There is war going on in Syria in which the militant IS/ISIL/ISIS movement is gradually taking over large areas of the country, and slaughtering or enslaving anyone who gets in their way. For the past few days the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane has been under siege by these armed militants and it is only a matter of time before it falls (despite Western and allied Arab efforts to bomb the Hades out of the attackers - it will actually probably be easier to do so that once the IS/ISIL/ISIS attack has succeeded, but anyway this does nothing for the Kurds).
The fight described at the start of this piece did not occur in Syria, or anywhere near Kobane. It occurred in Hamburg - Germany - thousands of kilometres away from Kobane. You have to feel sorry for the Kurds. They did not invite the attack from the IS/ISIL/ISIS movement in Syria, and the fact that their expatriates are angry is more than understandable. And the Salafists neither deserve sympathy from people outside their community nor should expect any.
Even so, civil disorder by groups from the immigrant community, no matter how worthy their cause, cannot be encouraged. Given the Salafists and how unpopular they are with other communities here, it can only be a matter of time before other groups join in and the matter gets out of control.
The Salafists are dangerous people pushing an extremist agenda, and there needs to be tighter regulations regarding their activities - if there were a remote uninhabited island somewhere on the planet where they could go to practise their hideous, murderous creed, then they could be encouraged to leave. But armed struggle against them on the streets is not the answer.
Meanwhile back to Syria (and Iraq).
When looking at the Syrian/Iraqi situation, you often get the impression that both countries must have been cobbled together the same way the former Yugoslavia was at the Treaty of Versailles. Hence the internal friction (understatement of the week - see what is happening to the Syrian Kurds above).
Wrong.
That the current states of Syria and Iraq (and Lebanon and Jordan for that matter) were members of the Ottoman Empire for some 400 years - historical fact.
That the Eastern end of the Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1917 following choosing the wrong side in the First World War - historical fact.
So what happened then?
There is a danger for anyone trying to learn 100 years of history of anywhere in the world in 3-4 days (especially when you have other work to do), but that is pretty much what I have been doing over the past few days. My strengths on matters to do with history lie principally with continental Europe, so gathering detailed knowledge of events in the Middle East will require far more time.
Simply put though the following seems to be pretty much the state of affairs and I apologise for any inaccuracies.
The Arabs, shrewdly assisted and guided by the British officer, T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), played a substantive role in helping the allies defeat the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. They (and Lawrence) expected that their reward would be independence.
As the British and French Empires had already concluded (in secrecy) an agreement called the Sykes-Picot pact which would divide the area up between them, they would be disappointed, and the attendance of the Arab delegation (with Lawrence among them) at the postwar conferences in Paris and San Remo (Italy) changed little in the distribution of parcels to the two empires concerned. The British got Iraq, Transjordan and Palestine, while Syria and Lebanon were given to the French.
The mandates of these territories to the British and French were confirmed by the newly formed (US-less) League of Nations, and that, despite brief uprisings in both Iraq and Syria, little happened to change this.
The Pan-Arab concepts in vogue though would not go away.
Iraq was eventually to be given its independence by the UK in 1932 (though the terms of the arrangement were ridiculously biased towards satisfying British commercial interests) under the monarchy of Faisal I, the son of the Grand Sharif of Mecca and a close acquaintance of T.E.Lawrence. Faisal had originally been foreseen as the King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria, before the French drove him out, and he originally served as monarch in Iraq under the British from 1921.
Syria in turn was to become independent from France in 1946.
Both Iraq and Syria experienced very unstable political situations for quite some time - Syria experienced several coups d'état in the first 10 years of its existence, while the overthrow of the monarchy in Iraq in 1958 (in a coup) led in turn to a coup in 1963 against the leader of the 1958 coup.
Eventually two dictators, Saddam Hussein in Iraq (in 1968) and Hafeez-al-Assad in Syria (in 1970) gained power (yet again in both cases via a coup d'état) finally and held it for a long time.
