellow sect
members (or co-ethnics, if that's a word, in the case of the Kurds) in
the neighboring "country" against local representatives of the
rival sect.
Let's take a look at the rival coalitions. These are not simply
theoretical constructs. The cooperation between the relevant sides is
largely overt, and has been extensively verified.
On one side, there are the Shia (and Alawi) allies of Iran. These are
the Maliki government in Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, and Hizballah,
the Iranian proxy force which dominates Lebanon.
Both Hizballah and the Maliki government, at the behest of Iran, have
played a vital role in the survival of Bashar Assad and his current
resurgence.
Hizballah's role is well-documented. The movement maintains around
5,000 fighters at any one time in Syria. They have just completed a
spearhead role in a nearly year long campaign to drive the rebels from
the area adjoining the Lebanese border. They are also deployed in
Damascus.
Assad's Achilles heel throughout has been the lack of committed
fighters willing to engage on his behalf. Hizballah, working closely with
Iran, has played a vital role in filling that gap.
In addition, Hizballah is working hard to suppress any Sunni thoughts
of insurrection in Lebanon itself. Its forces cooperated with the
Lebanese Army in crushing Sunni Islamists in Sidon in June, 2013. It also
offers support to Alawi elements engaged in a long running mini-war with
pro-Syrian rebel Sunnis in the city of Tripoli.
Maliki's role on behalf of Assad is less well-reported but no less
striking.
It is first of all worth remembering that the Iraqi prime minister
spent from 1982-90 in exile in Iran, and his political roots and
allegiances are, unambiguously, to Shia Islamism.
Regular overflights and ground convoys have used Iraqi territory since
the start of the Syrian civil war to carry vital Iranian arms and
supplies from Iran to Assad's forces in Syria.
A western intelligence report obtained by Reuters in late 2012
confirmed this, noting that "planes are flying from Iran to Syria
via Iraq on an almost daily basis, carrying IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps) personnel and tens of tons of weapons to arm the Syrian
security forces and militias fighting against the rebels."
It also asserted that Iran was "continuing to assist the regime
in Damascus by sending trucks overland via Iraq" to Syria.
In addition, Iraqi Shia volunteers from the Abu Fadl al-Abbas Brigades
and other formations have helped to fill Bashar's gap in available and
committed infantry.
The Maliki government has made no effort to stop the flow of such
fighters across the border – even as it engages in a U.S.-supported
counter insurgency against Sunni jihadis in western Anbar province in
Iraq.
So the Iran-led regional bloc is running a well-coordinated,
well-documented single war in three countries.
The Sunni Arab side of the line is predictably more chaotic and
disunited. On this side, too, there are discernible links, but no single,
clear alliance.
Unlike among the pro-Iran bloc, only the most radical fringe of the
Sunnis cross the borders to engage in combat. There is no Sunni
equivalent to the Qods Force cadres active in Syria and Lebanon.
Among the Sunni radicals, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
group now controls a single contiguous area stretching from eastern Syria
to western Anbar province in Iraq, and taking in Fallujah city in Iraq.
Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian franchise of al-Qaeda, is now active also
in Lebanon. It has on a number of occasions penetrated Hizballah's
security sanctum in the Dahiyeh neighborhood of south Beirut.
More broadly, Saudi Arabia is the patron of the Sunni interest in both
Lebanon and Syria.
It is currently backing rebel forces in the south of Syria, and
pro-Saudis dominate the Syrian National Coalition, which purports to be
the political leadership of the rebellion.
It also supports and promotes the March 14th movement in Lebanon, and
recently pledged $3 billion for the Lebanese Armed Forces – presumably in
a bid to build a force that could balance Hizballah.
But both Qatar and Turkey also play an important role in backing the
Syrian rebels, and have their own clients among the fighting groups.
Saudi and Turkish fear and distrust of radical Sunni Islamist fighting
groups prevent the emergence of a clear "Sunni Islamist
international" to rival the Shia international of Iran.
Still, it is undeniable that cooperation exists among the various
Sunni forces in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.
It's just that it's a complicated and sometimes chaotic criss-crossing
of various rival interests and outlooks on the Sunni side, rather than a
coherent single bloc.
And finally, of course, there is a single contiguous area of Kurdish
control stretching from the Iraq-Iran border all the way to deep within
Syria. This zone of control is divided between the Iraqi Kurds of the
Kurdish Democratic Party and the Syrian Kurds of the rival,
PKK-affiliated Democratic Union Party (PYD).
Once again, it is a contiguous area of control based on ethnic
affiliation.
None of this means that the official borders of these three countries
are going to officially disappear in the immediate future. The U.S.
administration and others are committed to their survival, so they are
likely to survive for now, in the semi-fictional and porous state in
which they currently exist.
This, however, should not obscure the more crucial point that the
entire area between the Iraq-Iran border and the Mediterranean Sea is
currently the site of a single war, following a single dynamic, fought
between protagonists defined by ethnic and sectarian loyalty.
Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research
in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and a fellow at the Middle East
Forum.
Related
Topics: Iran, Iraq, Middle East patterns,
Syria | Jonathan Spyer This
text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an
integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its
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