The factors driving these changes though seem to have several points in common - principally that the military held power, and the common citizenry were subject to them. The arguments most often came down to nationalism against Pan-Arabism, and which side to take during the Cold War (Communism was to be a significant player in both countries, and Qassim's being close to the Communists may have been a reason for the 1963 coup, for example. There are suggestions of CIA involvement in his overthrow).
Religious political parties or religion driven military-political movements (like IS/ISIL/ISIS is now)? Almost unheard of until the Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Syria in the early 1980s. Despite the majority of its population being Sunni Muslim, Syria's concerns seemed to be based upon creation of a nation state founded upon secular principles. Even at the start of the Syrian Civil War, this did not appear to be in question.
In Iraq, Saddam was known to crack down (yes, we know how Saddam used to crack down as well!) on any religiously based extremist group as they were a threat to his power - Sunni or Shia alike. That he was a Sunni running a country which had a principally Shia Muslim population did cause tensions, but it is also obvious that Sunni extremism (in the form of Al Qaeda) was also discouraged.
Brutal, yes. And nationalist and secular.
Religion and politics in Iraq seem to be mainly the product of democratisation, and the result of the polarisation of the people following the war. That Sunni Muslims in Iraq though would find more in common with Syrian Sunni Muslims than with other Iraqis seems to be a recent development, and even then there is a question of how stable their relationship would remain. It is impossible to know in the current circumstances just how much support is due to commitment, and how much is due to enforcement and fear.
I read one report last week which suggested that there are hundreds of different militia groups in Syria, and they change their allegiances with disturbing frequency. So clear-cut divisions (government supporters, "moderate" Sunnis and the extremist groups) are not easily defined.
Former General David Petraeus is optimistic that with skilful diplomatic handling the crisis in Iraq can be brought to a successful conclusion once the Sunni tribal leadership is more seriously involved in the future policy direction in the country.
I wish that I could share his optimism. Many of the fighters in Northern Iraq are not even Iraqis any more. They are foreign Islamic mercenaries or Syrians who have crossed over the old borders and no longer recognise them.
As for Syria, the situation looks bleak. The West remains divided upon how to approach it (and Turkey suddenly found itself being asked (and was thoroughly miffed at the suggestion) to provide the boots on the ground that the West will not supply. Killing 23 IS/ISIS/ISIL fighters in Kobane by air in past 24 hours has hardly slowed their progress - and they are armed to the teeth with superior weaponry). Meanwhile the West wants to have no business with Assad ....
So somewhere among the hundreds of militia groups need to be found trusted "moderates" who will first remove IS/ISIL/ISIS (good luck with that - I hope that they will, but I do not expect it) and then go on to pursue Assad. Hope springs eternal.
And hope, and practical assistance and training and financial support, and trust and more trust .....
I cannot but expect that there will be more incidents like there were in Hamburg the other night. I am also still expecting some of the radicalised moron fringe who support IS/ISIL/ISIS to return to Europe and start carrying out the sort of criminal practices which they have learned while away (and these are, incidentally, war crimes, not just civilian crimes) and the misery of the Syria people will go unabated (with an ever-increasing number of refugees) well into the next decade.
And the jihadist executions (cold blooded murder) of people from Western countries who have gone to provide help to those in need will also continue, with considerable publicity and a wringing of hands all round (when you are into murdering aid workers, it indicates your moral worth - on a scale of 1 to 10, you score 0, or even minus 1! This is jihadist Islam for you, folks!).
And if we had a United Nations organisation capable of doing what it was originally designed to do? Well, we can go on dreaming. Summat needs to be done, nowt effective will be - seemingly as is ever the case when urgency is required!
Postscript (January 9th, 2022): well thankfully my punditry proved totally wrong and Kobane turned out to be the turning point of the war - at least where ISIS/ISIL/IS were involved. Their defeat at Kobane led to the Kurds being the heroes of the war. Before being abandoned by the US and the West in general to the whims of the Turks.
It is time that the situation of the Kurds in the Middle East was resolved - peacefully and without further conflict. Expecting the West or the UN to do summat useful in this regard? I do not expect too much!
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